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My Fuel Bubble

  After years of traumatic experiences for my Autistic teen at physical schools, mainstream and specialist, and for us as a family, we have all greatly benefited from access to education from home. Recently, he tried to put into words why this was important for him and shared the idea of his ‘fuel bubble’. He explained that his fuel bubble has several components. It is the physical space, around his desk, as well as the desk itself, set up just the way he likes it. People coming into his space, especially without warning or preparation, use up his available fuel. Even familiar people coming within a certain distance can have this effect. The closer to the desk, the more fuel is used up. Meanwhile the items he chooses to have close, and the way his desk is organised, his way, gives him energy. When inside his fuel bubble he often connects to others’ fuel bubbles. This can be through virtual connections online, even YouTube videos, but also through real life interaction. Chatting and...
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"It's a kind of magic": The unity of asynchronous communication

 


Asynchronous communication carries its own quiet magic—a way of collaborating, sharing, and connecting with others across shifting spaces and moments, in both the physical and virtual world. It can be simple and purposeful, a clean exchange of information. Yet within its natural pauses and built-in folds to time and focus, there is room for something deeper too: conversations that gather warmth, connections that deepen and interactions that blossom into friendship (Schotts, 2023).

Privacy is woven into the very structure of a DM or PM, embedded in the end-to-end encrypted spaces, creating sheltered corners where people can speak freely. In these intimate spaces, relationships can take root and grow, the fabric of connection stitched together through shared threads of thought and feeling. Even without physically meeting, these bonds can become as strong as any formed ‘irl' (in real life), proof that community is not limited to physical proximity.

The space and freedom of virtual connection stretch outward too into language itself, loosening what is expected from communication form and shape. In the world of chats and messaging platforms, the usual borders of linguistic “etiquette”—those lines drawn by systems, institutions, and long‑held conventions—begin to fade. Here, there is room to reimagine (Farah, 2026), to explore, to create.

Without the policing of expression, or the pressure to conform to a socially constructed standard, communication can return to a more natural shape: fluid, inventive, and infinitely varied. It can inhabit whatever form it needs, shaped by the voices of those who have a story to tell and the moments they choose to narrate and co-create.

This is more than a disruption of an imposed framework. It is an eruption of authentic, embodied expression—a quiet yet powerful reclamation of the right to speak as our unique selves, to let our modes of communication reflect the full texture of who we are and the experiences we share.

 

It's a Kind of Magic (Song lyric extract: Queen, 17th March, 1986)

"...This flame that burns inside of me

I'm hearing secret harmonies (It's a kind of magic)

The bell that rings inside your mind

Is challenging the doors of time.

It's a kind of magic

It's a kind of magic"


See also 

Getting 'into the groove': Exploring the musicality of asynchronous communication 

'Singing in the rain': The weather of asynchronous communication


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