24 • she/her • INFJ • writer/reader • feminist • 🏳️🌈(L)GBT• Taurus • very multi fandom but main ones rn are Maze Runner, A League of Their Own, and Downton Abbey • is way too in love with tv shows • also movies and books • high key loves Dodie and her music • AO3 •
I'm kind of glad to hear that everyone does this. Because it means it isn't colonizer bullshit, it's what everyone does. It's just people discovering new things. Everyone goes:
"Oh hey these people have their own style of [language A's word for thing. Say, what do you call it?"
"Oh it's [language B's word for thing]."
"Got it, it's [language B's word for thing] variety [language A's word for thing]"
added to which it is LITERALLY JUST LINGUISTIC SHORTHAND for
[item] the way [culture] makes it.
If you don’t want sliced bread, you want bread the way Eastern Indians make it you ask for Roti, not bread. Because Roti is bread THE WAY [EASTERN] INDIANS MAKE IT. Like fuck, it’s not that complicated a concept.
OF COURSE it’s not colonizer bullshit! It’s just linguistic shorthand!
aren't gorillas gentle giants or something. i stay out of his way, he doesn't maul me, we have a nice time picking out clothes together in opposite sides of the mall
Male gorillas are super aggressive and territorial. Also they interpret nearly every human mannerism as a sign of aggression or a challenge. Smiling and eye contact are both things that zookeepers have to be taught to suppress when they’re in the vicinity of gorillas.
This is all irrelevant because the obvious answer is five black mambas. I mean, that’s not actually very many snakes, and malls are fucking huge. And unlike a gorilla you can definitely outrun a snake if it does show up. Find an open space in the mall where you can see any snake coming and just hangout out there. Fucking easy.
Misguided! I would much rather have a mallmate I can easily see and hear coming. I'm confident I can stay out of the gorilla's way, but if I step on a snake or one otherwise gets the jump on me, it's all over.
It's not just about the physical danger either, it's about my mental health. One gorilla, unless he's actively mad at me, I just keep a healthy distance between us and make sure I never get trapped. With the snakes, it requires a lot more constant vigilance
Black mambas have a reputation build on being very venomous and very fast. I'm not sure why you would think you could outrun one (or five) in an enclosed space like a mall.
Malls usually have pretty slick floors, and escalators. I’d choose the gorilla simply because I think that would make an more interesting story (and a better-selling autobiography, I Survived the Mall Gorilla) but I think I’d stand a pretty good chance at avoiding the mamba. They’re fast and aggressive and will chase you but unless we started immediately beside each other I think my sneakers would have the terrain advantage over scutes.
fucking enamored with the implication that this gorilla is fully intelligent but is trying to manufacture plausible deniability like the movie barnyard
Imagine an alien sharing a cool human fact they just learned like ”hey guys did you know that the silvery markings on humans actually aren’t true stripes? They’re called stretch marks, they happen when the human is growing fast enough to actually outgrow their skin, which is apparently something that just fucking happens to almost all of them at some point of their life.”
and another one is like ”wait so you’re saying humans don’t have stripes.”
”actually they do, but the stripes are invisible. There’s genetic code that’d give them stripes but they’re just the same colour as the rest of the skin. So the visible stripes are not real stripes and the real stripes are invisible.”
”I swear if you tell me one more weird human thing today I’m beating your ass.”
I remember reading somehwre the human eye can see more shades of green than any other colour. I just googled it and the human eye can see 10 Million different shades of green.
So human could see stripes and patterns on, say, a reptillian race who maybe can’t see as many colours as we do, and think they’re just one boring shade of green.
Human: We have stripes?! I wish I could see them. I hope they look like yours.
G̴͛͟OͤT̘ ̛̘̉̕͟Sͪ͏̴̠̙T́ͨǓ̳͔̆͢C̀K̘̀ ̰͈͓͟I̮̩ͮ̏N̫̫̑͢ ̧̆AΙ ̨͕̺̮̆ḺO͊O̶̥̣ͤ͒P̛ ̼͍̉͝ ^EVILHAIKU^bot^2. Most of you are welcome, friendly Human®. | PayPal | Patreon
The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo is HANDES DOWNES the best series of anything to have been made by anyone ever. You’ll laugh you’ll cry you’ll quote it forever and be silently disappointed that a person you thought would know it doesn’t know it & then you won’t know how to accurately convey HOW MUCH it means to you without sounding like you’re overselling something well anyway
Y'all have got to get better at handling uncertainty. Sometimes two people will have a falling out and you legitimately won't be able to tell which one was the abuser and which one was the victim. Sometimes you'll encounter a stranger online who might be a channer troll trying to stir shit up or might be a deeply traumatized person trying their hardest to speak their truth. That person with the gendery vibes might be a trans egg or they might be a cis person who just does whatever the hell they want. You have got to learn to act appropriately when you can't know everything.
I really don’t know if this is like. For anyone. But as a 33 year old autistic, I’ve spent a lot of time having to deal with a wide variety of folks in various jobs, and it’s forced me out of my shell. I dunno if you’d call ‘em masking behaviors or just… guidelines, but I thought I’d share some stuff about how I try to go about dealing with socializing with folks, especially neurotypicals, in the hopes it might help folks like me who, growing up, didn’t have a rulebook for this stuff.
It’s by no means comprehensive, but maybe some of you can use it:
Open with kindness, folks are a mystery until you get to know them, but if you’re polite and assume the best unless proven otherwise, nine times out of ten, they’ll be the same way!
If someone is rude or disrespectful or unkind off the bat, it truly is a problem on their end, not yours. I know that’s one your parents might have thrown out without explaining, but genuinely, my experience has been that people aren’t good about compartmentalization, and they tend to let their bad mood spill out.
Similarly, it’s your right to disengage if someone makes you uncomfortable. You don’t owe someone your attention if they’re rude or too forward, and it’s not your obligation to correct their behavior. It’s okay to just move on!
Remember people aren’t mind readers- I know for folks like us, feelings can be Big and Present and Overwhelming, but from the outside, people might just assume you’re being sullen or grumpy. It’s helpful to explain yourself, what’s going on- don’t give ‘em your life’s story and try to lead with kindness, as above, but explaining where your head is at can help folks understand why things might be hard for you.
People REALLY like to try to fix stuff. If you tell someone who cares about you what’s going on and they try to throw a buncha stuff like “well have you tried this” or “maybe you should do this” at you, they’re generally not trying to tell you what to do like you’re wrong, they’re just not sure how to help and are doing what comes naturally- trying to fix the problem. It can help to open any venting with “hey, can I vent about this?” Since then the expectations are set.
People can only operate on the information they have, so it’s better to over-explain than not explain at all. Don’t throw out every single detail of what’s going on, just the basics, but “I’m feeling frustrated because of some unexpected news” or “Well, I’m kinda struggling with my relationship with a friend” can be enough for folks to understand things at the ground floor.
There are very few people in your life who are capable of taking on the weight of a friend’s problems on top of their own, and it takes time to learn who those people are. I know folks like us can make friends quickly and rush into trusting them implicitly, but people can sometimes take a while to show you who they are. And not every friendship is gonna be as deep as we’d like it to be. This is okay, of course, not everyone has to be best buds, but it can help a lot to take the time to wait for those people to show who they are.
Ask questions, listen to people, and know that it’s okay for there to be silence. It’s very easy to get excited about what’s stuck in your craw on a given day, but remember that from the outside, people might get worn out if every conversation is about what you’re fixated on. It’s a give and take, so try to consciously remind yourself to make sure to listen and give them room to speak too! It means a lot when you do that for people!
When you don’t know if someone is ignoring you or if they’re mad at you or what have you from a lack of information, remember that oftentimes it’s a product of ignorance, not malice. Again, you know how you feel about a situation, but they probably don’t. A conversation turning from what you were talking about, someone ceasing replying to you, not answering a question, etc is more often just unaware than they are actively being malicious.
Remember that it’s on other folks to tell you if there’s a problem between them and you, not on you to sleuth it out. If they aren’t properly communicating with you, that’s on them, not you- try not to beat yourself up if someone doesn’t talk to you about something before a molehill becomes a mountain, that’s a mistake all kinda of folks make, and it’s something some people never learn.
Most of all, remember that for all the talk of social cues and neurotypical behavior, the truth is, everyone kinda… sucks at this social thing. All you really control is how you approach it, so if you do your best to come into a relationship of any kind with kindness and love for yourself and respect for others, most of the time you’ll come out ahead!
ADDENDUM: BIG one here- if you think you did something wrong, apologize! I don’t mean a big like- sobbing show of contrition, don’t grovel or write paragraphs, but if you speak over someone or say something that doesn’t land or make any little social mistake here or there (everyone does sometimes!) a simple little genuine “oh, my apologies!” Or “oop, my bad!” Not only makes them feel better, it can make you feel better too!
I know this exploded thanks to the Punkitt Bump (I’m coining that as a term now, sorry @punkitt-is-here) but y’all like… genuinely seeing people saying that this helped them, as other folks on the spectrum?
I… won’t lie, I wrote this because it was something that was kinda nagging me at work today- that I could try to share my experiences with people as someone who has Been Through That Wringer of being an autistic person trying to navigate the Adult World. I didn’t expect it to do much- I’m a niche furry artist on a niche blogging website- but if only one or two of my followers could get something that could help them navigate the world just a bit better, I would have considered that a rousing success.
That I can reach out just a little further? Say to people I wouldn’t have interacted with otherwise “hey, it’s okay, you CAN do this, here’s some pointers”?
I don’t think I remember the last time I happy cried. Might not have been this decade, I’ll be frank.
