sebastianfucker:

sebastianfucker:

successfully profiled and found a lost cat thanks to a criminal minds binge someone tell the FBI to hire me

My roommate came to get me because the cat was missing. I paused the show and went outside and I was all walking around the crime scene like okay the kitchen window is open and there is no screen so he must have jumped out here and ran off and they were like “so he’s gone???”

And I was like “we’ll pretend I’m a cat. There are two ways to go, towards the street and the lights or into the dark. A cat would choose the quieter dark spot” so I went into the dark and there like ur never gonna find him but I said LISTEN Spike was an outside cat before we moved and he’s been trapped inside so I bet he ran to the most bushy and grassy area. They said I was full of shit but u know what I found in the bushes? The fucking cat bitch I’m FBI material.

moranion:

kyraneko:

a-fragile-sort-of-anarchy:

bal-lantine:

ttracer:

draw women in post-apocalyptic world settings with armpit hair, leg hair, bushy brows and pubic hair ya cowards,, draw brown women/women with dark thick hair with arm hair and happy trails and sideburns and mustaches i’m sick of seeing silky smooth soapy clean make up wearing post apocalyptic dolled up women next to stinky sweaty crusty men with dirty nails and sweaty clothes and sweaty greasy hair and 3m long ugly beards

or, if you must depict women maintaining that shit, at least be interesting about it. I can actually buy someone shaving/putting on makeup if that’s their way of coping, something they do to tether themselves to the past or an ellusive feeling of normalcy. So show me the EFFORT put in, yeah? Show that woman risking a zombie horde because she spotted a fucking tube of scarlet lipstick and christ she hasn’t seen that color in five years but it’s what she wore on her first date with her now-dead husband. Show me the girl who is quietly starting to fucking lose it but covers it up with fanatical commitment to her appearance because if she gets these eyebrows right, maybe no one will notice how she stares at things that aren’t there.

I find it completely plausible that some women would go to incredible lengths to maintaining their appearance, because they’ve been socialized all their lives to caring about it, because it’s a part of their identity. So show me how that part gets negotiated with once the world has gone to hell.

Catch me in your local bunker doing a smoky eye with the ashes of my former life.

Straight razors and elaborate makeup drawn in ashes mixed with motor oil.

People that shave their underarms completely and people that shave neat precise lines into them to make it clear that I can, I just don’t.

Raiders may kill you and zombies may kill you but background radiation will kill everybody eventually, what’s a little more toxicity compared to a Geiger counter that will never shut up? Looting the art supply store and painting designs onto each other in oils, the cadmiums and phthalos no longer forbidden against skin, the rich bright saturated colors a second long-term death option.

Men, meanwhile, that grow beards and oil them, wash them, shape and brade them intricately, shave tiger stripes or leopard spots or mandalas or band logos into the hair on their chests and arms and backs, or shave themselves hairless to display that they have time and resources and very, very sharp things.

(When you are struggling to survive, when you are burdened with labor, putting effort into your appearance is a status symbol. It says you are successful enough to have spare time, spare energy, spare resources. It might say you would make a good partner, mate, friend, ally; it might say you are formidable to fight. It might say you have resources that can be appropriated by your killer, and this might be a baited trap.)

tbh this is all a part of a larger issue that, imo, apocalyptic narratives almost always get wrong, and that’s failing to represent humanity’s unceasing drive to create art and beauty and find joy just about everywhere. the biggest and worst wars in our actual history have inspired some of the most touching art ever, and i don’t mean art that people created after seeing the horrors from afar; I mean the art that was made right there, in the trenches and the prisons and in the midst of mortal danger. when shit hits the fan, we don’t stop being creative; we create more. 

so, when a group of apocalypse survivers is sitting around a camping fire in the evening, we don’t morosely stare into the flames – we sing, maybe a rendition of Paint it Black, maybe something new. dwellings made out of trash aren’t grey and sad; they get decorated with just about everything we can find – colourful pieces of trash, old glass, twisted tree branches. bards become a thing again pretty quick – people with great memories who’ve been great readers back in the day, and now they tell us stories that no longer exist on paper, and since it gets tedious to repeat the same old Ana Karenina every day, they make it their own, and now, Ana gets her happy ending. anyone lugging a guitar or a violin or some sort of a musical instrument around deserves massive respect, and we love them all, regardless of whether they can actually play well or not. slam poetry is brought to a whole new level and now even judgy idiots like me love it. most makeup may be gone, and jewelry was all sold in the early days of the catastrophe for food and necessities – but we’ve remembered that makeup is nothing but pigment with some grease and that art supply stores still stand there, yes, and that jewelry is just twisted pieces of metal and colourful bits on strings. 

autism-significantly-spicy:

acemindbreaker:

fictions-stranger:

adventures-in-asexuality:

absynthe–minded:

• why caffeine works for some of us, but not all, and even then it often depends on the way you take it and the dosage
• how come all of us have gastrointestinal problems?
• addendum to the above: what exactly are our gastrointestinal problems? are we genetically more likely to have autism be comorbid with gluten sensitivity/colitis/IBS/lactose intolerance/whatever else or is it something completely different? is it psychosomatic? the fuck
• okay but how does being sensory-seeking work. and what does stimming do to your brain. what neurological function are we facilitating with flapping hands and rocking back and forth and spinning? wouldn’t it be great if we had a serious long-term study of the brain on stimming?
• are you more likely to be autistic and LGBT?
• what are things we do better than neurotypicals?

but no it’s always “how do we train the animals to be something they’re not” or “but what made you this way??” or “Time To Find A Cure”

• why do we all have sleep disorders
• what’s up with the joint problems
• and the faceblindness
• what are the communication patterns here? how come I can meet one autistic person and immediately grok how they communicate, and be confused by another, but all neurotypicals are confusing? what’s going on with that?
• how much of what we currently recognise as ‘autistic symptoms’ are actually ptsd symptoms? or autistic ptsd symptoms?

ALL. OF. THIS.

OK, so I decided to check out which of these had been researched and what they found.

Caffeine – not much, but this study looks interesting. It suggests that if you’re not a regular caffeine consumer, caffeine might temporarily make you act less autistic.

Oh, hey, this study has a potential answer to both caffeine response and sleep problems! There’s apparently an enzyme that affects both caffeine and melatonin metabolism.

GI issues – this study didn’t find a link. The rate of GI issues was 9% for both autistic and NT children. The most common GI issues for both groups were food intolerance, usually lactose intolerance.

This study found a much higher prevalence of GI issues in autistic kids (17%), although they didn’t compare them with NTs. They also suggest that there may be a link between regression and GI issues, and confirm yet again that the MMR vaccine has nothing to do with autism. The most common GI issue they found was constipation, followed by diarrhea and food allergies.

This study compared GI issues between autistic kids and NT siblings. They found that 83% of the autistic sample and 28% of their siblings had at least one possibly-GI-related symptom. They also give data on specific GI symptoms, such as gaseousness (54% of autistics and 19% of siblings), abdominal discomfort (44% of autistics and 9% of siblings), and so forth. They found 20% of autistics and 2% of siblings had three or more poops per day, 32% of autistics and 2% of siblings had consistently watery poops, and 23% of autistics and none of their siblings had large changes in consistency. Also, apparently parents felt that 49% of the autistics and none of the siblings had particularly foul-smelling poops. And another for the sleep question – this study found 51% of autistics and 7% of siblings had sleep problems, with sleep problems being more common in autistic kids with GI issues.

Stimming and Sensory-Seeking – I couldn’t find much. This study I found is interesting, but it’s about more OCD-like compulsions, not actually stimming.

Oh, here’s something. A big detailed review of neurophysiological findings of sensory processing in autism.

LGBT – I’ve written up stuff about this elsewhere, but in short, autistic people, especially AFAB autistics, are definitely more likely to be asexual, bisexual, kinky and trans. Some relevant studies here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and there’s plenty more to be found.

Autistic Strengths – Well, Laurent Mottron and his team, including autistic rights advocate Michelle Dawson, have done a lot of research on what they term ‘enhanced perceptual functioning’, which they theorize explains the Block Design peak sometimes seen in autistic people. (Block Design is one of the subtests of the Weschler’s IQ test, and autistic people often show a relative strength on this test relative to other subtests on this test.) In general, I highly recommend looking at their research. It really shows what can happen when an autistic person gets involved in autism research.

This study by a different research team finds that children gifted in realistic still-life drawing have higher rates of repetitive behavior typical of autism (though none of their sample were actually autistic), and show similar visuospatial profiles to autistic kids.

This study finds that perfect pitch is associated with autistic traits. On the AQ, musicians with perfect pitch scored higher on the imagination and attention-switching subscales than musicians without perfect pitch and non-musicians. This study found a subset of autistic kids have extremely good pitch perception, with no relationship to musical training.

People in STEM fields are more likely to be autistic or have autistic relatives, especially mathematicians. (Which probably comes as no surprise to anyone who’s spent time in the math department of any university.) This study also finds that autistic kids tend to be better at math.

Sleep – as a couple studies above mentioned, sleep issues in autism could be related to melatonin metabolism or GI issues. This study found that 53% of autistic kids, 46% of kids with intellectual disabilities and 32% of NT kids have sleep problems. Autistic kids are both slower to fall asleep and more likely to wake up early than NT kids.

This study found a correlation between autistic traits and sleep problems in autistic kids. Repetitive behavior is related with being slower to get to sleep and not getting as many hours of sleep per night; communication problems are related to being slower to get to sleep, not getting as much sleep, and parasomnias (night terrors, restless leg syndrome, etc); and social differences are related to being slower to get to sleep, not getting as much sleep, waking up at night, parasomnias and breathing problems while sleeping.

This study found a strong correlation between sleep problems and sensory hypersensitivity among autistic kids. And this study found that autistic and/or intellectually disabled kids showed strong correlations between poor sleep, anxiety and behavior problems.

And this study found that 67.9% of autistic kids have sleep problems, and parents of kids with sleep problems were under more stress. Boys and younger children had more sleep problems.

Joint problems – This study found that people with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that causes joint hypermobility, were more likely to be autistic. (And also to have mood disorders and attempt suicide.)

This study suggests that people with joint hypermobility have larger amygdala and various other brain structural differences, which was correlated with anxiety and higher sensitivity to internal body sensations. And this study found that 31.5% of people with ADHD and 13.9% of NTs have benign joint hypermobility syndrome.

Faceblindness – This study confirms that prosopagnosia (faceblindness) is more common among autistic people, with 67% having some degree of facial recognition difficulties.

This study reviews three theories about why autistic people have prosopagnosia, and concludes that the most likely of the three theories is the idea that avoiding eye contact impairs face recognition.

This study found that autistic people are slower to notice faces in scenes, and pay less attention to faces.

The last two questions I’m not really sure where to start.

@candidlyautistic here have the studies cited for when ppl ask them from you again

serenemolly:

rainewynd:

aegipan-omnicorn:

shitrichcollegekidssay:

entitledrichpeople:

I know I’ve posted numerous times about how welfare fraud is in fact very, very rare and welfare programs have lower fraud loss rates than things like businesses.  Which is true, but it’s also true that most actual technical welfare fraud doesn’t look much like the stereotype either.  Pretty much the only people who “get rich” off fraud are service end things like stores, hospitals, etc.  Nobody else really gets rich from lying on their food stamp paperwork.

Welfare fraud looks less like “cadillac and mansion” and more like:

• a disabled person lies about their level of mobility because medicaid will often only cover wheelchairs if you need them in the house, not if you need them to go out or do anything outside of the house
• a poor woman claims her boyfriend lives separately from her because the amount he contributes to her and their kids counts against her less if it’s listed as childsupport instead of part of the household income and that small difference can be enough to keep the children from going hungry
• a poor person sells part of their food stamps and lives on things like instant ramen because almost nobody gets cash assistance anymore and they need things like toilet paper or tooth paste
• a disabled person who could not hold down a regular job sells $100 a month in homemade crafts and doesn’t report it because they might have to spend months or even years re-fighting their social security case if they reported it
• a homeless person makes more than $20 a month begging but lists their income as zero because that’s less confusing
• other things like that

A lot of that is just survival.  It’s not a system set up in a way that makes it easy to even live unless you “cheat”.  People aren’t doing it to get rich, they do it to cling to the very basics and just manage to live.  I don’t blame people who violate the laws to keep their heads above water, I blame the people who set up a horrific system like this and who benefit from harming and exploiting poor people.

also looks like being homeless while you’re on food stamps 8) because thats illegal. you can’t have food stamps if you don’t have a home 8) 

8) also looks like having multiple sources of income even if both are minimum wage jobs that you only work for 3 hours a week 8) 8) if you have multiple sources of income and are on food stamps that is illegal.

welfare fraud is bullshit. plain and simple. if people are “cheating the system” its because theyre drowning in it, and the only cheating they’re doing is surviving. which. is. not. allowed.

The people are not cheating the system.

The System is Cheating the People.

Someone told me years ago that if they lived in Michigan, they couldn’t get married because they would have a combined income that was greater than the threshold for the wife to get disability benefits, even though it was still below the poverty line. So they moved to another state where they got less in benefits, had to deal with more red tape to prove every year she was still disabled, and once had to deal with someone claiming that because she could walk, she wasn’t disabled. But hey, they were able to get married, and therefore claim they both needed assistance because the husband couldn’t work a job that paid big money because he didn’t have skills or a degree.

One of our politicians recently confessed to this type of welfare fraud when she was younger to demonstrate how broken the system is. She did it to feed her kids. The political fallout was so severe she had to step down from her role as party leader. Another MP was identified as fraudulently claiming extra on his pension despite a massive salary, but the sole fallout from that is a hunt to seek out the leak of his private information.

A young woman commits minor fraud because it’s the difference between starving and having enough money to feed your kids? Intolerable! How dare you? A wealthy man cons the system to obtain an extra $60 a week that would be insignificant compared to the rest of his income? How dare we breach the privacy of a man clever enough to find a loophole!