Having a group is only half the battle, the other half is getting that group together when one person works odd hours, another has chronic illness with lots of medical appointments, and a third has a bitch of a commute during the week so often can’t get home in time.

For years we had games every Friday and Sunday, all it takes is a couple of people changing jobs to completely disrupt that setup.

Watching it at 1.5 speed helped immensely.

Sure they do, NTs do a lot of stim activities, the difference is that they don’t need to stim in order to remain calm and centred, they can just do it because it’s fun.

Yes, putting an electrical appliance in the bathroom is weirder than putting an appliance that requires both power and plumbing in the room that always has both power and plumbing.

I also buy second-hand whenever possible, and try to fix things instead of replace them, and for the stuff I’m buying it’s usually more expensive, not less. Especially when big stores offer free delivery on just about everything while your average ebay user obviously doesn’t.

Recent example: I got a shoulder strap for a clutch bag and the clasp on the strap broke. It was only missing a tiny spring, so I found a tiny spring online and repaired it. The strap cost £5. The spring to fix it cost £6 including postage. But it worked!

I don’t even seem to have a special interest. It’s like I’m doing autism wrong.

Suddenly that music video makes sense

That point about how sensory processing issues can affect your health is so on point, I had no idea how much of my general anxiety was caused just by the world being too loud and bright. Earplugs and sunglasses worked instantly where 5 different medications failed to do anything.

We broke the Anima system in half with overpowered characters. Not that it holds together very well normally. One mage character boosting the tank’s strength high enough to lift a mountain and creating him a giant tungsten lump, another mage opening a portal directly above a bad guy’s tower, apply tungsten to tower at great speed. No more tower. The GM was too amused to be mad that we wrecked his whole plan. We used the same trick to launch a necronomicon into the sun (or near enough). Also so many magically created artefacts, creation mages are just bullshit. But I got away with it because I made some for everyone.

“Skill regression” is such an awful term. It would be like taking a severe workaholic who is getting stress ulcers, having them develop a proper work-life balance, and calling that “productivity regression”.

This has turned out to be a huge wall of text, sorry.

Most autistic communities recognise that an official diagnosis is hard to get and not always helpful/necessary, so while it’s wise not to say as much out in the rest of the world, it’s completely valid to self-identify within an autistic space.

Feeling like you’re faking the whole thing is so normal. I didn’t have a self-identification journey before being diagnosed as an adult, and for the first two years after that diagnosis still felt like I wasn’t actually autistic and the assessors made a mistake, or not autistic enough to “count” and give myself accommodation. It comes from a lifetime of learning that your experiences are “wrong”, that you “can’t trust” your own interpretations of the world around you, that you could do anything a neurotypical person can do if you just try. We late-identified are raised to doubt ourselves. It’s often no one’s fault, but it still takes a lot of unlearning.

What you do now is start regularly checking in with your senses. Are you feeling tense because you’ve been ignoring a too-bright light or an irritating noise or an uncomfortable piece of clothing? Removing those kinds of subconscious distractions is a huge relief, whether that’s with headphones, earplugs, sunglasses, baseball hats, whatever works. Are you hungry/thirsty/sitting in a really uncomfortable way and haven’t realised it? Solve those needs.

Then look into stimming. Physical or mental actions that you feel an urge to do and find calming. They don’t have to be “weird” or socially unacceptable - spinning a pen, fiddling with a paperclip, chewing gum, twisting bracelets/wristbands/rings, squeezing a stress ball, wearing clothing that puts pressure in certain places (e.g. I wear dresses with a waist belt for pressure on my abdomen) are all possible stims. Even if it sounds completely unnecessary, try a bunch of thing and see what makes you feel safe and calm.

Chances are that if you’re autistic you’ll have a lot more mental energy after discovering your sensory sensitivities and stims, because it’s not all going into trying to ignore all the discomforts.

The social side is less straightforward, and to be honest I’ve not figured it out yet. People say masking is damaging and should be avoided at all costs, but those costs can be significant. I’ve tried to go the route of not masking stims (having found subtle ones that work) and unapologetically wearing sunglasses indoors, but still put on the mask when it comes to communication, tone of voice, facial expressions and the like. Because my aim is to be understood, not to take a stand for all autism-kind, and the relief of meeting my sensory needs frees up a lot of the mental energy for it. Maybe that’s the wrong approach, but it’s the one that poses the least risk to my comfort.

I’d not seen this one before. My life has been truly enriched, thank you

We don’t have a plan that never changes, but we do make a meal plan on the weekend and buy just the food for that plan, and it’s usually variations on the same few meals (chilli, bolognese, stir fry, frozen pizzas, fajita kits, stew, tuna-pasta-thing, pasta bake). There’s two of us, so we mostly cook for four and either have the same meal two nights running or put half in the freezer and have it the next week so we (by which I mean my partner) only have to cook once or twice during the week.

Mostly we use root vegetables that will last longer than a week in a cold fridge, so we check out how ropey it’s looking before doing the food shop, both to add the turned stuff to compost and to inform what goes on the list.

Unless you are a serious outlier, you won’t remember anything half as well as you think you will. And isn’t that the point of the “collect experiences, not things” schtick? Why bother doing anything if you don’t care whether or not you remember it.

I use earplugs, sunglasses, and hoodies. I may look ridiculous with hood up and sunglasses on a cloudy day, but it feels like a bubble of safety.

And they may have a pissed-off lord to contend with for sleeping with his daughter.

Or presumably there’s more than one virgin woman in this world. Dude might have wanted the lord’s daughter but some other random girl will do and now the party has no idea who the next target will be.