let's go see what's out there

today the navajo nation surpassed new york state and new jersey for the highest per-capita coronavirus infection rate in the country. that’s 2,304 cases per 100,000 people. 173,600 people live on the navajo nation, roughly. below are a number of organizations & community groups raising money & resources. it would mean so much to me if you’d consider supporting these communities right now - & continue to think about how you can support the indigenous communities near you, & understand the indigenous land you might currently occupy. 

the navajo water project helps bring running water to navajo families without, and also helps families pay their water & electricity bills 

the adopt an elder project helps feed navajo elders during the pandemic

the navajo health command operations center is the navajo nation’s only official fundraising and donation effort

rez rising is a database of native american small businesses across the southwest

the kinlani mutual aid group is a flagstaff, az based volunteer group collecting supplies

the native american relief fund operated by the native american community foundation provides emergency grants to communities for supplies & more

and a number of community-run fundraising efforts:

northern diné covid relief effort

navajo & hopi families relief fund

native student emergency fund

bluff area mutual aid - supply delivery in utah

navajo nation relief project

Like, the trains thing.

I’m going to keep coming back to the trains thing because it baffles me.

So, the example used for special interests in a lot of diagnostic criteria is trains.

“Has an unusually strong interest in something - for example, trains”

And, like, sure. Okay. Special interests can be anything. Trains are a possibility.

But, like, special interests don’t appear out of nowhere. You generally have to be exposed to something first to get a special interest in it.

So, like, I know a lot of autistic people, and I know no one with a special interest in trains.

You know what the most common special interest is, in my experience?

Star Wars.

Yeah, go fucking figure, the ubiquitous movie franchise that almost everyone has seen at least one movie of is the most common special interest, in my experience.

Now, I do kind of understand the trains thing. The line between special interest and regular interest isn’t always super obvious.

Like, collecting Star Wars toys, or writing Star Wars fanfic, or marathoning the movies a bunch of times doesn’t necessarily make it a special interest.

And since it’s socially acceptable (especially in modern day nerd culture) to do all of those things, it’s not a glaring indicator of autism to outsiders.

If someone’s really into something obscure - like trains - however, it can make the fact that it’s a special interest super obvious.

But it’s still bad to have it be the go-to special interest example because it’s just not that common.

Plenty of autistic people don’t have obscure special interests. Their SIs are in the Marvel movies or Star Wars or Star Trek or Five Nights at Freddy’s.

Hell, part of the problem with women and girls not getting diagnosed is because no one notices their special interests in, like, makeup or boy bands.

When you use “trains” as the example, you’re sending the implicit message that special interests have to be obscure and out of the social norm, and that’s just not the case for most people - especially now that a lot of geek culture has gone mainstream and there’s a huge nostalgia cash-in.

Having a special interest in Power Rangers was weird for me when I was 14. It’s not now that it’s a big blockbuster movie and most people exposed to the internet review-sphere are at least aware of Linkara’s History of Power Rangers.

For those wondering “why don’t you just read the ingredients”: Even if you trust the ingredient list, you don’t know which “natural flavors” were used, and you may not know where the various chemicals came from. And a lot of people have a hard time reading tiny print, and don’t want to stand in the aisle for five minutes trying to work their way through 95 words of 4-point type.

Queer isn’t a slur. It’s our identity.

If you can’t bring yourself to say our name, don’t talk about us.

There are people out there who think that being queer is disgusting and that queer people should feel ashamed. Don’t help them.

Wow, I like that Saffron art! 

If you’re looking for a webcomic community to speak with other comics people, there’s the Webcomics Review Discord, or the SpiderForest Forums, both of which have people who’ll be glad to talk shop with you and help you out.

Personally, my advice for you is to just make a comic you think is good, and worry about the rest of that shit later. You don’t have to make a webtoon just because everyone else is doing it. I don’t, and I’m succe-, um, Zack Morrison doesn’t, and they’re successful. Prequel, my favoritest comic ever, is text with images in a format obviously inspired by, but not quite the same as, Homestuck’s, and it sells tons of merch. 

(In part because the Merch itself is unusually high quality for a webcomic).

Do you want to release Mon-Wed-Fri like Gunnerkrigg Court, or in big chapter batches like Homestuck 2? Both of those comics are successful. Do what you like! Then tell your friends and mention it casually at parties and stuff. Is that “optimal”? No, but who gives a shit. Neither is making a webcomic in a weird format just because it’s the current trend and not because you like that format.

It will be a long time before your webcomic takes off (assuming it ever does! Most webcomics are not successful business ventures!), no matter what you do, and setting up an entire social media team for a comic with 10 pages isn’t the best use of your time or mental energy right now. Make something you think is great, and then find 200 people who agree with you enough to give you a few bucks a month, and you’re set. Don’t try to be the next Pet Foolery 

(Fourteen Fucking Thousand Patrons). 

My hyperfocus and poor sense of time made me a hard worker, my compulsion to sort and organize random crap kept the property clean, and my special interest in native flora and fauna meant I could go out into the woods thanksgiving morning and come home with all the pricy mushrooms and herbs we couldn’t normally afford otherwise.

Who cared that I was awkward? There was nobody around except the occasional customer or temp worker, and those kinds of interactions could be entirely scripted.

Who cared that I dressed funny, had frizzy, dry hair, talked flat, and ate raw onions? Who gave two shits that I built forts out of scrap metal and twine? How did it matter that I passed time running in circles over old truck chassis’?

There were no bright lights, no packed-in crowds, no huge collections of shouty, screamy, smelly people. Nobody stared at me for more than a few seconds. Nobody critiqued my body language.

I was a bit odd, yeah, but all I knew was that I was smart and creative and better than other people at fixing problems.

I went damn near fifteen years out there not even suspecting I might be autistic. Nobody even thought to bring it up.

Now I’m in the city, and I have a hard time going into the middle of a store. I hate the mall. My eyes hurt. Ambulances and fire trucks and cars with bad brakes go by and I cover my ears and nobody else does. I’ve been told I come off as “quirky”.

My question is, though, if an atypical person is in an environment that suits them, can anyone tell?