#this is deeply personal

[becoming-with]

My biggest problem with the concept of autism is that it's ontologically dehumanising, and that it normalises behaviours that are harmful from a social perspective. It makes sense that under neoliberalism with little infrastructure to deal with problems at the broader social and material levels that they are instantiated in, the methodology of treating autism as an individually-situated "mental health condition" (or I suppose as a way-of-being in the best manifestation of this approach, though I challenge that this is ever how it is being truly conceptualised and suppported as) is a popular and maybe the only *immediate* way to respond in any sort of supportive manner.

But, as someone who's struggled deeply with other people my whole life and has always had a host of complicated behaviour that has been pegged as typically or potentially auitistic since being very young, I just cannot accept that the phenomena that produces this behaviour in individuals can be reduced to a label like this. The idea that an individual subject 1. exists and 2. can be socially defective is a distortion inherent to the illness of the colonial technofascism of modern day liberalism. Systems of thought that seek to categorise beings and assign value to them in regards to how well they support said system is a broken epistemology, and many people believe this already on the left but at the same time will still choose to deploy, or even self identify with the labels produced by this system, other examples being concepts like "Clinical Depression" or "Anxiety Disorders". Of course, people exhibit the emotional states of depression and anxiety, but can we really honestly say that these states are causally limited to their individual subject? Why would someone NOT be depressed and anxious about the conditions they find themselves in? I don't think I need to repeat the basic premise of the anti-psych response to the concept of mental illness that folks like Mark Fisher and many others like Foucault and D&G etc. have explored at length, but I think if you are looking at this world with any degree of honesty and criticism you'll find it hard to say that it is full of negative stimuli, and that it is rational to respond to this negative stimuli with worry and despair. The ruling powers that want to preserve these terrible power structures built these modes of categorisation and we have to see outside of them.

When you think about what composes autism, often understood as a failure to socially develop or an attachment to behaviours that are not aligned with the greater social body, might it not occur to think about what social conditions would create this state in an individual?

idk, I never intended to write an essay here but I'd just like anyone who identifies with the concept of autism or is happy applying that label without nuance to others to think about the experiencing subject as being in a world and not a self, in a personal history, an intergenerational history, a socio-political history. When we use the word trauma, and we study the causes of trauma we discover a spider web of causal relations, and these complex causes have extremely complex effects. It's kind of hard to create individual examples, these things are so expansive and interrelated, but I'll maybe try sum up a simple equation to start to poke at all this in a more complex and material manner:

What happens when someone experiences social and material deprivation from a young age, what happens when a person is raised by someone who was raised by someone who was raised by someone who was raised in social material deprivation? When for hundreds and hundreds of years each parents generation has had a fundamental aspect of human social organisation increasingly torn from them (and more recently being torn from the world itself as another supportive body of resources both material and social!) What happens when a person grows up with their behaviour constantly being repressed, cut off from wholistic interpersonal support (think parents working for much of their children's day, and then the rigid and authoritative social structure of the school)?

You might want to say that many seem to adapt to this lifestyle in this world well enough and end up well-adjusted, but is that true at all? It absolutely fucking isn't. Again, I think the real state of the society we developed in is increasingly revealed to newer generations, and we have a responsibility to interrogate all of it and not just what makes us comfortable. The people who are well adapted to this world are practicing mental gymnastics, or worse are knowingly dominating others and shutting their feelings off to participate in the competition with others and destruction of everythign around them. The world we're in is the disease and pathologising the reactions of those sensitive to it has got the causal analysis upside down.

The incredibly varied and inexplicably grouped concept of autism, or "neurotypicality" by those who have accepted the narrative of politically reformed psychiatry is just a natural reaction to the intellectual and sense experience of this society. It is multifaceted and inconsistent because the deprivations are broad, many and complex, and "treating" the "symptoms" is only possible by designing society differently.

[dirtyeyedgirl1]

Reita brings so many good memories. The Gazette concert in London, meeting the band accidentally after the show when they were leaving in the car, Reita without the noseband, Ruki's handshake... All those posters on my wall, all those magazines bought from Japan, crazy adventures and wonderful people. Reita being my solid rock when life was difficult. I owe so much to him, to the whole band, such a huge part of my twenties. Such a loss, such a tragedy.

Ride with the rockers, wherever you are ~

[mirananananan]

aldi girlies when they find out an item they became reliant on for sustenance was seasonal…..and the season is changing……..

[evidently-endless]

i think we should remind musicians they can absolutely make up little stories for their songs btw. it doesn’t have to be about them at all. you can invent a guy and put him in situations to music. time honoured tradition in fact.

[jesncin]

"Today. Tomorrow." a Superman fan comic about Clark Kent, Lois Lane and relationships.

We wanted to tackle one of the trickiest parts of Superman mythos; and that's the entangled romance between Clark Kent, Lana Lang, Lois Lane and Superman. Often times these more mundane parts of Superman get pushed to the side, when they can give so much insight into the characters and what they're seeking from each other.

[ruushes]

no one's ever done it like them (derogatory)

[josephsaturn]

I think that “Anakin was a slave child who was groomed by Palpatine and raised by someone who wasn’t ready to take on a child, thereby leaving him in a social limbo state where he’s surrounded by people but only has a few close confidants, with the one he trusts the most actively trying to take advantage of him”

and

“Anakin was taught right from wrong from a young age, first by his mother and then by Kenobi, but any time he was presented with a choice, actively CHOSE WRONG EVERY SINGLE TIME”

are two sentences that can, should, and MUST coexist to fully understand Anakin Skywalker as a character

Edit: PART 2 of this post here

[glindyke]

THAT'S COOL THAT'S FINE I'M NORMAL ABOUT THAT

[opens-up-4-nobody]

The 1st time I watched all of tos Turnabout Intruder was my favorite episode. Despite the pretty intense sexism and crazy shatner acting, I just find the idea really compelling.

[greykolla-art]

💕Can you even CONCEIVE how much I suddenly love them???💕

I think they were strolling around town after having a drink together. And that ends in a little cuddle!😂💕💕💕

Dialogue from The Aristocats, of course.💗💗💗

[horrorcitos]

Light, shadow, and reflection in the heat wave

[otaku553]

Cooking up something reaaaalllyyy silly right now

Uhhhh cookie run kingdom tgcf au with pure vanilla as xie lian and shadow milk as jun wu. Do you see the vision

[queenerdloser]

that mark (very recently!) was so fucking pissed about helena using the wrong name for gemma that he went to immediately do experimental brain surgery as a giant fuck you and then DIDN'T anticipate his innie self getting pissed when he got helly's name wrong really underlines how much mark doesn't think his innie loves helly and also doesn't consider his innie to actually be him at all.

[ratbaby15]

You know what fucks me up the most (among so many other things) about people saying anakin created balance by destroying both the jedi and the sith is that the movie where he brings balance to the force is literally called return of the jedi. The movie where balance is restored is the movie where the JEDI return. the movie where JEDI KNIGHT luke skywalker brings his father back to the light is called return of the fucking jedi. DONT piss me off.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Hear me out, Michael would think Roxy is SICK AF