Curate, connect, and discover
Alright, I know April’s almost over but as it is still Autism Acceptance Month, I wanted to talk a little about it. Just wanted to share what being autistic is like for me and some of my special interests.
I was diagnosed with ASD and ADHD when I was 8 years old. Back then, I was technically diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome but that was merged into ASD in 2011 so I’ll just refer to it as ASD. Anyway, I didn’t really know what that meant until I was seventeen and actually did some research. Learning that a bunch of my behaviors and certain feelings I had were actually because I was autistic was…. I don’t know, relieving? Things started to make more sense. Before this point, all I knew was that I didn’t understand social cues and I was very specific about what I liked and disliked. It did not help that I was also on ADHD medication that exacerbated the negative parts of autism. Since that day, I’ve learned so much more about myself and I learn new things about autism everyday. I’m not angry or upset that I’m autistic. I was (and still kinda am) mad at the people who didn’t explain it to me properly when I was younger but that’s beside the point. I’ve learned to accept it and I’m a lot happier because of it. I don’t need people to be aware of me. I just need people to accept me.
Okay, that was a lot. Hmm. Anyway, SPECIAL INTERESTS, LET’S GO!!!! 😃
My primary special interests are manga, anime, and video games. And within those special interests are even MORE special interests. For example, some of the manga I have a huge interest in include Bleach, One Piece, Fullmetal Alchemist and Jujutsu Kaisen. There’s a lot more but there are too many list. On the flip side, the anime I like differs slightly. I don’t always like anime adaptations of manga I like. For example, I really don’t care for either the Bleach or One Piece adaptations (Bleach TYBW is the exception). There are certain scenes from each that I really enjoy watching and they both have great soundtracks and great voice acting in both the original Japanese and the english dubs, but weird choices that differ from the source material and huge pacing issues make them hard for me to watch. On the other hand, there are certain adaptations that I prefer to the source material, such as Demon Slayer or Mob Psycho 100. These two in particular take the original material and enhance it greatly. What’s more, there are certain series where I really like both the original manga and the anime (Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen to name a couple). Also, I love original anime, like Space Dandy, Oddtaxi, Gurren Lagaan, Appare Ranman, and Vivy: Flourite Eyes Song. It’s really cool to see original content in a medium that is primarily adaptations.
Starting a new paragraph for video games. This might be my big special interest. RPGs, Metroidvanias, platformers, action games, puzzle games, party games, etc. I really love video games. Favorite series include but are not limited too: Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Kingdom Hearts, Pokémon, and Xenoblade Chronicles. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a big Nintendo person. If I had to pick a genre, I’d say RPGs are my favorite, whether they are turned based or action oriented. My top three favorite games of all time are Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and Kingdom Hearts II. Favorite Pokémon generation is three though Scarlet is my current favorite game. I could go on about how I love different combat and level up systems in different games, how I love that the sidequests in the Xenoblade games add to the worldbuilding and give them so much depth, how I love watching videos analyzing background lore in games like Hollow Knight or Breath of the Wild or videos going into detail about how dark series like Kirby or Splatoon are, or how even though the story is insanely stupid I adore Kingdom Hearts for how sincere it is. But I feel like this has gone a bit longer than I originally intended.
Anyway, a couple of notes really quick about Autism Acceptance Month and autism in general:
Don’t support Autism Speaks. They are a hate group focused on trying to “cure” autism.
Don’t use the puzzle piece when talking about autism. It is ableist. Use either the gold infinity symbol for autism or the rainbow infinity symbol for neurodiversity.
Vaccinations don’t cause autism. Whoever came up with that can burn in hell.
I think that’s everything. If whoever is reading this is autistic, I hope you had a great Autism Acceptance Month.