#autistic spock

[self-made-purgatories]

angsty tortured spocko my beloved (as told by textposts)

[allgremlinart]

Psychic Torment !

I was thinking about the Spock/Autism parallels and how being on a ship full of humans who cant understand boundaries they don't necessarily require for THEIR sanity could end up being overstimulating... Being hypersensitive to every loud room you walk into, every brush of an arm. An inexpressible, invisible burden, etc etc.

alt. ver

[spirk-fic-recs]

Hi! You are my go to blog for spirk recs and I really appreciate your hard work!

I enjoyed reading Sincerely, Spock which you recommended in an earlier post about AUs. Do you have any other autistic Spock recs?

Hey Nonny! Thank you for your kind words!

This is the fic that Nonny is talking abt btw:

Sincerely, Spock (TOS, WIP, 15486 words) by unbearable_lightness_of_ink

After drunkenly making out with a coworker at a mixer, Spock determines to follow up appropriately. Armed with research into socio-sexual behaviours and a list of expected next steps, he initiates what he expects to be a less-than-one-month casual sexual relationship, based on the averages he's observed with Jim's previous flings. He's going to get a good grade in behaving like a normal neurotypical human (something that's normal to want and possible to achieve).

Honestly, I haven't read much with this trope, but here are the ones that I am familiar with:

what do i do (with a love that won't sit still) (TOS/Post-SNW, 186826 words) by snapdragonsuplex

Spock looks up at the gorgeous, golden man above him, the knowledge that this beautiful specimen desires him filling him with a sudden boldness. His hands trail down Jim’s back until they reach their destination, squeezing his firm buttocks with each palm. Jim lets out a yelp in surprise, then gives him an absolutely filthy grin. “I want-!” -------------------- And then Spock wakes up. At the age of thirty-seven, Spock experiences his first real crush. There are three problems with this. One, he has no idea how to navigate these new feelings. Two, it very quickly becomes more than just a crush. And three, the object of his affections is one Captain James T. Kirk.

A Scientist's Greatest Joy (TOS, 17584 words) by Solid_Medical_Advice

Cadet Kirk does not go out with the likes of Cadet Spock. That doesn't mean Spock doesn't wish it were otherwise. When Spock's roommate plans a spring vacation trip with their friends, things get harder to hide.

First Love (AOS, 7503 words) by Kaiiidth

Spock cannot find equal footing between emotion and logic. He is sent to Psi Sector IX, an off-planet juvenile detention center. When he crosses paths with James T. Kirk, he finds he no longer has anything to prove. Spock’s first love blossoms, leaving him to seek solace in its petals.

I genuinely enjoyed this one, so make sure to also read its sequel: Late Spring

Overload (TOS, 82855 word) by Superfloxes

Spock has always struggled to feel like he really belongs anywhere; too Human for Vulcans, too Vulcan for Humans. It doesn’t help that there’s a certain… aspect of his that makes fitting in even harder. Trying to ignore that part of him backfires spectacularly when a party - meant to celebrate the new crew’s first few successful missions - induces a reaction he hoped never to have in front of anyone. A reaction that Humans call a 'meltdown'.

Finding Peace (TOS, 3295 words) by DorkLarue

“I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen to you. You were the good kid. You did everything right. I was the problem child.” “And yet we are both in the same position,” Spock says bitterly. “Lightyears from home, with Mother ignoring our calls.“

Hands Together (TOS, 8695 words) by Solid_Medical_Advice

The Enterprise gets a new piano and Kirk gets a new idea. Said idea involves learning piano and marrying Spock.

a cold and lonely, lovely work of art (TOS/AOS, 1003 words) by Anonymous

Spock must adjust to life in the Starfleet dormitories. Earth is colder than Vulcan.

To Feel Alien (TOS/AOS, 30137 words) by Idknoname

These are the times Spock was forced to understand how strange and different Earth and humans were, and the one time that maybe he did understand enough. All the shenanigans of going to a new place, the environment, the food, and the people!

So here's what I have so far! I hope you enjoy these recs as much as I did when I was browsing for them! Happy Reading!

-M

[lockyle-and-skull]

had to make a gif of my favorite spock quote

bonus: kirk's reaction

[illegalpaladin]

Happy autistic Spock please!! (Something like him talking about a special interest or enjoying a particular sensory thing no meltdowns please 💖)

Little did you know that this was the perfect prompt for me, an autistic person. Because now I can push my special interest of pet food onto Spock. Here's some autistic Spock infodumping about a special interest! Thank you for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!

Spock sits at his desk, reclined just slightly and with his arms crossed. Jim stands to his right. McCoy is leaned over Spock’s left shoulder, staring at the animal on the computer screen. 

“That’s a Sehlat?” 

Spock almost smiles, looking smug. “I told you, Doctor. Hardly a teddy bear.” 

McCoy scowls, then turns back to the screen. “Why, it’s huge. What do you even feed that thing?”

“An excellent question, Doctor.” Neither McCoy or Jim can ignore the way Spock’s eyes light up. “And one that has been debated among Vulcans for generations.” 

McCoy leans over to Jim. “Did I start something?”

Jim chuckles, and it’s warm with affection. “I believe you did.”

“As you can imagine, Vulcans wanted to feed Sehlats whatever would logically meet their nutritional needs. However, there were disagreements as to whether that meant what they would eat in the wild, or a food scientifically curated to meet their needs.” 

“And what,” Jim smiles, “was the conclusion?”

“Sehlats have been domesticated since before the time of Surak. I am of the opinion that the pets we have have evolved enough to have different nutritional needs from their wild ancestors.” 

McCoy raises an eyebrow. “You’re tellin’ me there’s Sehlat kibble?” 

“Indeed.” Spock tilts his head. “Though even then, some kibble is more acceptable than others. Some still cater to the Sehlats’ wild ancestry. Others have formulas founded on decades of scientific studies and research.” 

Jim’s eyes are warm with affection. “You’re awfully informed on the subject, Spock.” 

“Of course. When I was growing up with I Chaya, I wanted to make sure he was getting the best nutrition he possibly could. And so I performed hours of my own rigorous research. I took a special interest in the subject matter and have kept up-to-date on it ever since. Both the continued research and the history of the development of Sehlat food are fascinating subjects. Did you know…”

Spock dives into a detailed explanation of the domestication of Sehlats, and McCoy leans towards Jim. “I don’t see what’s so interesting about pet food.”

Jim leans closer but keeps his eyes on Spock, who is growing more animated with each word. “It makes sense to me. He loved his pet, and he wanted to take good care of him. Isn’t research and knowledge a very Spock way to do that?”

[woman-of-many-fandoms]

how do you think vulcans would view and approach autism disorders?

Nice, my obsessions coming together. So interesting.

I'm coping this from reddit:

So I think a looot about what autism is and also about StarTrek so bear with me. The first thing we have to assume is that they don't eugenics us out of existance with genetic engineering and that autism even exists in Vulcans, two things we can't take for granted in the ST cannon. Edit - to clarify; I am autistic and study a vaguely adjacent topic (Deaf studies, which is related under the umbrella of disability studies) in university. I'm also very present in autistic communities and have many autistic friends. My perspective is an autisgic one.

One model or autism would suggest that its by and large 3 main causative factors. This theory is a WIP that isn't heavily substantiated but I believe it to be more or less true so bear with me.

Difference of Ettiquette Aquisition. (EA)

Difference of Stimulation Sensitivity. (SS)

Difference of Spoons. (Sp)

Ettiquette Aquisition

Ettiquette is being used in a very broad sense here. EA refers to the facet of autism which is the fact that we often do not internalise, or internalise differently, a lot of societal messaging and ettiquette. Its often an outright disability, which leaves us incapable of functioning in certain settings with specific ettiquette requirememts or having to overcome and find our own ways to reason and interpret the ettiquette. For neurotypicals this learning is often very passive and internalises at a deep and instinctual level.

BUT it also affects stuff like logic and morality. Present day Earth Human society is quite illogical and contradictory, and while autistic people are just as prone to being as muddled as everyone else - the fact rhat many of us build up our own behaviour sets, moralities (I think the way neurotypicals learn morality is downstream of the way they learn ettiquette, just an observation), ettiquette structures; we tend to have more interally consistent worldviews. I believe this is why a lot of autistic people feel more moral (and why every philosopher was autistic, I will die on this hill /hj).

IRT to Vulcans - if ways of directly teaching ettiquette and logic (which seems to be the case) and if the Vulcan belief system is in fact logical then autistic people wouldn't have too hard a time. If a specific autistic person's personality+EA is such that they cannot learn the Vulcan logic system then this might set them against Vulcan society more.

Stimulation Sensitivity

This is quite simple. Autistic people tend to have bigger or smaller reactions to physical and emotional stimulation of various kinds. There are trends (like audiosensitivity being common) but no decernable patterns and each autistic person's SS is very different. Its honestly quite a fun experience finding out that you have an utterly opposite SS than another autistic person and to have a bit of a playful fight over it. This directly leads to stuff like overstimulation and stimming and it can be argued that it indirectly leads to stuff like putting your toys/things in order or in a diarama rather than playing with them.

But IRT to Vulcans - I can't tell how they'd respond to this. This feels like the thing they'd be most repulsed by, especially the emotional reactions to stimuli and the stimulatory expression of emotion. I think some aspects may be allowable (like stimming in public) so long as its nonemotional and perhaps stimtoys may even be of use as a form of extra emotional regulation.

But on the other hand if stimulations can be accounted for better then maybe part of being a "good" autistic Vulcan is accounting for stimulations ahead of time and making sure you do not encounter those that will cause emotional reactions.

Overall I see the biggest opening for abuse or oppression in this one.

Spoons

Sp here refers to spoon theory, a commonly used way of describing mental and mechanical energy in disabled communities. In the chronic illness and chronic fatigue side of disability it is largely used to mean less energy. In regards to autism its often used to mean that you either have a lot of spoons or no spoons at different points in a day. There is also an extended cutlery theory which includes things like knives (spoons that you can use but will hurt you later).

This can lead to stuff such as inability to do certain tasks as well as hyperability to do others. It bends spoontheory a little bit but I also thing that thats fine, so stuff like I have certain "types" of spoons in different amounts. This adds to executive dysfunction (which is also aversion to stuff you know will cause bad stimulation) as well as hyperfixations and special interests (which again can be a stimulation seeking behaviour).

IRT to Vulcans - I think they might be relatively kind on this front. I think that there would be encouragement to find the logic to your own ability and no logic would be seen in pushing past your own ability. Plus being in a post scarcity world - no labour is mandatory and hyperfixations/special-interests can be engaged with and prove useful to society so I think autistic people would be left to do their own thing. In fact while infodumping (the act of talking at a person about a hyperfixation/special-interest) would have to be done in a calm way - I can even see them being used as a form of public discourse, education and entertainment (whats more Vulcan than going on a night out to listen to someone lecture you on their life's work studying the insect life on a specific planet).

Conclusion

I think that Vulcan society would be relatively well suited (probablt much better than present day society is) to autistic people so long as they aren't abusive around stimulation sensitivities. In fact you could argue that Vulcan culture may promote a number of autistic behaviours even within the neurotypical population.

Edit - This is a best case scenario viewing the situation with rational optimistim.

Original response here -

[misscalming]

I was watching the search for Spock with a friend and like- how tf was Spock supposed to predict his body regenerating like that? Like did he just transfer his soul to McCoy like “my parting gift to thee…. Autism” JUST TO BE A BITCH LIKE????

“You are suffering from a Vulcan Mind meld” YOU MEAN AUTISM!!!??

[non-binary-lil-star]

Vulcans are just weirdly tall autistic people