A peek into my mind

What I mean by it is that one conversation doesn’t tell the whole story about her and her attitude can be changing, as well. It reminds me of the quote: “I am large, I contain multitudes” by Walt Whitman. 

The article uses proper terminology and actually defines stimming, masking, and many other words that neurotypical people may or may not know (re autism)

The data that the article is based off of includes first hand accounts from autistic people who have gone through ABA. The researchers even used ASAN (autism self advocacy) as a resource! Actual autistic people shared their stories!!! And they believed us!!!!!

It explains WHY autistic people have a hard time with ABA, which is incredible. Not just the fact that it's akin to training a dog, but the psychology of it, and how it's overstimulating and degrading

There's a part that does quote from Auti$m $peaks spokespeople, BUT it's because they're leading into how neurotypical parents see ABA most often as a "saving grace" to get a "normal child" and then goes on to tell more about how autistic children perceive ABA, both during and after treatment

One family's story tells of how a mother noticed her autistic son would actually hide when she went to turn the computer on for ABA therapy (this was during COVID lockdown) and how she realized something was off because of that. She canceled ABA and found an alternative (called Floor Time) where the child actually directs the play, and the therapist/teacher goes along with what the kid wants/does!

There's a really cool bit on why ABA is usually the only thing available to parents, and the answer is Shitty American Healthcare/Insurance Companies!

It notes that ABA therapists don't really have strict training requirements. You can do a quick online course and become an ABA therapist. It does not require a college degree. That should horrify you.

There's another parallel study with its own data coming out in 2025

Honestly, this whole article is a gem. Remember, while "water is wet" studies seem trivial, we need them in order to get our side of the story taken seriously. Research with credible data that backs up what we've been saying is important!

TL; DR?

Welcome to Whumptober 2025 — The Eighth Year!

WHUMPTOBER is a month-long, prompt-based creation CHALLENGE (think: Inktober, but whumpier). There are four prompts for each day of the month, giving 124 for you to play with! There is also a list of 18 alternative prompts that can be subbed in for any day to give participants as much creative freedom as possible.

All prompts are meant to serve as inspiration without being taken literally (e.g. you don’t have to include the exact wording of prompts into your work). Feel free to run rampant on interpretation. For example, if the prompt is “flame", you could create something with reference to a candle/campfire, your character could have suffered a burn, or the flame could be a reference to an ‘old flame’ - an old relationship. It’s truly down to you!

You can produce work in any media you choose, including but not limited to: writing, visual artwork, photo/video/audio edits, paper crafts and elaborate recommendation lists (not just a list of links). You can participate as much or as little as you want (i.e. you don’t have to do ALL the prompts if you don’t want to) and prompts can be used in any order. They are also free to use even after the event ends.

Please make sure to read the Event Info and FAQ carefully, as most of your questions will be answered there already. For everything else, you are welcome to come to our ask box or ask questions in our Discord server here.

Information on how to TAG is here.

This year’s AO3 Collection can be found here.

This year’s playlist can be found here.

The ‘Anatomy of a Whumptober Prompt’ post can be found here.

And our 'Resources for Writing Sensitive Topics’ post is here.

We’re very excited to see the community come together for yet another year of Whumptober! Go ham with the prompts, and support your fellow creators - we wish you all the best of luck, but most importantly: HAVE FUN!

Happy whumping,

Mods Vanne, Yenn, Kitty and Surro

Text versions of the prompts, including a google doc format, are posted below the cut!

Full video https://www.tiktok.com/@chlo.in.the.dark_/video/7524962386667654430

Original by @unoriginal_sins

America is sooo fucked!

but have you commented on an existing fic today? have you left guest kudos today on that fic you've already kudos-ed before but can't stop coming back to? have you shared a writer's post today?

Written by @elsodex and illustrated by me!

So, this took root 1 day to write, me 100 hours to draw and you 10 seconds to read (spend a little longer plz?)

Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Anon ostensibly wants to know: "Do authors realize that they're writing about things that some people might find disturbing, horrific, upsetting, repulsive, or simply just TMI?" (Yes, obviously they know. Authors are not stupid; that's usually a requirement of the job (not always. But usually).)

But what Anon is actually asking is, "Why don't authors stop themselves from doing a Bad Thing? Why doesn't anyone else stop them?" The assumption underlying that question is: "Surely if they realized that they were doing something disgusting, they would stop immediately." Even more covertly implied: "I think writing about certain things automatically taints you with moral degeneracy--that is, it marks you as a possible or potential criminal."

To that I say: My friend, writing is just thoughts copied onto paper, and thinking is not a crime. Only actual actions can be crimes. What does it matter what other people think about? Literally so what? Why do you want people to be stopped from thinking about those things ("did their editors ever gently ask them...")? Why do you care? Do you feel that an author should provide a list of justifications and excuses before it's permissible for them to write about something? Why? And who do you think should be in charge of that? The government???? YOU???????

To any person reading this post: If the above questions are personally upsetting to you, if you find yourself huffily thinking something like, "Well, I care because it could normalize--", NOPE, STOP RIGHT THERE. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 This is a big red flag: You (much like the Anon) are exhibiting some early warning signs of Fascism, and that is not something to take lightly in the current political climate. There are some drugs you shouldn't experiment with even once, and fascism is one of them. Repeat as often as needed: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS THOUGHTCRIME. WE DO NOT LIVE IN GEORGE ORWELL'S 1984.

But we already talk about thoughtcrimes now and then, don't we? I can't remember seeing someone talking about crimestop (also from Orwell's 1984):

In the Newspeak vocabulary, the word crimestop denotes the citizen's instinctive desire to rid himself of unwanted, incorrect thoughts (personal and political), the discovery of which, by the Thinkpol [Thought Police], would lead to detection and arrest, transport to and interrogation at Miniluv (Ministry of Love). The protagonist, Winston Smith, describes crimestop as a conscious process of self-imposed cognitive dissonance: The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak. . . . He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions—'the Party says the Earth is flat', 'the Party says that ice is heavier than water'—and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them. Moreover, from the perspective of Oceania's principal enemy of the state, in the history book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, Emmanuel Goldstein said that: Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

Read that twice, and then reread the Anon's question. Translate it through that lens: "Why," says the Anon, delicately disgusted, "are these authors not practicing better crimestop? I practice it all the time. Why aren't they?"

Great question, Anon. Why AREN'T they? Turn off your crimestop and give it some real thought.

See, this is ironic, because you just used the term "fascism" as a generic Bad Thing. Personally, I think muh Normalization discourse is bad all on it's own, without any association with Bad Things.

I'm struggling to think of a single time it wasn't someone rationalizing their own tastes to justify censorship and/or shaming.

It's also ironic because "we need to suppress X to prevent (normalization of) Y, even if X doesn't directly cause Y" has also been the logic of many left-wing states, historically. Not to mention much support of "hate speech" laws.

And occasionally terrorists. Left or right.

If the only way you can explain how this is wrong is linking it to The Other™, you need a better argument. Because if you say a bad person is doing a thing the person you're speaking to considers good, then might end up looking less bad.

Heck, it may even weaken your position for other criticisms of the bad people. Look how many people mistrust the accusation of "Nazi" these days.

(Hint: If the answer you come up with is "Because they are moral degenerates" or anything in that neighborhood, you are unfortunately still doing fascism. Try again.

Again, this is ironic, because you are treating "fascist" as a synonym for "moral degenerate". You are literally using it as a label for crimethinkers.

Also, moral degenerates actually exist, but simply acknowledging that fact isn't the same as justifying censorship and silencing and shaming.

Buuuut if someone sounds like anon I'm going to watch what they say very closely. Balance of probabilities.