this is the home of ben. he also answers to guinevere. he is twenty-two. he doesn't talk much. but he will talk to you because he thinks you are awesomesauce. hi.
it really is next to impossible to write realistic sibling dialogue, I just passed my brother on the stairs and instead of greeting each other like human beings I said ‘born survivor’ and he said ‘youtube rewind. let’s set it to rewind.’ like you ain’t gonna find that shit in a novel
aw man writing siblings is so wild because sometimes you just can’t portray it
me and my little brother don’t even greet each other - if we pass each other on the stairs or in the corridor, we jump into ridiculous fight stances then feign karate chopping and slapping each other (stopping just before we make contact) whilst making “HIIIYA” and “POW” noises for a solid 30 seconds, then silently walk off and continue what we were doing
and then sometimes he’ll either just do the Had To Do It To ‘Em pose when I enter the room or dab as a greeting
exactly! I have three younger brothers and the original post was just about the oldest, the middle one and me usually do some kind of elaborate dab also, and a lot of the time when I see the youngest I just yell his name like a wrestling commentator…siblings have a different language
Last night I went up to my brother and said “Are we snakes?” by which I meant “Do you want to go to steak and shake for burgers at four am?” and he responded “Death is coming.” which I understood meant “Yes, but I’m tired so it’ll have to be earlier.” and somehow, without any further conversation, we both wound up in the car going to steak and shake at two am.
If you sibling long enough your conversations become divorced from human language entirely.
“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
“…disability exists in the context of the environment.”
Reblog for disability commentary.
That last paragraph is absolutely important.
“How come nobody ever heard of ‘dyslexia’ until widespread literacy became a thing?”
the real victim in Pride and Prejudice is Georgiana Darcy, bc u know her brother spent at least two weeks lying around in his Regency Jammies eating Benjamin and Jerrold’s out of ye olde carton feeling sorry for himself bc his crush not only didn’t like him back but tore him to shreds in the process and Georgie had to deal with that and then said crush shows up at their HOUSE and she has to live w both of them probably stealing lovelorn yearning glances at each other the whole damn day while knowing if she even SUGGESTS to her brother that maybe perhaps his crush doesn’t hate his entire guts anymore he’ll just be all tragic about it bc “you don’t KNOW her Georgiana she dESPISES me and i DESERVE it”
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Alright listen up 👂👀👂in twenty 🌈 Bi-neteen 🌈 we are gonna fucking uhhhh 🌞love 🤙🤘respect 👍and cherish 👌👌our bi siblings. 💃💃 That biphobic shit better be 🙅♀️🚫off 🚫🙅♀️my fucking dash. My bi pals are finding love 👨❤️💋👨👩❤️👩 happiness 💕👍and getting GOOD ASS haircuts 💇♂️💇♀️ in 20 Bi-neteen 🎉🎉🎈none of you biphobes and homophobes better fuckin ruin this 😬🙅♂️💀 🙅♀️👀👀thank u my babies 🙏✨🎆🌠🌈
In order to deliver on our promise to save America, we knew we needed to tackle our country’s biggest issue: wealth inequality. The richest 0.1% of Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 90%.
Our lawyers wouldn’t let us pursue our first choice - a campaign to eat all the rich people and live in their homes - so we settled for something more achievable. Today, Card Against Humanity has redistributed your wealth.
Using the survey you filled out when you signed up, we identified the 100 poorest recipients and sent them each check for $1,000. To see how this $1,000 is impacting these peoples lives, read their stories at CardsAgainstHumanityRedistributesYourWealth.com. The next 10,000 poorest recipients got a $15 refund check.
You got nothing. And if you don’t like it, tough titties.
I love you,
Cards Against Humanity”
I was one of the 100 to get the check from these folks, and holy shit I was CACKLING at the hurt people on Facebook. Some people only cared about their precious $15 when it helped the poor.
Congrats! I’m thrilled that some of my $$$ went to people who needed it.
I went to their website for this to see if info on the other days was out, and their FAQ is so perfect I almost choked to death.