#singularity.txt

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also, like... I personally think the reason there's a lot of AuDHD people is because... the whole thing is kind of one big Venn diagram. like the spectrum should probably be an AuDHD spectrum and not just two separate things. I think this is both nature (the baseline presentation of symptoms/traits) and nurture (or uh. lack of nurture; people with ADHD tend to get traumatised by caregivers, society, etc in very similar ways that autistic people do -- so a lot of our trauma-response traits are similar)

but like, you say things like that and people think you're trying to invalidate one or the other as a discrete Thing and like... I understand that people get really attached to these psychological schemas but at one point someone invented them. they're not carved in stone by the finger of God and handed down from the mountaintop as infallible truths about our bodies. hell, at one point Asperger's was a thing, remember that. a lot of people were upset that their label was retired from use, because they thought of themselves as aspies and not autistic people, but like... that's all just fluff. your symptoms and traits and whatnot didn't just magically turn into something else. they always were what they were! the DSM is not the creator of you!

anyway. ANYWAY! what I was going to say was that "I don't have ADHD" is kind of a nothingburger of a statement because if I'm autistic then I'm already in the Venn diagram that is The Spectrum of AuDHD, and I will naturally share traits with others under that spectrum, even if they're considered "strictly ADHD". I feel like our cognition in particular is wired similarly -- I have very little trouble following the thought patterns of people with ADHD or comprehending why they do x or y or z, even in the case of competing access needs ("it's annoying/stressful/whatever, but I get it"). so all things considered, why wouldn't stims also affect me similarly to ADHD people, even if it isn't a 1:1 exact replica of experience

tbh once you remind yourself that The DSM Is A Book Some Guys Wrote (that's a reductive conclusion for the purposes of brevity but I trust that the reader can fill in the nuances themselves), a lot of other shit in the psychological house of cards starts to fall apart too

#singularity.txt

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I think the most interesting thing about using Persistent Drive for Autonomy as an alternate name for pathological demand avoidance is that it highlights the irony -- having a PDA profile ends up restricting one's autonomy more often than not

here's a flowchart. a kitchen task needs doing -> demand avoidance triggered -> kitchen task doesn't get done -> kitchen is dirty and therefore triggering in its own right -> am multiply dysregulated now and am avoiding kitchen -> cannot make foods I like because dirty kitchen that I now really can't do anything about because of all the dysregulation. the main thing taking a hit here IS my autonomy. I feel powerless and trapped in a negative feedback loop, and I am deprived of experiences I would like to have (making a nice meal).

and like, that's a comparatively reasonable response. but fucking explain this shit: I love playing this video game SO MUCH -> oh god. that's too many feels. feels almost... demanding. -> freeze/inertia -> I do not play the video game that I love playing so much. what the fuck, man. why.

I think a persistent drive for autonomy is a factor in PDA (I definitely feel that specific drive when it comes to social rules, for example, but I also think that's just an autism thing in general, so...??), but I don't think it's the whole of the thing. the main feature of PDA is an easily-triggered anxious response, and anxiety is yet another brutal taskmaster that narrows and darkens our lives and makes it difficult to do what we truly wish to do

#singularity.txt #asychrony #i think a persistent drive for autonomy is my *personality* but a pathological avoidance of demand is my *disability*. yknow?

[echthr0s]

Funny that this post should come out of my queue now because I was just thinking about this concept; mainly, that certain mental-wellbeing concepts come off the way they do for the exact same reason that the stuff people say after a psychedelic trip does. In both cases, you're attempting to take a deep feeling of truth, a gnosis, that has fundamentally changed how you see the world and yourself, and you're trying to describe it to other people, you're trying to share it so other people can tap into that deep feeling that you had, and all that comes out is "it's all love, man! all of it!" or "you have to know that you're okay the way you are". And you hear how lame it sounds, but you keep saying it anyway, because you're hoping the true message will resonate deep in someone else's gut the way it did in yours.

Sometimes that does happen, but usually people have to fall into that deep feeling on their own, and sometimes that happens because they took a drug or because they did 5 years of therapy or whatever, and sometimes it happens completely at random. And then they try to tell someone else about it, and the cycle starts all over again, lol.

#singularity.txt #this brought to you by the fact that this happens to me constantly #one facet of us will be like *drops truth bomb* and we'll feel its vibrations like sunlight and then two days later one of our other facets #will throw it out the window as nonsense and return us back to our old habits. it's......... a process

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back when I saw The Crow for the first few times I was always stunned by the city. because it's not a real city. cities mostly don't look or feel like that. but it is a Real city. it's a platonic ideal. The Exact Kind of City That The Crow Would Happen In. it is all the elements of city-ness that need to exist in order to create a specific pervasive transportative ambience. and like, I felt that, I felt its Realness, but I had no idea how to explain what I meant (still don't, obviously, but I think I have enough to kind of get the point across)

I've seen a lot more movies since then and now I kind of get that that's just a thing that media -- particularly cinema -- does a lot. similar to Nowheresville -- a place that is simultaneously very familiar and clearly ambiguous -- but sometimes it needs to have more personality than a Nowheresville. I think the best platonic-ideal-goth-city aside from The Crow's is the Repo! the Genetic Opera setting. it's so bizarro! but bizarro has such a Realness about it!

sometimes the best character in a movie is the setting tbh

#it's sloppy toppy for all set designers swednesday #singularity.txt #i haven't seen the crow since we were another person entirely so i have no idea how i'm gonna feel about it when i finally do watch it #but! this will probably still hold true

[echthr0s]

when I see people say things like "tag your shit [insert whatever shit they care about being tagged]" in posts obviously my automatic response is "yeah I'm definitely going to do a thing just because this random tumblr user said so" but it also puts me in mind of a concept -- that while the vast majority of tumblr blogs are technically accessible to everyone, not all of them are meant to be socially accessible to everyone

I don't know if I used the right words there but basically what I mean is that, yes, my tumblr can be accessed by anyone with an account. however, it is not meant for high visibility or a large following. it is a personal space -- not a curation space, not a community space, not a professional portfolio, not a gimmick blog. if you run a blog like that, one that is meant to garner high visibility, then it is in your best interest to adopt certain practices that make your blog more user-friendly for a wider variety of people. like tagging common triggers, using a queue, that sort of thing. whereas if you're just a guy with a blog, people can just leave if they don't like what you're doing. you're not providing a service or establishing a brand or trying to earn a living, you're just hangin out

it's like the difference between running a community Discord server and running a friend server. the community server requires more strict moderation, a higher level of channel organisation, stuff that the friend server could afford to be lax about because it's just people with a certain level of familiarity and comfort who want to hang out in a virtual living room with each other.

like... if I'm going to tag for something that I wouldn't normally tag for, it'd be because someone I'm familiar with or care about asked me to, personally, and I would like to keep their followship. but otherwise whatever I do on this blog is for my pleasure because that's the kind of blog this is. this blog is like if my bedroom was on the internet. you can't tell me how to decorate my bedroom. if you don't like it, you can leave. I don't even mean that in a bitchy way, it's just... the reality of the situation, yknow

this isn't meant to be a safe space unless you just happen to feel safe here, and I am perfectly content to lose out on potential followers if they're not about what I'm about or they have the kind of needs I'm not willing to meet. that's just life, man

#this isn't like a ~hot take~ or anything i just be thinkin about how weird the social dynamics on the internet can be #singularity.txt

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one of the worst developments in cinema imo is when they stopped making characters' houses look like actual houses that people would live in

I have seen way too many movies lately where characters (with ambiguous income sources, mind you) live in some Frank Lloyd Wright type shit out past the city limits with the barest minimum of furniture and "tasteful decor" to make it look like a house. where is the clutter. why are there no dishes in the sink. put some strategic dust on that bookshelf. does anyone in this house even eat unless it's part of the plot

idk I'm really into small details especially in set design and a lot of these modern movies just don't be givin me a single thing to look at. and why tf not

#singularity.txt #every time i watch a movie (usually older or indie) and the character's room has like ACTUAL STUFF in it i'm like YEAAAAA #omg your backyard has OBJECTS? you have a QUIRKY MAILBOX? there are CLOTHES on your BEDROOM FLOOR???? #that's the SHIT baybeeee

[echthr0s]

oftentimes there will be a video or article or whatever that is giving advice about, essentially, how to show up more authentically in the world, and there will inevitably be a bit that is like "don't automatically walk into a space with the thought that you'll be rejected". which, on the surface, yeah -- makes total sense. rejection sensitivity does create a sub/conscious energy that either people pick up on and sub/consciously respond to, or just hamstrings your efforts and stifles your personality and makes you appear to not be interested at all (in which case the other party is the one feeling rejected first, so they're just responding in kind).

okay, great. but here's the thing. the idea is that you have this internal belief about yourself, that you're unloveable or undesireable or boring or whatever it is, and you're expecting that to be reinforced by other people. and what the advice is saying, is to not think that way. except... why do people tend to think that way in the first place? self-rejection is a learned behaviour.

I don't actually think I'm any of those things. I think I'm a fucking delight. but the problem is that my body -- the subconscious processes that really run the show here -- does not recognise that as a truth. my body has plenty of experiential data determining that no matter what I think about myself, other people will invariably be less charitable and far less enthusiastic about me, and will respond accordingly. it doesn't matter what I think. what matters is the evidence -- the "reality" as my body interprets it. frankly, sometimes it seems my body thinks I'm a bit of an idiot and is going "yeah, yeah, you're a delight, sure. anyway, back in the real world,"

I think people really put a lot of stock into "just change your mindset!" without incorporating the reality that there's no amount of affirmations or whatever that's going to override repeatedly being treated as if there's something wrong with you or that you're unfit for relationship. at this point, the best I can do is just be frank about this from the outset -- if you are like most people, you probably won't dig me very much. or at the very least, you'll dig me superficially, but the deep stuff will be off-putting to you. if you are not like most people, you will have to put in quite a bit of effort for me to really see and understand that. this is reality. and if that happens enough times -- more than once, that is -- then maybe my body's story will change. but there will never be a guarantee of that, and I can't expect one. beating my fists against brick walls going "but I am loveable! I do have interpersonal value!" isn't going to convince other people of that. they'll just have to come to that conclusion on their own (or not, as it were).

there's got to be a secret third thing -- not self-abandonment and self-rejection, not magically convincing my brain to somehow deny what it knows to be real, but maybe just accepting life as a complexly traumatised and very strange individual who will always be hard to know and hard to love, and that's not a flaw or a condemnation but it is a disability

#like. cptsd - developmental trauma - relational trauma - that's all disabling. i will never show up in relationships the way i ''should'' #because i can't. that ship has sailed. the more i try to deny that the worse i get #i think this is very easy to overbalance into ''so i'm never going to try ever'' which a lot of people with cptsd do (and that's valid) #but i think i'm at the ''i'm not gonna twist myself into unnatural shapes for it but i'll keep the light on for the possibility'' stage #and likewise it isn't all on me anyway. other people may also never show up in relationship the way i'd like them to #but that's got to be okay. can i live with it? if yes then live with it. is it untenable? then dissolution must occur #but it's not a blame game and there are no martyrs here. it just is what it is. #in the end... there will always be the Configuration. i DO already have the love i want. just not in *this* world. #but at least i have had the immense privilege and fortune to know and feel that deep and profound joy. #allworld's forgotten boy #singularity.txt

[echthr0s]

Storygraph has a review system where you can rank a book by specific criteria, and one of those criteria is "does this book have a diverse cast of characters?" and I'm realising I read that a bit differently than other people, maybe

because I just read a book that was from the perspective of some Native Americans. the book was only about Native Americans. specifically, it was only about some Blackfeet and exactly two Crow. to me, this is not diverse. it's pretty homogenous. and I answered the Storygraph question accordingly. but the community average is an 87% for "yes" on that question. because, I think, most people are reading that as "are there nonwhite people in this book" instead of "are there a variety of demographics represented".

mind you, I don't think either reading is wrong but I do think it muddles the waters when it comes to the concept of "diversity"

#singularity.txt

[echthr0s]

every time I watch an episode of HH I think about that post that's like "who is the audience for this show" because, the popular virulent contempt for the show aside, it is confusing. it scans like an irreverent slapstick cartoon for older kids but the dialogue is often conspiciously Adult™. the character dynamics seem like they'd be fun to explore but the way they're explored feels more shallow than I'd like. I started paying more focused attention to the animation style and immediately regretted it, but it still can be fun to look at when they play around with the character presentations (how Zenthius moves, Alastor's glitchiness). and sometimes the setting and the way the characters act are at odds to me. I mean, okay, if I think about it for more than two seconds, of course you can work in Actual Hell and still have squicks about BDSM but I can't say it didn't make me go "????" (it's mostly the way they acted about it, for me. I think the morality system at play here is what I'm mostly confused about, not necessarily that a demon can have squicks.)

I think I am almost the audience for it and that's the annoying part, lol. I like it and yet it makes me scratch my head constantly. I'm waiting for the point where the scales tip and I just Can't anymore, and the fact that I almost got there in as early as the third episode doesn't bode well

#also the plot is pretty unintriguing overall but the concept of demon rehabilitation is amusing enough to carry it for a bit #but not for long lol. like i said it feels very kid's-show plot-- WAIT. WAIIIIIIT #i know exactly what to compare this to. another show that i used to like but most people hated to death -- teen titans go #if hh had come out while i was in my ttg era i would have fucking loved it without question #but it's the same level of...... well. everything. #singularity.txt

[echthr0s]

"I don't know anything about that thing you're into but I support you 👍🏿" is like... one of those popular sentiments that I recognise as innocuous but I would feel as dismissive if someone said that towards me personally

just patiently waitin for the "I don't know anything about that thing you're into but you're into it so I'm gonna learn somethin about it bc you bein into it makes me curious about it and maybe if I have at least a 101 knowledge of it I can, idk, send you memes about it or ask good questions about the OC you made for it" type vibe

#singularity.txt #i was once in relationship with someone who took that level of interest as a threat. let's just say... that sucked #but i guess i can't complain. everything people do is a threat to me too i just handle it a bit better LOL #yayyyy attachment trauma 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[echthr0s]

my favourite thing about interpreting fiction through my own "fictionality" is ascribing intention to elements that would otherwise be seen as random by the artists and/or the fans

the use of a Platters song as a hypnotic device in Far Cry 5 and the use of a Platters song as background in a certain scene in Twin Peaks are unrelated coincidences. unless you're me, for whom both FC5 and TP have Relevance because of a certain connecting element (our favourite Dark Man, represented here as the Voice and BOB respectively). now these songs are part of a greater esoteric narrative, glowing nodes on a complex constellation. now the Platters, a very good but otherwise unremarkable vocal group from the mid twentieth century, have become keystones. now their appearance in any work of fiction will always remind me to Pay Attention, because another connexion is about to be forged; another facet of the Great Configuration is about to be revealed

#and man if that isn't sick as hell idk what is 🤷🏿‍♂️ #[leviathan.] #singularity.txt #noah's grandmother spinning in her grave rn. as if she didn't Already Know 😏

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like ngl most of the autistic people I've met are nothing like me and part of that is just... culture (most of the autistic people I've met are white and/or some flavour of Midwestern) but a lot of it is just that there is such an insane amount of variation in autistic traits. I think people imagine a gathering of autists as a bunch of people in anime t-shirts sitting in a dim room silently playing on their phones and flinching at loud noises lmao like there will never be an end to autistic stereotyping, the stereotypes just get updated with new bullshit every decade or so

also I... don't really like most of the autistic people I meet! partly bc as a rule I don't really like most of the people I meet in general (not even in an active-dislike way. just in a neutral "we didn't connect on a level beyond superficial" way), but also because there are a lot of possible autistic traits that are directly in opposition to my own traits. like not only is there a lot of variation between autistic people but it often operates on extreme ends of spectrums instead of just small differences. sensory-seeking vs sensory-defensive, gregarious vs reserved, fastidious vs untidy, etc

the main reason I don't use "autistic" in reference to myself very often is because I prefer not to talk about myself in psychiatric terms + I have a better and more accurate word to use for that aspect of myself but another reason is that when you use that word people will automatically adjust their perception of you based upon their understanding of autism which sometimes is fine ("oh maybe I should stop making loud noises") but sometimes will just be a pain in my ass and block me from opportunity ("oh that means you don't like going places or talking to people at all ever")

#singularity.txt #asynchrony

[echthr0s]

post about amphetamines and ensuing thread about how "ADHD people just feel normal on stimulants" is anecdotally true but not necessarily scientifically true on my dash and I'm just thinking about that first time that I tried meth with Sigma and we just both hyperfocused on our computers the entire time (they do have ADHD but I do not), or how I used to take Adderalls for the wakefulness and euphoria yes but also because I felt like it was easier to ride the strange winding pathways of my cognition to a place where they'd end up as a fic or some other project rather than just petering out because I couldn't keep up/got distracted by something else/got intimidated by the breadth of my thoughts

which I think is what the euphoria was actually related to. it wasn't just a direct result of Having Consumed An Substance, it was the exhilarating feeling of riding those strange winding pathways to wherever they wanted to take me, and not falling out of the train and landing unceremoniously on the side of the tracks with nothing to show for my grandiose thinking except some fragmented concepts

and to me, that's... therapeutic. that's a therapeutic experience, to be fully present in and engaged with my own mind. to feel centered and yet expansive, to be unbowed by anxiety, to see an end goal (a finished thing, in all its weird glory) and be inexorably propelled towards it by my own steam.

but I don't have ADHD. so I guess I'm just Being High, by this dichotomy ("people with ADHD on amphetamines are experiencing therapeutic effects" / "people without ADHD on amphetamines are experiencing recreational effects"). but it doesn't seem fair to make such a flat division, or to even assume that what people think of as "recreational highs" aren't therapeutic in some way (see also: the wide variance in how people respond to THC)

anyway tl;dr the ever-evolving wars on drugs really decimated how we think about the interactions between our bodies and the substances we put into it

#like there is no fucking way i can walk into a psych's office and be like ''ok is there any way i can get like. as-needed low-dose stims'' #bc to them that's just ''drug seeking behaviour'' like yeah i'm drug seeking. bc sometimes i want to write a fucking fic #or do some other project that requires a certain kind of focus from me that it's hard for me to summon at will #and like i think the way medical professionals treat people with adhd when they're just trying to be medicated #has created this divide where they're inclined to get mad at people like me for making it harder for them to get their medication #when in fact it isn't people like me or even people who are purely recreationally interested in stims #it's the fucking system. which sees ALL of us as shiftless manipulative addicts #i have a lot of disjointed but passionate thoughts about this lmao. this isn't even the full tip of the iceberg let alone the rest of it #singularity.txt

[echthr0s]

(context for how I got onto this tangent) so I'm very "it doesn't matter how you type/speak or how badly you spell or whatever because I'll usually figure out what you're tryna say" and I wonder how much of that is because, between hyperlexia/general autistic shit and how English was taught in the schools I went to, I happen to be Quite Good at the English language (as in, phonics, grammar/style, and spelling), and that strong foundation of The Rules means I can easily figure out how someone is fucking it up

like I actually love misspellings because a lot of the time they make perfect sense. like when my friend types "exaughsted" and at first that just looks Wrong but when you say the word "exhausted", WELL, that's exactly what the fuck it sounds like! it's a perfectly reasonable phonetic spelling and as far as I've seen, every single one of his chronic misspells are just phonetic interpretations. love that!

if you're not thinkin about that sort of thing, I imagine "exaughsted" just looks like alphabet soup (yes you might still figure out from context clues etc but!)

I type the way I type bc well 1) I can do whatever the fuck I want ofc but actually 2) I really do love the way internet lingo works, I think it's its own distinct and ever-evolving dialect with its own rules and things it does better than Standard English (like expressing tone). but I think approaching netspeak* with a strong SE foundation is... idk, important? I wouldn't be the one to know if it really is important, but it feels like it should be, yknow

like when you're learning to draw it's widely agreed upon that learning the boring ass fundamentals is what's going to enable you to do all the wild and cool things you want to draw in the future and do it well -- to be able to expand your style freely, to better grasp how to draw a new thing, stuff like that. I feel like language is similar

*I'm guessin we don't call it this anymore considering "the net" is kinda oldtimey phrasing BUT it's a good word god dammit

#as usual i am not attempting to Make A Point here i'm just riffing #casual nerd shit yknow #thoughts that would do well in conversation with someone else to bounce off of but all i got is this text box so i'm doin my best ✌🏿 #singularity.txt

[echthr0s]

ok I have been keeping a list of some absolutely genius URLs I've seen whilst clicking around on this website and I've reached my favourite number so it's time to post the Holy Shit OP Your URL Awards Part 1

some of these are here because of punnery or other wordplay, some because I have no idea what they're referencing (if anything) so the sheer hyperspecific randomness of it made me laugh, and the rest are here because I just think they're particularly neat

and no I'm not tagging them all but if you know someone on this list and want to tell them, go ahead lol

aphextwinpeaks

avatarthelastairgender

chthonicillness

churlingtonbeesecoatfactory

civilization-deactivated2030

dagny-hashtaggart

deadniggastorage

inflagrante-delicatessen

multiple-non-alcoholic-dogs

odin-n-out

orgasming-caterpillar

orpheusdrinkinga40inadeathbasket

ottermatopoeia

quickiecrucifixion

romanticallyactivetoyotaprius

sirlawrenceofherlabia

sugoiney-weaver

the-shania-twainsaw-massacre

thewheelsonthebusgofuckyourself

#singularity.txt #holy shit op your url #this entire concept is brought to you by my og favourite: vriskakinnieaynrand :') beautiful. just *beautiful* url.

[echthr0s]

I feel like I've made this post before but I can't actually remember if I did or not, so. if I repeat myself I repeat myself (wouldn't be the first time)

I of course get why "why aren't more alter/nonhumans talking about x experiences?" is a common refrain but one response I don't think I've ever seen is "well. what's to say?"

like part of the reason I take so well to tumblr is because it's got scrapbook vibes. I can have a tag for a facet of my self-conception and just throw things into it as I'm called to -- visual art, music, poems, a textpost that resonates. I can express how this thing feels without having to scrounge together some ineffectual words to try and explain the ineffable or whatever

similarly, I just am not that sort of individual. Grey, who was here before me, was that sort of individual. I am continually amazed by his facility with words and his ability to make poetry out of fucking anything. that sort of thing is far more incidental and rare for me than it was for him. he was very cerebral in a way that I cannot access as well, just as I am very sensory and visceral in a way that he didn't seem to value as much. this means I have a lot of feelings and sense impressions and imagery when it comes to my self-conception but words? yeah, not so much

some of us are just not essay-writers, to put it simply. in dialogue with others I might be able to contribute a few insights, and if I'm asked a direct question I find that to be excellent reason to expend the effort of explanation, but mostly I exist in a lush and multidimensional complexity that I find increasingly difficult to satisfactorily express

#some of us are just here. vibing. having wild experiences and revelations that we find impossible to transcribe #hell even in my own diary i'm like. flailing for words. i don't even bother recording stuff for my OWN sake half the time bc it's so hard #you should see some of my obsidian files. just totally inscrutable to the passing observer. #i'm not mysterious on purpose (most of the time) it just kind of comes with the territory of me-ness #this is not meant to discourage curiosity btw. i like it when people are curious! that's the best reason to put in the effort of explaining #(i know i already said that in the post. it just bears repeating!) #singularity.txt #ok fine i'll put general tags just in case anyone wants to 🤝 with me over being overlooked non-essayists #alterhuman #nonhuman