Imperator Kahlo

Meanwhile other neurodivergents are like

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (dev. Sandfall Interactive)

2. Yeah, of course your rough draft sucks. It’s supposed to. --> Let it suck. --> You can fix it in edits. 

3. When you’re stressed you aren’t unbiased about your work. --> Don’t judge your work while your are actively working on it. --> Remember to drink water, take your meds/vitamins, eat something, and get sleep. --> Double-check to make sure the restless creative energy is not displaced emotional worries over something else. If it is, displace with intention and let the worries go into your work. You shouldn’t keep stress in your head, put it on a page, or canvas, or in a carving, or a meal, or something. Get it out and let it go.

4. No work is ever wasted. --> All time spent planning and creating is useful in some way.  --> Failure means you tried, which is good. --> Try again. Fail harder. Fail better. --> Keep going until you like what you’re making.

"if you can't cite your sources is it really a special interest?"

yes. "special interest" does not mean the same thing as "expert" or even "knowledgeable". it refers to a certain type of emotional relationship an autistic person has to a subject area (e.g. can't stop thinking about the thing, is emotionally soothed by the thing, etc). many autistic people may struggle to remember facts and figures for any number of reasons, but may still experience a special interest. honestly, these kinds of misinformation about what a special interest even is feels like a reinforcement of the savant stereotype, and I really do not like that

"who is this post even aimed at?"

this post is about two related phenomena I have seen both in online and offline spaces:

someone is asked for a source for a piece of information -> "source? it's my special interest". this is unhelpful because it does not provide any additional information, and is also a really easy way for misinformation to spread

autistic people saying things like "I don't really have any special interests because I don't really know anything". this is sad to me, because it is a sign that people are denying themselves the joy of a special interest just because they'll never have encyclopaedic information about the topic. your special interest is still special even if it isn't expertise

"what if I use my special interest as motivation to become an expert (i.e. receive xyz qualification)?"

well now you are an expert! congratulations! this should also provide you with enough information to know that "it's my special interest" is not the same as a citation. however you should also be aware that not all autistic people will become experts in their special interests, and you should not hold them to that standard

In The Expanse, 2x10, “Cascade”, the botanist Prax describes human settlement on Ganymede: “The station's dead already; they just don't know it yet.”

The ecology and environment on Ganymede is a simple-complex system: created by people and therefore simple, incapable of the sort of resilience displayed by natural ecological systems. But also complex, far too complex for its human inhabitants to properly predict which parts might fail, or when, or how to prevent them. System errors can cascade, catastrophically, before anyone even knows there’s a problem.

I like this as a metaphor for my own AuDHD experience.

The human body-mind is an incredibly complex and surprisingly resilient system, but all the little hacks and routines and coping strategies we scaffold it with? Rickety, fallible things. You can mask neurodivergence; you can find high-stress environments that oblige you to perform at top capacity; you can keep on keeping the fuck on… for a while.

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And that feels so strange to me, because it completely goes against her character arc.

Buffy is afraid of opening her heart to people. Back in s4, she even talks to her mom about how it would be easier not to open up at all—just to avoid the pain.

Open your heart to someone, and he bails on you. Maybe it's easier to just not let anyone in. ("Fear Itself")

Because in the end, everyone leaves Buffy. To the people around her, she’s just a phase in their lives, not someone who stays part of it—and that hurts her deeply. So deeply that she ends up building armor around her heart and stops throwing words around carelessly.

But then something terrible happens—Joyce dies. And after going through the loss of the person dearest to her, Buffy realizes she never said those three little words to her mom.

And I loved her more than anything, and... I don't know if she knew. ("Intervention")

For her, the words “I love you” are the hardest thing to say. She forgot how to express what she really feels—and now it’s too late.

Maybe being the perfect slayer means being too hard to love at all. I already feel like I can hardly say the words. [...] Giles... I love you. Love, love, love, love, love.. ("Intervention")

And then comes the ending of s7. Buffy knows Spike is about to disappear—just like her mom did. But this time, she has the chance to speak—and she takes it.

I love you. ("Chosen")

To me, this isn’t just a moment of realizing her feelings for Spike and reconnecting with her inner fire.

It’s one of the moments she was able to open her heart again and honestly say how she feels out loud. The moment her love was stronger than the fear of what might happen if she says about it directly.

The fact that Spike didn’t believe her—that’s his reaction, shaped by his own experience throughout the show. But the fact is—now he knows how she feels. Because Buffy didn’t hint at it—she said it outright.