#my conclusions are based on my experience as an autistic person and whatever we have of someone whos been dead 100+ years

[high-caliber-bitch]

Self diagnosis really needs to stop being demonized. People get angry about how some people are self diagnosing based on TikTok, but seriously, how many of us self diagnosed or started down the path of diagnosis because of Tumblr?

So many people posting relatable content about what their life was like with autism or ADHD and their personal fixes for it. So many of us going, wow same, we're not so different, this must be a universal thing. Until you interact with people outside your little internet bubble and go "oh shit" it's not everyone, maybe I actually do have ADHD or ASD?

I'd been saving posts about ADHD and ASD for years like "yah same gurl" without it clicking that I shouldn't find nearly every post about these ND issues relatable if I'm NT. Turns out I'm not. I still didn't come to the conclusion myself. My psych major husband, who's almost every flavor of ND was the one who suggested I may have ADHD or ASD or BOTH.

So when we get mad at people who are like "damn this content about this disorder is relatable" even if they don't have said disorder, it's just harmful all around. Humans crave connection with others and sometimes we'll behave in extreme ways it make some leaps to get there. But also, it's really telling about the breakdown of society when more and more people are experiences what are typically seen as symptoms of mental illness.

There's been a spike in anxiety and depression, and a lot of people with ADHD and ASD have one or both as comorbidities. So when someone sees a post where either a diagnosed or self diagnosed person is listing some of their symptoms and someone finds that relatable. Even if that person may come to the wrong conclusion, nothing truly bad has happened. And hopefully, that person will see at least a therapist and have whatever "symptoms" they're experiencing taken care of.

ND people are better at recognizing and diagnosing ND disorders in our own. My husband has personally gotten at least three people to seek mental health help by recognizing symptoms in them that they failed to see themselves. Two major depressive disorders and one ADHD. So it makes sense that within certain communities we diagnose each other before some of us can get formal diagnosis.

That communal diagnosis is also important, because a lot of resources are simply non-existent for adults. If you Google nearly anything about ASD most of the search results are heated towards parents of autistic children and children with autism. Nothing on teenagers or adults. You can hardly find any resources on specific symptoms, only really the ones that overlap with ADHD usually and even then it's always clinical and impersonal and not humanistic.

You can find all sorts of personal blogs on how people have dealt with their depression, how they understand and that it's hard, but this approach worked for them, so maybe it'll work for you. No one ever questions these sorts of things. No one ever questions depression or anxiety. But once you get into ADHD or ASD or even personality disorders, people question everything you say. Saying you have to be an expert.

Like, I'm sorry but if someone with or without ADHD finds my way of doing something helpful, I don't care what their diagnosis is. In a world full of people who can't get diagnosed, who get misdiagnosed, or get late diagnosis, sharing our stories is important. This fight we have to be heard is the same as the fight for pedestrian and green spaces in cities. It's a bunch of new young people with mental health in mind against decades of mistakes and misinformation.

[master-of-the-opera-house]

(Franz Ferdinand as a teenager, presumably late 1870s. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek on their wedding day, 1900. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek, undated. Franz Ferdinand and Sophie Chotek, early 1910s.)

As anyone who bothers knows, ever since my trip to Sarajevo, I rediscovered the Archduke whose assassination caused WWI and shaped the modern world as we know it. But I want to take a day in this month (April is Autism Acceptance Month, after all) to say something that I've noticed in my attempts to uncover Franz Ferdinand's story.

First off, I'd like to say that we probably can’t accurately, flat-out diagnose historical figures. Simply because what we have left of them often doesn't tell the whole story, and also because we wouldn't know, first-hand, what they were experiencing. And also because we're not professionals; this isn’t exactly the same as self-diagnosis. But I also acknowledge that science and medicine has come a long way, and many things that historical figures were going through could possibly fit the criteria for certain disabilities and/or illnesses as we know them today. It's something people have discussed about multiple historical figures, but so far, I've yet to see anyone entertain the notion of Franz Ferdinand POSSIBLY being neurodivergent. Maybe it's because we tend to attach neurodiversity or disability to masters as a way to explain their genius (another suitcase to unpack another day). But the thing about neurodiversity - and autism, specifically, in this case - is that anyone can be neurodivergent/autistic. Even royal victims of assassinations whose deaths mean more to history than their lives.

((That being said, most of this post is going to be based on my own experiences as an autistic person, because I can’t speak for the experiences of other autistic people that may apply. If anyone else has anything to add please feel free to drop me an ask or a message, I’d love to discuss this!))

One of the things I've noticed in almost all of Franz Ferdinand's photographs ((images/slide before cut)) is that he's always got his hands clasped together like that. I guess it can be brushed off as something someone who is unsure of what to do with their hands in photographs might do, but I haven't really seen anyone do it quite as much as him. I do speculate he might've been stimming - a common experience in autistic people. Stimming is a repetitive action that brings comfort or relief to the individual. I think it’s notable how he always reverted back to this pose or action as seen from how these photographs were clearly taken at different points in his life, perhaps indicating that he might have found something comforting about it. Interlacing or rubbing one's fingers/hands together is quite a common form of stimming, and can be quite subtle - which would make sense for someone who probably couldn't resort to a more overt action for it being seen as improper or unseemly as someone who came from both royal circles, and a more repressive time.

These excerpts recount a few details from his childhood, particularly, picking up strong interests, being fond of the rituals and routine of religion, and struggling in school. These strong interests - special interests, to those on the spectrum - will be further explored later. Autistic people tend to find solace in routine, and I think it is of no secret that autistic children may have trouble in school, especially if the environment isn't suited to their needs (education for upper-class children in the past was especially tedious), or if the content covered isn't in line with their special interests. In Franz Ferdinand's case, these interests would comprise of hunting, architecture and history, at which he would excel in contrast to nearly everything else taught to him, and which he would pursue as an adult. I think it's also worth noting, as per the last piece of text in the second slide, that this inaptitude for just sitting down and studying was something that followed him well into adulthood. This was in spite of contemporaries observing that he was otherwise intelligent and able to approach problems from different perspectives: yet another common autistic trait.

This following set of excerpts I find especially fascinating, because I think they're almost transparent about how his interests go beyond 'neurotypical hobbies’, simply because of how “obsessive” he appeared about them, centering his life around them ((organising a world tour with one of its main purposes being to hunt, for instance, or planning family trips around his hunting)) and investing a lot of resources into them as the books discuss. He's also said to be fond of collecting things extensively here, assorted things that pique his interest (yet another interest that manifested itself from his childhood), which is also pretty common amongst autistic people who may grow very attached to certain items.

This next set of excerpts stings of the struggles of being neurodivergent, and hit the closest to home for me. The first three pieces of text consist of people's perceptions of him: 'mad', 'insane', and 'strange' seem to be the most frequent accusations (so frequent, in fact, that there’s a significant portion on it on his wikipedia page which I have not seen with other historical figures), which is..... Telling, especially from a time in which mental health isn't really understood. They're what people conclude about someone who doesn't quite behave in the way they're used to, even if there's often a good reason why said people behave in such different ways. The way neurodivergent people often behave, for a lack of understanding of social cues, sensory sensitivity, to name a few possible reasons. One of the most common accusations of his personality, of course, were of his explosive temper and generally temperamental disposition. Whilst I do think those were definitely his personal shortcomings, I also do think some of his infamous outbursts may have really been meltdowns, explaining their unpredictability, especially to people who didn’t know what his triggers were ((and, regrettably, we don’t have many clues in that area either because such things were simply not watched out for and thus not recorded)). He was visibly very uncomfortable in social settings, too, as seen from these quotes, and certainly didn't pick up on how to win favour in them, which I think a lot of autistic people ((stereotypically, but not always inaccurately)) have difficulty with. You can see more of this in the 6th and 7th excerpts, where his beloved wife Sophie figured out a set of social cues that worked for him and guided him in such interactions throughout their relationship. He very much returned the affection, so much so that he was rather possessive or obsessive about her, blowing up at any offenses directed at her, defending her where her position would not allow it and ultimately further sacrificing his reputation for his love. Needless to say, such behaviour (again!) wasn’t understood by those around him, though he loved her boundlessly and probably didn’t care, and vice versa. Sometimes, it led to other inappropriate or unwelcomed acts on his part as observed in the 9th piece of text, but ‘Franzi’ and ‘Soph’ made it work anyways, which is more than what can be said about many of their contemporaries.

Another thing I’m pointing out on this post is his rather black-and-white view of the world, as demonstrated in the rather unpleasant ((but admittedly quite funny in its tactlessness)) quote in the last excerpt. Oftentimes, autistic people can find it hard to grasp nuances, categorising things into 'good' or 'bad'. I think that's certainly how he saw the world and the people around him, leading to rather strong opinions in both the private and political sphere that, needless to say, wasn't a very popular trait of his, being very generous towards people he favoured and outrightly hostile to people he didn’t. One thing these slides don't address are records of sensory sensitivity, many of which can be found in his ((rather extensive)) travel diaries whenever he'd pay special attention to how a certain place smelt weird or was really noisy. All that being said, I don't think it was a surprise Franz Ferdinand wasn't a very well-liked person at all, shunned in life and unmourned in death, simply because people didn't have the resources to understand where his differences and shortcomings were stemming from. I just wish he had it better than to go to his grave with such a tainted reputation. But I guess this is also the best I can give him now, to try to understand his story through different lenses, something he was known to do in his own life. After all, difference is something we're both accustomed to. And I'm glad he managed to find fulfilment, especially from the family he built, even in spite of all the struggles thrown at him, in spite of his untimely end, because hey, that's the least he deserved. 🌈♾️

(All text images are taken from the books The Assassination of the Archduke by Greg King and Sue Woolmans, and The Archduke and the Assassin by Lavender Cassels.)

[gendercensus]

On fae/faer pronouns and cultural appropriation

HOW IT STARTED

I had a handful, a very small handful but more than two, responses in the Gender Census feedback box telling me that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative. The reasons didn’t always agree, and the culture that was being appropriated wasn’t always the same, but here’s a selection of quotes:

“Fae pronouns are cultural appropriation and are harmful to use“ - UK, age 11-15

“I’m not a person who practices pagan holidays but, my understanding is that pronouns like fae/faeself are harmful because the fae are real to pagans and is like using Jesus/jesuself as pronouns“ - UK, age 11-15

“I know you've probably heard this a million times, so has everyone on the internet, but the ''mere existence''of the fae pronoun feels really uncomfortable for some of us. I'm personally not against neopronouns like xe/xim, er/em and the like, I am a pagan but apart from the, imo most important, reasoning of that pronoun being immensely disrespectful, I worry as an nb about people who banalize the usage of pronouns ''for fun'', and I'm quoting what some people have told me.“ - Spain, 16-20

“I don't agree with fae/deity pronouns just from a pagan perspective it's very disrespectful to the cultures they come from. Like Fae are a legit thing in many cultures and they hate with a fiery passion mortal humans calling themselves Fae to the point of harming/cursing the people who do it“ - USA, age 16-20

“only celtic people can use far/ faers otherwise it’s cultural appropriation, many celts have said this and told me this“ - USA, age 16-20

So that’s:

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❌ Someone who definitely isn’t pagan.

✅ Someone who is pagan.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

So, just to disclose some bias up-front, I am English so I’m not Celtic, but I do live in Wales so I am surrounded by Celts. The bit of Wales that I live in is so beautiful in such a way that when my French friend came to visit me she described it as féerique - like an enchanting, magical land, literally “fairylike” or thereabouts. Coincidentally I have also considered myself mostly pagan for over half of my life, and I can’t definitively claim whether or not the Fae are “part of paganism” because paganism is so diverse and pick’n’mix that it just doesn’t work that way.

To me the idea that fae/faer pronouns would be offensive or culturally appropriative sounds absurd. But also, I am powered by curiosity, and have been wrong enough times in my life that I wanted to approach this in a neutral way with an open mind. Perhaps what I find out can be helpful to some people.

So since we only have information from one person who is definitely directly affected by any cultural appropriation that may be happening, the first thing I wanted to do was get some information from ideally a large number of people who are in the cultures being appropriated, and see what they think.

~

WHAT I DID

First of all I put some polls up on Twitter and Mastodon. [Edit: Note that this post has been updated with results from closed polls.]

I specified that I wanted to hear from nonbinary Celts and pagans, just so that the voters would be familiar with fae/faer pronouns. I asked the questions in a neutral way, i.e. “How do you feel about...” with “good/neutral/bad” answer options, instead of something more leading like “Is this a load of rubbish?” or “are you super offended?” with “yes/no” options. I provided a “see results” option, so that the poll results wouldn’t be skewed as much by random people clicking any old answer to see the results. And I invited voters to express their opinions in replies.

Question #1: Nonbinary people of Celtic descent (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany), how do you feel about non-Celtic people using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

Question #2: Nonbinary pagans, how do you feel about non-pagans using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

The Twitter polls got over 1,100 responses each, and the Mastodon polls got over 140 responses each. With a little bit of spreadsheetery I removed the “N/A” responses to reverse engineer the number of people voting for each option, combined those numbers, and recalculated percentages.

Obviously this approach is not in the least scientific, but thankfully the results were unambiguous enough and the samples were big enough that I feel comfortable drawing conclusions.

Celts on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-Celts (561 voters):

It's good - 42.5%

No strong feelings/other - 44.0%

It's bad - 13.5%

Pagans on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-pagans (468 voters):

It's good - 47.2%

No strong feelings/other - 39.5%

It's bad - 13.3%

Here’s how that looks as a graph:

The limitations of polls on these platforms means that we have no way to distinguish between people who have more complicated views (”other”) and people who have “no strong feelings”, so we can’t really draw conclusions there. If we stick to just the pure positive and pure negative:

Celts were over three times as likely to feel positive about non-Celts using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

Pagans were over three and a half times as likely to feel positive about non-pagans using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

So Celts and pagans are way more likely to feel actively good about someone’s fae/faer pronouns, even when that person is not a Celt/pagan. That’s some strong evidence against the idea that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative, right there.

~

CORRECTIONS

To be clear, I haven’t done any research about the roots of fae/faer or the origins of the Fae and related beings, but my goal here was to get a sense of what Celts and pagans think and feel, rather than what an historian or anthropologist would say.

On the anti side, here were the replies that suggested fae/faer either is or might be inappropriate:

“I only worry that not everyone understands the origin of the word outside of modernized ideas of fairies.“ - pagan

“As a vaguely spiritual Whatever (Ireland), I think a mortal using "fae" as a pronoun/to refer to themselves is asking for a malicious and inventive fairy curse (on them, their families and possibly anyone in their vicinity, going by the traditions). I have not heard of this term before, so this is an immediate reaction from no background bar my cultural knowledge of sidhe/fae/term as culturally appropriate. My general approach is people can identify themselves as they want.“ - Celtic

So we’ve got a pagan who’s wary that people who use fae/faer (and people in general) might not have a fully fleshed out idea of the Fae. And we’ve got a Celt who doesn’t mind people using fae/faer personally, but based on what they know of the Fae they wouldn’t be surprised if the Fae got mad about it. No outright opposition, but a little concern.

There were not a lot of replies on the pro side, but not because people weren’t into it, judging by the votes. There were a lot of “it’s more complicated than that” replies, many of which repeated others, so quotes won’t really work. Here’s a summary of the Celtic bits:

“Fae” is not a Celtic word, and Celts don’t use it. It is French, or Anglo-French.

“Fae” can refer to any number of stories/legends from a wide variety of cultures in Europe, not one cohesive concept.

There are many legends about fairy-like beings in Celtic mythologies, and there are many, many different names for them.

The Celts are not a monolith, they’re a broad selection of cultures with various languages and various mythologies.

And the pagan bits:

Paganism is not closed or exclusive in any way. It might actually be more open than anything else, as “pagan” is a sort of umbrella term for non-mainstream religions in some contexts. A closed culture would be a prerequisite for something to be considered “appropriated” from paganism.

From my own experience, pagans may or may not believe in the Fae, and within that group believers may or may not consider the Fae to be sacred and/or worthy of great respect. (I’ve certainly never met a pagan who worshipped the Fae, though I don’t doubt that some do.)

And then we get into the accusations. 🍿

“this issue wasn’t started by Celtic groups or by people who know much about Celtic fae. It was started primarily by anti-neopronoun exclusionist pagans on TikTok.“

“[I’m] literally Scottish [...] and it’s not appropriative in the least and honestly to suggest as such is massively invalidating towards actual acts of cultural appropriation and is therefore racist. Feel like if this was actually brought up it was either by some people who seriously got their wires crossed or people who are just concern trolling and trying to make fun of both neo-pronouns and of the concept of cultural appropriation and stir the pot in the process.“

“It wouldn't be the first time bigots falsly claim “it's appropriative from X marginalized group" to harass people they don't like, like they did with aspec people when they claimed "aspec" was stolen from autistic language (which was false, as many autistics said)“

“It's been a discussion in pagan circles recently ... People were very quick to use the discussion as an excuse to shit on nonbinary people.“

“I think it would be apropos to note that the word "faerie/fairy" has been a synonym for various queer identities for decades, too. The Radical Faeries are a good example.“ (So if anyone has the right to [re]claim it...)

A little healthy skepticism is often wise in online LGBTQ+ “discourse”, and some of these people are making some very strong claims, for which I’d love to see some evidence/sources/context. Some of it certainly sounds plausible.

~

HOW DID IT START?

I had a look on Twitter and the earliest claim I can find that fae/faer pronouns are cultural appropriation is from 18th February 2020, almost exactly one year ago today. Again, tweets are not the best medium for this, there was very little in the way of nuance or context. If anyone can find an older claim from Twitter or Tumblr or anywhere else online, please do send it my way.

I have no idea how to navigate TikTok because I’m a nonbinosaur. (I’m 34.) I did find some videos of teens and young adults apparently earnestly asserting that they were Celtic or pagan and the use of fae/faer pronouns was offensive, but the videos were very brief and provided nothing in the way of nuance or context. For example:

This one from October 2020 with 29k ❤️s, by someone who I assume is USian based on the word “mom”?

This one from December 2020, that says “I am pagan and i find it rather disrespectful. It’s like using god/godr or jesus/jesusr.” That’s probably what inspired the feedback box comment above that refers to hypothetical jesus/jesusr pronouns.

If anyone is able to find a particularly old or influential TikTok video about fae/faer pronouns being appropriative I’d really appreciate it, especially if it’s from a different age group or from not-the-USA, to give us a feel for how universal this is.

For context, fae pronouns were mentioned in the very first Gender Census back in May 2013, though you’ll have to take my word for it as the individual responses are not currently public. The word “fae” was mentioned in the pronoun question’s “other” textbox, and no other forms in the set were entered so we have no way of knowing for sure what that person’s full pronoun set actually is. This means the set may have been around for longer. The Nonbinary Wiki says that the pronoun set was created in October 2013, as “fae/vaer”, later than the first entry in the Gender Census, so I’ll be editing that wiki page later! If anyone has any examples of fae/faer pronouns in use before 2013 I would also be very interested to see that.

~

IN SUMMARY

Obviously I can’t speak for everyone, as the Twitter polls are not super scientific and they only surveyed a selection of Celts and pagans within a few degrees of separation of the Gender Census Twitter and Mastodon accounts, but I can certainly report on what I found.

For a more conclusive result, we’d need to take into account various demographics such as age, culture, location, religion, race/heritage, etc.

As far as I can tell based on fairly small samples of over 400 people per group, a minority of about 13% of Celtic and/or pagan people felt that use of fae/faer pronouns is appropriative.

A much higher number of people per group felt positive about people who are not Celts or pagans using fae/faer pronouns. The predominant view was:

It can’t be cultural appropriation from Celtic cultures because fairy-like beings are not unique to Celtic cultures and Celtic cultures don’t call them Fae.

It can’t be cultural appropriation from pagan cultures because paganism is not “closed” or exclusive in any way, it’s too broad and open.

~

If your experience of your gender(s) or lack thereof isn’t described or encompassed by the gender binary of “male OR female”, please do click here to take the Gender Census 2021 - it’s international and it closes no earlier than 10th March 2021!

[ganymedesclock]

I don’t want to say fictional robots “belong” to autistic people because any given fantastical allegory can have manifold and meaningful resonance to all manner of diversities, but something I do think is very interesting about fictional robots as an autistic person is this:

Robots as a plot element or character arc often center on this question of emotions. Do you feel emotions? Now, this is an imperfect argument about humanity/authenticity in the first place since there are plenty of Real Human Beings who experience anhedonia or alexithymia- but I think also, in my experience, a lot of these stories- sometimes in-universe, sometimes only in fandom responses- betray that maybe a lot more people than they think, are not very good at identifying emotions.

Many fictional robots- to be blunt- pour with emotion. They will often have a blunted affect (that is to say, speaking in a monotone, or limited facial expressions), they may use overly technical terminology, but they will make arbitrary decisions based on personal preference, it will be nakedly obvious they have a preference and their preference is determined at least in part by what pleases them. Data from Star Trek adores his cat and cares deeply about art and poetry.

And I won’t say any of these characters are bad people. I don’t want to suggest the goal is to create a character who’s “really” emotionless. If there is a quibble I have with this, it’s that I think we could all afford to be a little more careful and a little bit more imaginative, when considering how other people’s minds work, and how they present details. Not just as a joyless finger-wag of “you should be more responsible!” (though I will say there is some joylessness to it- I don’t really enjoy being shown a character who emotes close to how I naturally do, being fretted over by people asking if that character has a soul, is a real person, or simply an effective mimic; that hurts a little too personally to be fun!)

I was thinking of this because I was reflecting on one of my favorite little videos, My Job Is To Open And Close Doors. It’s a simple little uninterrupted 3-minute monologue about an AI who, well, see title, but has a bit of a crisis of purpose and asks themselves a bunch of critical questions about their role and purpose.

At its core, to me, the AI in My Job clearly experiences an emotion; they see something in the course of doing their job that they have no protocol or instruction to halt before, but feel an incredible misgiving about following through on. In response to this misgiving, in a very human manner, they begin to procrastinate- all the while, they point out to their own mounting confusion that this is a meaningless activity, but it buys them more time.

The voice acting given to the AI is very good, and, to me, cinches the whole piece- the actor very specifically does not leave a neutral-pleasant tonal range, and at several points, rather than asking an obviously “emotional” question, the AI simply hangs up in their own thinking talking to themselves- “because- because- because-” a very mechanical sort of stutter.

And using this flat affect and mechanical quirks, the actor establishes and fits to an emotional vernacular. The thrust of the plot- that the AI isn’t sure why they’re hesitating when their job is straightforwards and clear, that they even take note that this is being recorded as an error by another party- repeats in the sense of the stuttering- just as they procrastinate opening the doors without being sure why, they too “procrastinate” the completion of their statements when they’re unsure of them. The AI believes that the delivery of a solution, an answer, a “point”, is inevitable, so when they do not feel they have an answer they are incapable of saying “I don’t know”; instead, they stall. They procrastinate in the hope of achieving enough time to deliver an answer that meets their standards, that satisfies the parameters either set by their programming, or their own feelings.

My Job also adds in a sense of why emotions are important- in a sense that is not about enjoyment or satisfaction, although the AI ultimately does feel tremendously satisfied at the successful conclusion of their quandary- because without the ability to experience “baseless misgivings”, they would have simply responded to the initial command to open the door and been unbothered by whatever happened. In that sense, you could argue, it’s an ‘emotion’ born from ‘logic’ (that there is something amiss, though it takes the AI time to tease this out of their own thinking) but at that point we’re barking up a fool’s tree of semantics because our “logic” and our sentiments are both chemicals clattering around the same undifferentiated apparatus at the same time and thus inextricably attached to one another.

The thing that kills me about this is- with no hostility to the commenter in question- I scrolled down into the comments of My Job and immediately saw someone talking about how clearly, the AI has no emotions.

To me, this entire plot is about an AI having an emotion. Unmistakable and clear. This is about a door mechanism experiencing a profoundly human response to distress- procrastinating on the completion on a task they have every resource and in fact an active imperative to complete, based on a misgiving they are unable to articulate. This revelation is so profound to them that at the end of the video, they actually reframe their entire objective- “My job is to protect the human. My job is a great purpose.”

So I guess if there’s a tl;dr or conclusion to this sentiment, it’s that I think that while we can and should absolutely tell stories about fictional robots- because they are cool, and because they are also tremendously useful to ask certain existential questions about personhood- I think that it is actually very important to temper both our creation and consumption on these narratives on a more robust theory of neurodivergence, and, “I don’t recognize the way this emotion plays out in this particular person” does not equal “there is no emotion there at all”

[turnleftaticela]

April 19th: How do you feel about self diagnosis?

Straight-up it is more valid than professional diagnosis

That’s not to say if you are professionally diagnosed it’s not trustworthy; positive professional diagnosis (i.e. you’re evaluated and they tell you you do have autism) is like pretty much never wrong from what I’ve seen

But

Negative professional diagnosis (i.e. you’re evaluated and they tell you you don’t have autism) is EXTREMELY extremely likely to be incorrect

If you’ve brought yourself all that way and they tell you you don’t have it

More than likely they’re just fucking wrong

Trust yourself before you trust a professional

I’m not even gonna say “do your research” because I guarantee an autistic person will do enough research to be accurately informed before they make any certain claims

That’s just how we fucking work

Oftentimes it doesn’t even feel like research so it can turn into impostor syndrome because we don’t feel like we’ve put enough effort into it when really we just naturally fucking research things without giving it much of a second thought

We constantly scan the world around us and collect data from it and our beliefs are infinitely more likely to be fact-based than, idk what the alternative even is, bias-based? Judgment-based? I don’t wanna say feeling-based but I guess it would kind of apply

But my point is

I didn’t suspect I was autistic because I wanted to be special or have a label or whatever the fuck the reasons would be to suspect you’re autistic other than you actually are; genuinely I can’t think of any. Cannot begin to conceptualize it

I suspected I was autistic because I spent the entirety of my teen years observing and analyzing the people around me, making note of their traits and behaviors and idiosyncrasies and communication methods and fashion choices and manners of speech and bodily movements and backgrounds and histories and commonalities and relationships and diagnoses and all the rest of it.

I catalogued all of this information in the “human understanding” section of my brain.

I made the scientifically obvious connections between certain characteristics and the way they were treated by their peers, teachers, family, friends, etc., and the classes they took and the grades that they got and their strengths and their struggles and their reputations and their needs.

And I analyzed my own traits and behaviors and experiences in the same manner, and I noticed many of the same patterns repeating within myself. And, scientifically, I came to the conclusion there was something about us that was similar.

This didn’t feel like research at the time. It just felt like life. That was just how I experienced the world. It still is. I don’t know anything different.

And so, when I eventually came across the autism label, I really did not need to do much extra research to see that it was exactly descriptive of the experiences I’d scientifically studied and drawn conclusions about. I was already a fucking expert; articles and papers and all the rest of it were far more confirmation and validation than explanation.

This experience is not uncommon. We’re told we don’t do enough research and we can’t know more than a professional, yet for all intents and purposes, we ARE the professionals. People don’t see the amount of work and research and analysis and fucking agony and effort and scientific method application that we pour into it, because they don’t fucking know how our brains work.

I can remember learning about the scientific method itself for the first time in school, and looking back it was the same feeling: “ohhh, so there’s a name for that!” and not … I don’t even fucking know what the alternative would be actually. My brain doesn’t really speak words when it has to wrap itself around a new concept. It doesn’t have the energy for that. But let me tell you, putting labels to the steps of the scientific method did not take a whole lot of fucking energy.

I’m not saying any of this to brag. It doesn’t feel like a special skill or talent to me. It’s just… life. It’s the only thing I know. It’s the only way I function.

So if you’re autistic, and you’re self-diagnosed, and you’re pretty damn sure about it in your heart of hearts but the doubt society is laced with is getting to you, stop. Don’t let it. Trust yourself. The world doesn’t understand us and it leads to gaslighting on a global scale. It’s nobody’s fault. But it’s just the truth. We’re trained not to believe ourselves. We’re trained to doubt our perceptions and discount our experiences.

Stop.

Don’t.

Don’t let them get to you.

Trust yourself.

You know yourself better than any allistic ever fucking will. Don’t let them tell you otherwise. Even if they have a PhD in autism studies and have talked to every autistic person in the world. Even if they seem to get it, they will never have lived it.

And it’s great if they do get it! They are capable of believing us! They are capable of getting on roundabout the same page! But even then, they can still miss the mark sometimes. They simply just don’t have the experience to draw from that we do.

So if any of them, no matter how much they seem to “get it,” ever tries to tell you anything that makes you start doubting your own life and self, stop. Don’t let them. Trust yourself.

They can never know you better than you know yourself.

[ceasarslegion]

I think fandom would do well to realize that personal interpretations of a character are not set in stone. I mean, it seems like a pretty simple concept that different people have different interpretations based on their individual perceptions, but let me use an example of something that happened to me recently

So I love Data from Star Trek. He's one of my favourite characters. Part of why is that I'm a trans man, and I personally interpret Data's yearning to be human as very similar to my experiences with dysphoria. I can see a major part of myself reflected in his experiences, which draws me to him. And because of this, I really, really liked his emotion chip that was introduced in Generations. To continue the metaphor, it felt like someone like me finally getting their equivalent to medical transition after waiting for so long.

And then I made a post making fun of a film critic's headline calling his emotion chip the worst part of the TNG movies. Pretty innocent stuff, but a ton of people took that out of context. A really popular interpretation of Data is that he's autistic because of his experience with social cues, other people calling his experience with emotions unemotional, etc. And that's all well and good, I'm fully supportive of that interpretation and I understand why it's so important to a lot of people, it's just not mine because I have a different experience that informed my viewing habits.

So I got a lot of hate for that post that involved a lot of upset people putting words in my mouth. I got people in my ask box accusing me of hating autistic people, no joke. And to clarify, I'm not referring to the people who had legitimate and respectful discussions about how it felt like it made him neurotypical on that post without attacking me, I'm referring to the people who accused me of hating autistic people in my ask box, which is drawing a lot of serious conclusions about me based on a post about my different interpretation of a popular character.

Where I'm going with this is that this is what we mean when we say that fandom is not activism, and there are more experiences and interpretations than just yours. One of the major theories in cinema studies is the idea that there's no such thing as objectivity in cinema, because even the tools used to film it are held by subjective individuals whose actions are informed by their own ideas about how shots should be set up. Everything we do is through our own subjective lens, and that means that every possible interpretation of a text is simultaneously correct, even if they directly contradict. It's a little confusing, but I did my best to summarize it for a layperson. Basically: the common interpretation that Data is autistic is correct, and so is mine that's informed by my experiences as a trans viewer, even though they contradict in the interpretation of his emotion chip. We both have the right to our interpretations, but we don't have the right to attack the other person for them or call their views wrong when they aren't harmful.

Now take this example and theory and apply it to whatever fandom you're in, because I really do think fandom culture could do with a reminder that other's interpretations are not a threat on you, and you don't actually know the whole story behind why.

[bookwyrminspiration]

Response to an ask from Ophelia:

(this is the one about your sibling)

Hello! Welcome back! I do truly mean it when I say you don't need to apologize. My asks and how many I have is not something for you to worry about, so there's nothing to apologize for. We're just interacting! We're allowed to do that without any guilt over being annoying. You're not being annoying, you're not bothering me, or anything else. Even if you were, it's okay to be annoying! Friends are allowed to annoy each other and part of being friends is that we still care about each other regardless.

I know you feel bad about the situation, but if it helps I think you were 100% right to tell your sibling. Keeping diagnoses from people doesn't help, and it just means that instead of them being able to identify why they're struggling, they thing they're just not good enough or something's wrong with them. I've always hated the argument that "we don't want to limit them!" or whatever people say--not that I'm saying that's your belief, the topic just reminded me of it. Knowing what's going on with you so you can deal with it properly and understand yourself is the best way to avoid being limited!! Your sibling deserved to know, and I'm sure it'll be a huge relief for them to now have that answer.

I'm sorry if your parents get upset with you for sharing the information, but I don't think they should've kept it secret in the first place. It is an awkward situation to be in though, so I'm sorry you're going through that. Also my apologies if my response isn't sympathetic enough, I guess I just think that even if it wasn't your place, you had the information and it was the right thing to do to tell them, even if your parents get upset. And that that is enough to offset or make it worth any repercussions--but that's my opinion. It's valid to have a different response.

I understand being terrified of being wrong about those sort of things, but also it's a learning experience! I remember when I first considered the possibility that I could be autistic I was hesitant because up until then I'd only heard stereotypes, and then there's so much pressure on fitting said stereotypes and how hard it can be to get a diagnosis and it felt like I'd have to prove I was autistic. But I've come to learn that the system is just very difficult and already set against me, so my experience and knowledge of myself matters more. And the community is very welcoming and open, so no one who matters is going to be upset if something turns out wrong. Though I will say having two psychologists 100% certain you're autistic is a pretty good sign that it's not wrong.

I will say, just based on our interactions, I think it might be one of the reasons we can talk and relate so well to each other in different ways! Sharing similar experiences to show you relate and understand is something autistic people often do, same with experiencing and describing emotions differently. But that's just what I've noticed, so feel free to disregard me

I can understand why you're uncomfortable with other people coming to that conclusion for you, though, so I'm sorry that's how it's playing out for you. It's such a personal thing and other people having such big says or being convinced of certain things can feel...invasive? Like I want to deal with it and learn on my own, not you do it, if that makes sense. Maybe it could help to look into things more on your own so you can understand yourself with less outside influence. I know you said you've started looking at symptoms but there's a lot out there!

Once again, apologies if my response isn't entirely appropriate or doesn't match your feelings on the subject, I guess for me finding that out about myself was a huge relief, and I see it as a positive, so I might not have the same reaction as you anymore. If there anything I can do to help in this area please do let me know. I think you have a very solid foundation to build off of, but this is about you. Take as much time as you need, and please tell me if I'm overstepping any boundaries or making you uncomfortable.

you don't need to apologize for venting! you're allowed to vent! my day is just getting started so we'll see how it goes, but I hope your day was/is/will be okay <33 emotionally i am watching the sunset with you from the top of a tree.

(also yeah speaking your truth seems really weird and I don't get it. when people say like "it's true to me!" as well. like it can't be true to you unless it's true in general. it's the truth. it either is or isn't. anyway I don't use the phrase.)

you're also absolutely right to be obsessed with eleanor wright, she's great. I mean we've never met her but still!!

[detective-with-one-arm]

I didn’t think I’d have to make this post. I wish I didn’t have to make this post. But I have to make this post because I thought I was being as clear as possible, but maybe I need to be clearer somehow.

I have this rule outlined on my rules page:

I have RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria). So if I’m being annoying or I’m making a mistake in some way, please tell me! I’m not being an asshole, I’m just kinda dense and don’t have a lot of self-awareness, but I try my hardest. So please tell me if I overstep my boundaries or I’m being annoying.

However, I would like to make an addendum to this. Because I’ve had several incidents of people not communicating effectively with me despite how clear I’ve been with this and I’m getting tired of having this rule disregarded and treated as an afterthought, so this is my effort of making this clearer and to try and explain myself properly and why this is so important to me.

I am autistic. This is not a fact that can be ignored or brushed aside. It’s part of who I am and it affects all aspects of my interactions with others and the world. What this means for others is that I cannot pick things up intuitively. I need to have things explained to me otherwise I will not get them. This is especially true of social stuff. I also have a hard time reading tones, jokes, sarcasm, and generally picking up on social cues and such.

Basically, unless I’m directly told something, I likely won’t get it. Conversational subtext is difficult for me to pick up on especially on a text-based media platform.

As such, I need clear and open communication. This is non-negotiable. This isn’t a preference. This is a boundary I have established and a need that I need to have accommodated. I have said this many times to other people in my friend circles and in private, but maybe I wasn’t clear enough. So, I’m going to take this effort to outline what that means for me to avoid incidents of miscommunications leading to really bad escalations that could be easily avoided.

You do not have to write with me. Period. I will never force you to do anything you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to write with me at all, that is okay. I don’t mind at all. Just let me know that you’re not interested. You don’t even need to give me a reason why. You do not have to answer any starters or asks I send in. You can comfortably delete them from your inbox without saying a word and I’m okay with that. If we rp together and we’re plotting together, you don’t have to agree with whatever plots I suggest. You can very comfortably reject them and I am okay with that. Please don’t feel you have to agree to anything I suggest just to keep the peace. If you don’t want to do something, you don’t have to do it. Simple as.

If there is an issue you have with either me personally or something irp, tell me. I mean it. There is nothing wrong with approaching me if something is bothering you. I encourage it. I don’t like assuming the worst in people or jumping to the worst conclusions, so I will more often than not not assume anything is wrong unless I’m directly told that there is an issue. I am willing to make changes and accommodations so long as I’m made aware that they need to be made. Rping is supposed to be fun and if you’re not having fun, I want to be able to make it fun for both of us. I understand that that kind of thing can be anxiety-inducing and it might feel easier to just not say anything and keep it inside, but it will only end worse later on. If you need to take some time to figure out how to approach me, that’s completely fine and good. I understand. A good starting point is to say something along the lines of ‘hey, something’s been bugging me and I need to talk to you about it.’ Just a quick message that states the purpose very clearly so I can get in the right mindspace and either set aside time or properly prepare myself for the discussion. Neutral and factual statements or things that are framed as simple requests are the best way to go with me and I respond best to that. Clear, simple, and direct statements are what I appreciate. Get right to the point and explain what’s wrong and what I can do to mitigate it so we can work through it and come to an agreement.

Please do not wait if you have an issue with me. I know this can be hard to do, but it will be much better in the long run. If there is something genuinely bugging you, tell me as soon as you’re able and please don’t put it off. I will not be able to know if anything’s wrong unless you tell me, so please don’t put off telling me. The last thing I want is to find out months later about something that’s been upsetting you that could’ve been solved if I had known sooner. I don’t want to cause issues. I want to make things fun. I want to know how I can improve an rp experience with you.

Don’t try to vague or send me ‘hints’ in a way that’s not direct communication with me. I mean it. It is very easy for me to dismiss something as an ic thing or just not pick up on what you’re trying to hint at if it’s not obvious enough. Don’t send me asks about something on anonymous. Don’t passive-aggressively try and communicate with me ooc irp. Don’t vague post about me. Don’t vague me in tags. Don’t do any of that. Just come into my DMs and tell me what’s wrong. Not only is all of the above extremely rude, disrespectful, and dishonest, but it’s also completely unnecessary and ineffective. If you try and communicate with me through anything that isn’t a direct message, it will not work. I will not realize that that’s what’s happening and this will only lead to frustration and tension. If you have an issue with me, just come to me privately and tell me what’s wrong. This is much easier and takes way less time and is way less stressful.

Look, the world is already a difficult place for autistic people to navigate as is. Social norms and protocols were made by neurotypical people for neurotypical people and us autistic people are just expected to know them or intuitively pick them up even though we are physically incapable of doing that. I really don’t need people disregarding this basic need for open and direct communication making it even harder to exist as an autistic person in the world and having my needs treated like not being worth consideration.

I’m tired. I’m tired of having incidents explode because of things that could’ve been solved if I had just been told immediately and directly. I’m tired of not having my needs be taken seriously.

So please...if you are interested in rping with me and you need to know how to communicate with me in a way that I will respond well to, this is your guide. I cannot be any clearer than this. If incidents still happen despite this, then...well, I don’t know. I have to assume at that point that it’s done intentionally.

I hope this clears things up for some people and encourages people to be more open and up-front with me about things. I promise I am willing to work things out, but I can’t do that if I’m not made aware of those issues. I will be updating my rules page with an addendum about my autism and I will leave a link to this post on that page for easy access.

[aroworlds]

What Makes Us Human, Part Two

Moll of Sirenne needs prompts in their girdle book to navigate casual conversations, struggles to master facial expressions and feels safest weeding the monastery's vegetable gardens. Following their call to service, however, means offering wanderers in need a priest's support and guidance. A life free of social expectation to court, wed and befriend does outweigh their fear of causing harm—until forgetting the date of a holiday provokes a guest's ire and three cutting words: lifeless and loveless.

A priest must expand a guest's sense of human worth, but what do they do when their own comes under question? Can an autistic, aromantic priest ever expect to serve outside the garden? And what day is it...?

Contains: A middle-aged, agender priest set on defying social norms around love; an alloromantic guest with a journey to undergo in conquering her amatonormativity and ableism; and an elderly aromantic priest providing irascible reassurance.

Content Advisory: Depictions and discussions of ableism, amatonormativity and dehumanisation, particularly with regards to autism and aromanticism. Please expect additional background references to partner abuse and dysfunctional relationships, along with a side mention of magic causing harm to animals. This piece also includes reflections on non-romantic love's being pushed as a second-best "humanising" quality on non-partnerning, aplatonic and neurodiverse aros.

Length: 4, 946 words (part one of two).

Note: This is the newest entry in my tradition of Not Valentine’s Day Aro Stories posted on Valentine’s Day. No familiarity with my other Marchverse stories is needed, although it does obliquely nod at events referenced in Love is the Reckoning.

Will you ignore their need of someone their own to reassure them that they are so wonderfully and deservedly human?

Moll checks that she follows and, wordlessly, heads towards the guest common room. Their heart thrums in their chest; they fight to slow their heaving ribs. What will they do if Gennifer isn’t finished with what caused her to miss breakfast? What if … shades, can’t they send an acolyte to find her or Oki? Waiting with James won’t lack unpleasantness, but Moll needn’t engage her in conversation. They can keep their silence while a brown-robe hunts down a senior priest.

Breathe.

For good or ill, they are both decided to follow a new path.

Gennifer, fortunately, sits in one of several armchairs, frowning down at the ledger in her lap. Two acolytes tidying feel more like shadows than occupants in a vast room of redwood tables and bookshelves, all crammed with books, games, paper, pencils and paints. Pots filled with trailing ferns hang from the high rafters, lending the room a touch of Sirenne’s soil-and-leaflitter scent; the large slate tiles, polished smooth and set close together, feel cool under Moll’s bare feet. Large windows reveal the gardens between wings, permitting light enough that demarcations of “outside” and “inside” lose relevance.

She closes the book and looks up, her thick brows raised. Moll has long learnt better than to voice these observations, but Gennifer resembles her pet chicken—a round, fat woman with nut-brown skin and hair, the latter trimmed to a fine fuzz covering her scalp and neck. The red robes, belted with an advising priest’s green sash, pick up the reddish tinge in the hen’s feathers; the neat way she tucks her arms at her sides, her hands drawn up by her chest, resembles the hen’s wings. No quality will so provoke this comparison if not for Gennifer’s mothering of anyone, guest or priest, she judges in need.

“May we converse in private?” Moll asks, turning their head to ensure that James follows them into the room. “Thank you.”

She stands a few paces off, tucking her hand—the tip of one finger smeared with her lip paint—behind her back.

The acolytes down their books and retreat to the hallway.

“What is it?” Gennifer waves at the chair opposite her table. “Sit down. Can I get you a cup of tea? A biscuit?”

“No. James has the opinion … that I can’t relate to their experiences. She wishes the guidance of another priest.” Only a lifetime of practice allows Moll to keep their voice flat and calm. “I don’t wish to cause her any further distress, so I ask that you assign her to someone of a more … suitable nature.”

Only the slightest shift of brow mars Gennifer’s quiet smile. “I see. Is this the case, James?”

How can Gennifer, as careful and controlled as most of Sirenne’s priests, so evade accusations of lifelessness? What difference exists between her expression and theirs? Why can’t Moll see, recognise and imitate it?

James hesitates for long enough that Moll wonders if she’s beset by a change of heart, but at length she nods and takes the offered chair. “Yes. Please. They don’t even know what day it is! They just ask pointless question after question, all stiff and wooden. How am I supposed to get anywhere with a priest that remembers nothing normal?”

She doesn’t mention, Moll thinks with a nauseating bitterness, that she accused all priests of such ignorance. They may not know what the date means, how better to have approached James’s guiding or why only Gennifer’s questions are worth answering, but they know one thing: their control teeters on collapse’s edge.

They bow, turn and stride to the doorway.

“It’s difficult,” Gennifer says with a non-committal softness, “to feel as though—”

Moll quickens their step, their red robes flapping about their calves. Another pair of acolytes enter the hallway, stop and abruptly reverse direction as though afraid to tangle with a priest in a temper. They fist their hands until their fingers ache, but their shoulders shake and their chest heaves. Why did they entertain the delusion that their thick, autistic body, with its oversized hands and stern face, can ever be anything but threatening?  

How much more damage need they cause before accepting the truth?

The feel of grass beneath their soles and the strengthening of the rich damp-earth smell tells Moll that they’ve left the building for one of the gardens. Rows of mulched corn, peas and beans grow in a sunny section of the monastery, angled away from the greenhouse. The gardens weren’t their intention, at least insofar that they possessed any, but a riot of unwanted seedlings sprout from the pea straw’s seeds, diverting water and nutrients from the vegetables. The acolytes are a few days behind in their weeding. Good enough.  

Moll—ignored by the priest and guests tending the greenhouse’s tomatoes—grabs a bucket and a trowel, kneels by the first pea-festooned trellis and starts pulling up weeds.

There’s no glamour in weeding, no proud presentation of the literal fruits of one’s labour. New weeds poke through the soil and mulch almost as soon as one finishes, and, as in laundry and dishwashing, Moll never finds the satisfaction of conclusion. A garden always provides distraction, however, and nobody stopped to marvel at a quartermaster’s labour. Why expect it now?

Peace, instead, lies in the feel of damp earth clinging to bare feet, the patter of water falling on green leaves, the smell of sun warming soil and straw, the pop as a root pulls free from its earthen cradle. Moll’s trembling fingers fight to gently prise weeds from the bed and shake soil from their roots, but they put their rage into their shoulder as they hurl each into the bucket left at the end of the row.

Pull, shake, throw.

Pop, patter, thwack.

Isn’t this suitable work? If their labour allows Gennifer to guide James by providing the food eaten by priests, acolytes and guests, how aren’t they following their calling?

Pop, patter, smack.

“Do all of those require pulling?”

They jerk, straighten and turn, started to find the Guide sitting in her wheelchair only an arm’s length distant, her attendant idling with a book at the other end of the row. She’s a small woman with white hair gone yellow, sunken cheeks and bony limbs; “elderly” suggests more youth than she shows. Her green robe, belted with red, catches the light through some trickery of weave; a darker green blanket, knit from witched wool, sits over her lap, although the summer warmth permits her to bare both marked shoulders. A ball of yarn, two knitting needles and a toe and heel in progress rests in the valley between her knees. Based on Moll’s infrequent glimpses of her work about the monastery, she too prefers her hands busy, perhaps despite her swollen knuckles.

She looks like a stiff breeze will blow her out of her chair, but she reminds Moll of a century-dead tree, its roots grown so deep that its trunk and limbs survive drought and cyclone.

They drop their plant and, suddenly aware of their aching shoulders and back, bow to Sirenne’s most senior priest.

“Oh, stop. Sit up and stay sit up. Sat up? Whatever.” The Guide sighs and peers down at Moll. “Aren’t your back and knees breaking? I’m hurting just looking at you.”

Moll realises then that they’ve worked down the row and halfway across the bed. Small bits of seed and gravel dig into their knees through the thin linen of their summer robe; their legs, beset with an unnatural stiffness, fight their attempts to sit. “I’m sorry, sir, for my unsupp—”

The Guide raises both hands and claps her fingers to her thumb in the gesture meant to indicate a bird’s opening beak—usually made to mock a person prone to gossip. If she owns something as ordinary as a shroudname, Moll has never heard it mentioned. She’s just the Guide, the leader of her flock on their journey to … well, the Sojourner isn’t the sort of god that provides clarity. No bright heaven or dark hell; just the bewildering grey of somewhere.  

Moll dislikes those vague, unspecific words.

“I’m sorry for abandon—”

She repeats the gesture several times, fingertip smacking against thumb.

“I’m … sorry?”

Moll has heard the monastery’s gossip about the Guide, but they didn’t expect … well, this.

“Stop it with the drivel.” The Guide sighs and shakes her head. “If you apologise again, I’ll send you to shadow with the calling-year acolytes. Don’t think I won’t!”

Just the thought of taking lessons with Ro and Alicia has Moll closing their mouth with a teeth-clacking snap. Moll’s calling-year included a grandparent twice their age, but Ro’s year leans young, and they can’t say that they’ll enjoy being so subjected to the acolytes’ discussions, explosions, giggles, jibes and pranks. Moll endured enough of that in the army, irritated even when they were of the customary age to partake!

Is this the Guide’s way of saying that Moll needs those lessons?

Are their missteps with James so serious that Gennifer went to the Guide?

“Moll?”

They sit up, rolling their shoulders back in a vain attempt to ease their stiffness. “I don’t think I need those lessons refreshed,” they say, hoping that their tone doesn’t convey their stomach’s nervous roiling. A priest shouldn’t be afraid to admit fault. How can one help guide another in open-hearted curiosity while bound to an unfailing sense of correctness? “I think I’ll do better in the gardens or the stables. Wherever you believe my work most needed.”

Not that Moll has done an exemplary job with the garden, given the halo of uprooted-and-thrown plants surrounding the bucket.

“Really?” The Guide sighs, looking down at Moll with raised eyebrows. “Because I came here to tell a guiding priest to pick the gravel from their knees, wash up and hop to the infirmary to be briefed on a guest’s needs from his new priest.”

Moll frowns. The infirmary? A guest’s new priest? “Another guest—”

“No! You want to specialise in the arts of weed pulling and shit shovelling! Far be it from me to stop a priest from following their road—even if that road takes them five clicks backwards.” The Guide shrugs and nestles her hands in her lap. “I’m sure there’s another priest with curiosity, patience and directness to help guide a guest as much harmed by Sirenne as the world—another priest that finds equal confusion in tedious definitions of normality. Gennifer’s unexpectedly busy—what about Oki?”

They stiffen, their eyes resting on the thick, bobbled stockings covering the Guide’s unshod feet. “I don’t understand,” Moll murmurs, beset with too many curiosities to untangle but certain that few priests have referenced Sirenne’s harming a guest. “If I knew what you’re referencing, perhaps I could say…? But … I don’t want to distress another guest, and someone must muck the stables.”

After all, she may as well be referencing Moll’s treatment of James.

The Guide stares at Moll, her brow furrowed, her expression well beyond their conjecture. “I think,” she says at length, “you should explain the source of your newfound enthusiasm for regression.”

By now, narrating a discussion with a guest to a senior priest feels habitual. Moll exhales, hissing their breath over their teeth, before beginning with the dining hall, backtracking to explain their anxiety and James’s prior behaviours, and continuing with the courtyard conversations.

Their voice, steady during all manner of absurd, eldritch and horrifying goings-on in their fifteen years with Seventh, wobbles on the words “loveless” and “lifeless”.

“…so I did the inappropriate thing of leaving without allowing for proper explanation or facilitation of—”

“Nep, nep, nep.” The Guide beaks her fingers thrice; Moll, startled, falls silent. “Drivel. You cluck worse than Gennifer’s chicken. That you can work on—tell Gennifer or your calling-year priests that you want them to help you learn to stop clucking.” She sighs and shakes her head. “You assumed yourself the cause of her mood. James felt distressed by spending Lovers’ Day separated from her partner and took offense to your thinking you’d caused offense. She wanted you to simply offer sympathy, believing her situation abundantly self-evident and unneedful of explanation.”

How many times, over the course of a life, have allistics and alloromantics driven them to aghast speechlessness at their absence of rationality? Lovers’ Day is but a petty holiday borrowed from Astreuch tradition, something about which the Sojourner says nothing. Moll doesn’t care enough to recollect its existence, but neither will they disparage or dismiss her pain—if only she mentioned the holiday when asked!

Sirenne should offer sanctuary, but they’re still caught up in the mess caused by love’s assumption, expectation and conformity.

Even here, they’re still rendered less than human.

“I … asked why…” Moll shakes their head, turns and pulls up another weed. “I don’t understand that. None of it. So I belong out here.”

“I didn’t say it was reasonable. It isn’t any more reasonable than your current occupational decision.” The Guide barks a laugh. “But since when do we expect guests to bring reason with them? They don’t. We help them find it.”

They don’t know what word names the mood that has Moll wrench, twist and fling a seeding somewhere towards the bucket before looking up at the Guide. “How could I have—”

“You should have,” the Guide says, her words soft, “taken her to Gennifer as soon as her judgement turned personal. You didn’t need to tolerate that half as long as you did. Take her to someone who gives her fewer excuses and isn’t bearing bruises the world never lets heal. No garden so needs weeding that you should be breaking your body, afterwards, to survive the punches you thought you had to let her throw.”

They sit up, bunching their robes over their legs. Her words ring of bewildering improbability, an unexpected response—like the giving of their girdle book, the leather cover now speckled with dirt and mulch—wildly contradictory to the world’s usual rules and processes. Ideal, certainly, but not in practice true.

“I’m meant,” Moll says slowly, “to be able to do my work. I can’t give every allistic or alloromantic guest to Gennifer because they don’t make se—”

“We both know you won’t ask that another priest take on a guest’s care because you don’t understand their reasoning, but you should if they don’t respect your humanity!” The Guide waves her hand towards the great hall. “How, if you break yourself dealing with every guest assigned to you, are you going to give your best service to the next agender, aromantic or autistic guest walking up our driveway? What if there’s someone there in need of you? Can you, right now, serve as they need?”

They freeze, open-mouthed.

Never did Moll think to look at their work from that angle.

“There wouldn’t be that many—”

“Drivel. Most of the priests not us can handle James. Gennifer, though, isn’t aromantic. She’s kind, sweet and open-minded, certainly—and that’s better than nothing. But she doesn’t speak from a place of knowing. We do. And now, you can give someone something neither of us had—a guiding priest who knows in the heart. Can’t you imagine what that must feel like?” She sighs, her crow’s voice cracking. “Some guests won’t be suited to your strengths, but they’ll respect your humanity. Some won’t suit you, and you’ll make sure they’re cared for by someone they’re less likely to harm. And others, yet unknowing, need you. Will you, Moll, ignore their need of someone their own to reassure them that they are so wonderfully and deservedly human—no matter what the world says?”

Moll draws a breath, the hairs on their forearms raised, their body alert and quivering. Despite the near-cloudless sky, they look up, searching for lightning; the air crackles with that wild, dangerous energy. They hoped, five years ago, to return this gift Gennifer offered to a discharged quartermaster stripped of home and place. The gift of reframing the world, tossing about all long-held expectations so one can put aside the misunderstandings and follow a new turning. The gift, a chance to see everything anew, they couldn’t offer James.

A gift, perhaps, they can still offer someone else—because she’s right, something Moll didn’t realise until she said the word “us”.

They didn’t know that they’d waited forty-four years to receive that gift from their own—to be affirmed human by their kin’s reckoning.

The garden shouldn’t be the entirety of their service.

“That’s better.” The Guide gives a small, satisfied nod. “You’ve forgotten, I think, that in your first year, we learn how best you work with guests. Knowing that better, now, I need you in the infirmary to work with a guest who also didn’t pair well with his first priest—a guest who needs you, not Oki. Or will you mumble about weeds and manure?”

Moll shakes their head. No, not on their life or name!

“Good. Get up, have a long bath, scrub your fingernails, eat a late lunch and then present yourself to Thanh. Tell hir that I sent you to be Esher’s new guiding priest and ze must explain to you the magic. I doubt he’ll be any kind of conscious today, so you have time to dawdle.”

What happened last night? “Magic? Conscious?”

“Thanh will tell you. Go. I’ve got too many priests yet to talk to.”

Far too curious to surrender to bewilderment, Moll bows their head, grabs their trowel and scrambles upright just as the Guide waves her hand to her attendant. “Thank you. Sir. Thank you.” They turn for their bucket, freeze and spin back to face the Guide. “Sir, can I ask something?”

“Yes, quickly, but it had better not be clucking.”

They don’t know what she means by “clucking”, but they’ll ask Gennifer and Oki. “If you weren’t guiding guests when I came, why…?”

“Why didn’t I guide you, you mean?” The Guide shrugs. “I don’t guide guests or teach the acolytes. I’m perceptive and intelligent, they told me, but disastrously blunt. Now, after years in the kitchens, I guide the priests—once you’re educated enough in yourself that I needn’t dance around my words.” She hesitates. “I think, perhaps, there’s some acolytes I should have taught. But I do know the worth and the necessity in ensuring my own number in the priests that follow me.”

“I think you guide well,” Moll says quietly. “For me, if nobody else.”

Their own expressions aren’t given to smiling, but the Guide’s broadening lips, perhaps, speak for them both.

[the-voice-of-night-vale]

ur phrasing of "people are spreading that enby is infantizing" comes off as 1) saying its not to everybody 2) implying that it inherently as a word isnt infantizing 3) AND implying that anybody who thinks it is is a hatemongering exclusionist. its not in bad faith for me to come to reasonable conclusions of what you're saying based on how ur saying it. ur argument about "nb is aave" is also bad, sometimes things share acronyms. it happens. its not "appropriating aave" to use nb. i promise you

black people are smart enough to know context! ur the one of accusing others of having nitpicking language when ur the one starting arguments based on language other nb people use for themselves or dont want to use for themselves. the point about folx is that its also NOT AAVE and you as a white person really need to stop hiding behind black people and our culture to support your bad faith angry arguments. and my comment about "would you say womxn" was saying thats a word you shouldnt use, that 

was the whole point. you cant brush away any criticism of your own posts with "you just hate nonbinary people and our words" and "dont come at me with discourse" when youre the one who made the post in the first place. ur so obsessed with using the "correct" language that you constantly change the rules of that you leave other people in your own community completely under the bus. you cant look at your brothers and sisters and scream at them that theyre wrong when u barely know what ur saying

and quite frankly, saying things like  "i will meet you with so much love" and then in the same breath saying "quite frankly this discourse sounds like a fucking crusade against nonbinary people" to other people in ur community they disagree with you? is not a good look 

WOW this is a whole lot and frankly a lot of it is such frigid ass takes i don’t even really know if i should respond but here we go:

1. people are spreading that enby is inherently infantalizing, i’ve said many times it’s not inherently, whether words are infantalizing is personal. my problem is when people try and tone police nonbinary people as a whole, telling us what words we can and can’t use for ourselves. words like enby, joyfriend, orbisian, etc. are words we made for ourselves and almost every time a new word is coined for nonbinary people and our experiences with gender and orientation, people both within and without our community try to control our language in ways I find disgusting.

rereading my op with this perspective, yeah, it does read that i don’t believe enby can be infantalizing. i’m gonna edit it for further clarity. the post was made in anger and i used shorthand. that’s not an excuse, and i’m sorry for the confusion.

 if you have concerns or are confused you bring it up in a reasonable and mature way, rather than coming into my inbox sealioning me. i’m autistic and i have adhd, it makes communication hard. i’m not asking you to be nice to me or anything, but i think it’s reasonable to request that criticism of my posts be sent in a toneful way if you expect a positive response. if you decide to come in aggressively, then i’m going to respond in kind idk what to tell u. this is an internet blogging platform where everyone is at each others teeth at all times. i made a post in anger i don’t think it’s necessarily surprising that i have my haunches raised lmao

2. i have the same opinion of people concern trolling about enby as i do about people concern trolling the use of queer: if you hop onto posts that have nothing to do with you (inpersonal you) and the discourse and obnoxiously remind us that such and such word shouldn’t be applied broadly without consent, you’re an asshole, because everyone on this fucking website understands that, and folks really like to derail posts to police our language. so while i don’t believe that anyone who finds enby infantalizing to be fearmongering/exclusionist/exorsexist whatever, i do believe that people who try to police others’ use of identity (when it’s not being harmful, obvs) are assholes at best.

3. as a white person it’s my responsibility to hold other white people responsible when many black nonbinary and trans people have spoken up about the use of “nb” and fighting against cultural appropriation. i’m not “hiding behind black people” i’m literally parroting things said by black people because thats what allies do: you listen. I know black folks aren’t a monolith but to be quite honest i think using harmless alternatives like nonby and nby to be easy enough even if the whole black community isn’t in agreement. at the end of the day it’s a drop in the fucking bucket to change one or two words we use to not be assholes. and I know plenty of black folks also don’t give a shit whether you use nb or not. the mileage varies but i always err on the side of caution, especially when it literally costs me nothing.

(X, X (this post was made by a white person but the blog i got it from was run by a black person, plus the sources at the bottom are nice), X. There was a lot of discourse about this a couple months back but because Tumblr search is broken I’m having trouble finding more sources)

4. for the third fucking time, folx isn’t just meant to be gender-neutral. i linked a post that said it was sourced from political groups, esp political groups of color; that sounds like aave to me (altho i’m white and not the authority). and even if it’s not just meant for black folks, it still means more than just ~a fun and quirky gender neutral form of folks~. but seeing as you don’t want to read that post, i guess this point is moot.

5. the thing about womxn and mxn kind of falls apart when you realize that most ppl putting x in words aren’t doing it to be gender neutral, and even if they were, who gives a fuck? words are made up!

6. i’m not saying “don’t come at me with discourse” I MADE A POST AND YOU CAME IN MY INBOX GROINGORINGORINGOIRNGRIONGIOR the tag “please do not discourse with me i am but a humble farmer” is my discourse tag, in case that’s what you’re referring to. which, if you read my about, you’d know. but hey.

7. i’m leaving no one under the bus i’m mad about how much our language is policed about the only ppl i’m leaving under the bus are people who want to police language .

8. to whom, exactly, am i saying they’re wrong? people who police our language? i’ll gladly tell assholes they’re wrong all day long and i won’t lose a hint of sleep over it. (also, calling ppl in the nonbinary community “my brothers and sisters”....... hm)

9. i don’t give a fuck if u disagree with me. hell, i don’t care if you come in my inbox calling me slurs. if u wanna argue w me about a post i’m gonna argue back; you don’t have to agree w my post, you don’t have to interact with me bc of it either. i have quite a couple asks and messages a month asking me about the discourse posts i make. they all come with compassion and a genuine desire to learn or correct me. i don’t wave away criticism, i wave away bad faith arguments and folks with bad attitudes who clearly don’t give a fuck what i have to say. my comment about the crusade against nonbinary people is related to the constant belittling and criticism our whole community faces; exorsexism is rampant, and if you can’t see that then idk what to tell you.

i respond to the messages i receive on this place in kind with how they’re delivered.

if i misread your tone, i’m sorry. if i got needlessly defensive, i’m sorry. if there’s a piece of my post that’s easily misinterpreted, let me know. i’m open to criticism, so long as it’s 1. presented as criticism (rather than something vague) (this isn’t @ you anon this is about something else) bc i’m fuckin autistic and can’t understand shit and 2. done in good faith with respect to my intelligence and reason

[longformautie]

Addressing sexism of autistic men

CW: gender-based violence, including murder and rape

I. Introduction

This post has been coming for a long time. And I mean a LONG time. My thoughts on this topic have been evolving constantly. They will probably evolve even after I post this. I am still learning and welcome feedback.

I was prompted to write this post during the pre-coronavirus Before Times, when I saw that the popular Facebook page Humans Of New York had profiled an autistic man who had become a pickup artist. For context, pickup artists are a group of straight men who will cynically do whatever it takes to get them laid, which of course means blatantly ignoring the needs of the women they interact with, and who share strategies with one another. The autistic man in the photo post talked about how before he was a pickup artist he was hopeless with women, and now he was getting girls - getting laid, even. He said he knew it was manipulative, but that it was only fair - after all, it’s not like anyone had ever sympathized with him for his social difficulties. I was curious about what people had to say in the comments section; turns out, I wasn’t satisfied by any of the takes I found.

The takes I didn’t like can be broken down into two categories. Category number one were formulations like “poor him, he just wants to be accepted.” I’m not even a little bit sympathetic to this take and will only be spending a moment on it. Suffice it to say, it’s hard to take these people at their word that they care about the autism struggle when they don’t show up in droves to the banners of the neurodiversity movement with this level of enthusiasm. Rather, we are part of a culture that likes to sympathize with toxic men. If the man wasn’t autistic, they’d find some other excuse, but since he is, in defending him they can also activate the ableist notion that autistic people are incapable of respecting boundaries. I choose the word “incapable” because if your position is that autistic people sometimes don’t know better than to violate a boundary, the logical conclusion is simply that someone should teach them. To sincerely and enthusiastically take up this kind of “poor autistic guy doesn’t know any better” rhetoric, you have to presume complete incompetence of autistic people and that we’ll never learn, so that when a straight autistic man does a violating thing to a woman, they can shrug their shoulders and say, “well, I guess nothing can be done about this.” This attitude is sexism and ableism couched in a delusion of sympathy.

Category number two of takes, I like lots better but still am not quite satisfied with, and can be roughly summarized: “This isn’t caused by autism, it’s caused by being an asshole.” While I agree that being an asshole is the main ingredient in this cocktail, I don’t think the autism should be dismissed as an irrelevant detail. I think there is a sexism problem specific to autistic men that needs to be separately talked about and addressed. I intend to do so in this post, without assigning blame either to the autism or to the women being abused.

I want to note in advance that this post will be cishet-centric, not because I think straight experiences are universal, partly because the behavior of cishet men is what’s at task here, but mostly because I have no idea how these issues affect LGBTQIA communities. If anyone is able and willing offer insight or resources on that topic, I’d love to hear from you.

I. Autistic men

Having experienced it firsthand, I can say for sure that autistic loneliness is a vicious cycle. By loneliness, I mean a lack of any social connection, not just a lack of romantic or sexual partners. Autism makes social interaction more difficult, which makes it harder to find friends, but, crucially, not having friends also makes social interaction more difficult. More people to interact with means more practice with social interaction; it also means more assistance from comparatively clued-in people who care about us. This vicious cycle can also manifest with respect to a subset of people. For example, an autistic child who only socially interacts with adults may have trouble forming connections with peers. For the purpose of this discussion, I want to focus on the problems this presents for autistic boys who want to interact with girls in their age group.

The scarcity of cross-gender social interaction during childhood need not be framed as a uniquely autistic experience. Societal forces sort us by gender from an incredibly early age, so the vast majority of our social connections in childhood are with people of the same gender. Furthermore, especially during and after adolescence, boys and men are discouraged from being emotionally close with one another. Thus, the norms of masculinity isolate us almost totally from peers of all genders. Our social connections with men must be superficial; our social connections with women must be non-platonic. For those of us who crave the emotional intimacy that our same-gender friendships lack, a romantic relationship is the only socially acceptable opportunity to forming a deep, loving bond with someone close to our own age.

Enter autism (again). Dating, when we hit adolescence, is wholly new to us, and we have been given no opportunity to adjust ourselves to its social norms. Autism makes this a particular challenge, as do gender roles in dating. Since men are supposed to initiate and women are supposed to merely give subtle hints (if not be straight-out “hard to get”), straight autistic men face both the pressure of leaping into an arena that intimidates us, and the bewilderment of not knowing whether it’s working. If I had a crush on you in high school, I probably kept it a secret; if you had a crush on me, I probably didn’t notice.

Worth noting here that none of the things I’ve listed are evidence against autistic men’s actual attractiveness or appeal to women. We are facing access barriers that accumulate over the course of our lives until we finally figure out how to start ripping them down, and when we do, we quite often do get to have romantic and sexual relationships. But the prevailing narrative about autism and other disabilities is that they’re unsexy, and a lot of autistic men buy into that. I myself thought I was one of those autistic men who’d never date or have sex until experience taught me otherwise.

Knowing all this, we can see why a lot of autistic men might feel both that they need a relationship to be happy, and that they cannot possibly have one. This makes us prime targets for recruitment, because the sense of personal injury at being deprived of sexual experiences for reasons beyond one’s control is as indispensable an ingredient in the various movements of the “manosphere” as the sexism itself. It’s not that autistic men are any more or any less sexist than regular men, but that the sexists among us already feel exactly the way these communities require them to feel: deeply aggrieved, and deeply desperate. Pickup artistry both validates this sense of personal injury, and sells itself as the solution: a set of simple, logical rules that, when followed, will grant success. But it misses the uncomfortable truth that while everyone deserves to receive love, no particular person is obliged to give it. This is a deeply frustrating contradiction with no easy solution, but the solution certainly is not to cynically manipulate women into doing the thing you want.

III. Allistic women

I never was a pickup artist, but that doesn’t mean I never harbored a grievance against women for my loneliness. After all, I thought, wouldn’t my perpetual singleness end if women were more direct and assertive? As such, I worry that other people who read this may end up pinning the responsibility for autistic loneliness onto individual women too. The previous section hints at why that’s wrong, but I also want to take the time to explain why it’s deeply unfair.

My autism and masculinity were first brought into conjunction (or was it conflict?) in my mind in my freshman year of college. One of my new Facebook friends shared a Tumblr blog called “Straight White Boys Texting” which was a collection of screenshots of unwanted straight white boy texts, running the gamut from simple inability to take a hint to bona fide “what color is your thong” garbage. I felt pretty attacked, partly because I wasn’t yet used to seeing myself as part of a “straight white boys” collective that people didn’t like, and partly because what I saw was a bunch of guys missing social cues and taking things literally, just as a younger me would have done. I felt like I needed to say something - and boy, was that a bad decision. I said something about how the women in the screenshots needed to be more direct, and got instant (and deserved) backlash both for focusing on the least important problem in the interactions and for placing responsibility for a male behavior problem squarely back onto women.

At the time, I didn’t have a coherent framework for understanding sexism. Since then, I’ve learned that giving a direct no can occasionally get women killed, and most often at least gets them yelled at and insulted. Giving a yes also comes with its own risks - the risk of rape, in (unfortunately-not-actually-so-)extreme cases where that inch of “yes” results in guys taking a mile, but also the more pervasive risk of being socially stigmatized as slutty or promiscuous. It’s often the most women can get away with to be subtle (rather than completely silent) about all of their wants and needs, so that a discerning man who actually cares will know what those wants and needs are and respect them.

This puts those of us who have trouble with reading subtle signals in a difficult position if we inadvertently cross a boundary, but that’s not a problem women can reasonably be expected to solve. If a man crosses a woman’s boundaries because he simply doesn’t respect them, he wants to make it look like it’s an accident so that he will be forgiven. “But Aaron,” you might say, “didn’t you just say that the right thing to do in those situations is to teach people the right behavior, not ignore it?” Yes, that’s true. But that assumes the continuation of a conversation that a woman might feel safer just skipping; if a man is making her feel uncomfortable, she’s probably not inclined to continue to converse with him in order to establish whether his intentions were good or bad. When we impose the burden of freeing males from loneliness onto women, we are asking them to continue to interact with frightening men at their own peril.

Ironically enough, some of these frightening men are the autistic pickup artists from part 1. This means that pickup artists, far from “solving” the problems with dating they feel aggrieved by, are actually making it more difficult for everyone except themselves by giving women one more reason to be scared and cynical, and men who slip up one more type of monster to be mistaken for.

IV. Autistic women

At first glance, it seems like there’s a choice to be made here, between supporting autistic men who want to be valued as potential romantic and sexual partners and supporting allistic women who just want to be safe. But what I’m realizing more and more is that when there seems to be a conflict between the needs of two marginalized groups, the right choice is generally to avoid picking a side and instead find ways to support both groups. This works well, not only because both groups get what they want, but because if a side must be chosen, the people at the intersection of the two groups will lose both ways.

Autistic women bear the brunt of every part of this mess, as described in detail by Kassiane Asasumasu on her blog, Radical Neurodivergence Speaking (see  the links later in this paragraph). Because autistic men fear ableism from neurotypical women, we tend to believe that autistic women are the only partners who will accept us for who we are. As a result, autistic women report being swarmed at autism meetup groups by men looking for a girlfriend, and those men who struggle with independent living are more than willing to escape that by leaning on the patriarchal expectation that the woman does all the chores, even when she is an autistic woman who struggles with the exact same tasks. This means autistic women actually interact with sexist autistic men the most, and not only are they subject to the same toxic shit that allistic women have to deal with, but they’re also expected to “understand” these men and thus endlessly tolerate their (supposedly inevitable) shitty behavior.

V. Solutions

Fortunately, the choice between female safety and autistic desirability is not a choice we have to make, but the solutions are not as simple as members of one or the other group simply choosing to behave differently. Rather, they require the collective participation of all kinds of people.

Addressing autistic male sexism necessarily means addressing sexism. It means respecting when women say no, rather than making it an unpleasant experience they might fear to repeat. It means teaching consent in special education classrooms, so that no one can claim in good faith that an autistic boy who crosses a boundary simply doesn’t know better. It means teaching girls, as they grow into women, that they are under no obligation to tolerate sexist behavior out of sympathy for the sexist man.

But addressing sexism also means supporting boys and men as they escape the confines of conventional masculinity. It means enabling and encouraging them to have close friends of all genders. It means reminding them that they don’t need a woman, any more than a woman needs a man.

In addition to addressing sexism, we need to address the ableism that prevents autistic people from accessing not just dating but emotional closeness of all kinds. We need to stimulate autistic people’s peer relationships at all stages of life. We cannot do this if special ed teachers continue to view us as broken allistic people rather than whole autistic people, nor can we do it if they view us as incomplete adults rather than entire children. If an autistic boy is unable to learn about condoms because it offends the sensibilities of the teacher, or if he is unable to learn how to talk like a teenager because his parents would like him to learn to speak like an adult, then that autistic boy is being deprived both of autonomy and of the opportunity to learn.

Furthermore, we need to teach allistic children how to interact with their autistic peers. Autistic people need no additional incentive to learn how to interact with the societal majority who control their access to jobs, housing, healthcare, education, political representation, and much more. Allistic people can, however, choose not to bother learning how to support and include us and face almost no social consequences beyond not getting to see my cool maps. Rather than alleviating this unequal distribution of incentives, adults generally exacerbate it by focusing only on the social development of autistic children with respect to interactions with allistic people, but not on the social development of allistic children towards being able to interact with autistic people. This is because the prevailing view regarding autism is still that our modes of moving through the world are incorrect and defective, whereas allistic modes of social interaction are viewed as normal and valid even when they exclude others.

The problem of autistic male sexism is hairy and complicated, but if we take the above steps, we can solve it without further stigmatizing autism, and without victim-blaming women. We don’t have to leave anyone behind in this conversation. Rather, by fighting both for autism acceptance and consent culture, we can produce a more just world where everyone gets the love and respect that they deserve.

[mwolf0epsilon]

What are your thoughts on the Machine Connor ending and the RK900? I've noticed you write him differently from the fandom depictions, especially when it involves Gavin. I'm just curious hope you don't mind!

The Machine Connor ending was one of the better ones in my opinion. Mainly because it's positively heart wrenching due to it having the potential to apocalyptically fuck up everyone else's lives post-game, in more ways than Markus turning violent.

Let's face it, if Markus wages war it'll kill a LOT of people, but the entirety of the human population will come together to obliterated the android menace (We may not be as strong and resilient as androids, but us humans are stupidly good at killing other lifeforms).

But, unlike the Violent Revolution route, the Machine Connor ending doesn't inherently end in a human-android war. Its more of a tragedy of circumstances than anything else. Anything can happen from that point on, rather than a linear path to freedom or genocide, and the RK900 can, as a result, become a catalyst of something more depending on how the player perceves the consequences of their choices.

Speaking of which...

---

I like that the RK900 is left ambiguous to interpretation. I feel like his presence is the main potential drive for an open ended story (which is my favorite type of ending instead of a conclusive canon ending because it allows fans to make of it whatever the will), so the fandom taking this silent observer of a character that may or may not even exist and making something of it... It sparks a bit of joy to be able to construct the RK900 from the ground up. We're free to do so because he has no base personality of his own!

Still I've noticed that there's only ever two depictions of the RK900 that the fandom resorts to. Scary Terminator RK900, or Soft Boi RK900 (both of which are either called Richard or Maximilian or just Nines). Most baffling is that everyone ships him with Gavin Reed (which I still don't understand but oh well, ship away my dudes).

Normally this wouldn't be frustrating, but then I've had people request these interpretations of RK900 when I have a completely different view of him.

I love how I've depicted him as a professional and calm person who can be a complete goofy goober at times because his sense of humor is bizarre. He has a bad case of resting bitch face, and this huge admiration for his predecessors that can be akin to hero worship, but is somehow more socially awkward than Connor and tends to go blank when he has to improvise out of duty (a lack of linear protocol freaks him out). Might be mildly autistic like my RK300, but then again I believe the same applies to Connor and Sixty (Autistic RK brothers unite!).

I love my dear Newton, but I feel like there are too many expectations of what the RK900 should be, and that maybe diverging from that might annoy the fandom... A pity considering people have such brilliant ideas with which they're free to experiment with when implementing this android into the equasion.

[neuroqueercrafting]

Hi! I just found this blog now bc of the amazing goose thing you made and i saw that you sell stuff on etsy: I've literally just set up my own etsy shop today selling some embroidered patches among other things, and i was just wondering how much you usually sell yours for/how much time roughly they take to make? Getting real insecure about pricing stuff correctly :// Your embroidery looks great! I've only just started embroidering and it's cool to see other people's stuff for inspo!

Hi there, anon! buckle up for a longer answer than you probably actually want haha because i have a tendency to over-talk whoops

It’s so cool you’ve started up your own shop and are getting into embroidery!! Sewing is such a fun thing to do and as someone who can’t draw/paint/etc. very well at all there’s something really special about embroidery; like, it’s so nice having a creative outlet that i’m able to keep improving at, and sharing it with others makes it even more rewarding!

As to figuring out how much to sell your work for: that is the question, isn’t it. My etsy store has actually been on “vacation” since….gosh, since early May or something. But i intend to start it up again very soon, by the end of November at the latest, and i plan on increasing my prices from what they were before i went on hiatus.

So many of us who sell homemade products tend to underprice, with the worry that if we actually calculate a more “fair” price people will claim it’s way too expensive. The kind of complaint i fear would be something like: “A patch that got mass produced by a machine is 5 bucks; why would i pay 30 bucks for your patch where the text isn’t even perfectly centered?”

i personally sew really slowly, so like, that goose hoop art? took me probably at least 10 hours total, and it’s not even that detailed! So if i were to want to pay myself, say, 8 bucks per hour of work put in + include the price of the hoop and fabric and stuff, i’d have to sell that thing for over $85. …which i doubt anyone would be willing to pay.

@bawdyembroidery​ put it better than i can in this post:

“…Let’s say this whole process took me 10 hours from start to finish… If I charge a minimum of $35 for a piece at this rate, I’m getting paid $3.50 an hour. If I charged per hour at a rate which I think I deserve based on my skill, I would never sell anything because the cost would be astronomical…”

Bawdyembroidery is at a skill level i’ve yet to reach, so if they can’t get customers to buy their stuff at a price high enough for them to be making even minimum wage profit, i have no hope! Alas!

_________

What i’m hoping this conveys to you is that it can be really hard to figure out that somewhat-happy medium between:

charging an amount that’s fair to you based on the time and resources your poured into the piece, and

charging an amount that customers are willing to pay.

Different artists determine different prices for their art, with different reasons behind those prices -- and that’s legitimate! We don’t all have to come to the same conclusions about how we want to price our stuff.

i hope that in reading this you can let go of some of your insecurity about pricing stuff correctly because the thing is, there is no one “correct price” for a handmade piece. It’s about finding a price that works for you, a price that leaves you feeling like your time and skill are being respected while still succeeding in getting you the number of customers you’re hoping to get.

________

i recommend asking other sellers their reasoning behind their prices too so you’re not only getting one viewpoint! But below i’ll talk a little about the reasoning behind my own work’s prices.

Before taking a break from selling, i was selling patches at a roughly “$2 or $3 per hour of work” price. That’s really low. My personal reasoning for keeping the prices low:

my patches aren’t perfect. That’s okay because they’re homemade; they’re not meant to be uniform or pristine! But even with that being true, i’m not at a skill level yet where i’m churning out pieces i’m completely content with very often; if i were charging higher prices i have a feeling i’d end up throwing out any patches i deemed “not good enough” and starting over because “the customer paid so much, i can’t give them this garbage!!” …and then i’d be pouring like 20 hours into a single patch instead of like 3 or 4. So that just would not be sustainable haha. Does that make sense sorta? i think this reason is probably more a me thing than a real legitimate concern aha

my patches are mostly focused around pride in being part of a marginalized group or around solidarity for that group (examples: “protect and celebrate trans women,” “proudly autistic,” “God is queer”). Keeping these patches at a lower price means that as many folks as possible can afford them, which is important to me because i love the idea that i’m giving people a chance to show off pride that not many other products out there give them!

i don’t personally sell my embroidery to survive. the money i make by selling my stuff goes into my “donations + fun” money – it’s money i use to occasionally treat myself and/or donate to people’s gofundmes. i’m not using the money i make on etsy to afford my groceries or gas money, and therefore i can afford to sell at lower prices than other artists might. i know that’s a privilege over the sellers who rely on the money they make to pay rent and the like.

when working on an item someone ordered, i’m usually watching a tv show or listening to a lecture or podcast at the same time. i’m not pouring 100% of my focus into making the item, so i don’t mind earning less per hour than i would working at, say, a restaurant where i wouldn’t be able to watch tv while doing my work.

Again, the above are my personal reasons for how i’ve calculated item prices in the past; you may find some of those reasons also ring true for you, and some don’t. It’s subjective.

And as i mentioned earlier, i plan on raising my prices when i reopen my etsy. i used to sell my work at a price that amounts to roughly $2.50-$3.50 per hour it takes; i plan on seeing whether folks will still buy the patches if i raise that to around $6 per hour of my labor. And if the answer is no, perhaps i’ll lower them again.

After all, your prices don’t have to be set in stone. You can experiment a bit, and tweak the prices over your first couple months based on how much folks seem willing to pay, you know?

Also, you don’t have to explain to the customer what algorithm you used to calculate price! The various patches i sell are not all priced equally -- the ones i kinda get sick of making i’ll price a little higher than the ones i really like making.It’s your art! You get to decide! :)

i’m not sure any of this actually helps you all the much. But what i want to say is that you have a right to set whatever prices seem good to you. You have to weigh various positives and negatives while knowing that unfortunately, in our current culture where most customers don’t realize that handmade stuff does and should cost more than they might expect, you’re probably not going to land on a price that perfectly reflects both how much your work is worth and how much a customer will realistically pay. 

Best of luck to you!

__________

If anyone else who sells their own sewing/knitting/art wants to weigh in, that would be great! I think we all come to different conclusions about how to price our stuff and multiple views are worth hearing.

[bluering8]

TNG S01

I’m done with TNG S01! I’ve gotta watch some other stuff before I launch into S02, so have a quick round-up of my Very Important opinions on various characters/episodes:

Data - I love Data!! Holy shit do I love Data!! He is precious to me and perfect in every way and I want to hollow him out and wear his skin like a suit. That... possibly sounds creepier than I meant? Look, he’s my perfect wish-fulfilment character, okay. He’s earnest and awkward and he never quite Gets It, but he wants to Get It so badly, and he tries so hard, and whenever he talks people are constantly cutting him off partway through because they’ve decided he’s saying too much or saying it wrong, and he sort of... exemplifies what has been my perspective of the Autistic Experience. And despite all that, he has a career he enjoys and friends who care about him and I want to be him so much that it kind of hurts.

Also, Data has feelings. I will fight anyone to the death on this issue, I sincerely can’t see how anyone could look at Data and not come to the conclusion that he has feelings. Data has so many feelings! He might not have feelings the way humans have feelings, but he unmistakably has his own opinions and his own way of relating to the world. It’s heartbreaking that he doesn’t recognise the value of his own experiences in favour of desperately trying to live up to some arbitrary “correct” way of existing.

Deanna Troi - I hate Troi. I do not want to hate Troi, because empaths are way cooler than they usually get credit for, but she’s so fucking annoying. All she ever does is say things which were already completely fucking obvious. She’s a walking violation of show-don’t-tell and every time she opens her mouth I groan because I know whatever she’s about to say is going to ruin my enjoyment of a scene. About the nicest thing I can say about her is that she’s still a better character then Wesley, being merely irritating rather than universe-warpingly terrible.

Jean-Luc Picard - Picard’s such a dad, holy shit. I never noticed this when I watched TNG before, but now I’m picking up on it as, like, the major facet of his personality. I mean, he also drinks Earl Grey and LARPs as a detective and discusses philosophy with aliens, but mostly he’s just Space Dad now and forever. Somehow I also forgot the LARPing as a detective part of his character? Picard’s just a huge fucking nerd isn’t he.

Q - I have very mixed feelings about Q. On the one hand I always love arrogant, capricious, petulant trickster gods, especially when they have Q’s flair for the theatrical, but on the other hand I think when it comes to Q I maybe love him more in concept than in execution? I spend a lot of time thinking about trickster-god entities and how a nigh-omnipotent creature unbound by linear time and the laws of physics might relate to the universe, and Q’s a very mundane example of the character type. On the gripping hand, Q’s super fun and whenever he shows up I know I’m in for a good time. I strongly suspect that if I were a Q I would also spend an obnoxious amount of time trolling Picard. He’s just so delightfully trollable!

Tasha Yar - Yar falls into a lot of tropes which I absolutely hate, but despite that I kind of... love her anyway?? I just don’t get enough masculine female characters to not love them even when they have rape-y backstories and secret desires to be more feminine and Issues feat. their emotional vulnerabilities, I guess. She was kind of frustrating at first because she kept randomly attacking people, but in the later episodes she seemed to mellow out a lot and started acting the way I’d expect of a security chief, ie 101% willing to solve problems with violence but no longer functioning on a hairtrigger. I’m sad that she died, I would’ve loved to see what she could have grown into as the show developed.

Also she was bros with Worf! Somehow I completely forgot about that, but I love it. This is an extra layer of tragedy in her death, Yar&Worf is a delightful friendship and if it’d had space to develop I sincerely believe it could have toppled Data&Geordi as my most beloved Trek brotp. This is what fanfiction is for, I suppose.

Wesley Crusher - I know it’s kind of Trek cliché to loathe Wesley but boy do I ever loathe Wesley!! The funny thing is that I actually liked him for the first two or three episodes: he was a bright and enthusiastic kid who was transparently desperate for Picard to be his father figure (and Picard was transparently disinterested in being his father figure, which is hilarious), but then he was allowed on the bridge despite not being part of Starfleet or even an acting-cadet at the time, and then the action paused in the middle of an episode so Picard could get lectured on how Wesley is the bestest most wonderfulest, and then... you get the point.

I’m not here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters (I mean, that’d be hypocritical as fuck considering my feelings about Data), I’m here to shit on wish-fulfilment characters who are so devoted to wish-fulfilment that they stop functioning adequately as a character. The universe warps itself into a pretzel so that Wesley can be the bestest most wonderfulest and it really really pisses me off.

S01E01E02 Encounter at Farpoint - You know, for a nigh-omnipotent weird space being, Q is amazingly fucking dumb. Like, who agrees to judge people based on a test without realising that if you tell people you’re testing them they’ll go out of their way to be on their best behaviour? You’re not gonna be getting any kind of reliable data here, Q.

S01E07 Lonely Among Us - What the fuck was this episode, I mean seriously. Okay, so we open with two groups of diplomats who super super hate each other and the Enterprise has to transport them to a meeting, so you’d assume that the episode would revolve around dealing with the conflict between the two groups right? Except no, that’s like the d-plot, the a-plot is there’s a weird space thing and the b-plot is Data has a crush on Sherlock Holmes. The c-plot is Wesley does his homework. And then the episode ends with the news that one group of diplomats has cooked and eaten a member of the other group and Picard’s like “lmao I don’t give a shit, Riker you deal with this I’m gonna go take a nap.” What the fuck, basically.

In other news, spacefuture meat is all cruelty-free synthesised magic apparently. I wonder if vegetarians still exist? Other than vulcans, I guess. I don’t know enough about the philosophy behind not shoving delicious chunks of animal corpse into your face to work out the answer here.

S01E08 Justice - I talked about this episode already and honestly that’s all you really need to know. People try to talk to Picard about Wesley’s impending death and Picard immediately changes the topic to talking about the weird space thing, rinse and repeat.

Anyway I was recently reading about a guy who was transporting prisoners when some of the prisoners escaped. The punishment for letting prisoners escape was death, so he released the rest of the prisoners then ran off to be an outlaw because it wasn’t like they could kill him any more then they were already going to. Then he became Emperor! Anyway the moral of the story is that Light Yagami is a moron escalating punishments are important and if someone knows you’re gonna kill them for something they did then they have basically no reason not to go and do a bunch of other crimes also.

S01E10 Hide and Q - Hey, quick quiz: you encounter a nigh-omnipotent entity who has previously mocked your species for being savage and violent. Said entity dumps you on a planet with a bunch of weird monsters. Do you: a) attempt to communicate with these monsters in the hopes of reaching a peaceful solution, or b) savagely resort to violence by shooting them with your space guns? If you picked option b, then congratulations! You are the crew of the Enterprise. This technically wasn’t the point of the episode, but come on! Step up your mind-game game, Q.

Also Picard yells at Q for constantly changing his costume and it’s like, Picard, dude, you’re aware the thing you’re yelling at isn’t actually Q? Q isn’t a human with superpowers, he’s an incomprehensible entity who occasionally puppets around a meatsack so you can have something convenient to yell at. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from Greek mythology and also Lovecraft, it’s that you super super do not want to see the incomprehensible entity’s true form.

S01E13 Datalore - I LOVE DATA AND I LOVE HIS HORRIBLE BROTHER!! but also, fuck Wesley. I hate Wesley. He’s immediately suspicious of Lore-as-Data purely on the basis of he sees “Data” doing Lore’s facial tic despite the fact that at the beginning of the episode he walked in on Data attempting to mimic sneezing, and despite the fact that there are several other characters with much better reasons to find Lore-as-Data suspicious.

Actually, you know what my dream rewrite for this episode would be? Someone becoming suspicious of Lore-as-Data, not because they think he’s Lore, but because they think he’s Data. The crew had previously been discussing whether or not they could trust Data now that he’d found links outside of Starfleet, so having that issue play out onscreen would’ve been fantastic. (Especially if it influenced their behaviour towards Data and Lore tried to take advantage of that as a “your friends are dicks, betray them and join me” kind of thing. I’m Here(tm) 24/7 for manipulation and corruption, my dude.)

S01E17 When the Bough Breaks - You know, this entire episode could’ve been solved with cloning. I mean actually it couldn’t, but the problem they thought they were having could’ve been solved with cloning. Ask the Enterprise for some unfucked genetic material and you can make your own kids! As many kids as you want!! More than six kids because seriously I don’t know what you were expecting to achieve with that, that’s not enough people to keep your planet alive.

S01E19 Coming of Age - This episode is an excellent example of What’s Wrong With Wesley. Wesley does an exam, and he loses some points in order to help another person with the exam, and at the end he’s told the other person passed but he didn’t, and the other person’s like “oh but that only happened because Wesley lost points by helping me!!”, because Wesley is so bestest most wonderfulest that the only reason he fails is because he sacrificed himself to help someone else to succeed. There’s a vague attempt at suggesting “oh, but there were other reasons Wesley failed!!” but like, fuck you, you don’t get to show me nothing but Wesley succeeding and then attempt to salvage this mess by telling me there were other factors at play, especially not when there’s so much attention devoted to Wesley helping the other person.

S01E22 Symbiosis - Everyone spends this episode focusing on the wrong thing. See, the Brekkians are selling medicine to the Ornarans, except actually it’s not medicine it’s addictive drugs, and this is bad because... drugs are bad? Don’t do drugs kids!! Why are you all focusing on the part where there are drugs and not the part where the Brekkians are lying shitbags taking relentless advantage of the Ornarans so that they can live like parasite kings in a capitalist hellscape castle?

“Golly gosh I sure can’t understand why anyone would voluntarily become dependent on a drug!!” says FUCKING WESLEY, THE WORST CHARACTER, completely missing the part where the drug actually is medicine and the Ornarans are entirely unaware that they no longer have the plague the drug is medicine for and thus believe that they have literally no other choice than to take the drug if they want to live. There is nothing “voluntary” about this at all, Wesley you absolute fuckwad!! Somebody shove this kid into a locker already.

S01E23 Skin of Evil - There are no pockets in Starfleet uniforms so everyone spends this episode wandering around with stuff awkwardly glued to their sides and it’s terrible and hilarious. I’m pretty sure this is true of other episodes but this is the one where I found it really really noticeable and couldn’t stop laughing.

...this episode was just obnoxiously funny in general actually, Goo Man is trying so hard to be super evil and scary and grimdark but nobody really gives a fuck about it, he’s more just like majorly inconvenient and kind of irritating than he is actually threatening at any point. “You don’t understand! I don’t serve evil, I am evil!!” the Goo Man wails. Picard categorically does not give any kind of a shit in response.

tl;dr: Data is precious and perfect and every time he’s onscreen I start weeping. YOU’RE DOING GREAT, DATA! I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!!

[autisticadventurer]

Compassion

It is inevitable that new insights are gained through growth and experiences. When I wrote my commentary on the Tao Te Ching earlier this year, I was working with what I already knew and have learned more since. As it becomes harder and harder to verbalize what I want to say, I think there is also some degree of greater importance to share some of these simple ideas that get swept under the rug because of people’s spiritual allergies. 

A brief summary... - Our Animistic ancestors had it right in the knowledge that the physical and spiritual experiences are one in the same. There is this idea that you must be in possession of some knowledge or reach a certain level of growth in order for your life to take on a spiritual flavor. As long as you are growing, your life already has a spiritual flavor. To borrow a metaphor, you are a river and as long as you keep flowing, you will inevitably reach the ocean. If you stop flowing, you’ll just make mud. Those who have stopped growing, or flowing, have discontinued their growth process and are living as if dead.  - There is no better or worse way to find the ocean. The only reason I haven’t done a project on, “The Spiritual Value of Christianity,” is because so many people are allergic to Christianity due to the traumatic experiences they have had. However, there is value to be found in all the Mythos of the world.  - Asking questions, digging for answers, reading, seeking, and speaking about various topics is good for growth. On the other hand, fashioning a kind of new religion in place of the old ones is just trading dogma for dogma and doesn’t really help you. It is more important to practice mindfulness than it is to create a hollow set of “Rules for Living.”

So what is Compassion and why does it matter? Compassion is the desire for all people to live well. Not just yourself, your own family, your own countrymen, etc... All people. In fact, I believe that the truly compassionate person desires for all living things to live well. You could call me a hypocrite because I am not a total vegetarian but I also think it’s a logical fallacy based on poor understanding of biological systems that dictates that an omnivore must give up all meat in order to meet a spiritual standard. I feel the same way about sex, incidentally, unless you are naturally asexual but that should probably go without saying. 

In most cases, it is more important to know how to use compassion than to know what it is. (It’s one thing to know what a hammer is and another to know how to swing it.) Often times in our lives, we meet and interact with people who may not understand parts of ourselves or our lives that we consider to be very important. They may be stuck in ignorance, unwilling to learn, understand, or accept certain things. 

Many of us are recovering from the holidays right now. In fact, the Autism Women’s Network just shared a piece about this; how many of us wish the holiday season could be more routine, lesser in size, and with less expectation. Personally, I had to decline to attend Christmas dinner because was already in recovery mode by the time it came. We had been to more than one party, and I had knocked my head the night before so on top of it all, I’m having some mild concussion symptoms that are taking some time to go away. 

While my boyfriend’s family knows that I have a neurological condition, I hadn’t yet disclosed to them that it is Autism. I asked him to let them know specifically that I am Autistic and needed to stay home because I was struggling with my health. I also ended up missing some work this week and happen to work for his mom. For whatever reason, this has turned into a huge issue. She has asked me multiple times if I want to quit. I have tried explaining that I am having health issues. I believe that what is happening here is that his family does not understand what Autism is, and instead of seeing that I am having a health issue, has decided that I declined to come to Christmas and work for some other reason. 

I have a few options. I could quit my job but I don’t want to. But after all this misunderstanding, it does make it very uncomfortable to be at work, especially since I was unable to talk much... another social “offense.” So my only real option is to employ compassion. They are the general public to me, nothing special about their insight or research abilities. They have already made up their minds about who I am and why I do the things I do because that is who they are and that is why they would do what I am doing. And because nearly everyone projects in this way, we can only assume that this behavior is part of the human condition, and therefore not wrong, even if their conclusions are incorrect. That’s where compassion comes in. I can see who they are by what they think I am. I am guessing that there is some of the acceptance process going on here in the form of, “my son/grandson is dating an autistic woman,” and they don’t know how to handle that. Again, they have no idea what Autism is. I could be offended, or I could employ the desire for them to be well... well peaceful, well happy, well healthy, well educated, etc. But it is not my job to bang my head into a brick wall if the first three explanations are going through. 

My first job is always to manage my wellness first and having a job is part of my wellness, though I promise the reader that I will remain mindful about the unfolding of the situation and if it becomes abusive, I will make my exit at the proper time. My second job is to help those already growing and flowing to manage their wellness because this is something that I enjoy doing. This is my obsession, my special interest, my affinity, the thing that I study and think about and talk about endlessly. As for those who are already dead, #everythingisfinalfantasy (my other affinity) and there’s magic that can be used to revive those who want to keep growing. 

[just-shaladin-things]

I dont understand why “reaching” is supposed to be a bad thing in fandom now? in my prior experience, things that are now considered reach and unrealistic used to just be what fandom was made of. Like every character analysis, meta, theory, and ship is reaching until/if it becomes canon. And I mean the whole point of fandom is to reach past canon right! If canon was all that mattered we wouldn’t have fics and headcanon and fan theories. So why is digging deep into subtext or w/e bad now? (1/2)

It just seems like people get so self righteous that if someone’s fan theory or meta is proven wrong by canon, they treat that person like shit. Like I guess example would be if you ship like shay//ura and instead hun@y happens, people would say shay//ura was teaching any time they posted any thoughts or character analysis. Like it’s ok for your theory to be wrong. It’s fun to theorize and imagine which way the story could go even if it doesn’t. That’s half the fun (2/2)

how i see it is that there are three types of “reaching” which are canon-based, overanalysis, and crack. the first has merit in canon and is actually plausible, even though it’s not confirmed (like trans pidge and autistic keith). the second is where you pick up on something in canon and then spin it into something that’s really, really far from what’s happening in canon (like seeing ke!th and sh!ro hug and calling it romantic). the third is intentionally overanalyzing for a joke

but i feel like all three of these are put on the same level and then given the label “reaching” like it’s something bad. and like honestly? unless your “reaching” is harmful in some way then like... let people have their fun? idk there’s nothing wrong with any of those three types i listed unless your conclusions are harmful (like sha/adin being canon or whatever)