Explaining autism like Tierzoo because I can and Tierzoo is the coolest YouTube channel ever
Before I start, I am neurotypical, supposedly. (There's something wrong with me but I can't figure out what.) I went on an autism research spree a few years ago, but if I get something wrong, please gently correct me in the comments. Also, for legal purposes, I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice.
If you play as a human, there is a chance you could be born with a neurodivergent status effect. There are many neurodivergent status effects, but in this post, we will talk about autism, as it is one of the more well-known ones.
Autism effects a player in many different ways, but some of the most notable ones are:
Social debuff. The social debuff from autism can range from somewhat delibating to very delibating. Additionally, there is a chance an autistic player could be non or semi-verbal. Seeing as humans are social creatures, any sort of social debuff is not ideal when playing as a human. Autistic players can employ the move mask to cover up their social problems but it doesn't always work and not everyone can use it. Also, using the move mask uses up tons of energy.
Sensory buffs and debuffs. Autism will give sensory buff and debuffs at random. The most common and well-known example is decreased tolerance for loud noises, but that is not the only sensory buff/debuff that an autistic player can have. An autistic player could really, really like sweet things and have cake as a safe food, or alternatively could hate anything sweet, and refuse to eat anything too sugary.
Very intense interests. Autism will give a 2x level up multiplier on a random interest on the interest tree. These very intense interests are called special interests.
Increased stimming. Autistics have stims to help process existing. This can range from the stereotypical hand flapping to very subtle stims like nail biting and eye-lash pulling. This can give an autistic player the weirdo debuff if they have more noticable stims.
Increased chance of comorbid conditions. There seems to be a huge autism-adhd overlap, large enough that the term audhd has been developed among the neurodivergent player base to describe the phenomenon
Anyways, just because somebody has the autism status effect, doesn't mean their whole playthrough is wrecked. Autistic players can still thrive when given the proper support they need.
If this post gets 20 reblogs, I will describe another aspect of human life like Tierzoo.
Btw, you should check out Tierzoo's YouTube channel. They're really cool.
i love Magic The Noah videos, seeing all my favourite youtubes die to insane rng
there’s just so much in this that broke me over and over, circletoons’s character, smant increasingly becoming this hardened wise wizard, pointcrow being tossed aside by everyone, poor captain kidd, the gamble boring casino with skip, jay and failboat (NEVER STOP GAMBLING, ALWAYS GAMBLE)
there were so many stupid funny deaths, tcnick3 being the only survivor of the party crashers and buddying up with slimecicle who becomes this untouchable god of power, and sophist dying to himself is the most sophist way to go out, and let nick win
On Alternate Realities, Eolving Paint, and Bugs. With Possible Spoilers for the Last Episode of "Star Trek: The Lower Depths"
Just another one of my back-tracking and re-tracing the many paths I took wandering down one of my winding trail of thoughts:
With the right tectonic activity, erosion, and distribution of rocks of varying compositions; in enough time, I could see nature easily form a mug-shaped formation out of "chaoitically"-arranged rocks. I feel the example given for entrophy of there being no-unbreaking mugs actually goes to show that one must put energy in a system to realize the least likeliest of outcomes.
This insight comes from my thinking about how if there are "multiverse-s"/"many worlds"/"parallel universes;" thereoitically, one wouldn't have to leave earth in search for alien lifeforms. One could just observe this planet from these alternate dimensions, and eventually we'd see every possible world that's out there, assuming the "multiverse" is infinite, unlike this universe). How did that lead to entrophy? My imagining that the further the alternate Earth(s) resembled our own, the further away it's likelihood. Meaning that it would be easier to peering into parrallel Earths with the fewest differences from ours, and requiring more work to reach Earths with more remarkable dissimilarities. The idea of needing to take more and more energy to make possible more extreme variations of reality was where I forked into thinking about mugs and entrophy.
((A lot of my 'exploring alien life through parallel Earths' thoughts were inspired by episode "Fissure Quest" from "Star Trek, Lower Decks," which I had recently watched, you see…)
And THAT comes from my pondering speculative evolution; where I was wondering if and how other lifeforms could naturally develop human-like behaviors that naturally gives them advantages over other animals. Specifically, how could creatures covergently stumble upon the idea of finding hidden predators/preys by forcibly "making them easier to see?" Humans do this inavertedly by enviornmental destruction and painting everything white, giving advantage to only those with albinism and polar bears. I know sonar and echolocation are already a similar stragey, but what about actually "marking" a target (living and moving, that is), in a way where they are visible and/or tracable?
Now, I've thought of a few possibilities, some more costly on natural resouses, than others. Co-depedent relationships seem the easiest. Using an animal that's easier to see to track down animals that aren't, in exchange for security or shared food. Symbiotic relationships with micro biomes on the skin/hair could do the trick too, where a creature could naturally shed them about, and if they land on something that they want to eat/avoid, those symbiants provide a unique reaction, making them easier to sense. That's most likey to be scent-based, instead of sight. Hard to make visual adjustments to predators/prey in a color-spectrum exclusive to a single species, after all.
(* @theoctopuslady, inadvertedly explaining the shortcomings of "highlighting" your target, in a way that makes that target more revealing to anyone and everyone else, as well. It's at about the 14:32 mark of their "Tier Zoo" reaction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGsBqMILGgY )
I fear that indiscrimate spraying would be the hardest stunt to pull. Sprays are already best used as an offensive/defensive weapon in the animal kingdom. The energy and resources needed to just periodocally burst out scents, or even pigments, in an area large enough to maximise the chances of hitting anything of interest, seem way too high. Especially at the rate that other lifeforms emit sound waves to achieve that very effect. I can't imagine any synapsid managing that without the means of paint-guns, carpet-dusters, or other externally-sourced ingenuity. Perhaps plants with the means of an explosive and vast seed dispersal could be coaxed to developing seeds with chemicals that affect one animal's ability to be sensed or not sensed by others. Probably in a commenselistic relationship; I doubt it could come to benefit the plant in any way.
However, I did think of two bizarre ways that could work. One is where a flying preadator spots prey in an area that's difficult to reach, like having to navigate through tree foliage or something. What that predator could do is develop prehensile hemorroids that allow them aim and shoot out small projectiles—"paint pallets," I'll call them—to hit said prey instead. There could be multiple outcomes to this that could also be combined to maximize effectiveness. The "paint-droppings" could leave a pigment that's difficult to clean, so that the prey is easily spotted when it moves to more favorable areas for easy-access. But for more immeadate gratification. The pallet could have irritants that cause the prey to injure itself or slow down to try and remove it, giving the aerial preadtor time to maneuver over to it. It could also come with scents that repel other competing predators from swooping in to catch the now incapicated prey…
The second idea was of a colony/bee-type of stinging inscect which leaves their stinger which, instead of having a poision sac, has a sack full of chemical traces that the rest of the colony can track down to attack the creature en-masse…
*(Note that some new ideas I had, while writing all this, got mixed in, especially in the flying-predaror part)
…And why did I start thinking about all that? Because of this bug I saw in the hallway of the apartment building. Which I'm sure had evolved a masterfull camouflage that renders them practically invisible—were the poor thing in their own enviornment:
