#or that I might have gotten some info about autism incorrect

[purplemninja]

how do you feel about the autistic six headcannon?

Yay! My first ask! Thank you for sending me a question!

As for your question:

I'm not too sure how to feel about the headcanon of Six being autistic, and I don't believe that she's autistic, but a part of me feels like the autistic Six headcanon is a tad bit overused.

Everyone is entitled to their own headcanons, I just find this one being used a bit too often. I remember seeing a post about how Six may have some aversion to sound (which ties into her being autistic) and they used the scene from the 2017 comics when the Ferryman and Guests point at Six and she clutches her pain and grits her teeth. They say that there's a lot of sound going on in that scene, which is why Six curls down in distress, but I disagree because there aren't any visual clues that there's a lot of noise, like comics would draw lines to visually show loud sound, but there isn't any.

And speaking of that scene, from my old post called "Six suffers from 2 types of trauma, not just 1" (where most of what I said in it honestly still holds up 2 years later) I personally believe that one of Six's biggest fears is being kidnapped. I counted that throughout the entire LN series, Six got kidnapped a total of at least 5 times (6 if the 2017 comics are canon. I even made a meme about it some time ago).

First being when she got taken to the Nest (given that she hides in places where the inhabitants of the house wouldn't be able to find her or get, and she wanted to escape, I'm pretty sure she wasn't there at will).

Second time was by the Hunter, third was by the Bullies, fourth time by Thin Man, fifth time by the Ferryman (if the 2017 comics are canon) and sixth time by Roger (if the 2017 comics are not canon, then it's the fifth time instead. I initially didn't count that instance as a kidnapping, but when @haemosexuality counted it as Six being kidnapped, I counted it too).

I'm sure you've heard of the belief that Six suffers from Survivor's Guilt and PTSD, I firmly believe it too, especially when Six shows practically all of the textbook symptoms. I'm not sure if Six does have amnesia or not, but given that she was kidnapped 4 times by the time she encounters the Ferryman, I believe that she clutches her head, grits her teeth and curls down because she can already see that she's about to be kidnapped again, something that she's already heavily traumatised from.

I don't think that that scene has anything to do with sound. In LN1, when you have to push a cart over a pipe that has steam leaking out if it, if you get Six close enough to the steam (but not close enough for it to kill her), she'll cover her ears, same with when Mono walks on the keys of the piano after he and Six stomp it through the floor. But I don't think this is specifically because of autism, I'm pretty sure it's simply because of loud or awful sounds. Like if someone plays an instrument and they play it terribly, you'd want to stop listening to it, and I don't think anyone really likes listening to loud noise like steam leaking out of a pipe.

I had an aversion to loud sounds when I was a kid, such as fireworks, dogs barking and balloons popping. I got used to fireworks when I was around 9 years old (bit ironic since Six is 9), I don't know when I got over the loudness of dog barks, but it was somewhere in my teens (and our dog, who was a greyhound, definitely helped (greyhounds very rarely bark)), I can handle balloons popping better now, but I still prefer to avoid balloons. I'm not autistic, and not liking loud or certain sounds isn't an autism-exclusive trait.

I don't understand fully how autism works, I just know about getting upset over certain sounds, patterns or norms being changed suddenly, and difficulties with certain social interactions, but I don't think you need to be autistic to have some these traits. And I don't think Six really has any of these traits either.

TL;DR: I don't think Six has autism but people are free to headcanon her as being autistic, I just think it, and the headcanon of her being neurodivergent (not sure if it's the same thing or not), are a bit overused :/ (please don't kill me).

[tinyhatonapumpkin]

Hey, I saw your post about how non autistic people aren't accommodating to autistic people and was wondering if you had any recommendations of how to be more accommodating? I'm not NT but I don't have autism and I'm not sure what kinds of things would be helpful when interacting with someone with autism.

(Sorry if this is a really late response my internet has been abysmal for the past..... WHILE)

-Make sure that you don’t assume meaning from our actions. That’s one of our biggest frustrations. Allistic people often read into our actions, words, body language, etc. and then make incorrect assumptions. Remember, we’re not allistic, our brains work different, we think different, so the reason WE do something may be very different from the reason an allistic person does something.

- By extension: say what you mean and mean what you say. There are so many times that people get mad at me, say I’m being a little shit or purposefully obtuse, etc. just because... I didn’t get what they were insinuating. Or I didn’t read between the lines, or whatever. Hell it’s gotten to the point that I often over read into what allistics say, because goddamn. You people can’t just be direct. So in an attempt to accommodate, I end up accidentally reading into things that aren’t meant to be read into, or over reading into things, or even just getting the wrong meaning because I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. Just... talk to us. Don’t hint. Especially don’t get annoyed if we don’t catch what you’re saying.

- Kinda on the same vein, but: If an autistic person doesn’t understand something, even if you think it obvious, don’t ridicule them for it, just explain it. Things that come naturally to you don’t come naturally to us. Our mental skills are elsewhere. Also it’s usually social stuff or figures of speech we don ’t understand, and i mean... that stuff is bullshit anyway. (This isn’t just social and communication btw, this could even be just how to do a task.)

-Speaking of which: don’t force autistic people to conform to your social standards. Don’t force us to make eye contact. Don’t tell us not to stim. Don’t get mad at us for repeating something or scripting.

-If we communicate in a nonverbal way, don’t tell us to “use [our] words!” (ex: pointing and gesturing to something we want passed to us at the table, a hand on your shoulder when we’re trying to get past you, etc.) Because even if we may not be nonverbal at the time, we might be overwhelmed, and so talking uses a lot of energy. Or we just might be very distracted and plain forget to speak. Getting angry at us will only stress us out more, which will only exacerbate the problem.

-Speaking of nonverbal: if someone needs to communicate using an alternative communication method, like writing, typing, AAC, etc. GIVE THEM TIME TO WRITE THEIR RESPONSE. I can’t tell you how many people will just get annoyed and move on, stop talking to me, try (and fail) to guess what I’m trying to say, etc. It’s more frustrating than the inability to use my mouth to talk in the first place. This can also go for people who stutter and/or stammer. Which often happens to autistics too. Just give us time to communicate however we can.

-Don’t spring things on autistics. Plan things in advance, and if they are asking for lots of info about what you’re going to be doing, don’t get annoyed. Shit is stressful for us, so knowing a lot about it can help ease the anxiety and stress. The more we know the better we can prepare. Because the world isn’t made for us, so we have to do a lot to fit into it. But if we know nothing about the situation, we can’t know what we need to do for it. Not to mention we often need accessibility items, so it’s important to know what’s going on so we know what to bring.

-If the autistic person needs things done a certain way, let them have it done that way. It is extremely stressful if one of our constants in our lives is disrupted. Also we have things done in the way we do them for a reason. Whether it be to fight decision fatigue by having routines and sameness, or just doing things a certain way because it makes our homes, clothes, LIFE more sensory friendly, just... let us have our things be the way we need them. Hell even shit like sitting in the same seat every meeting let’s say: it’s easier to focus on the meeting when your SPD isn’t having to process all sorts of new information because you’re seeing the room from a different perspective.

-Don’t judge us in any way for our “weird” behaviours. So this includes “weird” expressions, body language, habits (chewing, sucking, stimming, etc.), body movements, speech, etc. And by judge I mean commenting, funny looks, reactions, etc. Just act like it’s totally normal, because to us? It kinda is.

-Small talk.... just... ugh. So something that happens a lot that I HATE is that allistic people will disrupt my work to just... chat. About fucking nothing. I’ll be doing something and then they’ll just come up to me and be all like “Whatcha doing?” “...working.” “Whatcha working on?” “I’m typing up the minutes.” “...” “...” “So how was your weekend?” etc. Drives me up the wall. You could clearly see I was in the middle of something. If you don’t have anything you actually need from me? Leave me be. I’ll chat later when I’m not busy!! (If you’re not sure, just ask if the person is busy/up for chatting.)

-Don’t be overly condemning/abrasive when informing us that something we’re doing/said/etc. is inappropriate, offensive, rude, etc. Now this part may seem like I’m contradicting the whole “don’t hold us up to your social standards” thing, but being autistic isn’t a get out of jail free card. If we are doing or saying something shitty, it still needs to be addressed. However we may not realize the impact of it. This could be because it’s not a big deal to us and we don’t realize that it is for others, or just because in an attempt to fit in, we mimicked those around us... and those around us weren’t the best people.

For example: I have dermotilliomania. So I can’t stand it whenever there’s a zit on my face, ESPECIALLY a white head. I’d pop that sucker as soon as I saw it. But I didn’t realize that this was more of my own experience, so in my teens, whenever I’d notice one on my sister’s face, I’d point it out. I wasn’t trying to go all “haha you have acne” I was more going “Oh no you have a Bad Thing on your face, you probably want to get rid of it!!” Kinda like when you tell someone that they have something in their teeth or a bit of sauce on their chin. Unfortunately though, she was allistic and did not have dermotiliomania, so to her I was just constantly pointing out something that she was insecure about. So it actually caused a lot of self image problems for her. I didn’t learn the full impact of it until years later.

So in that example, a good thing to do would be to explain: “I really don’t like it when you point out my acne, because you pointing it out all the time makes me really insecure.”

Using myself for an example again: I was raised in a white Conservative Catholic family. So I didn’t understand the allistic world, and the only people I had to base my understanding OF that world were..... well not great. So I had to spend a lot of time unlearning stuff. I’m not trying to excuse anything I did or said that was offensive, but I just feel like pointing out something.

Here’s how intense it can be: my family LOVED making “r*tard jokes”, which were actually autism jokes looking back. I made them along with them, even though I did all the behaviours they were mocking (but in secret). Hell I even threw around the r word in casual conversation, because that’s what I was used to hearing, and what I thought was normal.  I had a good friend begin my education about that stuff, so by the time I found out that I’m autistic, I had already dropped all the jokes and language... and started realizing how terrible they were because they were making fun of me in a way. (I even remember hearing things like “why are you acting like such a r*tard?” and then trying to hide it by acting like I was just doing more of the mocking.)

Now the latter half of this section (or even this section in general) may just seem like good advice in general. But it’s particularly relevant for autistic people, because we often end up with more rude behaviours, and more easily adopt offensive crap... and find it harder to lose because scripts and echolalia and whatnot. So if they continue after you address them, just point it out each time they do it, but in a gentle reminding way, because they probably just are falling back on old scripts, forgot themselves for a moment because of everything else going on, etc. It’ll take some time, but it’ll happen. 

Ok so idk if I went overboard or not, but.... here are some things anyway!! 

(And hell this might just be a good list, so feel free to reblog it anyone reading if you’re just stumbling upon it or whatever.)