#but I think of Terran as neurodivergent for other reasons

[dontjudgemeimawriter]

Six of Crows X I Hunt Killers

Syndicate

(Working title)

Terran is an assassin in Calson City, where a criminal syndicate controls the city. 3 years ago, Terran covered up the death of Raymond, a traitor he was supposed to execute. Now he has to keep anyone from finding out what he's done all while grappling with realizations of morality, of wanting escape, and wanting to be a better person that he sees in Raymond. The safest option is to keep his cover, do his job, and keep Raymond far away from Calson City-- but that may come at the cost of the person he wants to be. The secret of Raymond being alive is threatening to come out amidst assignments, discoveries, and investigations-- all while Terran is surrounded by the Syndicate's watchful eyes.

Themes:

Escaping vs feeling trapped

Abuse, trauma, and masking

Morality-- learning, sacrificing, and compromising

Current Stage:

Drafting

(Image sources here)

Links

Full Intro

Links to excerpts

Info on the magic system

Playlist

Characters: Terran Raymond Mika

Content Warnings

Abusive Relationship, Anxiety, Attempted Murder, Child Abuse, Death, Emotional Abuse, Fire, Gun Violence, Hostages, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical Abuse, PTSD, Stalking, Torture

Note: I was fairly generous with these and took from the list m+s posted-- please ask me to expand on any of these. But yes it is a book that deals with both abuse and with criminals/assassins.

[eldritchamy]

I think I've figured out a good way to articulate one of the reasons Human Domestication Guide is hitting for me in a way really not much else has done for a long time.

HDG is an inverse fandom.

Whereas a lot of fanfiction (maybe just for the sake of the pun we can expand outwards, wink, and call them "transformative works") takes at the core of its nature a specific character or group of characters, and then transplants (sorry, I had to) those characters into Alternate Universes in order to keep telling altered, revised, and original stories with those CHARACTERS, while changing everything else, HDG does the opposite.

It takes the SETTING as the core defining feature, and creates original CHARACTERS in order to tell original stories.

And that's really cool for reasons that, of course, ended up becoming another gigantic one of Amy's Patented Infodump Posts.

Most fanfiction gets to appeal to its audience because of the associations and attachments readers have for the CHARACTERS, and then create a new story from there without having to spend time setting up WHO THE STORY IS ABOUT for you. I don't say this as a bad thing, that's just the attraction. The readers bring their attachment to the characters WITH them before they start reading.

HDG gets to assume you understand the SETTING as a basic premise, and then tell new stories with original characters without having to hold your hand through as much of the set up work, because you already know the SETTING going in.

So instead of discovering how the characters you know relate to a world you don't (and to each other within that context), you get stories where you get to discover who the characters ARE, in the context of a world you already understand.

It's not "what does a different setting do to these characters." It's "how do different people navigate this setting."

You get to meet and learn and identify with the CHARACTERS because you see how they as unique people react to a set premise.

So much of what I've read so far has done exceptional work establishing who the characters are, even making MINOR characters within the story feel like fleshed out people.

You'd think in a setting that takes at face value the premise of humanity being subjugated and doted on by a species that uses mind control drugs to turn them into docile, obedient pets, the stories would struggle a bit with sameness as the individuality of the characters failed to shine through or were inevitably suppressed over the course of the plot.

In practice, it seems like almost the OPPOSITE is true.

The Affini always win. But every character chooses to lose to them in a different way that speaks to who they are as people.

Getting to explore these unique stories through the eyes of unique characters seems like it's making it EASIER to latch on to what makes THESE characters the focus of the stories being told.

And so far the stories being told are fucking great, and have such a huge range to them.

The original story for the setting is a VERY non consensual medfet/drug play subjugation story where Elvira (captain of a ship for the Free Terran feralist rebellion) is ABSOLUTELY brought into domestication by force (at first), and we get to see the PROCESS of her being broken down and becoming something new over the course of (what we later learn has been ONLY) about three weeks. She's not the same person she was at the start of the story. At all. She's been utterly replaced by a new identity and personality that the old version of her would never have accepted. (Also it's kinda hot that it's actually good for her, and that she very much DOES end up happier for it. She's still Elvira. But she's safe, and she's loved.)

That's a pretty specific vibe for a story.

But the next story I read in the setting takes place over the course of several hours in-universe, and basically follows a dysfunctional, clearly neurodivergent woman stagnating in the limbo of having been failed by capitalism (or in her mind, failing at it) and having mixed feelings about the staggeringly powerful alien civilization that is currently part way through conquering her planet and its people.

The story starts off when she's so hungry after scraping through what scant, nutritionless garbage she was able to find in the capitalist dystopia that it finally overrides her fear, and she goes to the border of Affini-controlled territory in her city. She figures, they're going to do whatever they're going to do to the rest of the city within a few days anyway, so there's no sense pretending whatever outcome she's walking into wasn't inevitable, and even if it's not as good as the Affini promise, at least it's not what she's been stuck in. Fear of sameness finally becomes more traumatic than fear of change.

She proceeds to go on an adorable lesbian grocery date with a 10 foot tall plant that gently flirts with her while remaining very firm that all of this human's needs CAN and SHOULD and WILL be taken care of FOR her from now on, and it's OKAY that she has trouble focusing because it's OKAY that some people need more help than others.

She spends several chapters experiencing repeated Lesbian Bluescreens because of this sweet, doting alien who insists it's no trouble at all and she's happy to help. Then said alien takes her back to her apartment on the human side to make sure she feels safe getting there through the anti-Affini protests, and then in a matter of minutes she has cleaned this girl's entire disaster of an apartment and promised to cook her a nice Terran pizza.

Then the girl has a lesbian panic attack while coming to terms with how much misery she didn't have to be living with, and whether this future isn't exactly what she always hoped for and more, so the alien offers to give her some alien drugs to calm her down, and her now fuzzy brain accidentally crumbles under the weight of all the secret petplay fantasies that have been turning her face red all morning and she accidentally calls the alien "Mistress", and then she goes home to THEIR place back in Affini territory with her new owner and gets absolutely spoiled until she falls asleep feeling safe and loved for the first time in her life.

COMPLETE tonal shift from the original story, but the LOGIC of the story is fully consistent with the setting. It's just a different character responding to that setting in a different way.

The range of what's possible is ENORMOUS.

I went from there to "two humans captured at different times struggle to find their way back to each other and end up with neural implants plugged into each other's brains by their shared Mistress, and the feedback loop helps them domesticate EACH OTHER" and then from there to a mostly historical context story about an Affini who lived for almost 300,000 years and how she feels about the Compact's role in everything they've done to the universe.

And then I got to read "I have to pretend to be a good little floret maid at an Affini Compact hotel because that's my Genius Spy Cover WHOOPS it turns out being a maid means getting teased and played with a lot WHOOPS, OHHhhh NOOOoo~ I'VE BEEN TURNED INTO A FREE USE HYPNO DOLL because EVERYONE KNEW I WAS A SPY THE WHOLE TIME, I'm going to resolve my mixed feelings by erotically betraying my co-conspirator so we can be floret girlfriends together," which was cute, funny, and INCREDIBLY hot.

Seriously, chapter 10 of that story. Holy FUCK. I think my brain has turned fully inside out. I had a DREAM kinda like it afterwards that I wish I could remember more of.

I guess my point is HDG is less like a fandom and more like DND.

It's a shared universe of collaborative storytelling, even if any individual work within it was made by one person.

You get to play within a core set of rules for how the setting works, but the stories that can come out of playing by those rules are so incredible and diverse and interesting, and I'm really enjoying getting to explore all of that within the context of a basic premise that has absolutely grabbed most of my kinks by the throat, stared menacingly into my eyes, and smirked knowingly.

Also it's INCREDIBLY queer and very obviously made specifically for gay autistic trans women who take progesterone, so I guess just like the rest of the little Terrans, I never stood a chance.

[leonawriter]

I have a question. If Sephiroth is autistic, wouldn't his breakdown be like some stigma for autistic people? Like "autistic people are dangerous"? I know there's a negative stereotype where mentally ill characters are "all crazy and violent", for example, even though that's not really the case. Since autism is a disorder, however, I'm not sure if this sort of thing applies, but I'm only wondering.

Oh, no. I’m pretty sure it definitely applies. And thank you for asking.

There has always been a negative stereotype of autistic people being ‘weird’. Creepy. It’s the way that in movies with ‘unnatural’ children they tend to stare unblinking (difficulty maintaining eye contact, tendency to not do eye contact ‘properly’), obsessions with strange things (special interests, not always on ‘acceptable’ things), strange social behaviour...

That’s just off the top of my head, how we’re portrayed in media as ‘other’ and ‘wrong’. And it’s important to note that none of these characters are ever called autistic, because they tend to be monsters or other sorts of creatures that just coincidentally have traits that are considered creepy, yet... are also autistic traits.

It’s hammered into peoples’ heads that if someone doesn’t fit in, if they do something that’s ‘weird’, then they’re Wrong.

You might also have seen posts along the lines of how when people bully the weird kid at school, it’s usually for similar reasons - that they talk weird, act weird, dress strangely, and have weird interests. Many times out of ten, that’s an autistic kid (I should know - I was that autistic kid).

Back on the subject of ‘is there a stigma of ‘autistic people are dangerous’ in his breakdown, I’d also point at how Genesis is shown to have similar traits - the way that he focuses single-mindedly on LOVELESS, and is very performative with many of his interactions. Explosive emotions can also occur, especially under great stress, which he is under; again, showing the idea that if you act weird, you're going to be more dangerous.

In fact, putting it that way, I’m reminded of how in Japan there’s the thing of ‘don’t be the nail that sticks up, or you’re going to be hammered down’. Autistic people by nature are the nail that sticks up. I’m just going out on a limb here and saying that I imagine that it’s probably an acceptable thing over there to encourage people to think that weird behaviour is bad, and that people who have those traits should do what they can to not present them too much. So that’s likely where some of this attitude in these games comes from.

(I say ‘these’ because I’m pretty sure it happens in other games too, I just can’t think of it off the top of my head.)

The fact that I see Sephiroth as autistic is pretty much the reason I don’t just get sad at his breakdown, but actively upset and angry at the story for letting this happen to him; there are plenty of times story might have gone differently, but things didn’t happen like that. They don’t let him have an understanding support network. They don't let him be angry without there being dire consequences. 

And like... that’s not even all of it, because Sephiroth was never given a choice as to what he was to become. He was a child soldier - literally, a child SOLDIER. No matter what timeline you go by, he’d still be a kid when he started fighting in wars. We don’t see him having hobbies or interests outside of perhaps reading further into the science that he was expected to know.

He’s a lot like Kuja in that respect, where the games - and the creators, and the fanbase - treat them like they’re the main villain of their franchise, when actually in Kuja’s case it’s Garland (and beyond him, the Terrans who’d created him) and for Sephiroth it’s Shinra as a company, and Hojo for treating him like an experiment more than a person, and Jenova, either for forcing her own thoughts and ideas onto him or for enabling him to do far worse than he would have on his own.

The blame gets put onto the kids who were essentially lashing out at the authority figures who had abused them, kids who were clearly neurodivergent (Sephiroth being autistic, Kuja potentially so and definitely in-game unable to use Trance without help), rather than put the blame where it belonged - on the companies, and on the people, who put them in that situation in the first place.

So... yeah, there really is a stigma against autistic and neurodivergent people in general. Though, if you just act out in ‘harmless’ ways (so, Zack being ADHD would be a ‘harmless’ thing, with the way he just wants to help people and he  has charisma enough to cover up any social inadequacies) you’re deemed as ‘okay’ - in other words, it’s a form of passing privilege. 

[femboyyghostface]

Bucky, Steve Rogers, Spock, Jim, Bruce Banner, Wonder Woman. All for the head cannon thing

This was so much fun to do thank you!!!

                                James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes

sexual orientation headcanon

Vintage Bisexual to the core

gender headcanon

Most of the time it’s cis or ftm pre Winter Soldier to agender or demiboy (he/him pronouns) afterwords (because these things can change)

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

Oh boy, okay: PTSD, Disassociative Amnesia, BPD, OCD, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Anxiety, Depression. Schizophrenia 

3 random headcanons

1) Bucky is the worlds biggest cuddler, before the fall it was a big problem because “Buck, you gotta be careful we could get killed if you keep touching me like that.” (Steve, the voice of reason for the first time in his life). Once he starts recovering and coming back to himself he still flinches from strangers and doctors and almost anyone, but once you become HIS you are not safe from the cuddle monster.

2) He has a habit of just adopting reckless people. It doesn’t matter if you are a grown adult Bucky “Mother Hen” Barnes will swoop in and tell your ass off because “I swear to GOD CLINT BARTON IF YOU JUMP OFF THAT LEDGE I’M GUNNA TAKE YOU OUT BEFORE YOU HIT THE GROUND.”

3) Animals. All of them are his. Every. Single. One.That stray cat he saw during his morning jog eating out of the trash can? He stuck her in his hood and took her home. That three-legged dog that the pound was going to put down? He’s now happily outfitted with a prosthetic to match Bucky’s own. A bunny that was abandoned because the reckless owners didn’t realise how fast rabbits reproduce when they got TWO? You guessed it: hops around and into people’s laps (just don’t touch the ear with the chunk out of it. it makes them sad)

                                         Steven Grant Rogers

sexual orientation headcanon

Vintage Bisexual to the fucking MAXXXX

gender headcanon

Captain America is a transman fun fact for ya

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Insomnia

3 random headcanons

1) Has always and will always be the big spoon. Even when he was a scrawny kid he always preferred to be the one holding Bucky (it makes him feel safe, knowing that he’s holding on to the one thing he has left. Especially after Sarah dies)

2) Was (mostly) a virgin up until the serum. Bucky was always afraid that doing too much would trigger his asthma, so while they fooled around a lot and him and Peggy fooled around some, he never actually had sex until he found Bucky again (The Howling Commandos cracked jokes every morning after)

3) Hates swimming, hates water of any kind. Especially when it has to go over his head. He gets lost in flashbacks of both the times he drowned. He can still feel the ice cold water surrounding him, crushing him until he’s blacking out. And the rush of the warm water over his head just before he lost consciousness. Needless to say no one will ever catch him going to the beach recreationally. 

                                            S’chn T’gai Spock

sexual orientation headcanongender headcanonmental illness / neurodivergent headcanon3 random headcanons

biromantic demisexual

Genderflux. Sometimes he’s just not feeling the concept of gender

OCD, Anxiety

1) Wears Jim’s clothes when he’s away/ in medbay again because they smell like him and it’s a comfort to the primal part of his mind that calls out for his mate, his t’hy’la. Everyone on board knows better than to say anything. After a rescue mission went wrong the Dignitary they saved mentioned it and it took two months and a lot of bribing to convince them to stay with the Federation once Spock got a hold of him.

2) He enjoys cooking. Well.. cooking for Jim. He used to do it constantly with his Ima when he was younger. She taught him a plethora of Terran recipes that she learned from her Abbas. James loves it and will eat anything and everything Spock cooks him (even if it is vegan)

3) Amanda is Jewish and Vulcan culture is based on Judaism so Spock is Jewish and even though he isn’t practicing, when he remembers to stop working to celebrate he celebrates Jewish holidays not Christian

                                           James Tiberius Kirk

sexual orientation headcanon

POLYAM PAN FAM

gender headcanon

He is my trans son and you can fight me tbh

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

PTSD, Panic Disorder

3 random headcanons

1) He falls a little bit in love with everyone he meets.

2) He flinches when people touch him. He’s been through too much between Tarsus and his life in general. But once he realizes who it is he’ll place a hand on their shoulder or just touch them in anyway to let them know it’s okay.

3) On days where he and Pasha are together they’ll wear too big hoodies and their boxers and Pasha will almost definitely not be wearing his binder while they watch Classic Television™ and see who can get the replicator to make the most authentic Terran ice cream (because it just never tastes the same as back home)

                                                  Bruce Banner

sexual orientation headcanon

Polyam biromantic asexual

gender headcanon

Cis 

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

BPD, Body Dysmorphia, Depression, Active Suicide Ideation, Insomnia, and he’s on the Autism spectrum

3 random headcanons

1) Bruce cries during sad movies. Not little tears, no, actual really gross sobbing. You would think that having the shitty life that almost no film could beat would mean he’s immune to shitty sob stories, but it’s not at all true. He uses them as a coping mechanism almost because there the one way he can get out his emotions without him having to be The Big Guy.

2) He nearly never sleeps. Like… ever. It’s a bit of a problem considering his emotions get more and more wild after the 32nd hour, but he manages most of the time. That being said when he finally does end up passing out it’s usually in one of the other Avenger’s beds. Most of the time it’s Tony’s (he likes being snuggled warm between him and Rhodey) But each Avenger has woken up with an arm full of exhausted scientist on more than one occasion 

3) His two favourite clothing items are too-big thrift store jumpers and fluffy socks. He tries not to buy clothing that’s too expensive for when he doesn’t quite trust himself, and the worn fabric swallowing him makes him feel safe and secure and doesn’t mess with him when he’s being overstimulated.

                                 Diana, Princess of Themyscira

sexual orientation headcanon

Pansexual Princess for the fucking WIN

gender headcanon

She’s a transwoman, sorry I don’t make the rules

mental illness / neurodivergent headcanon

PTSD

3 random headcanons

1)  She’s seen every movie ever made. And each time she does she screams in frustration that white men are playing parts meant for her friends. She’s been kicked out of more than one movie theater

2) Activist. In every movement she deems worthy she’s right there, using the influence she knows she has to push forward where she can

3) She goes to every Pride Parade she can manage and never lets people forget that they’re where they are because of Trans Women of Colour.