Tonal Indicators
As an autist, I sometimes use tonal indicators1 to facilitate communication with my fellow autists, with our neurodiverse cousins, and with neurotypical allies eager to broaden the limits of their empathy.
I thought I’d take some time to explain how and why I will choose to use them, and how and why I will explicitly—sometimes quite defiantly—choose not to.
Use Cases
When I choose to use tonal indicators, I’ll put them in their own bitty code blocks, so they look different enough that you’ll notice them immediately when they appear at the end of a paragraph! /gen
/gen indicates genuine, good intent. In this case, it indicates that while the way I presented this paragraph may appear pedantic to some readers, the paragraph is instead presented in this way in order to offer accessibility to the greatest possible breadth of readers. /th2
More likely than not, my use of tonal indicators will focus around preventing miscommunication consequent to Poe’s Law.3 Because, in the 21st century, we find ourselves on an Internet where some individuals are remarkably shameless about asserting that their knowledge of scientific progress ended around the same time medicine figured, Hey, you know? I bet we can do a little better if we reimagine this whole Humoralism thing. Like, Harvey’s whole “system of tubes” thing seems neat. /nbh4
And because of people like that, if I do wax satirical, I wanna make sure you know I haven’t just lost my mind. Because it can be truly terrifying to discover that someone we thought we knew online was actually quite different behind the affable mask they’d shown us. /srs5
Presently Useful Tonal Indicators
/ij– The previous text is an inside joke and will likely not be accessible by the majority of readers. I’ll try to limit these, but if I ever do use one, I’ll either bring you in on the joke—or I’ll mark it, if I’m feeling saucy and selfish (i.e. the occasional and undeniable right of every person who has worked fucking hard for what they have)./j– The previous text is intended to be read in a jocular or tongue-in-cheek manner./s– The previous text is intended to be read in a satirical or sardonic manner./srs– The previous text is intended to be taken as serious, highly indicative of the author’s present philosophical thinking or emotional state./nsrs– The previous text is intended to be taken as non-serious, likely related to the author’s present philosophical thinking or emotional state but not referent to it.
Non-Use Cases
Since I make it clear ad nauseum across my work6 that I do value accessibility—just not the kind that sacrifices my emotional labor for that of a person who has plenty of their own to gift themselves. And since spending any time apologizing for the quality of my writing style is a waste both of my time and of the time of the readers most motivated about engaging with my work in a way that both helps them and, by modeling, teaches me new applications for my ideas that I would never have considered on my own; I have chosen not to allot any time at all towards that endeavor.
When I choose not to use tonal indicators, it is my sincerest hope that my language and narrative style have done enough to convey my meaning without my having to explicitly notate my tone—which admittedly sometimes grows complicated enough that I don’t actually feel very qualified to describe what subset of which tonal indicators at which amplitudes best represents the multifactorial tone of a given paragraph.
Ergo, in these cases, I leave the choice of how to describe my tone to you, my Reader. And I feel like the readers’ hands are invariably and inevitably the best hands for any author to trust their tone with.
Less Presently Useful Tonal Indicators
/c– If ever I should post a copypasta for its intended emotional effect, there will be an important reason for it that I’ll be making clear in the body of the article, so this could be a tone I use, but not a tonal indicator I’d need to use./ly– If they’re lyrics, I’ll introduce them, probably cite them, and format them all pretty and shit./lywill seem redundant after all that, I’m sure./nbh– It’s always/nbh, even should thebthemselves be reading./nc,/neg,/neu,/pc, &/pos– William Shakespeare has—in recent weeks—taught me many things about the ways in which I can bend the English language to my will. Personally and unilaterally altering the broadly culturally-defined connotations of words and phrases is notably not one of those. I’ll just pick the right words and let their working connotations work for me. 😅/lh,/lu, &/nm– Oh you’ll know if and when I’m upset. (I try very hard not to be very quiet about it these days, on account of how hard it is for some folks to hear.)/nsb– RIP Twitter. 🪦/nx,/nsx,/p,/r,/sx, &/x– If I should ever choose to seduce one or more of my readers—or all of them, cuz if you’re gonna be inappropriate and weird, might as well go for broke—it probably won’t be via essay. This clarification may therefore be unnecessary in the foreseeable future. Maybe this’ll change if I go through a Cyrano de Bergerac phase in my 50s or 60s.7/th– I write a lot of manifestos, and my actions often upset folks who are very motivated to prop up systems of oppression that I make it my life’s joie de vivre to bring down. Every single thing I do is a threat to them. Good. Let ‘em sweat.
Last updated on 31 December 2025.
Tonal Indicators – “Tone indicators are shorthand for words used to convey tone, which the Cambridge Dictionary defines as ‘a quality in the voice that expresses the speaker’s feelings or thoughts’. The tone of someone’s voice can be joking, or serious; it can be teasing, or threatening. It can be negative, positive, or neutral. It can be sexually suggestive, or entirely friendly. Tone can do so much to change the meaning and implications of a sentence. Some examples of tone indicators are ‘/j’, ‘/s’, ‘/srs’, ‘/p’, ‘/r’, ‘/ly’, ‘neg’, ‘pos’, ‘/gen’ and ‘/c’. Though there are many others, these are the ones that are most commonly used and needed for clarity of communication.”
The quote above comes from A guide to tone indicators. (n.d.). Retrieved December 30, 2025.
Th-that one’s a joke. It’s only a threat if you don’t like that I’m saying what I’m saying. 😜
Poe’s Law – An internet adage asserting that without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, such as a tone indicator or accompanying emoji, it is functionally impossible to create a parody of extreme views so obviously exaggerated that it cannot be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views. The premise rests on the ambiguity of text-based communication, arguing that in an environment where extremist rhetoric is already irrational, a satirical imitation of that rhetoric becomes indistinguishable from the reality of the position being mocked.
/nbh – Derived from an Internet-born initialism of the phrase “nobody here,” indicating that the previous rant, vent, or “vaguepost” was referent to none of the readers of the indicated text. Another one I’m unlikely to use since I very specifically assume my audience is awesome and interested in what I’m saying. Whether a given reader personally is or isn’t is inconsequential. Therefore, every rant on this Substack is /nbh, even if a negative interaction with another Substack user initiated it.
There is no Internet slang abbreviation that delights me more than SRS, and this is entirely because it means “serious” and is pronounced with the phonetic reduction of its original word “SUH-russ.” That pronunciation can vary regionally, and for me it comes out a little more with a subtle “u” sound on the last syllable, as depicted in the IPA pronunciation notation: /sə’ɹʌs/. Somehow, I always wind up finding SRS both deeply personal and intensely affecting…while at the same time finding it deeply entertaining and adorable in its pronunciation.
That is to say, so much that my holons (i.e. headmates within my plural subsystem) complain that I spend way too much time trying to make sure readers feel included and should probably not. If I didn’t enjoy doing it so much, I might choose to stop.
The “stop” track isn’t vibing with me right now so much.
“I archedly doff my cav’lier low, And, loosing hand and heel, My heavy pannier off I throw, And take hold thy polished steel; Gentle as warm breeze, loose and slow, As a dandy-bolt in a dandy-gear, I give you warning, even so, At the envoi’s turn, I thrust!”
Yeah, I did that for fun. Just now. Next, I get to self-congratulate by citing it. Boom:
Arcwolf, Ellis Cú Anann. (2025). Ballade of the Duel (Transgressive Adaptation). After Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, Act I, Scene IV, trans. Brian Hooker (1923). 😼