Zack's ADHD
Zack fair has ADHD. That's something I see tons of people acknowledge that I myself agree with, but a lot of it feels very shallow/surface level? I mostly see people talk about his diffculty paying attention, but never really explore a lot of the other symptoms of ADHD that he very clearly has.
In general, ADHD has symptoms that can be put in two categories. These being inattentiveness and Hyperactivity/Impulsive behavior. I'm going to try to go into each symptom I've seen him display.
Going through things that fall under inattentiveness since that's what most people focus on first and foremost!
Obviously, Zack has a short attention span. The opening of Crisis core has Angeal setting him back on track multiple times, and has to remind him of his mission. That bleeds into another symptom of ADHD, which is having a hard time listening to or following instructions.
Another few symptoms of ADHD under inattentiveness is being disorganized, forgetful, and making careless mistakes. Zack has shown to fit under all of these things in DMW scenes. One in particular features him both losing materia AND forgetting his sword.
Again, we see that he's a messy person when he's talking to Aerith in another DMW scene.
Now I'm going to go into the symptoms that fall under Hyperactivity.
Some of the most talked about symptoms he exhibits are a lack of ability to stay still, excessive physical movement, and excessive talking. Noteably too, people with ADHD can have difficulty controlling the volume of their voice, or how fast they speak.
For example here, Zack is told right before to calm down by Angeal, and immediately proceeds to talk loudly (giving away their position.)
Circling back to the previously mentioned symptoms, trouble staying still and excessive movement are some of the few things I feel people notice first in correlation to ADHD, but never really think about what it really is in the context of ADHD.
Zack tends to do squats when he's excited. It's a repeated motion he does to calm himself down and/or focus. Sound familiar? that's because it's stimming.
Interupting conversations lines up with ADHD, and is something Zack does in-game too!
Here he interupts Angeal's speech (and gets a fond smile in turn. I will bring this up later for something else).
Zack is impulsive by nature, and tends to rush into things without a clear plan. He has a very absent sense of danger sometimes as well. All of which fall under the Hyperactivity category of ADHD symptoms.
The symptoms I see in Zack that hardly a soul has acknowledged though, is him being easily frustrated or irritated. ADHD makes it hard to regulate emotions, and Zack showcases this a lot throughout Crisis Core.
For Zack, this sometimes seems to fall under under Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which is common in people with ADHD. It's a discomfort and difficulty regulating feelings of failure or rejection. For Zack, this also takes the form of confusion/frustration/annoyance.
However, in most instances of him taking criticism, he mostly manages to move past his and take the criticism/corrections to improve himself.
Funnily enough, you can see his quick frustration/irritatrion in the very first cutscene when Angeal jumps down to elaborate on the parts of the mission he missed because Zack jumped a bit too soon due to his eagerness (more impulsivity).
Zack gets angry due to this interuption to the task he was focused on, and becomes cheerful as soon as he is able to get back to his task. The frustration with interuption and being quickly upset is interesting. There are more instances of this kind of behavior, and it all really feels like it falls under this umbrella of him struggling to regulate his emotions.
This also goes hand in hand with his stimming, since it isn't just the frustration/anger he has difficulty managing. His excitement and stress is something we also see him have difficulty managing, and can be tied into a lot of the other aspects of ADHD I have discussed here!
Zack gets frustrated again later when Angeal ends the training simulator, and puts an end to the task he had been hyperfocused on.
It's an irrational anger, but it makes more sense when read through this lense.
Zack was excited and hyperfocusing on his mission. He charged ahead without hearing or understanding the full objective, and almost got hurt (in the context of the training sim). The sim was ended before Zack felt it was "finished", which resulted in a frustration he expressed outwardly.
His hasty behavior and exciteability is a core character trait, but makes far more sense if you read him as a character who lives with ADHD.
How he is written and how other characters interact with him is interesting to watch as well!
One thing in particular I love a lot is Angeal's treatment of Zack's ADHD tendencies.
For being in the military, which is a very unforgiving enviornment, Angeal shows quite a lot of compassion for Zack's ADHD tendencies. Things that would normally get him into trouble are instead corrected rather gently! Angeal consistently repeats instructions to Zack when he needs it, and keeps a firm hand when he guides Zack through missions.
He never tells Zack to sit still. He never berrates him for his interjections (Zack going "And? And and and?"). The only time he really scolds Zack is when he's doing something that may endanger them.
For example, here they're on a mission that requires stealth. Zack being loud isn't normally a problem, but here, they need to be relatively quiet in order to achieve their goal.
Angeal is compassionate and understanding when Zack is... doing things that are very ADHD coded. As mentioned earlier, Angeal doesn't get upset when Zack interupts him. Instead, he just smiles.
It's likely Angeal was the one who taught Zack to do squats to stim, actually. In the Ever Crisis version of Crisis Core, Angeal says this to Zack. Although it's not necessarily canon, it's still entirely plausible and just. Very wholesome.
More of Angeal's tolerance for Zack can be seen here, when Zack's attitude slips after being criticized, and Angeal pays it no mind. (Again, his rejection sensitive dysphoria plays a part in having him react rudely)
Again, you need to keep in mind that despite their closeness, Angeal is still both his mentor and superior. He doesn't have to be as patient with Zack as he is in-game, but he does so anyway because... that's just how he is.
Angeal cares a LOT about his loved ones, and Zack is included in this. He shows a lot of love to this little guy!
I think it's nice, because I love seeing characters with ADHD being treated with consideration by others. It's something I wish people did more IRL, really. Lots of ableism surrounding aspects of ADHD that aren't as easy to romanticize and considered "annoying", so having Angeal respond to them with understanding makes me incredibly happy.
Altogether I just absolutely love Zack as a character. I love reading him with ADHD since I have it myself. I just want people to see the depth to it more though, since there's more to it than just "he's high energy and gets distracted". You get to understand his actions or irrational behavior a lot more when you dive past the surface of his writing.
Big, massive, enormous fucking thanks to my bestie @rune-rapier for letting me bounce ideas to and from him!! He helped me get a lot of these scenes in here to analyze, and brought up a LOT of points that made it in this post, and made it a lot easier for me to word.
283 notes
·
View notes
1 : Soap never had any idea that woman wanted him carnally, he's not the most observant on that front (he never noticed Ghost flirting with him and thought his love was one-sided for the longest time, but tbf Ghost was also very discreet about it)
2 : He sewed the hat, eyepatch and hook himself, because he's the best uncle and then got distracted as he was wrapping it up, so now he's watching a tutorial on youtube about how to build a voice box. Honestly how hard could it be, he builds explosive devices as a hobby (listen, Price doesn't have to know)
3 : He is out to his family, but doesn't want his mum to know he has a boyfriend because he knows she'll insist on meeting him and welcoming him to the family and making a big deal out of this, and he knows that Ghost isn't ready for that.
4 : Christmas is obviously a very hard time for Ghost, but he is very very in love with Soap and some days still can't believe that it's mutual, but then his Johnny does something like that and his head gets quieter while he's melting a bit.
5 : For the people that didn't see my other post : the bird is a Caique parrot, and they're supposedly very energetic, a bit loud, medium sized, unintelligible, very friendly to what they consider their family, adventurous and danger prone, with an explosive personality and a hate of boredom, so basically the adhd bird.
2K notes
·
View notes
blessed is the food that you have given us of chubby Phoenix on this fine evening.. he is mouthwatering, appetizing, tasty, flavorful, delectable, succulent, luscious, savory, piquant, scrumptious, yummy, yum-yum, peng, finger-licking good, nummy, flavorous, sapid, delightful, exquisite, lovely, glorious, heavenly, divine, enticing, majestic, ethereal, elegant, attractive, handsome, dashing, dazzling, gorgeous, lovely, magnificent, fair, pretty, wonderful, beautiful, pleasing, graceful, aesthetically, alluring, charming, delicacy, extraordinary, splendid, flawless, delicate, sweetness, glamorous, radiant, striking, photogenic, snazzy, appealing, pretty, angelic, excellent, superb, fine, fascinating, marvelous, ravishing, bewitching, and a distinguished gentleman in your style.. literally so ba-da-ba-pa-ba
oh my god you are literally saving us from the dreading hunger that we suffer from each day, every waking hour that I personally see of buff, skinny, whatever Phoenix (THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH IT BY THE WAY.), by now I have grown immensely numb to seeing Phoenix drawn as such but then here you come in full glory of shining light with chubby Phoenix and I forever and ever thank you
..the words I used to describe it are synonyms of delicious and good looking by the way so you don’t have to read all of that :3c
I’m glad! Allow me to use this post to talk about some headcanons I have
So Phoenix has ADHD. Feenie was unmedicated until after the whole thing with Dahlia. Once he turned his attention to studying law and doing law school, he got a prescription to help him focus his energy and mind.
AA1-3 Phoenix took the medication.
He stopped taking them during the 7 year gap because he didn’t really need them and also he needed to use that money to take care of his newly adopted daughter (which is one of the factors of his weight gain bc he’s no longer taking medication that has an appetite suppressant side effect). Also, he would work out as well, so the extra weight is both fat and muscle. Working out was one of the things that helped him get over his alcoholism that he fell into after his disbarment.
After AA4, he started taking medication again (as well as biking around a lot like he used to, so he lost some weight but bc he’s already 34/35, his metabolism slowed so he kept part of it). He kept working out because it was already a part of his routine now and he found it to be a great stress reliever. Also, he got a nicely tailored suit (paid for by Miles 💖), which works well with the dad bod he has now :)
Based on the original sprites, he’s got broad shoulders, and based on the fact that he bikes a lot, he’s got strong legs :3
333 notes
·
View notes