This Too Shall Pass

— Ursula K. Le Guin, from “A Rant About ‘Technology’”

not to shame on the Beholder-aligned people in here, but i want you all to remember that when i share some kind of eerily specific or surprisingly insightful piece of information with you, i speak directly from experience. i never Just Know Things™. i fucked around and found out

Anyways when I was sixteen I wrote a story about a spaceship's communications officer (think Uhura) who was given a brain implant when he was a baby that automatically translates every language in the universe, but which interferes with his ability to perceive and process subtle changes in tone. He hears an emotionless automated translator voice inside his head rather than hearing the real voices being physically carried by air vibrations. So he has the ability to interpret every word in every language, but he can never interpret tone of voice. And the ultimate message of the story is that understanding every possible text isn't enough -- if you don't understand subtext, you'll be isolated. The "communications officer" actually struggles to communicate more than anyone else on the ship.

You'll never guess what they diagnosed me with a year later.

Everybody say a silent prayer for me as I smash the head of baby Jesus clean off this statue in the name of art.

the more i try to explain gender to cis people the more i understand plato's allegory of a cave

maybe this time picking at Textures on my skin will lead to being silky smooth

had to teach myself to "walk properly" and by that mean swing my arms slightly and have more spring to my step because people have pointed out that i walk as if i'm "floating" or "rolling on wheels"

also, active listening. but it's a common thing imo

I think one of my most autistic experiences is as a kid I had to teach myself how to swing my arms when I walk

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

homophobes are not allowed to use computers because the inventor of the computer was gay