I feel like I need to write an entire blog on the deneurodivergentication of fandom spaces. Fandom is a space that was very much built around neurodivergent (specifically autistic) behaviours and ways of thinking, and was that way for DECADES, but it's since shifted into a slightly more popular mainstream space and suddenly those behaviours are considered 'cringey'.

The thing with both LGBTQIA+ people AND neurodivergent people is that, in my experience, we tend to find each other?

Even when we don't REALISE that we're LGBTQIA+ or ND (we just know we feel...different?) we gravitate to people who give off a similar vibe and seem to 'get' it. So you'll see people clamouring that their kid started identifying as LGBTQIA+ because they were hanging out with other LGBTQIA+ people, rather than realising that they were always LGBTQIA+ (even if they didn't realise) and found space with the people they felt safest with.

My best friend, who is autistic, got written off as 'difficult' by healthcare workers, and subsequently mistreated, because she yelled at a nurse that her IV wasn't in properly and she wasn't getting any painkillers post-surgery. Hours later, they checked it, and she was right. My friend spent hours and hours in increasing agony, with healthcare workers declaring her 'difficult' and refusing to listen to her because she was, understandably, shouting and frantic from the pain, and getting more loud and frantic as the night went on and no one helped her.

Sometimes I stop and think about the fact that one of the main societally recognised 'clues' that someone is lying or guilty (not making eye contact) also just happens to be one of the most common traits found in autistic people. In fact, a ton of neurodivergent traits, especially in terms of what we do with our bodies, and our faces, are societally recognised as evidence of lying or guilt, or untrustworthiness. And just think about the implications of that.

If your neurodivergent inclusive policies only kick in when someone discloses that they're neurodivergent, then these policies are not truly inclusive of neurodivergent people. As much as it can be, accessibility should be inbuilt, not reliant on diagnosis or disclosure. This is particularly pertinent for neurodivergence because a) there's so much misdiagnosis and under-diagnosis that many people do not know/cannot prove their neurodivergence, and b) disclosing neurodivergence can pose a real danger and is genuinely terrifying for many people.

One of my favourite nerdy Titanic facts is that the process of filming the 1997 film actually helped solve a big mystery about the sinking: what happened to the grand staircase. When the Titanic was found in the 80s, there was basically a giant hole where the grand staircase would've been, and no one knew for sure what had happened to it. It was posited that maybe the wood had been eaten away, but there was also no sign of the non-wood adornments either.

Today I saw a really constructive online conversation between autistic people and parents of autistic kids, discussing eloping and wandering and how best to keep autistic kids safe, get totally derailed by someone barging in going 'EXCUSE ME, YOU MEAN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM' 🙃 Throughout the conversation, people had been using both person first and identity first language, with no one commenting on what anyone else was using because it wasn't relevant to the (important) conversation, until this person decided to barge and interrupt with their demands.

An autistic 16-year-old spent SEVEN MONTHS on a busy hospital ward due to a lack of suitable children's mental health services. This is horrifying snapshot of the human rights crisis facing autistic people (particularly children) in need of support.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-655316… tw: restraint , disordered eating

Not only was it too loud and too bright for her, but there was a three-person restraint team that would move in when she became distressed or refused to eat.

'It feels like they're torturing you,' she said, describing it as a 'living hell'.

The fact that #EastEnders has the entire community coming together and wholesomely cheering during the coronation, meanwhile, at the actual coronation street party I got roped into attending, people were loudly taking bets on how long Charles is going to last until he carks it. 'I'll be honest, I don't rate him.'

'No worries, there'll be another one of these soon.'

'Yeah, I give him five years tops.'

#EastEnders should let me rewrite this episode using real quotes from an actual working class community's coronation street party.

Do you know what this moment told me? It told me he knows that Callum loves him, and will support him if he falls apart or needs help, but, even in spite of that, he feels like he can't afford to fall apart/ask for help, because the risks of doing so are too great 😭 #Ballum I think that makes it even more heartbreaking, that this isn't about him not trusting Callum to support him, it's about him feeling that he can't fall apart, he has to mask - that even though he knows Callum will be there for him, the risks from elsewhere are too high #Ballum

"more attracted to ppl less autistic."

Are we all just ignoring this bit, or?

https://twitter.com/Grimezsz/status/1651772813273866240

It's like 'okay, I was with you until YIKES'.

Sometimes I stop and think about the fact that the incel community was originally set up by a woman as a place for lonely to people who were struggling to find love to genuinely support each other (and apparently a couple who met on the site ended up getting married). "It definitely wasn't a bunch of guys blaming women for their problems."

"The word [incel] used to mean anybody of any gender who was lonely, had never had sex or who hadn't had a relationship in a long time. But we can't call it that anymore."

bbc.com/news/world-us-…

Okay, so, from my careful analysis of the scenes we did get + the spoilers we know about (and the pictures), here is my theory around what the cut scenes might have been #Ballum My guess is that after Kathy worriedly saw Ben walking away from Jola, we got a scene where Callum came into the cafe, and Callum and Kathy discussed the fact they're both worried about Ben #Ballum

I've been doing this long enough to know that shit gets cut last minute all the damned time in soap opera, it's the inherent nature of the beast, but come on, having the pre-credits 'and now on EE' summary be about something they literally cut? That's...a new one for me #Ballum Did they literally film the Roxy's scenes yesterday, and had the editing team frantically chucking scenes willy nilly into the recycling bin two hours before the iPlayer drop this morning in order to make it fit? I'm genuinely fascinated.

This isn't a 'new story' for Ben, this is a continuation of the arc he's been on since January 2022. It's all the same story, and this is the culmination of it all. The ability to do this is why, when it's good, soap storytelling is utterly unmatched as a medium #Ballum tw: rape , disordered eating

One of the first things that happened when Ben was raped was that he started refusing food. This isn't a case of 'we want to do an eating disorder storyline...ooh let's give it to Ben!'. This has clearly been planned as Ben's arc for a long time.

When autistic people are children, they call us 'old souls'.

But when autistic people grow up, we're told we have 'childs' minds'. You'll say anything to excuse not treating us appropriately for our age.

You don't have to treat us like children because we're not like other children, we're 'old souls'.

You don't have to treat us like adults because we're not like other adults, we have 'child's minds'.

If someone ever tries to use 'autistic' as an insult against me, my go-to response is 'aw thanks'. "Aw, you noticed! 🤗"

Something people don't seem to realise about disability benefits is that you have to fight through one of the most degrading, dehumanizing processes known to man, often fighting for years against unfairness, just to get, at the end of the day, not enough money to live on. And they make it so you have to fight so hard and so long - when we appealed the totally unfair, incorrect decision around my mum's benefits, if took us a couple years to appeal, and by the time we'd finished appealing, we were already halfway towards her next assessment.

Yeah, so, to clarify, I'm not asking people to stop posting shit about their kids because I 'don't like kids' and don't want to see content with kids.

I'm asking people to stop posting shit about their kids because kids are human beings who deserve respect and privacy. 'If you hate kids and don't want to see kid content, just mute it.'

Way to absolutely (deliberately?) miss the point and try to make this about 'hating kids', when actually, it's about caring enough about kids to give them the respect and autonomy they deserve as human beings.

Please stop posting your kids' misbehaviour on the internet.

Please stop posting your kids' sadness on the internet.

Please stop posting your kids' distress on the internet.

Please stop posting your kids on the internet. Your kid did a bad thing and you're upset about it? Okay, please have a chat/rant with your WhatsApp group rather than filming a TikTok.

All questions for job interviews should be provided before the interview, regardless of whether or not the interviewee has disclosed a disability that requires them to see the questions pre-interview. It should be standard practice. Because not everyone who has a disability, particularly neurodivergence, has a diagnosis, or even knows that they have that disability (diagnosis is a massively gatekept thing), and will therefore be disadvantaged. It's not true access if it's reliant on diagnosis/disclosure.