I think this applies to their youths, but the pendulum definitely swung on both characters and it is the "casual" perception by the time the shows take place I think

Only if you're smart anyway since autistic people have the whole distribution of capability represented. Then being smart isn't enough. You also have to be resilient, lucky, and privileged (not enough systemic factors outside of systemic ableism to wash you out in a psychological and logistical pincer attack), and also lucky again to get past the many societal filters that block most autistic success and create the illusion of some unicorn like uniqueness in all visible versions of autistic success.

I think it's stayed TNG and ds9 fans

I looked through to see who revived this old story, ready to point my finger at OP or the article, but it turns out the person who revived this old story is Kyle Rittenhouse. A murderous opportunist.

Who at what company is having the conversation "let's do (generic pattern)" without facing some kind of problem or inherent design need that can be solved by (generic pattern). Do these companies need software developers or did they just notice that all of the other companies have them? Surely some sort of inherent needs are driving their software.

Edited to make the generic pattern clearer

Watching what you say and what you do isn't masking. Watching what you are is masking. You don't just filter out, you have to emote entire emotions that you'd express entirely differently because other people are disturbed by your normal expression of XYZ feeling.

It comes from years of being double punished when something bad happens because our remorse facial expression doesn't match what they think remorse is supposed to look like so they don't see any. And sometimes those.punishments are just for expressing something else in the non standard way.

I mean sure filtering topics is part of it, and it often involves filtering very pertinent topics. For example if something is really bothering you to the point of physical pain, but it isn't supposed to be bothering you, that is the topic you then have to filter. And you have to physically replace your expressions of pain with whatever emotion you are supposed to be feeling. Of course you don't replace your pain with the way youd express the emotion you're supposed to be feeling. You replace the pain with how they wish you'd express the emotion they wish you'd be feeling.

Masking is gaslighting your entire body and brain out of every big and small action and reaction until whoever it is you really are is difficult to even retrieve.

Just cut off 37/6ths of a pineapple for each of your friends.

Being the autistic person on the receiving end of this sort of communication can be kind of frustrating ngl

Nobody can see this -> some people can see this -> anybody can see this

What if the red is in streaks? What if the streaks become more prominent over time? What if there's a smell?

People use this tactic against autistic people all the time so it's easy to see how it gets internalized. So many situations where it's like "Oh, they know what this means and Im not going to humor them by explaining it, so I'm just going to pretend they know what everything means." It's very tempting to flip. As a teenager I definitely said "use your words like an adult" to adults, especially the types that would pull that reverse bullshit themselves.

its only my style to be Secret please bring me five can of olives