Actually Factually Autistic

he/they/xe Queer &Trans & Ace-ish AuDHD — • • • — plant dad •-• lover of all things pasta & carbohydrates; professional disaster; proud bad dancer; •-• large love for : ~ linguistics ~ ~ onomatopoeias ~ ~ alliteration ~ ~ fandom! ~ ~ fanfiction ~ ~ absurdism ~ ~ satire ~ — • • • — I talk too much about my dog (I) value kindness and softness

[actually-factually-autistic]

I’m not too sure what exactly to put here…😅

🖤🖤🖤

I’m new to tumblr.

I’m queer, ace-ish, trans, and 22.

I’m Appalachian.

I’m neurospicy.

{Autistic, ADHD, OCD, aNxIeTy, panic disorder, mild Tourette’s, dyscalculia, auditory processing disorder, alexithymia, & CPTSD}—haver

🖤🖤🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🖤🖤

💀 Cringe is Dead 💀

🖤🖤🖤❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🖤🖤🖤

I have a lot of kinda rotating special interests.

***dinosaurs; entomology; space; Star Trek; Doctor Who; art; writing; poetry; body modification; self expression; fanfiction; funnily enough, autism***

I very much enjoy tone indicators. Sometimes I use too many emojis, because I situationally use them as tone indicators.

🖤🖤🖤

Uh, don’t be an asshole on my page I guess???

No slurs, identity politics, prejudice, or bigotry;

I’ll probably add to this list as I think of additional things

*******

I’m not sure what this page will look like rn. 🤷 We’re on this journey together. 😅😂

• animal lover

• writer

• bug admirer

Some Sensory Yucks:

-dry paper towels

-very high pitched noises/voices

-sirens

-jeans

-steamed vegetables

-chunky peanut butter

-fluorescent lights

-the 🦷 doctor

Some Sensory Yums:

<>spinning in circles

<<humming

>>paint

<>paint brushes

<<marbles

>>loud music (on occasion)

<>swings

DM me if you wanna talk about anything special interest or autism related,

I need more autistic friends and I’m trying to do everything my mother taught me not to (specifically overshare with strangers on the internet /hj).

*******

[luidilovins]

I jumped on the bandwagon

[butterflyinthewell]

Fuck Autism Speaks.

[actually-factually-autistic]

I don’t have the words to convey my rage.

Just yeah, fuck autism speaks.

[vergess]

Quick question, genuine question:

Why on earth does "more than half of US adults under 30 cannot read above an elementary school level" not strike horror into the heart of everyone who hears it?

Are the implications of it unclear????

I'm serious, people keep reacting with a sort of vague dismissal when I point this out, and I want to know why!

If adults in the US cannot read, then the only information they have access to is TV and video, the spaces with the most egregious and horrific misinformation!

If they cannot read, they cannot escape that misinformation.

This obscene lack of literacy should strike fear into every heart! US TV is notoriously horrific propaganda!

Is that???? Not??? Obvious???????

I know this sounds sarcastic, I know it does, but I'm completely serious here. I do not understand where the disconnect is.

[vergess]

Literacy can be broadly categorized into 3 groups. The ability to read words, the ability to read sentences or paragraphs, and the ability to texts a page or longer.

55% of US adults cannot read long texts.

The process of reading the individual sentences is so taxing due to this low literacy that actually synthesizing the total information presented becomes nearly impossible. It requires both holding onto the meaning of each sentence so that you can contextualize it with the next one, AND consciously going through the decode process of interpreting letter and word forms in that next sentence.

In general, children are expected to begin reading long texts for meaning around age 8-10, in elementary school. This is when kids normally swap from short stories to chaptered books.

55% of American adults under 30 cannot read at that level.

We know this not from some short term study or another, but from the collected data of the US Department of Education going back decades.

U.S. PIAAC Skills Map

Reliable estimates of adult literacy and numeracy skills in all 50 states and 3,141 counties, and the District of Columbia using PIAAC surve

This is the same literacy data used internationally to determine literacy rates around the world, not some kind of shock study.

55% of American adults under 30 can't read, and it's explicitly, specifically because our schools refuse to teach them, and effectively haven't been doing so for over a decade nationally and as much as 30 years in some states.

When some children are learning to read, they catch on so quickly that it appears effortless. It does not seem to matter what reading curric

The knock on effects and implications of this are horrific.

I understand that this sounds like some fuckery bullshit because it's such an unfathomably massive problem, but holy shit.

It's very, VERY real.

@firecoloredwater I can't see your replies while I write on mobile so I'm trying to just remember everything you mentioned. I hope this covered most of it?

But, basically, the reading skills to navigate an app menu or read a single sentence are not what's being discussed. The skills to read a newspaper or book, however, are.

[palominocorn]

I saw this a few days ago and it's been on my mind since.

I don't even need to leave Tumblr to see failed literacy.

I've seen many people, just in the last couple of days, completely misunderstand something and read it in a hostile way based on their own biases rather than in anything the author said.

It's weird and unpleasant when I go to fandom spaces and see someone completely misread a chapter. But when it comes to discussions on bigotry, politics, social justice? That ruins lives.

On a different note, I've started asking myself "am I sure I understand this" when reading dense texts, and taking a few extra seconds per paragraph to mentally summarize what I read to make sure I get it. So, thanks for making me a more conscientious reader, Vees.

[roshi-no-tabi]

This is something that I bring up a lot in discussions of politics and education and people regularly assume that I’m either misunderstanding the studies or just making stuff up.  It’s a gigantic problem that is too readily overlooked.  Reading isn’t everything, but it is necessary to be informed, and lacking reading comprehension and, as often goes along with that, the ability to determine credible sources, means that people are often not reliably informed.

This is made worse by people being insecure about their difficulty with reading and lashing out against “elites” who try to cite studies and articles they don’t understand.  There’s whole swaths of US adults who almost brag about not having “read a book since highschool”.  Reading for a lot of people, because it’s difficult and because, is seen as a chore or a punishment, and not enough is done to combat this and meet these people halfway and make reading engaging for them. Things like bionic reading, accessible language articles with specific summaries, and headlines that don’t ask misleading questions can help a lot.

So often people who are argumentative and tell you to “do your own research” are literally incapable of doing their own research as a result of this, and just find a charismatic voice that vaguely matches their own biases and just seeks to manipulate people like this. This influences voting, this influences daily interactions, this influences a world where we have people believing in two distinct sets of truths: the world that makes factual sense to those who can and do read studies and articles and longform texts, and the world that makes sense off of a general “feeling” and what you’re told in the media that you engage with. This is why it’s so important that we hold our media accountable, that we call out oppressive voices in news and entertainment, and that we make other struggling voices more visible.  People can complain all they want that it’s becoming too “woke” in the media landscape, but they’re still watching and in watching they’re being exposed to more and different ideas, something that they otherwise wouldn’t get without seeking it out or engaging in deep reading.  While having “woke” superhero media or whatnot is a step we need to also accompany this with better more engaging educational media that is factually accurate, as well as more aggressive (or any at all) restrictions on the spread of misinformation. Not being able to read shouldn’t be something we’re judging people on, it should be a problem we look to understand and solve for.

[actually-factually-autistic]

Well fuck…

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

One of my favorite responses in my Social Interaction Toolkit is:

"Why do you ask?"

Allistic people tend to ask one question when they actually mean something quite different (this is one of many ways in which allistic people are strange and exotic). So when I don't want to hazard guessing, my default response is to cheerfully respond to ambiguous questions with "Why do you ask?"

Usually if I do it casually, people don't notice I didn't answer the original question, and instead move on to their Actual Question. (Also works if you just prefer to give noncommittal answers.) Very very basic example but:

Person: "Are you busy/what are you doing this weekend?"

You (too tired to guess-and-then-calculate-an-emotional-slash-external-response based on if this is a prelude to a social invitation, an acquaintance asking for a favor, a coworker asking to trade shifts, boss wanting you to work overtime, etc): *vague but friendly smile* Why do you ask?

Person: Well I wanted to know if....

Very useful shortcut/cheatcode

[actually-factually-autistic]

I think this just made my whole week. I’m speechless.

[only-tiktoks]

[actually-factually-autistic]

I love this with a passion I cannot begin to articulate.

[wishuponastarion]

"oh sorry, i guess i was infodumping again" - sad, shy, apologetic

"you sly dog, you got me monologuing" - cool, strong, confident

[actually-factually-autistic]

I-

I’m-

I’m definitely stealing that irl.

[spyglassrealms]

Fresh news from Hubble, and it's a real doozy this time: it found a runaway supermassive black hole.

Let me repeat that:

A runaway SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE.

Half the universe away, an immense object born of concentrated primordial chaos, so powerful it once bound an entire galaxy together, hurtles through the intergalactic void. Its flight through the cosmos so unfathomably violent that it leaves a stream of newborn stars two hundred thousand lightyears long whirling in its wake. Gas and dust in the space between galaxies is spread so thin a particle might never touch another for a million years, and yet this escaped galactic core has dragged the matter in its path into fusion.

What a universe we live in!

[actually-factually-autistic]

I’m crying, that’s such a magnificent description.

[thecommunalfoolboy]

Just found out about the humans are space orcs thing you all got going on here and I wanna know how many of u guys finally realized u think humans are so strange bc ur autistic

[actually-factually-autistic]

Okay, I just came out tonight to have a fun time and I honestly am feeling so attacked rn. /j /hj

[spacedace]

The one where Elle keeps having to deal with her boyfriends’ family members breaking into her home Part 1 (Jon/Damian/Elle secret dating nonsense):

-

Dick finds out about Damian’s girlfriend at the same time he meets her for the first time.

Normally something as momentous as discovering that his babiest brother had a dating life would have been cause for excitement and joy. Damian had grown a lot from those early years, but Dick still worried about him. Since moving out and into his own apartment he seemed more likely than ever to avoid people, even - maybe especially - the family. He still came over to the manor regularly, but it was rare than at anyone outside of Alfred even saw him outside of patrol or working on cases. He showed up, spent time with Batcow and Alfred-the-Cat and Ace, then left before anyone saw him.

So finding out that Damian had a girlfriend - let alone one he was serious enough about that they lived together - should have been the highlight of the week, maybe even the month!

Unfortunately for him, however, the excitement of it all was rather dimmed by the concussion of said girlfriend hitting him over the head with a baseball bat with the force of a freight train after assuming he was a stranger breaking into her home.

Keep reading

[actually-factually-autistic]

I’m losing it over this! I’d honestly never considered Elle/ Damian/ Jon, but they now they just kinda click for me.

I’m crying, this is too good. 😭

[lo-andbehold]

I’m so emotional about dinosaur stuffed animals,,, there are these creatures, extinct long before any of us were alive, but we found their bones and their eggs and their footprints. And we made drawings and models of what they could’ve looked like. And we made them into stuffed animals so we could hold them. We made them soft so we could love them. I’m sobbing

[river9noble]

[actually-factually-autistic]

Welp, I’m going to go find a nice corner to cry in.

[actually-factually-autistic]

Do y’all ever keep a running commentary with your dog?

Like how else will I let her know she’s the goodest girl & also she shouldn’t eat all the stray cigarette butts she sees.

Then you’re minding your business,

but suddenly!

***a dead mouse appears***

And now you’re telling you’re dog, “we don’t eat dead mice,” like you’re the one who tried to scarf down a decomposing sidewalk corpse,

because you didn’t want her to feel bad about it.

But now someone is looking at you like you’ve grown a third head?

…Yeah, me neither. /s /j

[neurospicy]

Sometimes I wonder if I’m actually autistic or if I’m just making it up in my head to explain why I feel so different, then my morning routine gets messed up and I have a meltdown so bad I’m still shaking an hour and a half later.

[actually-factually-autistic]

Gods, what a mood /g

[localrobosexual]

trying to use the internet in 2023 be like

[actually-factually-autistic]

Idk what y’all complaining about, I’ve never been so popular. /j 😂

[spitegoblin]

[bubobubosibericus]

A bad workman blames his tools a good workman names them is a sentence I will now introduce to my vocabulary

[actually-factually-autistic]

I can’t get over that last line.

I’m kinda obsessed/in love with the AITA subreddit.

The whole idea of people realizing they might be in the wrong,

desiring and actively seeking outside opinions in order to better themselves and attempt to bury the hatchet,

strangers offering their perspectives, time, and advice to help someone learn to be better, be kinder, be thoughtful and more introspective,

Or strangers who comfort vulnerable people who definitively aren’t the asshole,

even the peeps who don’t take the criticism well, they took a step forward just being there, just posting, and I honestly wish the best for most posters there.

It’s heartwarming, it helps restore my faith in humanity.

I’ll truly never understand people who use the anonymity of the internet to be hateful and spread such vitriol.

[actually-factually-autistic]

so there are the more common sensory yucks neurospicy ppl have, like sock seams and wet food, but like

Does anyone else’s teeth itch when they touch dry paper towels?

Like my skin feels like it’s trying to crawl away and the feeling crawls up to my elbow until I touch a good sensory thing for long enough. 💀🤢😵‍💫

I’d love to hear about others’ sensory palettes or weird(affectionate) stims from anyone willing to share.

I’m here for all the sensory niches and weird stims

[thunderbottle]

this android is autistic and no one can prove me wrong

[actually-factually-autistic]

I love this so much! Thank you for creating something with so much joy!!