I’m pretty sure that Australians don’t have more then maybe 30-50k MAX people on tumblr. Like American had some 30 million users in 2020 (aka basically probably peak over the last 7 2018-2025) while Australia only has 26-28million people depending on who you ask (27 to be safe) so I’m just genuinely curious how many of us there must be on here.
If you Currently live in OR were born / raised in Australia and ID as (born/raised + ID, as I know a lot of born/raised here don’t ID as Aussie) you are Australian in this poll!
I love it when I show up at a doctor's office with my colour-coded folders and lists and they're like "omg this is not normal you're obsessed" and I'm like "sir I've got ADHD, autism and OCPD what do you expect"
wrote a letter to my doctor that, among other things, said “I am autistic. I am not “normal”, have never been “normal” and am tired of “normal” being the only status presented as acceptable.”
he apologised, asked to keep the letter for later reference, and did not book me for another appointment
TIL the term “thagomizer” (the spikes on a Stegosaurus’ tail) is not some Neo-Latin word created by palaeontologists from Greek to describe it.
It’s a random ass word created for a 1980s Far Side comic, “… after the late Thag Simmons”.
And the palaeontological community just went, “Sure? We didn’t have a name for it anyway” and started using it in their scientific papers????
It just throws me off bc every other term is like “thyreophora” (shield bearer) “osteoderm” (bone skin), “synapomorphic” (shaped together), “rhamphotheca” (beak case), and then there’s “thagomizer” (killed an anachronistic fictional caveman called Thag in a comic once, that’s good enough)
I gotta be honest, I didn't know half of these fuss existed. And I have to ask, what is it with Australia and their birds sounding like dinosaurs?! Australia, you good?
curious from a neurodivergent point of view: is there any way to get a maps app to STICK to the route I asked it to give me, even if I need to “detour” a little bit?
(context (vent) under the cut)
So if you may be able to tell from my last few reblogs, I haven’t exactly been in the best mood of late, to the point that I can barely tolerate my family’s presence, so I decided to go out. Didn’t matter where, so long as I was out of the house.
except it apparently DID matter where, as I promptly realised I was not in the mindset to be perceived by others. So I just. Drove. Until I was far enough away that I felt some proper solitude. Which was quite a ways away. In an area I’d never been before.
eventually I’d decompressed enough that I felt up to going home, but by then it was getting dark. So not wanting to get completely lost, I brought up my maps app on my phone.
it gave me two routes. One which was shorter and took the freeway, and one that was 5 min longer but avoided the freeway. I hate driving the freeway in broad daylight, let alone the dark, so I picked the latter.
“head south along (road I was on)”
I was facing north, so I had to pull a three-point turn.
“proceed to the route”
okay jeez, I’m getting there.
“Head south along (road I was on)”
*route continues for a bit*
“in 1.4km, use the left lane to merge onto the freeway”
EXCUSE ME?????
so, in doing a 3-point turn, maps had realised I was facing north, attempted to recalibrate, and when I turned south again, RESET TO THE SHORTER ROUTE (the one I SPECIFICALLY did not choose). And of course I didn’t notice bc I was DRIVING and not looking at my phone!
so I proceed to get cross at the app for not acknowledging my choice for all of 60 seconds, and drive past the freeway to take the next available route home.
“Use the left lane to merge onto the freeway”
No.
“Use the right lane to perform a u-turn” (this is illegal btw)
No!
“perform a u-turn”
No!!!
“perform a u-turn”
NO!!!!!
(I have never screamed at my phone before, but as stated I was already having a bad time, and the fact that a simple request was ignored after a single minute was more than I could tolerate)
“use the roundabout to perform a u-turn”
(I am now in an area I know, so I know this route is valid and makes more sense than pulling a fucking u-turn)
“turn left onto (side road that will inevitably be redirected back toward the freeway)”
“turn right onto (side road that will inevitably be redirected back toward the freeway)”
At which point I pulled over into a bus stop (no idea if THAT was legal, but at this point I didn’t care) and turned the fucking thing off
So yeah, any way I can stop my maps app from assuming shortest=better?
if you’ll excuse me, I need to go shut myself in my bedroom for three days to recuperate
obviously all mental shit is irrational and stupid but adhd paralysis. come on. like “I want to do ten different things at once and I care equally about all of them and therefore can’t decide which one has to be done first so I’ll just sit here and waste all of my energy trying to choose between them until ultimately the day is over and I’ve done nothing and am also no closer to figuring out what to do next than I was at the beginning of the day” are you kidding me
Neurotypical people will teach you that it's rude to interrupt others, that you shouldn't talk over people, and then make fun of you your whole life for being "quiet" and withdrawn because you're waiting for a break in the conversation that never comes.
being a good friend to autistic people means giving us the space and time to communicate what we’re trying to say without jumping in to correct us.
you might think you know more than us on the topic because we are struggling to communicate what we mean but that’s not necessarily the case. please consider the very likely possibility that we are struggling with verbal communication and not with knowledge on the topic.
this goes for everyone. allistics, autistics, neurodivergent people, neurotypicals, everyone. stop jumping in to correct us without giving us the time to work through our communication difficulties. just because you are also autistic doesn’t mean you are exempt from doing this to others who are autistic.
[obviously this situation is more nuanced than a short tumblr post can express. please understand that i speak from personal experience with how people interact with me and some of my communication difficulties]
the thing about having your joke posts Corrected is that it's like. posting is literature and I am actually employing time honored literary devices. like these are not unheard of ways of using language. I learned about literary devices in school in sixth grade. it is not actually beyond the pale to have an expectation that the general public will have some understanding of e.g. hyperbole or metaphor. every time people talk about this phenomenon they're like "well it's the autism website of course people are taking you literally" HELLO I AM ALSO AUTISM. HAVE YOU TRIED KNOWING MORE FACTS ABOUT THE USE OF LANGUAGE?
so my partner (who is reading Animorphs at my recommendation/rambling) pointed out something from the first book that somehow escaped my notice:
how many species are in the yeerk pool cavern?
(Image description: “And there were creatures everywhere. Taxxons, Hork-Bajir, and other things I couldn’t even begin to guess at. But mostly, there were humans. A lot of them.” End description)
— Jake, The Invasion
so bae read this, and upon returning the book to me asked “so what species are there, aside from the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons?” Presumably to get a better mental picture
and I realised the only ones I could physically describe were the Gedds (Leerans not being there yet)
then there’s this quote:
(Image description: “Through the window, we could see Yeerk crewmen - Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and two or three other alien species, in simple red or dark brown uniforms. And there were humans, too. My first reaction was hope. Humans!” End description)
— Marco, The Predator
(granted this is on the pool ship, but still)
two or three other alien species, huh? We know from the following book that one was the Gedds, but that leaves one or two other species left unidentified. We know from the same book that the Mak and the Ssstram are infested and a few books later the Nahara.
(Image description: “ Two piers were built out over the lake. One was where the Controllers - human, Hork-Bajir, Taxxon, and other species - disgorged the Yeerks from their heads. Hork-Bajir guards would watch carefully as each Controller knelt at the far end of the pier, and held his head down close to the surface of the lake.” End description)
— Rachel, The Stranger
Rachel mentions “other species” in The Stranger and “some poor creature” in The Underground, so again, implied to be more than just Gedds down there.
I haven’t read the later yeerk pool books in a while so I can’t provide evidence from them.
but to summarise: we get multiple accounts, from at least half of the Animorphs, every time they are in a yeerk pool space, that there are multiple host species other than the Hork-Bajir and Taxxons present, and yet we NEVER GET A DESCRIPTION OF ANY OF THEM
WERE THERE EVER NAHARA ON EARTH? What were they used for? What do they look like? Whats their societal structure? Mak? Ssstram? Hell, Ongachic?
I wanna know! Bae wants to know! WE WANNA KNOW DAMMIT
