Oolong with a Zero

Cup of tea?

[queer-adhd]

To my autistic gang, just letting you know. I see you. Every time that you feel SO incredibly strongly that 'this person is wrong, and surely they will understand if I just explain to them what their misconception is' and then make the concrete decision not to do that, I am acknowledging and appreciating you. I know that it goes against every instinct you have.

Find another autistic person and let them know how brave you were. You did a great job and I am proud of you.

(Note: this is NOT about bigotry, call that shit out wherever you see it)

[queer-adhd]

Like sometimes you do just have to let people be wrong. I know, and I'm sorry.

[cryptonature]

One day, your skull will be as empty as a conch shell on a fence post,

full of wind and gentle quiet.

Today, it’s a cauldron of ghosts.

Flesh and electricity.

Water and memory.

A machine that makes reality.

Now. Here. Your skull is the garden where fact flowers into meaning.

(From the poetry collection Love Notes from the Hollow Tree by Jarod K. Anderson.)

[0olong]

What Happened in 2026 - Weird Pride Day

What’s been happening generally is why this year’s theme is Weird Pride in a Hostile World. This is a page about what happened for Weird Pri

This was the biggest Weird Pride Day yet, and I enjoyed it very much indeed.

[catmask]

we need to play like its elementary school again. im deeply serious.

[catmask]

once a month in 4th grade my teacher would hold a party called 'fruit friday' where every student had to bring in a fruit to share with the class. and to make sure there werent overlaps we got randomly assigned from a big list of fruit. and so on this friday we had a huge collection of fruits and we were encouraged to try new ones we'd never had before. and im just saying i think you should do fruit friday with your friends too. get together and try new fruits okay

[playwrongs]

In King Ludwig II’s defense, if I had basically infinite discretionary funds, was accountable to absolutely no one, and was king of a country full of picturesque landscapes, you couldn’t stop me from building myself a big gay fairytale castle on a mountaintop either.

[playwrongs]

This post is spreading and I feel bad about it because it contains misinformation, so for the record: Ludwig II did not in fact have infinite discretionary funds. He only acted as if he did. He never dipped into the public coffers for his building projects, but he spent his own fortune extravagantly and borrowed heavily from everyone he could think of. By 1885, the year before his death, he was 14 million marks in debt.

[insomniac-arrest]

~ ✨✨ 14 million marks in debt ✨✨~

[centrally-unplanned]

I always find this inspiring because try to name another prince of a German state. What did the rulers of Hamberg do? The Grand Duchy of Hesse? Gone with the wind, no one knows them anymore. But Mad Lad Ludwig built a top 5 most famous castle in the entire world. Money is fake, castles are real. Go broke and die like a winner.

[the-barefoot-hatter]

EXCUSE ME, this is still wrong. He built 3.

Neuschwanstein, literally the inspo for the castles in Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella

Hohenschwangau, the practical castle

Linderhof, the final, the smallest, and the MOST fab.

Every room is incredible and the park is beautiful, but shoutout to The Bedroom, the biggest room

The Hall of Mirrors, which he probably wandered by candle light because he was a serious night owl

The Dining Room, with a wishing table that lowers to the kitchen, and rises with a crank, returning magically full of food

The Venus Grotto, constructed for the sole use of Ludwig to larp to his heart's content

A full artificial cave, it features a waterfall, fake stalactites, and a custom-designed swan boat floating on an artificial lake. The first electricity in Bavaria was generated here, to change the colors of the stage lights and to power Ludwig's fountain and wave machine.

Now THAT'S ~ ✨✨ 14 million marks in debt ✨✨~

[0olong]

Tried to post last night, got a cryptic error message saying "Your post contains a link that is currently not all..."

No further clues available.

I guess I won't be sharing these animations here, then. 😑

[0olong]

I'm so happy with this timelapse video of yesterday's skies in the hour and a half leading up to sunset.

I feel like it needs a soundtrack, but I'm not sure what...

[ghostbrother2]

if this 5000 year old tree isn’t too old to realize that its trans neither are you

[tummytastic]

[0olong]

I have a chapter in the international edition of Someone Like Me, a collection of nonfiction written by autistic women and gender minorities, coming out next month!

I've been reading the rest of the book, and bloody hell the standard of submissions is high! I was already pretty excited about the collection, but I didn't expect it to be quite so good. Slightly intimidated now.

My chapter is titled 'Monotropic Superdrive at Home' and it's about what I gained by growing up as the kid of someone who formulated the ideas of Monotropism and Weird Pride.

The book is launching on the 25th of September and you can pre-order on the publisher's site. I highly encourage you to! Unless you're in Edinburgh, in which case I encourage you to pre-order from Lighthouse Books and attend our Scottish launch. ☺️

SOMEONE LIKE ME

[resistingtransphobiaedi]

Supreme Injustice Community Zine for 2025 - submissions open!

The theme is "Art as resistance: my response to the Supreme Court ruling” / “How it feels to be a trans person in the UK at this moment in time.”

We are accepting essays, poetry, visual art, comics,and more!

The aim is to document and archive the experiences and feelings of trans people at this particular point in time.

Submissions are welcome from any trans person in the UK, regardless of age or nationality!

(Submission link in the replies so we don't get flagged as spam 😅

[aetherograph]

No new autism registry, HHS says, walking back NIH director's claim

The federal health department is not creating a new registry of Americans with autism, an HHS official said Thursday.

From Ursula Vernon: Screaming at these people works. They’re fundamentally wimps, we just have to actually DO the screaming instead of preemptively admitting defeat.

I am talking about my fellow Americans, not the Democrats. We actually need to scream, gang, not just complain that Schumer isn’t.

In other words:

[0olong]

Autistics on Autism

What everyone — especially professionals — needs to learn from autistic communities

We've had more than a third of a century of autistic people explaining our experiences carefully, for anyone willing to listen.

More and more people are now, but wow we still have a way to go. In any case, here are some of the most fundamental things that autistic people have been trying to tell everyone since the 1990s - all of which are really things about people in general.

[afeelgoodblog]

To avoid deer strikes, Finland is painting deer antlers with reflective paint.

[slowspinningredemption]

damn just pay them a living wage

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

writetothem.com

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

i know you won't do this without a script so here's a couple of suggestions to include in your email:

Dear [Name],

I'm writing to you about the recent Supreme Court Ruling which declares that trans women do not meet the legal definition of woman, and that "woman" is legally a "biological woman", but which does not explain what "biological woman" entails.

As a [cis woman, this ruling leaves me less safe, emboldens violent bigots to potentially assault me because of physical features which do not meet their definition of womanhood, and places my transgender friends/family at even higher risk]/ [cis man, this ruling leaves my female friends both cis and trans less safe than they were previously]/ [trans person, this now leaves me at risk of assault every time I attempt to partake in normal public life such as shopping, eating in a restaurant, or going to work].

It is not based in science, and it is noteworthy to me that no transgender people were allowed to give evidence in support of their own legal identities. It aligns the UK not with the forerunners in human rights but with regressive regimes which our Governments, past and present, have rightfully denounced.

I am writing to you today to say that this ruling is politically motivated, prejudiced, and liable to fall in the European Court of Human Rights where it is almost certainly to be taken next, and to ask you to consider refusing to support any further attempts to exclude trans women from public life and basic human rights.

Regards

[NAME]

[0olong]

Sky reflecting off waves, Scotland.

[brightlotusmoon]

[flyingpurplepizzaeater]

Sometimes people use “respect” to mean “treating someone like a person” and sometimes they use “respect” to mean “treating someone like an authority”

and sometimes people who are used to being treated like an authority say “if you won’t respect me I won’t respect you” and they mean “if you won’t treat me like an authority I won’t treat you like a person”

and they think they’re being fair but they aren’t, and it’s not okay.

[0olong]

for some reason disputes around autism on Wikipedia keep making me think of this post...