#the ordeal of Using Your Words is such an Alastor arc in this whole series

[prince-liest]

read through your answer to an ask about alastor's touch aversion and as someone who is in the process of getting diagnosed with ASD it is SO VALIDATING. being totally cool and normal with touch one second and then being absolutely appalled by it a moment later. what also shines through about his characterization in this context is the slow acceptance towards the ordeal of Using Your Words when you want/no longer want to be touched. unfortunately vox cant read your mind bud

i dont know if you've mentioned this anywhere but do you see alastor (or your version of him) as an autistic character? since that flavor of touch aversion, though not exclusive to asd, is definitely a common experience

Ahhh, I'm glad that it rings so true! Yeah, it's just one of those things that I think is really malleable and depends on the circumstance! Even for folks that aren't touch-averse, specifically, there's still variety in the people and circumstances involved with being accepting of touch - and being generally touch-averse just adds layers and levels to the experience. Thank you!

As for Alastor potentially being autistic in how I write him... two aspects to that answer:

With the singular exception of Lucifer (or any other character who has an existing, canon diagnosis) I don't tend to have specific diagnoses in mind ahead of time for characters when I write them. A lot of them end up very obviously anxious, or ADHD, or autistic, or most commonly C-PTSD, etc, but it's kind of an "I write this character how I see them and you can definitely accurately infer" situation! You're not the first person to see that in how I write him, so probably the answer is 'yes'!

That said, I've been told by pretty reliable peer review that I have a touch of the 'tism to the point that it's a running joke, so there's a good chance that's also leaking in, HAH.