Fellow autistic folks. We need to fucking talk.

First off: Whoever keeps selling us the assumption that all of us, not some of us, but all of us were diverted into “Gifted children” programs needs to be held accountable. Whoever continues these memes, needs to be given a gentle reminder that placement in these programs is entirely contingent on being autistic in a Certain Way. This weird idea that all of us under the same umbrella are some kind of Intellectual Übermensch is seriously, seriously fucking disturbing and is starting to give some kind of weird, community-dividing supremacy vibes.

Which is exactly why I included the second picture in this series, from the same Mastodon account.

This isn’t emphasizing neurodiversity, this is outright declaring one specific strain of autism as the Correct and Culturally Acceptable Kind.

I wasn’t the Gifted Child autistic. I was the “I broke the rules and I’m going to have a meltdown in class” autistic. I was the “Can’t really recognize certain kinds of patterns” autistic. The socially-awkward but absolutely fucking struggled with mathematics and still struggles with computer coding concepts autistic. The ‘gets too many emotions from fictional characters’ struggles’ autistic. I continue to be the ‘Why can’t we just figure this shit OUT autistic’ and I do my damndest to make sure we CAN figure stuff out.

I took that ‘Gifted Child test’ god knows how many times and never made it in. In fact, I didn’t really start succeeding until about… third year of high school, when I started dual-enrolling in community college courses, something I absolutely believe everyone, and I do mean everyone, should have a chance to do. “Gifted” or not.

Folks, I assume that a lot of you have either graduated or possibly even dropped out from K-12, but this “We Were All Actually Gifted And Superior Children” shit needs to fucking stop. It’s not a good thing we should be encouraging, at all. It’s not just giving Cringy Reddit Vibes, but superiority vibes that we should be better than attempting to express.

Look. I know society infantilizes us, but this insistence that we’re Brainlord übermensch is not the way to compensate. It leaves a lot of folks who don’t have the same experiences as you are behind, and, speaking as a white, male-coded autistic individual, that should be saying something. I encourage others who don’t share my background to share their own issues that they see and have experienced.

In short, this “We’re actually secretly supermen” is gonna give off some weird fucking socially-stratifying almost culturally fascistic vibes and y’all need to fucking stop and consider what others have experienced. Just because you think it gives you a one-up against your oppressors doesn’t mean that it isn’t smacking back against others who don’t share your same, culturally-acceptable-in-the-face-of-your-disability traits.

Thank you.

THAT'S NOT EVEN NEW MULTIPLE SERVICES DO THAT RIGHT NOW AND HAVE FOR YEARS

When folks encounter a video game challenge that requires a high degree of mechanical skills, like a boss fight in a Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, I find that they are generally more willing to try and try again or even maybe admit they are not skilled enough to do it. When it comes to puzzles though... I've observed that many players do not like the idea they couldn't solve them. They will call them bullshit. "How was I supposed to figure this out?" Puzzles test your logic reasoning skill. In our society we have a tendency to associate that particular skill with the completely fake concept of intelligence. So when you can't solve something, it's like being told to your face that you're not very smart. Just go on the comments of a solution video for any of the trickier Baba is You puzzles. You'll find plenty of people complaining it was unintuitive or the game made them feel stupid.

But here's the thing. I firmly believe puzzle solving has nothing to do with "intelligence". It's a skill, and like any other skills, it can be learned and honed with a lot of practice. No one expects a player new to fighting games to be able to win a tournament without first learning and practicing the fundamentals. Why should it be any different for logic puzzles?

Here are a few things that personally helped my puzzle solving skills: