#projecting onto blorbos is my special skill

[lumaxramblings]

me: [sees any faceless pic on pinterest of a teenage redheaded guy] ah yes. transmasc max mayfield

[blorbologist]

do you think canon Percy is neurodivergent / on the spectrum? I personally hc him as such but what is your opinion on this subject? what are things that stand out to you?

Hi anon!

I do as well! Full disclaimer: I am autistic, my brother is autistic and has ADHD, and our father is probably on the spectrum as well but in vehement denial. However, I got Very Good at masking, to the point I rarely unmask and spend all my energy dealing with Social Bullshit, while my brother is... idk, super charismatic in social settings, somehow, but a nightmare with Tasks and Sensory Hell. So I usually project autism onto characters given my lived experience, but can 100% see how he has ADHD vibes as well! I think neurodivergent rep is very important, and it's great that we can see ourselves in these characters <3

I will repeat this a lot, but Percy has also undergone a fuckton of trauma. A lot of his traits that remind me of myself could be due to PTSD. His panic attacks, for instance, are things I'd slot more with PTSD, personally. You can read his character different ways (I read him as having both), and that's good on you. However, I am autistic and I like projecting My Me onto the blorbo so that's what you get.

A couple of things stand out to me:

The whole Feywild thing reminds me of a special interest. Less so in the campaign, but given how they play it up in TLOVM I really suspect it's the case. Clockmaking also seems like the sort of very specific, detailed work that'd make my brain go brrr if it was my thing, so? Is that anything?

A lot of how he is described (by himself or by Tal) pre-Briarwoods could align with a little introvert noble with no social skills and a whole fuckton of arrogance, but it also aligns nicely with an autistic kid.

Just. how many times Cass has to imply 'percy I can't handle Whitestone alone' before he gets the memo. is insane. it's either 'his autistic ass isn't getting what she's trying to say' or 'percy stop being a dick and help your sister out you KNOW what she's asking'. either way works for me! But I'd like to hope he's not intentionally shoving responsibility on his little sister and use that as an excuse.

We don't know if he had issues being touched prior to being tortured ("We didn't touch in my family"), and the trauma of what Ripley did to him could 110% account for that! But I like to slot it away into my 'on the spectrum' vibes box.

Layers. Layers. Layers! Again, another potential covariate with the fact he's a poncy noble, and has a vested interest in hiding his scars, but I am Particular about what touches my skin at a given time. I like long sleeves and pants and gloves because then it's always the same sensory things on me and not changing.

Just how slow he is to court Vex. Because maybe he's reading the social cues wrong, and he has to be Obvious about his interest too, and becomes a fancy bird giving gifts because that's the best way he can think of supporting her and expressing interest while figuring out whatever the fuck this Attraction thing is.

Perhaps just a Tal thing (I see it with Ashton too, or I did when going over the Laudna n Ashton convo with a fine toothed comb the other day), but how much he fidgets when talking. Constantly moving.

His entire friendship with Keyleth is very autism vibes. Could purely be coming form her, or shared, who knows! (I am a huge supporter of autistic Keyleth, here n there I'll sneak in a line about her stimming <3)

Might just be a Me thing, but how he turns to Vex when he's feeling big emotions and doesn't trust himself to handle them. What the fuck are these, I think this impulse to lash out at Scanlan is probably bad, dear please keep me from doing anything stupid.

Also it's very funny for me to do the 'me and the bad bitch I pulled being autistic' meme with him and Vex ngkntrjnhrt

[teler-of-gallifrey]

So, I have this star wars au bouncing around in my brain, but I can't actually get myself to write any of it, so here's just a dump of miscellaneous notes. The basic premise is that various blorbos get involved (through a series of contrived circumstances) in the Clone Wars, mostly as generals.

666th legion and General Flynn Taggart/The Doomslayer:

At the time the Clone Wars begins, The Slayer is decidedly retired. He had solidly entrenched himself in a small farming community on an out of the way planet not too dissimilar to earth. The settlement as a whole was unaware of the war until it came crashing down at their door, when the Separatists decided to use their planet as a testing ground for a new model of B2's. This ambition was short-lived, however, and by the time the Republic arrived, all they found was the collective wreckage of the B2's (mostly cleaned of anything even slightly valuable by enterprising scavengers), a CIS Dreadnought with it's reactor, weapons systems, and hyperdrive blown to Hell (literally, though they didn't know that), a handful of dead Sep commanders, and a lone man, cleaning out a slugthrower amongst all the carnage. Flynn then accompanied the Republic forces back to Coruscant, where he (mildly) strong-arms the Chancellor into making him a general (Palpatine, for his part, is terrified of this mans fucked-up force signature [which he perceives as being just straight up midnight black, projecting his own ambitions and designs onto it, which blinds him to the reality of it that the Jedi are able to see: that it's old, yes, and violent and soaked in the blood of planets and gods, but also tired, and not dark, but wild, like an animal, a predator. It's tinged with the more standard darkness, yes, but also light. The Slayer may not be a pure soul, no one is, but he is not evil.], but believes he can safely control and manipulate him, and have others dispose of him when the time comes). He also strong-arms his way into being allowed to personally arm and armor his legion (which he insists on being the 666th, as he finds it tremendously funny) from his own personal "warrior god-king" fund, in addition to providing them specialized training, bringing on Crash (his own military trainer from his time as a marine, who later went on to train newcomers in the Arena Eternal of Quake) the Doom 3 protagonists (who I haven't given names yet), and General Valen (General of the Night Sentinels, gave the Slayer Sentinel training) to train the Troopers. He has an ulterior motive for this: He is paranoid, and believes that this galactic-conflict will lead to another Hell incursion. He's not training and arming them to be better troopers, that's a lucky side effect; He's training them to be Doom Marines, so that when it happens, after all's said a done, he won't be the only one left amongst the rubble.

The 666th themself are given extensive training, particularly in hand to hand combat and wilderness survival skills, and psychic hardening and awareness(that is, they are trained to recognize when their psyche is being manipulated by an outside influence, and how to resist that influence). Their standard kit consists of the usual blaster rifle, pistol, one light weapon, from the Doom Eternal Combat Shotgun, Heavy Cannon, and Plasma Rifle, one heavy weapon from the DE Chaingun, Ballista, and Rocket Launcher, two sidearms in the form of a chainsaw and Super Shotgun, personal medical supplies including a berserk kit, a Doomblade, and sentinel equipment launcher. Their armor, while maintaining the iconic clone trooper silhouette, is sentinel in design, and more durable and protective then the usual plastiod. Distinguished actions on the battlefield were also rewarded, with the clone in question being gifted a sentinel energy weapon of their choice (with hammers being especially popular). Troopers were also encouraged to customize their weapons. In one particularly memorable instance, a trooper, with his squad cornered by supers and separated from any reinforcements, used their berserk kit, ripped the arm off of one of the supers, and managed to stay level headed enough to hotwire the arms blaster, and carve a path through the droids, and back to the rest of their forces. The trooper later filed down the arm to only the repeating blaster, and mounted it to their chaingun. There was also a more lightly armed branch of the 666th, trained specifically to work in urban and highly populated areas.

The 666th operated from the Fallen Angel, a heavily modified Venator Class that utilized Maykr slipgate technology to deploy small groups of troops to hot spots thought the Galaxy, reinforcing other legions and breaking up stalemates. They were regarded as highly effective, however, this strategy had it's toll, and they had one of the highest mortality rates of any legion (second only to the 382'nd [to be expanded on in the next post). The 666th was also outfitted with the BFG 12k, a scaled down version of the BFG 10k, modified to use a wraith fire based ammo, opposed to the older argent based ammunition (while less powerful, it also didn't depend on a supply of the souls of the damned, so...), the presence of which was often enough to force a CIS surrender.

During order 66, the 666th had the highest rate of order failure of any other legion, at 43% rejection. This, coupled with the centerlized nature of 666th operations, allowed for the Slayer to shut down the slipgates, and keep most of the 666th aboard the Angel. In total, less then 40% of the 666th returned to the Empire, where they were quickly folded into Vader's 501'st. There they quickly gained a reputation as fearsome Jedi hunters, until they were eventually all killed, either on missions, or by Vader in his fits of rage.

During the reign of the Empire, the remnants of the 666th went many different ways. The majority scattered around the down in various outer rim systems, keeping to themselves, while also defending their homes from imperial meddling. The remainder operated from the shadows, aiding rebel cells and liberating imperial detention centers and labor camps. During this time period, the Slayer faced off against Vader 3 times, besting him twice and managing to escape the third time: the first time, with his brute strength, but Vader managed to slip away; the second time, Vader was stronger, and prepared for the Slayer's strength, however, the Slayer bested him this time through strength, however, he was forced to retreat to see the missions success, the third time, Vader had grown stronger still, and was prepared for the Slayer's skill, however, he wasn't prepared for the Slayer's use of slugthrower's, and the Slayer was able to force him to back off long enough to escape.

The 666th remained in the shadows until the Battle of Yavin, when they arrived mid-battle to assist the alliance forces. The BFG 12k was able to cause substantial hull damage to the Death Star, destroying many of the turbolasers, and 666th pilots took pressure of of Alliance fighters, avoiding many casualties. After this the 666th helped arm Alliance soldiers and agents with cheap, untraceable weapons (mostly slugthrowers) and outfit them with a small supply of Clone Wars vehicles.

[firendgold]

Harry for the blorbo opinion bingo

and with this ask, the other half of fireandgold/this blog's ship is now complete! thanks~

And would you look at that, Harry earned himself a bingo! *confetti*

Expounding on the squares again from the top down--

blorbo: not as much as Albus, but Harry is very special and I like how he defies the "everyman" tropes people try to put on him. He is definitely a distinct character in his own right.

I respect them: Harry is extremely compassionate, and extremely forgiving. He makes a lot of choices I would not and could not personally have made if I were in the same situation. I think it takes a lot of courage and for someone so young to stick to unpopular opinions and feelings. For example, if Harry were real, I think he'd defend to the death all his children's name-choices, and heaven help you if you thought you'd change his mind with some half-baked, rehashed argument.

(but like, Harry. why Severus. why Severus as a middle name--)

my opinion changed a lot over time: I've never disliked Harry, but I've definitely disagreed with him at times (especially in DH over Dumbledore, because he was being such a fucking idiot). It's also easy to get the real canon Harry confused with all the fanon Harrys who are meant to "improve" on him (but sometimes don't actually do so), 'till you get to the point where you hardly remember what your unbiased opinion of Harry James was in the first place. But when I'm fresh off a re-read, I find that I am far fonder of him than I was when initially reading his story in the mid 2000s. I was more or less neutral then.

I can make them worse: Mmmm, imagine. A genuinely Dark Harry who wasn't Voldemort's pet or lover, but a dangerous individual in his own right who was the patron saint of misplaced orphans and serpent king of the underworld. Ruler of dementors, and the only dark wizard able to cast a Patronus. A man whose only true love was control because he spent so much of his pre-Hogwarts years without a shred of it. Similarly to Albus, people write the most bland, nauseating independent!Harrys and Dark!Harrys and Harem!Harrys and PoliticalAsshole!Harrys and every type of Harry who isn't Harry you could think of. Even if I restricted myself to writing those repetitive genres only, I'm pretty sure I could do better. You know, if I ever hit my head on the sidewalk and had a personality transplant.

they intrigue me: Auror Dad is perhaps the least interesting route That Woman could have had Harry take, so of course that's where he ended up. Harry wasn't The Next Merlin by any means, but he was skilled with magic and a quick thinker, and I would have loved to see him unleashed on the world as he was at seventeen, fresh off dancing on Voldemort's corpse.

I have so much to say about them: It's not as easy to get me going on Harry as it is on Albus, but the parts of him that do get my mouth running send it off just as passionately as any Albus-related-rant does. ^^

they're hard to understand; I get it tho: I... sort of get it and don't get it... because it definitely feels like people are projecting what they wish Harry was onto him, or their own experiences or whatever. I do that too but I have to be so careful not to let my own voice seep through when I'm writing him. so in true Virgo fashion I'm all, if I can watch myself when analyzing Harry why can't literally everyone else? lol. But yes. Harry is very hard to understand. His compassion, his temper, his mood swings, his reactions to how he was raised... any and all have been misunderstood by all of us at the best of times. He's very intriguing because he's not as easy to pin down as he might seem. (That's why I don't buy into the idea of him as a bland protagonist. Y'all just aren't reading deeply enough into him. If he was that bland, wouldn't there be even more versions of him in fanon, instead of people slowly starting to come to a consensus about just who Harry James Potter is?)

I'd fuck them: oooh, a NSFW one. well. I'm far too old to think of canon Harry in that way, and he wasn't really pushing any teenage heartthrob buttons for me when I actually was a teenager (that was more Percy Jackson's role, lol). But sometimes I see fanart of adult Harrys that look delicious. Like, shaggy tied-back hair, lightning-bolt scar accentuated to the point where it looks like an epic tattoo across his face, brilliant bottle-green eyes, long flowing Quidditch or professor robes... it hits sometimes.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

I'm curious about your case for autistic!hunter. All the traits I see people bring up for hunter I see as a PTSD trait/from trauma. ex: Thumbling fingers as stimming can be a soothing tactic (i do something similar), his inability to make friends is from him being raised away from peers his age so he never learned any skills, his repression/experience with belos also makes it difficult to sympathize with others. Although autism and ptsd traits do overlap I'm curious if you see anything with him that goes past his trauma and straight into autism territory. I'd love to hear more of this because it's a common headcanon.

It's fine!

I mean, one thing is that I myself am autistic and have PTSD, so it's very easy for me to project both of them onto my blorbo. I am well aware of that lol. (Can't speak for masking myself, that's not a thing I really ever did).

There's definitely stuff that I can see with Hunter that's definitely straight into autism territory, as you put it, though! For one, his fascination with and tendency to info-dump on wild magic definitely reminds me of a special interest. I do the same with the owl house myself lol.

He's also shown symptoms of sensory issues like, literally from his first appearance lol. He doesn't check to see if the selkiedomus is actually dead because he can't stand its smell, he's been shown reacting in a pained manner to minor touch (which could be due to potential injuries, but personally it really reminded me of how I react when I've got too much pressure on me), and he's also shown having issues with having difficulty sensing where his body is in relation to the world around him at times.

Also autism has a genetic factor, and Hunter is biologically the brother of Belos and Belos is also very autistic but in an evil messed up way but thats a topic for another post!