#then people like you or my allistic friends come in like 'hold up but this is obvious already!'

[katyspersonal]

I think I’d like to note a few more things on Maria’s clothing as well.

She does dress masculine, but it’s not very out of the ordinary. Gratia, Henriette, Eileen, and Yurie all wear traditionally masculine clothes as warriors, and even compared to them, Maria did not appear to be one to entirely bury her feminine traits. She wears her lumenflower brooch, flower chains, a ribbon in her hair, and a feathered hat that resembles the female Cainhurst knight hat alongside a more common hunter’s hat. Compared to the other masculine women of Bloodborne, Maria still has a clear balance between her masculine and feminine attire.

The male Cainhurst knight set is actually traditionally way more feminine-looking already, but Maria turning it into a hunter’s uniform inspired by Gehrman works well because the set already bears more resemblance to traditional hunter wear than the female knight’s garb.

Again, even in the wider world of Soulsborne, Maria is not unusual for being masc in an older time period. What is more relevant is her unique way of approaching a traditionally male dominated field in a Victorian setting, and not burying her feminine traits. Every other female hunter I mentioned dresses entirely masculine, but Maria keeps a balance. She could have given her more elegant Cainhurst fashion, which is undeniably more feminine, but she didn’t. This makes more come off like more of a feminist in her time than the other women that clearly didn’t do the same.

Gehrman dressing the Doll like he did was an interesting choice, but something tells me he didn’t do it out of a malevolent or disturbing reason. We know the Doll clothes reveal the love of their creator, not the desire for female submission or sexual depravity. The answer doesn’t need to be complex when trying to explain why Gehrman’s motives might not have been twisted. The answer is right in the game. It was something that came from love. Why it manifested in that way is up to interpretation.

Oh! I appreciate you expressing your take on the matter here, anon! I just want to correct a little bit! The ribbon Maria ties her hair with appear to be the headpiece of Knight's set that is male version of it, and Henryk is another hunter that uses feathers in his hat!

As for Yurie/Julie, Choir garb in my opinion is not masculine clothing but rather... neutral clothing? It is a robe of a religious group and in my opinion they'd aim for suppression if not erasure of identity! Blindfold cap covers upper part of their faces and whereas it has lore reason (letting the 'stars' show them the world guide them instead + Willem reference), but also from design standpoint it covers the most expressive part of the face - the eyes area. They are also called Choir, I think they would try to appear all identical and interchangeable, anonymous, including obscuring gender presentation rather than being feminine or masculine! (I like to think realistically, anyone with long hair would tuck them under the hat... 🤔) So yeah! I just need to be honest with what we are discussing here.

But you have a rather good core point:

(Screenshots are courtesy of Bloodborne wiki ( x ))

You can see male Knight, Maria and female Knight sets, and... that sets are actually similar. The 'masculine' thing about Maria's version of the set is use of grey ribbon to tie her hair, leaving out puffy sleeves and leaving out the skirt. Which... tells us actually not all that much about her presentation?

No, but really! I would say there is a difference between disposing of flea-like blood-drunk monsters in the comfort of the royal castle and running in dungeons/streets/hamlet full of fish mutants apparently. There might have been a practical reason for leaving the skirt (and slightly longer cape) out. Knights stay in the castle mostly to dispose of Bloodlickers that just jump and suck blood, Maria however, disposes of beasts that could effectively drag a long skirt/longer cape down with their claws! Puffy sleeves of female set are made from lighter and expensive material, but Maria's coat is (reasonably) of thicker and rougher material that might be a hassle to repeat the puffiness even if Maria wanted to! And ribbon could be just an element common in Cainhurst to tie hair, definitely not likely to be banned for women. Maria needed a big hat, not a tiny decorative hat when hunting. Again, 'comfort of the castle' thing, you know?

Clothes are not necessarily masculine, but they ARE practical.

Basically? You are right, there is no need for big essays and elaborate analyses to begin with. Maria is not 'unambiguously masculine', Maria is... Maria. She presents as Maria. Given the setting her preferences are... sooooo up to interpretation, and the only solid thing we have is that Gehrman certainly had no personal interest in feminizing her. (Woulda been odd anyways since he trained her to kick ass to begin with).

We appear to have entered the problem of 'western fandoms can only analyze any media through the lense of 21th century american values regardless of context, setting, country of the production or even basic common sense'. Woman seems masculine? Then she MUST be masculine for the same reasons why an american woman would be in 21st century would be masculine, by logic of such people. It is just something I absolutely cannot connect with, because I engage with fiction to escape the struggles and visions of reality, not to carry them with me. And I love media from overseas, coming from different cultures or set in a very different setting because it gives me perspective varied from what I already see all the time. Hence why I personally never had much hype for passing her as butch/egg/etc, or for projecting issues with creepy men on Gehrman. Because:

There are plenty of fictional universes that do touch themes of feminism and queer presentation as it is in many 1st world countries of our century, are made by westerners and for (mostly) westerners, there are many indie creators or just artists that have many characters like this and explore these themes - in plain way, without having to force it in! Bloodborne just feels like a whole different thing that is good for what it is, not for what it could be.

I also always had impression that when FromSoft games want to say something regarding characterisation - they SAY it. I think Elden Ring cemented this for me with the "Dolores fashioned herself as a man" or... idk, Entire Personality of Seluvis. They are very coy with lore and world-building and timelines, indeed, but not with presenting something. Does it mean that interpretations are now bad and banned? Of course not. But it is mindset like 'Maria is masculine she is the gnc icon everyone who thinks otherwise is just a cowardly incel whose pp shrinks at the sight of a masculine woman why do you want to take away our ONLY representation under guise of loving the lore and truth?!' that does inspire me to go in the trenches to defend Gehrman's honor dfsjhdfsdsf

Meanwhile Gratia and Henriett leave the chat:

I've talked a lot but I see what you are saying, anon. It is more about 'people who have eyes WILL see naturally, without any essays or analyses' and like... I guess so...? I just have it basically coded in my brain to ramble about my interests and read lectures to the classroom with like 2 people in it, hahaha. Maybe there should be fandomry class in the schools since we can't escape the internet and media anymore, and I will work as a teacher. xD /j

[mechanical-aristocrat]

What are your thoughts on Screwllums letter to Svarog? I'm open for discusstions.

[OOC:]

My immediate thought upon reading it was "this is super wholesome and cute" and yeah, I still definitely think that, but I've got a lot more to say now that it's been sitting in my brain for few days so buckle up:

First off, this man is so totally autistic /aff (as is literally any robot character in any piece of media, you can't convince me that an allistic robot is a thing that exists). Over explaining to make sure the exact point he's trying to get across does so as accurately as possible and apologizing in advance for accidentally crossing boundaries (considering that at this point in time Svarog is basically a complete stranger), as an autistic person myself it's very relatable to see.

Second, I think it's really funny that he only knows of Svarog's existence because he watched what is essentially an E-Sports tournament, which he only watched because Silver Wolf practically begged him to (because I think we can pretty safely assume that the "Stellaron Hunter friend" he was referring to was her); that just adds onto the relatability for me because I also do not give a flying fuck about E-Sports, he's so real for that. I love Screwllum and Silver Wolf's dynamic with each other, they give off uncle-niece vibes and it's very fun (what I don't understand and will never understand is people shipping them with each other, it makes me really uncomfortable for several reasons, but for the sake of my sanity I'm not going to get into it).

Third, the letter honestly just confirmed some of the headcanons I had once I sat down and read all the lore regarding the Machine Emperor Wars about a month ago (which I highly recommend btw it's super interesting stuff). I guess I sort of had the fear that Hoyo would try to make it so the IPC just completely dropped every last bit of their idea to exterminate all mechanical life the second Screwllum proved to them that robots aren't inherently harmful to humanity, and that everything was just magically okay after that and humans and machines could live in perfect harmony with absolutely no conflict whatsoever. Thank fuck they didn't do that because that would've been both super boring and super unrealistic, Screwllum acknowledges within the letter that there are many places where robots are regarded only as tools, they don't often have the same sort of foot holding in society that humans do, and he hopes that changes someday.

(one of the headcanons that I have regarding this is that there's a secretive group of people within the IPC that are specifically trying to fuck up Screwllum's reputation and the reputations other robots who are also massive public figures that advocate for robot rights, but especially in Screwllum's case they haven't found much success because that man does not have a single problematic line of code in his programming)

Lastly, I would kill to see Screwllum and Svarog properly interact in the future, I think they'd get along so well and their dynamic would be so fun. I don't necessarily ship them, but more power to you if you do, honestly I might eventually be convinced to ship them if more stuff like this shows up, this was super cute (also, before anyone reading gets confused, the "we will come to call each other "brothers"" bit at the end of the letter does not mean anything that would make shipping these two characters quote-on-quote "problematic". The word "brothers" in this context purely refers to a strong bond of friendship and mutual understanding. I honestly should not have to explain that, but considering that the internet is the internet, I figured I ought to).

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

Tam Lin Saiou AU

Ves: okay please consider. saiou tam lin (osp link if you're not familiar w the fairy tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF3O6Xkpscs&list=WL&index=1&pp=gAQBiAQB) i left the prompt vague because i can't decide who should be who. both options are SO funny to me why do saiou always end up pregante in my fairy tale aus i do not know ALL THE BEST FAIRY TALES INVOLVE IT OKAY I STILL CAN'T DECIDE…probably tam lin!kokichi though, i suppose it makes more sense it's not as easy as lindwyrm for me. who tf do i make the queen,,,

Me: the heroine is just like Shuichi going to the love hotel She Knows What She Came Here For [as for the queen] Angie maybe? it's a bit of a step up from asking for blood but Ves: WHY SHE LIKE THAT she's not asking she's giving remember

Hina: See in my head I lean toward Kokichi Janet with the way the video described the two I'm just in my head imagining the hilarity of Kokichi pretending to be all "Oops i forgor" while Shuichis like. "Hold up wait you don't actually. Like. Actually it's fine I can take something else it's fine."

Ves: i tip towards janet shuuichi just bc he's the one i hc as being able to get pregananante Hina: See I was just. Ignoring that. DIDNT HAPPEN I just can't imagine Shuichi being all cool with that if that's the outcome Me: Do it I knew it! You and your anti-children agenda Hina: WHAT DO YOU MEAN Me: exactly what I said, I knew you're going to try to erase the child out of the story, but not on my watch Ves: allister is in hina's walls Checkers: Hina how else would you explain the baby daddy part Hina: Maybe you just have an agenda for children smh Me: that's not mutually exclusive heroine just wanted a hook up, she wouldn't come back if it didn't happen Hina: Easy, Janet was intrigued by what happened and wanted to come back Ves: you'd have to completely cut out the part about the father and the knights Checkers: no the the tam lin can't hurt her bc he's her baby daddy part Dra: Hina has the single father Shu au Defending the bestie and leaving djfjd Me: that's because it's a pre-existing child, alive for narrative purposes, he doesn't let saiou have children together tho and takes any opportunity to get rid of fetuses Hina: If they're mutually each other's firsts that's another way to connect them Ves: i mean, we could have him hurt shuuichi… Hina: OR THAT I FUCKING GUESS Checkers: ves he turns into fire like "can kill people" fire Hina: Fireproof cloak Checkers: how about the red-hot iron Ves: i've always thought the newer versions where she clings to him even though he burns are sweet Hina: Is standing in water when the fire is cast

Ves: but could kokichi manage a reputation as a bodice ripper. i think no actually yes he just lied 'ooooh don't go to carterhaugh or fair tam lin will take your maidenhead' tam lin has never felt the touch of another he's shaking Me: he was just being silly, securing the gifts he actually wants, he didn't expect horny people to seek him out, he doesn't even have a known appearance! Ves: he's a little magpie, he wanted the shinies, he was not prepared OOO new thought. the two headed rose as a metaphor the first thing janet does in carterhaugh is pick a two-headed rose, which is what tam lin shows up to bitch at her for initially. for shuuichi it could be a representation of his curiosity, his fascination with strange and mildly dangerous things kokichi is the rose. i've connected the dots /ref what direction are we heading with the faerie queen? depending on ur adaptation she's treated either like a mother figure or a toxic gf and that affects what character we pick

Checkers: what if she just sees him as more a toy and less a lover? Ves: so junko then? or moogi O MY GOD YOU GUYS DID YOU KNOW THAT IN SOME VERSIONS THEY'RE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS THEY KNEW EACH OTHER BEFORE HE WAS TAKEN BY THE FAERIE QUEEN I- this provides more justification for the baby actually THEY KNEW EACH OTHER BEFORE MAYBE WERE EVEN IN LOVE BEFORE KOKICHI WAS STOLEN…

Hina: What if Nobody was stolen Ves: THAT IS THE ENTIRE CONCEIT OF THE FAIRY TALE?? Hina: Ran away And got caught Ves: no. THAT'S JUST ANGST FOR ANGST'S SAKE, IT DOESN'T EVEN FIT IN THE STORY!! THEY'RE ALREADY GOING TF THROUGH IT WHY MUST YOU CRAM IN MORE Hina: LISTEN Ves: listening. Hina: I just I think it'd be funny (I had an idea but it doesn't work so nvm)

Ves: is it not MORE angsty for shuuichi to think kokichi finally got bored of him and bolted, meanwhile he's held captive as a future sacrifice Hina: I had an idea if Tsumugi was the queen or whatever but I realized it doesn't work with Kokichi Ves: imagine heading into the woods to fuck and meeting your long lost childhood love queen tsumugi still works with kokichi i think? Hina: In general it does but I had an idea hinged on Shuichi and Tsumugi being siblings skskskske Ves: yeah that doesn't work they're different species ndsjghsgf maybe in a tamlin!shuuichi variant? Hina: The idea was kinda Tsumugi snatching herself a brother Ves: TSUMUGI. THAT'S NOT FREE Hina: YEAH BUT SHE WANTED A SIBLING They keep getting sacrificed for being human smh

[jayvikyaoi]

deep post from jayvikyaoi or whatever. this is just a rant/vent about how it feels being autistic

it's really weird being on that fine line between being a functioning human being and being what people think of when they think of an "autist," where you can talk most of the time not the talking is never good and you can work some of the time but the work is never good. more specifically trying to interact in autistic spaces when you're definitely below that line when it comes to your social ineptitude, when things just can't physically or psychologically compute to you, and people don't like that, even other autistic people, so they label you "out of their comfort zone." i'd spent a lot of my life thinking i was exceptionally good at being social just because i had friends and i could get people to smile at me. but unfortunately i grew up and realized those friends were never my friends and those smiles were never smiling WITH me.

i think no matter where i go i'm always going to be labeled kind of inconvenient for anyone who doesn't understand my style of communication from experience (see: doing it Badly), or worse i'm going to be made fun of by people who don't even try to sympathize with it. i wish making friends were easier but getting older is cruel and the people around me get crueler. i really do hate that the autistic community is dominated by low-support-needs and able-bodied autistic people not because of how they experience the world but because they make it harder for me to truly, finally find people that share my life experiences, or at least understand enough to sympathise with it. they're the good ones. they don't want our voices to be heard because we actually have something to say with them, not just "ohh no we don't really support autism speaks anymore" (and sometimes not even that out of sheer cowardice). not to mention the fact that they're the only kind of autistic people that allistics can comfortably elevate the voices of because they don't challenge the allistic-centric worldview. they don't bring any light to autistic experiences. they can be easily understood without discomfort, and then ignored.

autistic spaces are full of pick-me's, that's what i think. they have enough privilege to centre allistic worldviews in their own life, and if you challenge that comfort of theirs, you're out. even at my age and even talking to people older it feels like classic high school bullying—because it is. if you're "too weird" (see: "too autistic") you'll be publicly executed and laughed at. and for what? why are all of you so *negative*? i've never been able to understand the mindset. is it your own insecurities in the traits that you can identify or is it simply the fact that you've been trained to ostracize the "different" and you listened without question like a dog? or is it both? have you no sympathy?

i'm trying my best but my best is never enough. i can't talk to people, i can't hold a job, i can hardly even take care of myself. i never finished my schooling. it's getting really hard not to give up on everything and sometimes i start to understand the statistics of suicide and ptsd—what DO i have in this world other than people taking advantage of me for fun? video games? video games can't save me. be honest.

it's getting harder and harder the older i get to make mistakes because i'm locked in an immortality chamber and publicly executed every time i make one. every day, every time i speak, every time i mess up dinner, every time i can't provide, every time i ask the world for even a morsel of love. thinking having friends who like me wasn't too much to ask for while being autistic AND ugly AND weird—my worst mistake. i humiliate myself more each time i leave my house or set my hands on my keyboard. i'd much rather be euthanized, it'd be a more forgiving existence. i have nothing to bring to the table even if everyone in my life who is paid to be kind to me thinks i'm the most intelligent kid they've ever met. it doesn't amount to anything when i can't even form a coherent thought more than half of the time.

when i try to socialize, it's like having a handful of predetermined dialogue options, but when they finally come up for me (of which it is exceptionally slow to do), it's a bunch of garbled text and missing characters of which i can barely make out a full word of. i try to analyze it but that never works because there ISN'T any sense to it, and when i finally think i'm picking the correct option, it comes out of my mouth and i have to bear with the angry or giggling faces that surround me as i grapple to understand how what i said was wrong. i know how to make out simple phrases like "i'm sorry that happened" and "how are you today?" and "haha relatable" and "thank you" but everything else is lost on me. i only know the basics of it, but everything else is just... a different language to me. one so impossibly difficult to learn, especially at this stage of my life where i have to tools to learn it and making any attempt gets me ashamed.

you *could* be my friend. but fine. jerk off to how much you think you pity and support people like me through my "journey" and then make fun of me or learn to hate me when my back is turned, when it really comes down to it.

(i'm not sure i'm even worthy enough to be used as inspiration porn)

[ourvanishingghosts]

If you don't mind, can i ask for allister with quiet reader, who is same age as him? Reader happen to get shiny alcremie from milcery, which they give her ribbon sweet since they though of allister from alcremie's color. Reader is thoughful to give their pokemon own decision and give them nicknames, to their pokemon's appreciation

Of course.

The Shiny Alcremie

Allister x Reader

You had been friends with Allister since the day you were born. You supported him in his gym leader career when nobody else did since a lot of people doubted him due to his age. You showed up to all of his battles and even help him train. You want to show him how much you care for and support him.

You spent weeks trying to find and catch a shiny Milcery to give a ribbon sweet. You wanted the Pokémon to match Allister's color scheme in a way. Once you finally had caught the Milcery and evolved it on your way to Allister's gym you realized that she should have a nickname. You stopped walking, set the Pokémon down, got out three pieces of paper, and started writing down nicknames. One sheet said Amethyst, another said Starlight, and the last one said Clover. You set the pieces of paper down in front of the Pokémon and you told it that it could choose from these three names to be its new nickname. After a minute or two she walked over to the paper with Starlight written on it.

You changed her nickname to Starlight, threw out the paper, and headed to your destination. Once you had reached Allister's gym you were suddenly nervous. What if he doesn't like the Pokémon or what if the pokemon doesn't like him? Your thoughts were interrupted by someone calling your name. You look around and noticed that it was Allister.

"What are you doing here, Y/N?"

He asks once he got to you.

"Oh well. I got you something."

"You did? May I see it?"

"Umm. Could we go inside first I feel like people's eyes are staring into my soul?"

"Sure."

He takes you by the hand and leads you inside and to a secluded room.

"What was it that you wanted to give me?"

You hold a Luxury Ball and the Shiny Alcremie appeared in front of him. He was taken aback since he knows it is difficult to catch a shiny and due to the fact that you gave him one.

"Her name is Starlight. She chose it herself. I got her for you to show you how much I care for and support you, Allister."

He took the Luxury Ball from your hand and then picked up the Alcremie.

"She's beautiful. Thank you, Y/N. You are the best friend that I could ask for."

He lets the Alcremie return to the ball and then hugs you. You knew that you and Allister were going to be supporting each other for years to come.

[colourstreakgryffin]

Galar Gym Leaders Shitpost

I’m in a Sword and Shield Allister mindrot at the moment! I frikin’ love this boy so I’m gonna write about him!

How does the Ghost-type Gym Leader of Stow-on-Side, Allister handle having a crush

You are Allister’s direct opposite. You oppose him in EVERY single way, yet, he is so deeply in love with you that he’d gladly push Galar all the way to Kanto to make you happy

Allister views you as heavenly. Your sugary sweet demeanour wins his heart over and over again. Thank god, he will never take off that mask cause his face is on fire when he’s with you

Allister’s extremely insecure. Does he look cool or lame when he battles? Is his introverted nature annoying? Is he and/or his Pokémon scary? He gets unreasonably angry at himself everytime he makes you flinch;

“I-I’m s-so sorry, Dokusha! I-I didn’t mean to… s-scare you… I’m sorry!”

“Don’t worrrry! It’s fine! And it’s my fault, really! You walk so quietly and you’re so quiet too, I did ask if you could get me those Sitrus Berries, I knew you’d come back”

Allister is somewhat obsessed with his ghost friends so he’s a bit more obsessed with his crush. He wants to be with you 24/7, he non-physically clings onto you and his head is full of random cute things he likes about you

Allister is not the bravest but he gladly defends you anytime you need it. And yep, this is one of the non-existent times that Allister raises his voice and loses his temper. He gets MAD;

“Get away”

“You heard me. Get away. Don’t— don’t you know who you’re talking to? I’m Stow-on-Side’s Gym Leader. I suggest you leave Dokusha alone before I lose my patience”

“GET LOST. NOW”

“H-Hey… Are… are you okay, Dokusha? I’m… sorry for yelling… I-I… I just don’t like anybody trying to hurt you…”

In conjunction to his situational bravery. He’s very protective, Allister is much stronger than you and he’d throw hands with Pokémon himself to ensure you're safe

Allister could never actually express physical affection towards his crush, he’s overwhelmed by his feelings and anxiety. He expresses affection by holding your sleeve, staying nearby you, helping you carry things

You once made Allister a cute colourful friendship bracelet and he hasn’t taken it off since. He loves it and he looks after it to the best of his ability

Allister is somehow simultaneously calmed and stressed-out by your presence at his Gym matches. He feels calmer knowing his crush is cheering him on but gets extremely worried that he’d lose the battle and make a fool of himself in front of you

Allister has a nigh-impenetrable streak of jealousy. He doesn’t view himself as good enough for you so he can’t help but get jealous when people or Pokémon whisk away your attention whilst you're hanging out with him, this includes his own Pokémon;

“Heya, Alli! Wanna play with me?”

“…U-Um… well”

“No?—“

“Whoa! Heya, Gengar! Oh? You want to play?”

Allister returns Gengar to his Pokéball in a instant and resists the urge to throw it away

Talking about the hangouts, it solely includes you talking about whatever you want and Allister quietly listening to you

You two stay up really late but you always fall asleep first. Allister can’t stop screaming internally when you sleep with your head laid on either his shoulder or his lap. Poor boy is panicking but loving every second

Even brings you blankets, food and everything you may need so you can be comfortable. He always has you in mind, even when he’s on the battlefield

About 96% of the time, Allister’s thought process consist things like; “I wonder where Dokusha is”, “I should pick up some Malasadas for Dokusha, she’d like them” “Did I get the right blanket for tonight, Dokusha will get cold”

Allister figured that you used Fairy-types but your team of Normal-types and your ace, G-Max Snorlax surprised him;

“S… Snorlax, hey?”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry, I should have mentioned that I LOVE Normal-types! Do you like my team, Alli? I mean, no team will be as cool as your huuuge spooky ghost bubbies but like, is mine cool too?”

“W-well… yes… they are also powerful… it’s impressive…”

Allister melts into a puddle everytime you pretty much tackle him onto the floor to embrace him. He can’t hold you up when you jump but he loves feeling you squeeze him and cry out that you missed him

Your and Allister’s Pokémon do not get along. Snorlax and Gengar constantly bicker

Even though, Allister has a massive crush on you and wants more than anything to spill his truth. He isn’t ready to show you his face yet and is thankful of how understanding you are. The only time he’s actually shown you anything of his face is a glimmer of his deep purple eyes

Allister almost re-experienced the afterlife upon seeing your reaction. Your excited squealing and compliment wave, he was barely keeping himself composed

At the end of the day, Allister is an extremely shy guy so he’d never tell you nor anybody, not even his beloved Pokémon his feelings for you so his relationship with you will stay as a mutual friendship, but he plans on winning you overtime!

[darkmatter-nebula]

Good morning, my sweet fellas! 😊 Here comes a freshly baked chapter of my "Ghostboy in Hisui" AU. Here I go again! 😁

Chapter 11: Giratina And The Ghostchild

Jubilife Village celebrated a festival for Akari and Allister. Zoroark was still mad at the people who wished harm upon Allister, but the little boy wrapped his arms around her and reassured her that he didn't hold a grudge. He understood that they were just scared. They already apologized to him. To Allister's surprise, Cyllene walked up to him and gave him a hug! "Welcome back, Allister." She whispered into his ear. He was smiling under his mask. "Thank you. And thank you for your help." He whispered back. The Captain of the Survey Corps really cared a lot about the small ghostboy.

The next morning, it was a surprise for Akari and Allister that Volo wanted to meet them both. He told them to gather the last plates and to meet him then at the ruins of the ancient temple. Cogita gave them her plate. She thought it was a normal cutting board. "It could explain why the food tasted so marvelous." Cogita said smiling. "Thank you, Ms. Cogita." Allister said shyly. "You're welcome, sweetie."

The last plates came from the Lake Trio. Akari also managed to catch them all. The small ghostboy was impressed. "This was amazing, Dawn!" He told her. The girl smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Now, they were both ready to meet Volo. The ancient temple in the Coronet Highlands would be in modern times to be known as Spear Pillar. Suddenly, Allister got a message on his arceus phone. 'Little One, you will return home very soon.' Allister was happy that he would see his sister and friends again, but he was sure that he would miss everyone he met in Hisui.

Volo was already waiting for them. He acted differently than usual. The small ghostboy had always thought that something was off about the merchant. He also seemed not to care that much about his fellow Gingko Guild members. "I worshipped Arceus for my whole life, why did he choose you two instead?! It should have been me!" The blonde man changed into a strange new outfit. In Allister's opinion, Volo's new hairstyle was ridiculous. He was very soon in a pokemon battle with Akari.

After Akari had defeated him, Volo had a huge surprise for Allister and Akari. Giratina appeared behind him! And she looked very angry! Allister always wanted to meet Giratina but he hoped it would be under better circumstances. To Volo's dismay, Giratina seemed to be drawn to the little boy. She was surprisingly calm after she spotted Allister. To show Giratina that she could trust him, the little boy removed his mask and stepped forward. He was now walking into Giratina's direction. "Hello, Giratina." Allister said shyly. Volo was livid! "What are you waiting for, Giratina? Kill him!" But Giratina didn't listen to Volo.

Akari got an idea. She let her Gardevoir use psychic to let Allister levitate. He was now floating right in front of Giratina. He put his hand very gently on her face. "You don't have to listen to Volo! You are not evil, I can feel it." The little boy spoke gently. Giratina made some ghostly noises. For Allister's ears it sounded like "He manipulated me. I never wanted to hurt anyone. People were always afraid of me." She said and leaned into Allister's gentle touch. "No! It can't be!" Volo shouted. Akari spoke up now. "Well, Allister is not just an expert with ghost types. He is their friend! Bad for you that Giratina is also a ghost type!" She grinned. Giratina wanted to be Allister's friend. She let herself to be caught in a pokeball.

Volo was enraged! "NO!" The blonde man charged at the little boy but Zoroark stopped him. She was also growling at him. Volo pretty much run for his life.

Back in Jubilife Village, everyone couldn't believe their eyes! The eight year old Allister was now friends with the legendary Giratina! Especially Professor Laventon was as surprised as he was impressed! "Wow..." The Professor breathed.

Suddenly, some kind of Portal appeared. Allister got another message on his arceus phone. 'Your mission in Hisui is finally done. You can now go through the Portal to your rightful home.' Allister was excited but he wanted to say farewell to everyone first. Adaman pretty much tackled him into a hug. "I will miss you, Allister!" He cried. "I will miss you too, Adaman." The little boy returned the embrace. Zisu and Cyllene hugged him too. Akari decided to stay a little longer in Hisui. She embraced the little boy as well. "As soon as I am back, I will visit you in Galar!" She told him. "I am looking forward to it!" The little boy said, under his mask a smile. Soon he said Goodbye to everyone. To his delight, he could keep his Pokemon. Zoroark was already excited to finally meet Bea! Allister stepped into the Portal and a blindling light surrounded him...

To be continued

This chapter is finished!

The next chapter will be a Epilog.

[lynndyblogy]

I'm gonna use tumblr to vent for a sec because I'm somewhat anonymous on here and nobodys gonna read it anyway

Man, i am autistic as fuck. Genuinely so fucking aspy and raring to go rant about my special interests at someone I just met for two hours. However, is it just me or do other autistic people use autism as a shield to be inconsiderate? Like I hold back because I want other people to feel valued in a conversation. Even if I have nothing positive to say during a friend's emotional breakdown I know I have to be the stable person for them in that moment. If my friends tell me to tone it down or bring up an issue with my behaviour I'll at least try to do some introspection on it. Because i want my friends to be comfortable.

Im familiar with the concept of masking, but I think not masking is not license to release every impulse i have. Allistic people have to hold back too-- everyone has to make compromises for other people in their lives all of the time. Thats just kind of how life is. Obviously too many compromises or not enough is bad, relationships are hardly black and white. Maybe Im closer to allistic than other people I know, but i kind of get where allistics are coming from when they complain about autistic people displaying a (seeming) lack of consideration. I feel bad even saying that though. I don't wanna be an autism class traitor or whatever but thats how I feel

when friends are not willing to make compromises for me where I am willing to compromise for others it makes me feel unvalued as a friend. Like im putting in double emotional work to maintain relationships and the other person doesn't even know. And if i talk about it theyre always like "oh i felt comfortable being myself around you and now i cant be" which just makes everyone feel bad. Perhaps i am too sensitive or reactionary or simply not emotionally literate enough idk

[pyroclastic727]

Is Amity autistic?

In the Owl House fandom, we hear a lot about how Luz is written to be ADHD. Now I would like to present the flipside: Amity is coded as autistic.

Here’s the breakdown.

Amity is touch-averse. “BuT aMiTy ToUcHeS LuZ aLL tHe TiMe” nice try. The key to autistic touch-aversion is only being okay with touch when she initiates it. And that totally matches up with Amity. See, Amity is really happy when she initiates touch with Luz. She’s also cool with it when Luz holds her hand after standing near her for enough time that Amity can predict an incoming touch. That’s because Amity consents to that touch and expects it.

But when other people touch her? She doesn’t take kindly to that. When Luz initially bumped into her at Covention, she snapped at her and degraded her. Even when she bumped into Luz in Enchanting Grom Fright, her initial instinct was to snap at Luz, since she didn’t expect to be touched. When Hooty touched Amity’s face without consent, she flipped out and beat him up. Not even Lilith beat Hooty up when he wrapped her up in his mucus-filled tube, but Amity gave Hooty the injuries we all wanted to see him with, because he breached her boundaries without her consent. Even as late as the last episode, Amity fell over when her face got close to Luz’s on the bleachers, because she didn’t expect it.

Amity stims. Okay, this one took me a while to catch, since most of the time, Amity is very controlled with her actions. This symptom isn’t very intense; her senses aren’t understimulated too often, and she really only does it when she’s really excited.

Mainly, when Luz offered to carry her. While she adorably scrambled for words, she also flapped her hands against her legs. At first I thought it was just a cute thing she did, but there’s more to it. She was so excited to be held by Luz that it showed up in her hands flapping...a common stim. With Amity feeling more comfortable around her new friends than the old ones, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more stimming in the future.

Amity always has The Mask as her expression. You know, the one with her eyes half-lidded, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly downturned. I also call it the Resting Blight Face, for...reasons.

At first I thought it was just a way to hide her true emotions, since her parents are assholes. But even though Luz makes her feel accepted, she keeps doing it. It’s more like...you know that feeling when you’re thinking really hard, or uncomfortable, or ashamed, or even just relaxed, and you can’t think of which expression to wear quickly enough, so you put on an unreadable one to tide people over? Apparently most people don’t do that, since allistic people tend to have expressions for those feelings, ones that arise naturally.

Another symptom of autism is having hard-to-read expressions, or being less expressive. In Amity’s case, it’s the fact that she doesn’t see a need to have an expression in calmer moments, so she just uses her usual expression.   

Amity hyperfixates. This has several facets, so I’ll break this down.

She initially hyperfixated on school. And that’s how she became top student. Amity Blight is who you would mistake for a “gifted student.” But make no mistake...she is not gifted, and gifted is a bullshit label used to overexert people and force them to keep school as their special interest for their entire lives (and I may have a bit of a vendetta against it). Anyways, we already know she’s a perfectionist. My theory is that Amity originally was hyperfocused on school--the Abominations track, to be exact--and that’s part of how she got so good. Then, her focus shifted, but the school expected her to keep being top student. Cue the perfectionism; she was no longer able to focus on school like she wanted to, but everyone expected her to, so she got insecure about it.

She hyperfixates on Azura, just like Luz did. Yeah, she keeps it secret from the world, for most of the time. But she definitely likes Azura a lot. I mean, she started to reconsider her opinion on Luz when Luz offered her an Azura book. She destroyed her jock career because she tried to use an Azura move in real-life Grudgby. Her interest in Azura is long-lived, starting about the time that her interest in school would have expired (which would explain why she stayed closeted). And we can’t ignore the fact that she sees Azura in Luz and is definitely enjoying the parallels between herself and her fictional counterpart. (Which might not be a coincidence, but that’s an entirely different theory).

She hyperfixates on Luz. Yes, part of this is a crush. But a lot of us have watched Amity’s personality go from alpha bitch to cutest little bean in the Boiling Isles, all thanks to Luz’s influence. Lumity is not a rivals-to-lovers speedrun due to bad writing, it’s due to Amity hyperfixating. She’s already extremely introspective, going so far as to keep a diary where she analyzes and makes sense of herself. It’s not a stretch to say that she identified the faults that kept her from Luz and worked hard to change those off-screen. 

Amity keeps a journal. To me, this seems like masking. You see, Amity is what people would consider to be high-functioning, since she can pass for allistic. But in order to do this, she has to put in significant effort on her part. See, when she does something that makes it so she doesn’t pass, she just sees it as a problem (since she probably doesn’t know about autism, and she passes well enough that she would totally be undiagnosed). Then she tries to fix the problem, in order to keep being perfect. 

Amity has awkward body language. Thanks to the journal and other ways of masking, you don’t see this early on. But once she feels comfortable enough around Luz to let her guard down...she completely forgets boundaries. To review: in episodes 15-17, she throws herself at Luz, holds her formal rival’s hand for 24.71 seconds, blushes every time she sees Luz, and loudly declares her thirsty thoughts about Luz in uniform before literally running away. While some of this can be seen as normal gal pal things or crush things...you’d think a repressed wlw like Amity would try very hard not to touch Luz, so as to avoid being outed. Or at least she would do less of that stuff, so as to respect Luz’s boundaries the way she wants her boundaries to be respected. But that’s not the case, since she straight-up misses a lot of social cues. And since she feels comfortable around Luz, she doesn’t feel the pressure to be so paranoid about the cues, and can be her awkward self. From her point of view, she probably sees it as being freed from her parents’ judgment.

Amity takes things literally, sometimes. Now, this doesn’t happen all the time, since she isn’t heavily affected by this autistic trait. But when Luz says “I’m picking up what you’re putting down” and Amity says “I’m not putting down anything” and looks down...she not only missed the conclusion Luz drew from her words, but also assumed a literal meaning from her words. I can’t come up with many other instances of this, mostly because this doesn’t happen often. I would assume that Amity missed these a lot early on, and learned how to mask/identify them.

Amity is easily upset when things don’t go as planned. Let’s review these. In the library, she gets really mad at Luz when they end up stitched to a book, and it takes Luz’s sweet personality to get Amity to loosen up and laugh over it. When she goes to practice magic, and Luz steals her wand and uses it to get her siblings kidnapped, Amity locks Luz in a cage and assumes that she will get badly injured if she tries to fix the problems she caused. When Luz comes to her school, she panics and focus on how that doesn’t change anything. When she burns Willow’s mind, she appears absolutely terrified of being punished, flinching and bracing for impact when Luz finds her near the memories, constantly trying to distract Luz as they work together to save Willow, and hiding behind Luz when she confronts the Inner Willow. When Luz asks her to join her in Grudgby, Amity doesn’t initially agree, instead taking much more of the episode to come to terms with her involvement in it.

Amity likes predictability. She’s not attached to routines, but she does like being able to expect things. If she makes a plan for the day, she expects that day to adhere to that plan, and she doesn’t respond well when it changes. When Luz comes to her school, she focus on how that doesn’t change anything...not how that would ruin things or complicate things. Whenever she gets involved in Luz’s shenanigans, she either gets angry, scared, or takes a while to accept it. In a broader sense, she takes a while to accept that Luz and her shenanigans are a permanent fixture in her life--sixteen episodes, to be exact.

Finally, it would make for some excellent representation. An ADHD Dominican-American bisexual protagonist is pretty groundbreaking. But an ADHD Dominican-American bisexual protagonist girl who dates an autistic wlw witch girl from another dimension is exactly the kind of intersectional representation you’d expect to see from an unrestricted Owl House crew.

...Now, this might just be me hardcore projecting. I’m a little scared to post this because I don’t know how much of this is me reading into imaginary things, or trying to convince myself that Amity is like me. Feel free to debate/disprove me or support me in the comments. 

[dreamphoenixxx]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime, books, movies or tv series)? Thanks....

Hey there, of course I don't mind, I love getting such asks. I had actually never thought about ranking my favourite characters till now, so compiling this list was a lot of fun (although choosing just 10 characters was also really hard, I have way too many faves😅). So, here it goes:

10. Kyoko Mogami (Skip Beat! - manga)

Her growth and development is just chef's kiss. Someone who suffered through so much growing up, was betrayed by the people she trusted, lost the ability to love anymore, and gave up hope on ever achieving her dreams; was able to regain her trust in people, was able to make friends, fall in love and believe in herself all over again. She really deserves the world.

9. Christian Allister (The Maddest Obsession - books)

I am completely obsessed with his character. I read this book at least once every month, and it still sends my heart racing every time. He's my favourite male lead from a romance novel.

8. Ran Mouri (Detective Conan - anime)

This girl is an absolute badass. Strong enough to take down tough criminals, caring enough to take care of her irresponsible dad, patient enough to wait for her sorta-boyfriend to return from God knows where, and under-utilized enough to be a female character in a shounen manga. Seriously, I wish the author would give her more than just a "Ran, call the police/ambulance."

7. Itsuomi Nagi (A Sign of Affection - manga)

Most of my favourite male characters tend to be super possessive, Itsuomi is the only exception in this list, and the only one I would want as a real-life boyfriend. Seriously, he's an amazing boyfriend to Yuki and a really great guy overall.

6. Misaki Ayuzawa (Kaichou wa Maid-sama - manga)

I absolutely adore this girl. Her tsundere-ish personality, the strength she displays in order to protect her loved ones and how she's always grateful for the times she received help.

5. Mion Takamine (Pretty Rhythm - anime)

This was my introduction to the anime world and will forever have a special place in my heart. Mion's tsundere personality quickly made her my favourite character.

4. Haiba Jin (Tsuiraku JK to Haijin Kyoushi - manga)

I love how even though he acts disinterested and annoyed at his students' antics, he's always looking out for them and covers up for them, despite knowing it will put him in trouble. The way he's always making sure that he isn't holding Mikoto back, and telling her to leave all the troublesome parts to him and enjoy life as much as she wants, the way he acts possessive but never gets in the way of her freedom and just wants her to be happy. I just really want to see him have a happy ending with Mikoto.

3. Yona (Akatsuki no Yona - manga)

If there's a fictional character I aspire to be like, it's got to be Yona. She's another character whose development was absolutely amazing. The once naive and sheltered princess who didn't know a thing about her country's problems, goes though so many hardships and struggles and transforms into a fierce warrior, ready to lay down her life in order to protect her kingdom and her people.

2. Usui Takumi (Kaichou wa Maid-sama - manga)

I first read the manga when I was like 13/14 years old and Usui had been my absolute favourite since then. It wasn't until a few months ago that somebody finally topped him. But I still love him a lot, toxic traits and all XD.

1. Oya Toshiomi (Koi to Dangan - manga)

This Yakuza underboss is legit the sweetest, most gentle and caring person ever. The way he dotes on Yuri, whenever he gives that gentle smile of his, and by God, whenever he gets flustered, I feel like my heart's gonna explode. Seriously, this guy has all my heart.

You'll notice that when it comes to girls, I love the tough and reliable ones, and when it comes to guys, I love the head-over-heels for their love interest ones.

Special mentions to (because I just couldn't leave them out of it): Son Hak, Jae-ha, Kija, Shin-ah, Zeno, Yun (Akatsuki no Yona), Kei Takishima (Special A), Nana, Hachi, Shin, Yasu (NANA), and Tomoe (Kamisama Hajimemashita). I absolutely adore these characters too, but unfortunately couldn't fit them up there.

[pokemonswshfics]

hello friend! :D i had accidentally posted this draft of it before i was finished, that's why the message of the request is a screenshot, so sorry for the slight wait :"D have a good read! + (i didn't really know what speaking up meant , so it's slightly different for each in terms of "speaking up" hehe i hope you all enjoy 💛)

// because of how long this post might be, I'm gonna leave the read more button right here before all of them. they're sfw but I wouldn't wanna clog up anyone's tl :'D k byee ^-^

Raihan/Kabu/Piers × Shy Male! Reader (Sfw)

Raihan × Shy Male!Reader // S/O (Sfw { mild cursing })

You stood outside Hammerlocke stadium waiting for your boyfriend as he said to meet you there. You had on his jacket, with the hood up because of how many people were around. This didn't stop reporters and fangirls from coming up to you, all bombarding you with questions.

You simply pulled the hood down and shoved your hands into the pocket. It wasn't that you were trying to be rude, you just preferred the attention be on someone else. Literally anyone else.

"How does it feel to be Raihan's first public boyfriend?"

"Hey! Look up here for a quick photo, it wont hurtcha. You're already so cute from what we've seen!"

"Do you love him?"

"Are you gonna stay under there?"

If it was up to you, you would stay in your boyfriend's clothes forever. It was a perfect hiding spot.

"I-I would prefer..not to answer." You stuttered out quietly and stepped closer to the gym doors. The attention got overwhelming at times but you would do this forever if it meant being with Raihan. He was worth it.

"What's annoying about Raihan? Isn't it tiring, that he puts his whole life on the internet?"

You scowled a little and pulled your hood down farther. "I think it's cute." You said under your breath.

"Don't you wish he was champion instead? He always fails at beating Leon!"

"What?" You said softly and lifted your head up a little, but not enough to be seen. The people surrounding you only saw this as invitation to ask more.

"Isn't he a little full of himself when it comes to battles? You can answer us!" Someone said excitedly and shoved a microphone towards you.

"Fine, take this for an answer." You almost snatched the microphone from their hand and frowned at them. "No, I do not find Raihan annoying. I'm very proud of him for even having a gym in the first place. He doesn't need to be Champion to be accomplished! Who the hell are you guys to even be asking stuff so rude? Are YOU Champion?"

Your hood fell back to your shoulders by the time you were done talking. Instantly, camera flashes hit your eyes and you tried to cover your face with your sleeves. You were still beyond angry, and it only increased as you heard the people begin talking again.

"Aw, so cute!"

"Are you really dating Raihan?"

"Raihan got lucky!"

You clenched your fists and dropped the mic you had snatched to your feet.

Then you lunged at a reporter.

Two women screamed, one yelped because of the sudden action and right before you actually touched the man you were going to attack..

"Hey." You felt a pair of strong arms pick you up and throw you over their shoulder. You were met with a back side that had a dark navy shirt on, and navy gym shorts. The Dragon Type uniform.

"Calm down, Tyrogue headass.." Raihan chuckled and you blushed at the familiar teasing. You could hear squeals from the crowd, the same one you would have attacked with your bare hands had it not been for Raihan coming at the last second.

"Put me down! Put me down! Put me down!" You said quickly and began waving your fists in protest. "They weren't being nice about you!"

"Not worth your time, babe. Thanks for keeping him occupied." You could practically hear the grin in Raihan's voice as he began to turn back to the doors of his gym to carry you in. You faced the reporters again and now looked up at them with a scowl. Their faces were all in awe at Raihan carrying you. Some continued taking pictures.

"Oouu let him put me down and I'll- do not very nice things!" You growled quietly and shook one of your fists at them.

"Baby, calm down." Raihan giggled from above you as he even paused for photos a few times just to frustrate you playfully. You pulled the hood further down your head, still cursing reporters as your boyfriend carried you past them.

***

Kabu × Shy Male! Reader (Sfw)

At almost all times you were sitting or standing next to Kabu. It wasn't that you didn't like the rest of the gym leaders, it was just something you did for comfort.

You were in a meeting with the rest of the Gym leaders, sometimes you tagged along with Kabu when invited. The other gym leaders didn't mind, they were the ones inviting you sometimes.

Right now they were discussing new ways to (as Raihan said it) "spice up" their gym missions. Kabu wasn't on board and it showed.

"Come on, you guys think challengers might not get bored of the same thing every year?" Raihan sighed and sat back in his chair. "Same old thing, I'd be bored out of my mind."

"Good thing you aren't a challenger then." Kabu replied, crossing his arms. His irritation showed to you and you nudged his knee with your own under the table lightly. "Our gyms will be led how we would like, and I like mine. I'm keeping it the way it is."

"Come on, no need to get mad." Raihan chimed back and half smiled. "Either all of us or none."

"I'm keeping mine how it is, I've done too much for it since Opal gave me the gym." Bede remarked.

"Come on, Bede..you're the newest of us, take some advice! Change it up a little." Nessa said and sat up.

"I'll k-keep..mine." Allister stammered out and looked down to the table.

"I'd like to change mine." His older sister, Bea smiled widely and pumped one of her fists up. Raihan high fived her, attempting to now convince Milo and Melony to change theirs.

Kabu's eyes furrowed then he looked towards you, smiling with tired eyes. He playfully rolled his eyes while nodding to the other gym leaders. You giggled quietly in answer.

"Come on Kabu, lighten up. Keep up with the times!" Gordie practically whined out. Kabu tensed up once again, and you could feel his anger rising once more.

"Don't tell me what to do. My gym, my rules." Kabu stood and looked around now with a frown. If provoked, his temper could easily appear. You looked to the other gym leaders, Allister (even with a mask, you could tell) was nervous because of how Kabu could get.

"Ugh. They're just ideas-" Bede groaned sassily.

"They're stupid ones!" Kabu slammed one of his now balled up fists onto the table you all sat at. The gym leaders were used to his hot headed self, so it didn't bother them and they never planned on telling him anything like "calm down", or "be nice."

"Kabs." You stood up, still slightly avoiding eye contact with the rest of them and grabbed his elbow softly. "Calm down, they were just trying to give some advice." The other gym leaders now all looked at you, some with slightly widened eyes. 

Kabu’s cheeks turned a light shade of pink, you could feel the tension in his body go away as you began to rub his arm. He turned toward you and the anger in his eyes was gone, now replaced by warmth when you looked into them. Raihan smirked from the other side of the table.

Kabu grumbled something then sat down, his face burning up. “I-Yeah. He’s right. I suppose I should calm down, you all are just trying to help me. I apologize for calling your ideas stupid.” He crossed his arms and avoided eye contact. You followed and sat back down with him, then looked up and realized all the gym leaders were now staring at you, either with shocked faces or grins.

“I’m so sorry if I interrupted your meeting- I just wanted Kabs to calm down and-” You could now feel your cheeks begin to darken with embarrassment and you hid your face in your hands, not even wanting to finish your own sentence.

“Why are you apologizing? You got Kabsy here to calm down, something none of us could do. And you did it without thinking he might take out a Pokemon and burn you alive or something.” Raihan chuckled and turned to Kabu, with his chin being held up by his palms. “You got a soft spot?”

Your boyfriend scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Let’s just get on with the meeting, I don’t have time to-”

“For me he does.” You teased softly and took one of Kabu’s hands in your own. This only caused the red in his cheeks to return and for him to hide his face in one hand, groaning. 

“You should come to meetings more often, dear!” Melony practically squealed out, Nessa nodding in agreement. 

Raihan laughed loudly then looked towards you. “No, seriously. Calm your man down sometimes.” He grinned.

“Let’s get on with it!” Kabu said loudly and waved his free hand in the air but was still looking away from everyone to avoid his blush being visible. He didn’t take his hand from you though, now he intertwined your fingers. You smiled a little more at the action and squeezed his hand in return. 

“Alright, Alright...” Raihan bit his lip and reached down under the table only to pull out a folder with a playful squeal.

“Let’s change our uniforms!!” There were chuckles throughout the table of people, and you began to feel more comfortable with all of them, simply by holding Kabu’s hand. He turned his head toward you and smiled a little, as to not make it obvious to the rest of them. 

You giggled again and prepared to listen to Raihan’s bright idea of changing the uniforms with Kabu already groaning when he realized what the younger gym leader had said.

***

Piers × Shy Male! Reader (Sfw {mild cursing})

You sat on a wooden crate besides Marnie, your boyfriend's little sister. You two were listening to him sing to a crowd of Team Yell members and other people from different towns.

The silence with Marnie was usual and comfortable.

"Look at my bro go. Always had it in him, singing." She said quietly and leaned slightly towards you so you would hear over the music.

You nodded and smiled a little. Your eyes couldn't come off Piers, you loved watching him sing. You put your knees up to your chin, and rested your arms crossed on them so they would hide your grin and pink cheeks.

"Still not much of a talker?"

"Oh! Uh, yeah- I like talking." You practically whispered. "Sorry, not really-"

"Hey. It's fine. Piers already told me you aren't that out there. I don't mind some silence." Marnie replied with a nicer tone now, since she meant it.

"Thanks." You quietly replied and looked back to the stage before you heard her speak again.

"What do you see in Piers? You can tell me, I'm not the judging type."

"What do I..see in him?"

"Mhm."

You looked to the stage again and watched Piers interact with the crowd. Your grin widened, you almost never see him smile as much as he did on stage unless he was alone with you.

"I see..a sweet guy. He looks all mean and hard but he's really the most gentle guy I know. He has this smile that drives me wild and.." You took your arms away from your face to talk more clear.

"And? Come on, don't be shy." Marnie encouraged and nudged you with her elbow.

"He's real funny. Piers makes me happy when I'm having a really bad day, he's got this thing to him that I can't stop wanting." You could feel your cheeks turning a light shade of red, and you cursed how easy it was for you to blush.

Piers looked towards you and Marnie and winked at you. Some people in the crowd cheered at the action, a few swooned excitedly. You buried your face in your hands and could hear Marnie laugh a little.

"A-Anyways..he doesn't let anything in his past or present get to him. His music..his music! It's so impressive. He's a singing gym leader. The way he manages both..I just-!" You dropped your knees from your face and squealed. "It's Piers!"

Marnie laughed a little at your excitement. "Anything else?"

"He's..SO cute. Gosh, I can't get over it. We've been together for a while and he still makes me all giddy and warm inside when he smiles or- does shit like that!" You spoke about his playful wink, and you stood up on the crate, not even caring about your fear of crowds anymore. "And I love it!"

The crowd was still practically screaming as the song ended. You cupped one of your hands around your mouth, waving the other at Piers frantically.

"Come on Piers! Give us MORE!!" You shouted out while grinning and quickly caught his and some fans' attention. You locked eyes with him, and made a motion to usher him for another song.

He raised his hand to the crowd to quiet them down then spoke. "Alright, hey. Glad you guys are enjoying the show. It was supposed to stop now but, how am I gonna end this when I got my sweetheart over there asking for more?" Piers nodded to you, causing multiple Team Yell members to turn your way, smiling.

You immediately sat back down on the crate next to Marnie and hid your face. "No.." You protested quietly against his teasing. He knew you never liked the acknowledgement, he just liked making you blush.

"So, Team Yell. I want you to be as loud as you can, this next one is for my cutie. Love ya." Piers adjusted the mic as Team Yell began what they did best again: cheering. They turned quickly back to the stage and you peeked up at Piers.

Your eyes' focus never left him, and you listened intently to his voice. A relaxed sigh left you as you felt yourself being caught up in the music. You and Piers continued to make eye contact throughout the rest of the show, as if no one else was there. The moment was like a trance and neither of you were really looking to get out of it.

***

thank you for reading ! requests always open! just might be a slight wait 💕 - 🥝

[lord-of-fidgets]

Hey I’m allistic and I just wanted to know if you feel comfortable outlining some of the ways allistic adhd ppl over talk autistic ppl (so I can avoid that). There is overlap in within the neurodivergent community but I don’t want to silence my friends and peers

Well, I can't and won't try to speak for every other autistic out there, but I can try to respond from my point of view ( I hope this comes out well ) :

As one sight puts it "People who have traits that stretch across both autism and ADHD diagnoses often face more serious challenges than those with either diagnosis alone- they can have greater impairments in adaptive functioning ( a term that refers to self-care and daily living skills, and more "severe" social/cognitive 'issues'"

According to the CDC, 14% of people with ADHD also have Autism- those with both - again - are more likely to have learning and social imparimetns and difficulties.

ADHD and autism are related BUT they are not the same. I say all this as a preface -

I'm not saying allistic ADHD people don't struggle at all, but bare with me -

It seems like the best way I can tell differences is 'degrees' - sure people with ADHD may struggle with social issues but if it is nigh impossible to communicate effectively and hold up friendships/any social relationship you start going into Autism territory. People with ADHD may have sensory issues, yes, but if you aren't completely overwhelemed to the point you cannot talk adn you withdraw completely into yourself or meltdown/shutdown then you can't honesly relate to an autistic person's point of view and daily living.

Yes, ADHD has a major impact on one's life - but not to the likeness and perhaps even degree to autism does. I don't believe in pitting each other against one another as we are one neurodiverse family - but more and more I see people with ADHD either claiming to be autistic ( which, ok - not touching that part just yet ) or claiming autistic traits to be ADHD ones. ( Much like those claiming raptor hands as an ADHD thing when it is very traditionally and perhaps diagnoistically an autistic thing ).

Or if an autisitic only group is specifically speaking about autism and autistic experiences - often we have allistic ADHD people butting in like "I DON'T HAVE AUTISM BUT---". Those shouldn't happen. If it is an autistic only space/post, then it is an autistic only. I don't care if we are neurodiverse cousins or whatnot - allistic adhd people have no right to barge into autistic spaces and pretend to understand everything we go through, to the degree we go through it.

There is overlap. They are also different things. Very different. I have an allistic ADHD friend - there is a distinct, obvious difference between us. ( I have adhd, autism and learnign disabilities and was in special ed ).

Claiming words like "special interest" which is an autsitic only phrase, and using it interchangably with "hyperfixation" is something i see often and it ( maybe im one of onnly a few bothered with this one ) upsets me.

you can be allistic ADHD and have sensory problems, etc, but from what i see we autistic people still experience this world very very differently and allistic adhd people butting into autsitic only spaces by claiming autistic platforms by over-speaking us, stealign our terms, etc, is disrespectful.

And yes a few people with ADHD may very well just be undiagnosed as an autistic person as well. I'm not talking about those cases.

But it seems like adhd people have become too comfortable with the fact there is overlap between adhd adn autism that they forget there are major differences - there are several circle charts on pintrest and tumblr and the internet that show it better than I can word and explain in.

I guess i could just say it as "Stay in your lane".

One thing that also gets me, personally, is ADHD people not realizing that yes you expereience similar things to what we Autistics do - but just because you can relate does not mean you are autistic. I don't wanna come across as gate-keepy and I hope i'M explaining this right. If I mis-answered you, please let me know. Communication is very hard for me even though I can type well.

Also there are other creators out there who can better explain things and provide examples case by case whereas I can't without naming names and making this seem like a call-out post and I want to avoid discourse as this blog is a safe spot for me

[hiswhiteknight]

Unbelievably Outlandish– Part 8

Summary:  Before starting down a new crossroads, the Reader goes onto an adventure of literary traveling. Suddenly tossed into an unbelievable story that has swept the world, The Outlander Series itself. How will a twenty first century woman survive?

Note: I own no characters, except reader, clearly this is based off the lovely book series Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and tv show. This follows more the tv show, but it’s far from accurate. I’m going to try to get better with using less proper English, but who knows maybe I’ll get into Scottish slang.

Pairing: Jamie Fraser x Female Reader

Words: 2345

Warning: Angst, playfulness, cursing, slow start, obviously fighting and such

What Murtagh said and how he stared at you was quite unsettling, what could you possibly mean by a ‘woman’ taking care of Jamie? You were quite sure Laohaire was a woman and could take nice care of Jamie. That thought didn’t settle well either, but you couldn’t understand why. It felt like it was something you had buried deep in your soul, so deep you could only focus on getting back home to your family – Davy. When you were preparing for the gathering, you tried to think about what your brother was doing and whether he felt alone or abandoned. The guilt of your lack of fight or focus on getting home crept into your body and weighed you down.

Angus entered the surgery, “Lass, the festivities are about to be going, let’s make our way up.”

You nodded at him and started to walk up, “Do I look like I’ll fit in up there?”

“You’ll fit in plenty enough, enough for a colony lass,” he muttered to you. “Just stay out of trouble, I’ve got my mind on-.”

You rolled your eyes, putting your hand to stop in from continuing, “Angus, I get you want to find a lady and I promise to not get in the way. I still got a ton of work to do before tomorrow’s hunt. I do not plan to stay long, which is what I told Mrs. Fitz. The laird gave me a job, I intend to do well.”

“Just do as your told,” he pushed you forward. You fought every bone and muscle in your body not to thrash him about. No matter the effort, you could not win the trust of some of the people here Angus and Dougal included. You could only kill someone with kindness so much before you take someone’s throat out with your fists.

Mrs. Fitz passed by you, “You look lovely in that dress, my dear. I told you, now some man will come and sweep you up, though I’ll hate to see the day someone takes you from us.”

You could see Murtagh rolling his eyes, as you looked down at the people prepping from the oath ceremony. You bit the inside of your cheek, “Mrs. Fitz, I told you. I do not intend to marry, I have a family waiting for me back by Inverness. I’m just buying my time.”

“That reminds me, Gale Allister left your payment in the kitchen by the flour. Thought it was best she avoids the surgery with all your business getting ready for hunt,” she shared with you.

“Thank you Mrs. Fitz, I’m not sure what I’d do without you,” you half hugged her. You tried to ignore the suspicious look from Murtagh. You had been finding little chores and such to help the community here, as well earn money that will help foster your escape home. “Murtagh, where is Mister McTavish? I’d assume he’d be here for the oath taking.”

Murtagh glanced down at you, trying to avoid making too much eye contact with you, “Leave the man be right now. He’s best to be not seen during the swearing ceremony. I feel you’ve tortured the man enough for a life time.”

“What are you on about, I do not torture anyone?” Collum entered the room starting the ceremony with Dougal. It was actually quite beautiful, full of tradition, and honor.

“You’re torturing me right now, lass,” Murtagh grumbled under his breath.

Mrs. Fitz pinched Murtagh’s arm to shush him, “If they are all the same, I’m off to get more work done. Keep me posted Mrs. Fitz,” you kiss her cheek and skip away to your work space. Angus caught sight of you and followed, “Angus, I pinky swear I will not wonder away and get you in trouble with Dougal.”

He gripped her arm, “No, no, no – you have to stay up here until I find a lady-.”

“Too much Angus, too much,” you stopped him quickly. “Here,” you pass Angus a necklace given to you by your mother, “This is my necklace given to me by mom before she died.” Angus looked immediately concerned you were going to get emotional, “As long as you hold that necklace, I’m not going anywhere. Go enjoy the gathering.”

He looked at the necklace in his hand to you, “You sneak off girl, I’ll gut you. Stay in the surgery, no wandering off like you like to.”

You put your two fingers up like you were a scout. Angus gave you a strange look before motioning you down to the surgery, “Angus,” you called to him, he looked back at you quickly, “You lose that, I promise no laird will stop me from taking your balls.”

He waved you off, laughing to himself, “A lady with a mouth like yours.”

You were only partially concerned Angus would lose your necklace. You had made your way to the surgery, but stopped on the last stair. You had already prepared for the hunt with your materials and such. You didn’t want to stay at the ceremony because it made you think of your past with the Marines and your brother with your traditions. Davy would be so impressed by seeing some of his heritage. He would probably love this whole experience. Think of the hunt the next day, you grew sick and worried. You were never a hunter; you had a soft spots for most animals. You had trouble killing spiders, though your history with war was quite the contradiction. Your brother constantly made fun of you for it. The thought of animals made you think of your horse. Your promised Angus you would stay put, but it’s not like you planned to escape. You just wanted to drop off your medical supplies and check on your horse. The stable hand made it seem like your horse wasn’t part of the elite, which made you like her more.

On the way to the stables, you used your military expertise to get past the men. You didn’t need Angus to find out you lied to him. A few drunken clansmen tried to take advantage of you being an alone woman. This immediately made you pissed for the lady folk in the area, the amount of women who had to be assaulted made you sick. One guy had gotten a swipe at you and your lip was bleeding. You made it to the stables, nursing your lip. You were going to take your time getting back to the surgery, this was probably the safest place for you outside your surgery space. Lost in your thoughts of consequences, you tripped over a mass. You rolled onto your back with a knife in hand, pressing it to the neck of a person and they were doing the same to you, “Deoiridh.” Jamie immediately released you, sitting up to give you space, “What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask the same to you, sir,” you shot back at him. Your temper was rising with the amount of times you had to keep your guide up during this time period. Jamie stared at you a little longer than you liked, he was hoping for a better answer, “I was checking on my horse for the hunt. I have a soft spot for her and I wanted to drop off my stuff now, so I wouldn’t have to have hungover Angus complaining in the morning.”

Jamie chuckled to himself, “Thoughtful lass.” He paused for a second, “Y/N, you alright?” He put his hand up, leaning in closer to get a look at your bleeding lip, “Did that just happen,” he asked with guilt seeping off his voice.

He took out some cloth and tried to dab at your lip, “I had an issue coming over here with some clansmen,” you mumbled, trying to find the right words. You didn’t need Jamie telling Collum of your violent assault to some of their men. You didn’t kill them, but they will probably be concussed and be missing the hunt the next day.

He shot up, “Did they,” he pulled you up to closer inspect you.

You pushed him back gently, “No, no.” You hesitated and tried to figure out the best way to share it with him, “I knocked them out before anything could happen.”

Jamie’s laugh filled the room, finally dulling down to lean against the horses pen, “You’re a deadly woman Deoiridh. I’ve seen you teaching some stuff to the kids, but I didn’t think you could take out Mackenzie men without more than a busted lip. You sure your alright,” he tried to cup you neck again to look closer at your lip.

His hands were rough, but it a way you’ve never felt. It was like your body was on fire, but wanting to crave more it. Electricity surges your body, “I’m fine,” you whispered, “I’ve had plenty worse.”

“These men are lucky you got to them first,” he said trying to relax his jaw. You should tell a piece of him was bothered by you being attacked. Something inside him wanted to crash out of the stables and slaughter the men who would do such damage to his friend, at least that’s what you were telling yourself.

“Murtagh mentioned you weren’t going to the ceremony for the gathering,” you reached into your bag, “I was going to stop by your hut, residence place,” you weren’t sure what to call his little bed area. You passed him some food from the kitchen.

He shook his head, “Again with the thoughtfulness, you seem to care an awful lot about my wellbeing.”

“Shut up,” you shove him as he laughs at you. You could see he was trying to get a raise out of you since you pushed him to talk to Laoghaire, “You’re my friend Jamie. You were the first one who was nice to me here, well before you tossed me over your shoulder and proceeded to act like chauvinistic tool.”

He grinned at you, “Well, you are probably the most unique, thoughtful, and caring women I know. Besides when you are prodding me and calling me mean names.” He put the bag of food down next to his makeshift bed, “We should get you back to the castle, I bet Angus won’t be taken to kindly to your journey to the stables.”

“I can get back on my own. Murtagh told me to leave you alone, something about the ceremony, which is none of my business,” you mumbled away, trying to push whatever you are feeling way down. “I took down three clansmen and you, I think I can get back on my own,” you look down at Jamie sitting on the ground.

He pulled himself up towering over you, “Me,” he questioned, “I think I’d remember you taking me anywhere,” he pulled your shawl tighter to your body. “Now let’s go, me walking you back is not up for debate.”

You rolled your eyes and jogged up next to him, “Suit yourself, but Murtagh doesn’t like me enough as it is. If you get caught or whatever, I’m not to blame you tell him that.”

Jamie stopped you at the door, leaning in close to your face to whisper, “Murtagh likes you plenty, believe me if he didn’t like you he’d ignore you. Now let’s go before you get me caught.”

“Jamie,” you whispered harshly, holding tightly on the back of his shirt waddling after him. With your face slightly pressed to his back as you both giggled out the stables, there was something about his smell. You’d assumed he’d smell like most rotting, sweating men. Being in the marines and being in the desert for long periods of time, you were pretty much used to it. But it was different with Jamie, your psychology background pushed towards his manly man pheromones. You pushed those thoughts away and tipped toed with Jamie through the McKenzie camp. You and Jamie got back to your work space without Angus knowing any different. You stood at the bottom of your stairs, looking up at the now ever more towering Jamie, who was grinning down at you, “Do you think you can get back without being caught, remember what I said about Murtagh, you wanted me to be nice and make friends?”

He looked down, trying to hold back his amused expression, “Yeah, I think I’ll manage.”

“When are you going to tell me why you are avoiding being seen during the gathering, aren’t they your family,” you questioned, trying to change the subject to something less flirty.

“It’s a bit complicated, maybe one day I’ll tell you. But for now, I’m off before I get you into trouble with Murtagh. You should go up and spend some time with the clan, it might be worth learning a bit more,” he gestured up the stair. He leaned closer again, “Maybe you can butter up Murtagh, get on his sweet side.”

“What sweet side,” you countered. Jamie shook his head, trying his best to not be amused by you, “Plus, I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea. He isn’t really my type.”

The look he gave you in that moment was something you rarely got to see in men, “What exactly is your type.”

“Not a dumb brute really, I’m not a picky woman,” you shrug walking further away from Jamie’s glances.

“That I don’t believe for a second. Try to stay out of trouble, hate you save you from Angus again,” Jamie started to make his way up the stairs.

“Jamie,” you call up to him, he turns to look at you one more time before he gets on his way to his hide away, “I never need saving.” Again, he held back a smirk, before trying back up the stairs again. You didn’t know how he did it, but you got to you again with those stupid hidden smiles and teasing. It’s like he knew exactly what to say to get a rise out of you.  

Part 9

 Taglist:  @doctorwhatwhenandwhere @damnedandbroken @blushingpogue @blancastans @slytherinambitious @kinky-asher

[silenthillmutual]

daniil dankovsky is autistic and here’s why:

because i’m autistic and i said so

i kid, obviously. what sort of autistic person would i be if i wasn’t read to back up my silly little claim with an overly long post of evidence a total of three people will read? (hi ned hi jordan hi raven :))

i’m aware that this is cringey because adults aren’t supposed to have autism or interests or talk about either of those things, but this is my blog and you are free to block me if the cringe is too much for you.

these are some things i picked out from the DSMV’s diagnostic criteria, found on the CDC website:

deficits in social-emotional reciprocity

reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect

abnormal social approach

abnormalities in eye contact and body language

defecits in […] understand[ing] relationships

difficults adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts

repetitive motor movements or speech

rigid thinking patterns

highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus

hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input

there’s also some misc. stuff not in the diagnostic criteria (though it may be in the adir or gars-3) i thought was worth noting.

important note from the diagnostic criteria: “symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of current functioning”. i’d say that in his case, they do.

spoilers for pathologic classic, pathologic 2, and the marble nest

deficits in social-emotional reciprocity

in bachelor route of classic, daniil

seems completely oblivious to eva making advances toward him, to the point where she complains to him that he’s ignoring her in favor of asking questions about simon.

seems surprised when people mention maria being in love with him, despite outright asking her a couple of times if she’s flirting with him.

not to mention the fact that he asks her that at all.

his inability or resistence to making connections with others is typically considered one of his character flaws. although it is not outright stated in the dsmv criteria, one trait of autism and other neurodivergencies is “having extremely high or extremely low empathy” - and daniil, despite being a doctor, lacks empathy. which is not to say he doesn’t care at all. i think that he does, but is terrible at showing it.

for example, this scene from marble nest:

Sticky: You must feel terrible… right? That’s fine. I forgive you. You just got confused… Adults always do. Daniil: Oh yes, adults are always occupied with the most asinine nonsense. Like feeling anxious that a bunch of urchins keep roaming the streets, putting themselves in mortal danger!

daniil clearly cares about sticky’s wellbeing (and the wellbeing of the kids looking after him, though he’s not cognizant that he’s in a coma), but his way of showing it is… kind of by being a jerk. all of which bleeds into the next item on the list

reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect

he has no problem sharing his interests, but in both pathologic classic & pathologic 2, daniil speaks with a flat affect - which is to say that he lacks intonation. the words we read him saying may be dramatic or come across as passionate, but the actual voice reading his lines is very monotone, which may contribute to being read as lacking emotion.

and in pathologic 2, he has a voiceline lamenting not telling “her” (eva?) how he felt

in marble nest, he’s teased by the tragedians for being “heartless”:

Tragedian: Maybe. Possibly. But it’s useless to explain to a heartless man. …Take heart, Excellency! If you ever find it, that is. And then come back to us… Even though it all sounds like a rather implausible turn of events.

abnormal social approach

daniil has a tendency to say things that are tactless, odd, or just socially inappropriate. i probably don’t need to point out too many examples, as i think it’s fairly obvious - these are the things people love to pick at when it comes to him, but i do have a few in mind. like, for example, from haruspex route in classic:

Haruspex: What of the antibodies essential for making a serum? Bachelor: I don’t know for sure yet, I’ll send you a report in a few hours. Don’t go about cutting people’s hearts out for your panacea until then. It’s a… controversial solution, you know… Haruspex: What?! Do you even hear yourself? Bachelor: Sorry! I meant no offence… it was just a momentary lapse of… well, you know. Haruspex: None taken.

until artemy points out, daniil doesn’t seem to be aware he just said something rude. even with therapy, picking up on social cues doesn’t come naturally to people with autism, so we tend to say things that come across as rude or strange to others without realizing we’ve put them off. we tend to lack a “filter” that tells us when things are or are not appropriate to say. even when we may recognize it, the rules may not make any sense to us. for example, it makes very little sense that allistics favor politeness over honesty.

i think the glaringly obvious abnormal social approach in pathologic 2 is him threatening to hold artemy at gunpoint to get in the house, which is just overkill, but my personal favorite comes on day 7, when he’s complaining about the orders aglaya has given him. artemy stops him to say he doesn’t understand what daniil wants from him, to which daniil replies:

From you? Oh, nothing. I was just sharing.

to daniil, they were just having a normal conversation. but some part of this - his tone or his words or maybe even his body language - didn’t give artemy the impression that this was supposed to be a regular conversation. (we could, in fact, attribute the same idea to artemy here; why didn’t artemy pick up that this was a normal conversation? the reason i count it towards daniil is because artemy doesn’t seem to have this problem with anybody else. for the record: i don’t think artemy is neurotypical either.)

abnormalities in eye contact and body language

it’s hard to get proof of this in video games, but i will say i think it’s very funny that in pathologic 2 daniil’s idle animations are “pacing”, “sitting like he desperately wants to start bouncing his knees but is stopping himself from doing it”, and “standing unnaturally still” - but there you go. i don’t know anything about making gifs, or i’d gif this one specific talk menu idle he does where he holds eye contact for about three seconds, looks away uncomfortably, and then looks back out of the corner of his eyes.

deficits in […] understand[ing] relationships

mostly examples from his route in classic:

when the army arrives, he can claim to block that aglaya, whom he’s known for two days, is his best friend

he seems baffled by the fact that everone is smitten with maria and working with her, and seems equally baffled by the idea that she’s smitten with him

despite eva implying on day two that she is in a relationship with andrey, is completely blindsided by the revelation on day 6, asking him, “How in the world is she ‘your woman’?”

i’d also like to use his sign-off on his letter to artemy, day 2 of the haruspex route - he signs it as “Your friend (hopefully)”. i know i’m not the only autistic person who used to ask people if we were friends or not. pro tip, if you’ve never done this: don’t. it really weirds people out.

difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts

the fact that he stands out is blatantly obvious even in pathologic 2 and in the haruspex route of classic. people will comment on him being an outsider and mention that they don’t trust him. but you can watch it happen in real time in his route, because he never fully acclimates to the town. he says something about this to aglaya on day 7:

Bachelor: Was there any particularly notable backstory? I’m deadly tired of all these people. They’re inhuman. They tell the future, believe in walking zombies, and die in all manners of painfully abnormal ways. Inquisitor: Your line of t hinking is obviously falacious - and I was implying something rather mundane. I promise you, no one can really tell the future around here: and neither are deaths inspired by third parties uncommon. Mysterious phenomenons do occur here sometimes… but hardly more often than anywhere else.

actually, there’s an example of him saying something similar to artemy on day 5 in pathologic 2:

Damn this town… I feel I’m trapped in a nightmare. The absurdity of it all… There’s no one to talk to. Everyone’s so volatile. They all seem to want to help, but… their help is worse than hostility.

some of this can be explained by the town’s strangeness, but keep in mind that the first instance happens after he’s been there and involved in the ongoing for an entire week, and the second at nearly a week in. clearly he’s struggling to adjust to the changes.

it’s also worth noting that his reason for fleeing the town in the nocturnal ending?

I have no place here anymore.

This town is no longer mine. No longer human. No longer rational. It doesn’t… accept the likes of me anymore.

repetitive motor movements or speech

it’s harder to see the motor movements in classic, but remember how i pointed out earlier that he paces? pacing is a form of stimming. murky, who is canonically autistic, can also be found pacing as one of her idle animations. having stock phrases for characters to speak when you come near them already ticks off the box on “repetitive speech”, but that by itself doesn’t really cover what they’re talking about - echolalia.

but you know what this does fit with? “‘quoting’ things(communication is HARD! sometimes we need to take shortcuts and use someone else’s words)“

i’ll get to the more obvious example in a minute - i want to point out something that happens very early in pathologic 2 first. you know how you first meet him and artemy accuses daniil of trying to guilt-trip him by asking if it’s true that isidor would still be alive if artemy had come sooner? keep in mind that he spoke to rubin first. and this is what rubin says, when you get a chance to talk to him:

Yesterday, I was told you had killed your father.

That’s not far from the truth, Burakh.

You betrayed him. You left when he needed you most. He cried out for your help, but you didn’t care. He was in peril, and you were too busy elsewhere, He believed, truly believed, that your arrival would put an end to his troubles. And, as always, he was right.

i’m not saying this was necessarily the game’s intent, but it’s entirely possible daniil is parroting back to artemy exactly what rubin said to him.

now, for what you’re probably expecting in this section: the latin. people love to refer to his use of latin as “random”, so let’s clear that up:

it is not latin daniil has made up. with the exception of latin that is mispelled in the game’s texts, all of them are proverbs or otherwise common sayings. you can find most of them on the wikipedia list of latin phrases, or through a 3-second google search.

he’s a doctor. him having taken latin isn’t anymore strange than a lawyer taking latin. in fact, if you pay attention, artemy also took latin; this is implied when artemy tells him he’s always sucked at it.

his uses of latin actually aren’t random at all. what he says fits the situation, and sometimes is used in place of him having to come up with something to say on his own.

prime example:

Forget it, Burakh. I have a splitting headache. If you have no urgent business, then we’ll talk later. Later, later… Qui non proficit, deficit.

qui non proficit, deficit - he who does not advance, loses ground. in other words, “i’m sorry, but i really do need to keep working.” one of his voice lines.

as for why he doesn’t translate the latin: it probably wouldn’t even occur to him to. these are not obscure sayings. the utopians all have a certain degree of education - what would he need to translate them for?

this bleeds into something that isn’t really mentioned, but that i’ve found i have a lot of trouble with in everyday life. autistic people have a tendency to either overexplain (and then have everyone get mad at you because they feel you’re being condescending) or underexplain (and have everyone get mad at you because you haven’t explained anything). the latin would be a case where it feels like a justified underexplanation. you’ll notice that when it comes to anything scientific, he tends to do the reverse, and overexplain. this also happens in classic, whether artemy has asked him to clarify or not.

rigid thinking patterns

the thing i had marked for this was simply his strict adherence to western medical practices and refusal to acknowledge the supernatural, even when it seems obvious - he has a conversation in his route in classic with yulia about this, and that is in fact how he manages to get to her: by asking saburov if there are any other logical skeptics in town. it should be noted they seem to be breaking with this in pathologic 2, where one of his voicelines is “I’m no positivist. There are things in this world beyond our mundane perception.” i have no idea where they’re planning on going with that.

there’s also a quote floating somewhere around twitter about him having been raised by a military man, and militaries tend to enforce very rigid routines. you could say the same thing of block - who (in classic at least) i also have my suspicions about.

highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus

special interests. the one that should obviously come to mind is thanatology, though i would argue latin if not classics in general is a special interest of his as well - in addition to his usage of latin, he also references pericles in the marble nest and was probably refering to the roman occupation of haruspicy in addition to augurs in the same text. he also makes references to shakespeare more than once in both marble nest and pathologic 2.

hyper- or hyperoreactivity to sensory input

i don’t have much written down for this one but there seem to be several places in classic especially where he asks npcs to stop shouting at him. we don’t really have the privilege to know their volume or how they’re interacting with him, but i think it’s also worth noting that he’s the only one of the healers who wears gloves. in pathologic 2 he’s the only named character i can think of who wears them at all. his thing in the lucid dream about the brain being “a border”? gloves are his border, as is his jacket, which may be worn to cut down on sensory issues.

he will also sometimes seem to “overreact” to the situation at hand - such as in classic, when some dogheads mispeak and say that daniil is going to “sterilize” them, and instead of understanding that they must have mispoken, freaks out over the idea that they think they’re going to be… well… sterilized. or in haruspex route, when his reaction to the inquisitor arriving is to threaten suicide.

miscellaneous

he never goes anywhere without that carpet bag. we don’t see it in pathologic 2, but we do hear about it and he doesn’t let it go for a second in classic - not even in the cutscenes where he’s using the microscope. his bag could be a comfort item.

“getting very attached to things like inanimate objects” could work for the bag - but you know what it actually fits the bill much more obviously? the polyhedron. in the haruspex route he recognizes that it’s a lost cause, but he’s still too attached to it to let it go.

in classic at least, daniil is absolutely terrible at lying. most autistic people either are not good at lying, or feel uncomfortable or anxious with having to lie. when he’s asked by yulia and the kids in the polyhedron to lie to block (for different reasons) he’s clearly uncomfortable with the idea that it’ll work. and when it actually comes time to come up with a way to lie to block about why he needs five rifles, your options are to either buckle and tell him the truth, or simply say that you need them for “self-defense”. block believes that you’re not lying to him, but daniil can’t come up with any embeleshments to explain why he needs what he’s asking for.

Commander: Are you hiding something from me? Bachelor: No.

he comes across as naive to other characters. in classic, capella has a voiceline saying, “The Bachelor is not smart. Intelligent, yes… but not smart.” in Pathologic 2, Daniil complains that Aglaya takes him for “a useless dreamer”. he’s also easily used by the Kains to fulfill their endgame in classic.

my final, and absolute favorite: he takes things way too literally. autistic people (and adhd people, from my understanding) have a hard time differentiating jokes and sarcasm. so my favorite moment in marble nest is a case of him taking that earlier advice - to “take heart” literally, by bringing the tragedians a literal human heart:

Tragedian: Oh… Excellency. What a sordid sight! Sorry for underestimating you. You definitely do have… how shall I put it… a creative touch. But this is pure madness. You can’t take things so literally! Daniil: You wanted me to come back to you with an open heart. Well, here I am. …It looked too fitting to be a coincidence.

your mind map, after this, updates to say “I misunderstood the tragedians.”

conclusion

people don’t stop being autistic with age and i think he’s a good example of what it’s like to be in your late 20s and be autistic. i’m sure i missed things as i haven’t finished haruspex route of classic yet and there may just be some other things he does or says that i missed! if anyone has anything to add they think fits i would love to know, thank you for your time :)

[writesistersociety]

Writing Disability and Neurodivergency

Writing Disability and Neurodivergency- Some simples Dos and Don’ts from a Person who is Both

Diverse representation in media is extremely important, and it’s more than just skin color or sexual/gender identity. Disability and neurodivergency are often grossly misrepresented in media, if they get represented at all. As an allistic, able-bodied, cishet woman, I’m constantly striving to put more diverse representation in my stories, but sometimes it gets scary! I’m a bad researcher, what if what I look up is wrong? When I’m so nervous about it, how do I know the line between accuracy and othering? 

I want to be able to represent these often marginalized and overlooked groups in a respectful way that doesn’t put my perception of them over what they feel and really are, so I talked to my friend @Franzidoeseverything on Instagram, and this is the rundown that thon gave me: 

“Word of advice, hold the opinions of someone living with the condition they’re talking about higher than someone who has a similar issue, but not the same thing. For example, I can’t talk about what it’s like to be in a wheelchair, but someone in a wheelchair who doesn’t have EDS cannot talk about what it’s like to have EDS. Same goes for neurodiversity, I can educate about autism but not ADHD.

NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS (Specifically Autism)

Don’t make them super weird or strange in unnecessary ways, but don’t try to make them as “normal” as possible. Stimming, being overwhelmed, shut downs, meltdowns, and things to accommodate sensory needs are normal for us, and they should be portrayed as such. Portraying them as weird, strange, or unnatural is gross. But simultaneously don’t make us as “neurotypical” as possible, don’t hide the less flattering sides of it, don’t hide the joy either.

Always avoid person first language. Say “autistic people” not “people with autism.” Make sure you’re using the right vocabulary.

Autistics aren’t robots, geniuses, or “special needs.” We’re disabled because our brains function differently in some ways.

All of our needs are different. Some autistics are nonverbal, some are hyper verbal, etc. We are not cookie cutters, we are just as unique, diverse, and individual as NTs. 

ALWAYS avoid stereotypes like Sheldon cooper and such.

Try your best to portray positive aspects of neurodiversity as actually positive. For example: “They were so overcome with joy about the news they couldn’t hold in from flapping their hands and jumping, a pure, unfiltered expression of happiness” is a better way to portray stimming than “Overcome with the news they couldn’t hold it in, as hard as they tried, and ended up flapping and jumping, which earned them some stares from everyone in the room.”

DISABILITY 

Everyone experiences pain differently. A wonderful, accurate, description of pain that comes to mind is the the beginning chapters of Misery by Stephen King. We usually have many different types of pain, caused by different things, and can sometimes distinguish between them.

We have good days and bad days, the good days are minimal pain (not none). The bad days are baddd. Learn about spoon theory, we use it to describe ourselves very frequently. 

DONT EVER CURE IT. DONT CURE PHYSICAL DISABILITIES OR NEUROLOGICAL. DONT DO IT. It’s horribly offensive and should always be avoided. Obvious exceptions for curable illnesses.

A disability will impact every single aspect of life, keep that in mind. For example, I have a lot of tooth issues due to EDS. 

Make sure your disabled character (physical or neurological) isn’t being infantilized by you. By other characters in order to make a point is fine, but as an author don’t forget disabled people smoke, drink, date, have a sex life, swear, get angry, get sad, feel joy, and every other aspect of life

Disabled characters should be in everything, even just as a background character, as long as they don’t exist for white saviorism or to make the main character look better. If you’re writing a piece with an emphasis on a disabled character, you have an ABSOLUTE DUTY to represent that community well or you cannot write that character. If you’re writing an autistic character, you bet your butt you’re personally gonna spotlight autistics, listen to them, and speak out against Autism $peaks.We aren’t inspiring for living day to day lives, stop the inspiration porn.”

Some general stereotypes to avoid:

Crazy/psycho ND character

Genius autistic

Sad good-for-nothing disabled character

Only there for inspiration disabled character

Only there to make another character look good disabled character

Only representing autistic children (it’s lifelong)

Saying “multiple personalities” instead of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, OSDD, etc).

OCD being only cleanliness character

Disabled character being cured or “finding God” and magically being fine (something about finding comfort in religion is obviously okay)

Some Instagram Accounts to Look At:

Thechronicon

Livingwaterless

Livingwithlilac

Living.With.Misophonia

Autiscope

Autism_unmasked

Actuallyautistictiktoks

Chronicallycatastrophic

How.u.feeling

Jessicaoutofthecloset

Sweetsensorystuff

εїз Happy Writing, Creative Minds  εїз

[solarianvoidthearoace]

Excerpt#1 of my Gerry Keay/OC Magical/Mythical CollegeAU

CN/TW: Social Anxiety, discussion of mental illness, discussion of past trauma, awkward coming-out, miscommunication, misunderstanding, it/its pronouns for Michael Shelley, he/they pronouns for Gerry, they/them pronouns for OC, narrative mention of Mary Keay, mention of alcohol, mythical people living in a parallel society and amongst humans, original character talking German (two sentences; extrapolable from context)

“But sure, you're seeming nice so no problem.” Heaving a relieved sigh, Gerry followed them into the room. The two taking seats in the lower rows of the auditorium, seeing as Gerry’s companion wore glasses. Unpacking their notepads, pencil cases, and Gerry setting up his laptop. There was still time until the lecture was set to begin, so Gerry turned to his table neighbour,

“Your look sends very mixed signals, if I’m being honest.” They grinned, propping their chin up on the back of their hand,

“All the right ones, apparently”, demonstratively looking Gerry up and down. Making them look away, clearing his throat. They laughed,

“Not flirting, don’t worry. I’m Yanis.” He tried masking his relieved sigh best they could,

“Gerry.”

They did pay attention to the lecture, still, Gerry found out a bit more about his dyed ginger saviour. Yanis was in the same semester and some of the same courses has he was. Though they didn’t study for the same engineering degree, there was a decent overlap. Some courses Gerry needed for his software engineering degree much the same as Yanis needed for mechanical engineering. They easily offered they could study together. Yanis having been at the campus since they started their degree and knowing the ins and outs of it.

Having easily found common ground in their discipline of study, as well as their taste in music, Gerry had no qualms following Yanis to the canteen for a late breakfast. They kept chatting, switching back and forth between languages.

“So what if you’re 31?”, Yanis shrugged,

“I also had to take care of my health first. Plus we’re both neurodivergent so starting a college degree at all is more stressful to us. It’s not like anyone is rushing you.” Gerry rolled their eyes,

“Still. Being autist and depressed doesn’t exactly help my case here. That’s ignoring the ADHD and trauma.” A painted-black nail flicked his nose,

“Nope. None of that, you’re not demanded to keep pace with anyone and if your personal reasons bared you from even looking into college education until you were 25, then that’s how it is. Besides, it’s eight years between us. Don’t be dramatic.” Gerry tried to glare but they simply raised a brow in challenge, shutting him right up. While they weren’t in the same major, they compared their course schedules some more and found they were in the same philosophy and ethics courses for their minor. Gerry having decided to not put that on hold and taking the according courses in his semester in Germany as well.

By the end of the day, Gerry felt they had a better handle on his new college-everyday and possibly even made a friend. Which raised a few problems all of its own.

While Gerry had no problem with Yanis finding out what concretely had delayed his life so much, they had another problem. Gerry wasn’t human. And neither was their best friend Michael, for the matter, it being a changeling and his nature chaotic to a fault. Gerry themself was, depending on what one believed, involuntarily threatening to humans.

His mother having been a hulder, a mythical being almost looking like a human. The feature most telling of their mythical nature, though, the fact that they look hollow if seen in the right light, from the right angle. Akin to forest spirits, hulders were drawn by their nature to lure townspeople into forests. Not inherently malicious, of course, their blonde hair and fair skin drawing mostly men in.

With an established mythical society existing in parallel to the non-magical human society, there were laws and proper paperwork surrounding magical and mythical people’s “otherness” and characteristics.

Characteristics which were the life-long obsession of his mother. Her trying to create offspring of her own that would be inherently dangerous to humans and as malicious as she had been. Gerry hated thinking about his father almost more than he hated his mother. But matter of fact was, being half-hulder, and his father having been a river-nix, Gerry was… alluring. Drawing people in without them realising as much if he acted the wrong kind of way towards them. Gerry forced to be constantly mindful of their nature, as to not accidentally harm someone.

Which was why they usually didn’t make friends. Having to make sure the person wasn’t human as to not endanger them.

And yet, they got stuck with Yanis. Gerry was glad it was autumn, the chance of light hitting him in just the wrong way dwindling. But he couldn’t help their worried unease, recognising Yanis and them grew closer.

It wasn’t that Gerry was set out to avoid Yanis, having taken them up on an invitation to lunch and even to revise notes and study together. But Gerry had a bad feeling about it, especially when he grew to see them as a friend. They did try bringing some more distance between them, an attempt so he didn’t need to outright evade Yanis. Declining their invitations more often than not, excusing themself and finding reasons to convince himself it was the right thing to do.

Having forced himself to take a step back, Gerry caught themself looking for them. It had started so he could more easily get around them, trying to deter Yanis from inviting him in the first place so they didn’t have to turn them down as often.

Gerry wasn’t oblivious to their whole demeanour getting muted once it had clicked that he was trying to push distance between them. But seeing Yanis less cheery and energetic made Gerry realise some things about them.

Yanis wasn’t much smaller than him, a few inches at most. But they carried themself in a way that made them stand out. Gerry had learned Yanis had chronic pain, making it hard on them to be on their feet the entire day. Rarely, they wore leg braces, limiting their range of motion further than their chronic pain already did. Still, Yanis was confident and most days glossing over their frequent aches with relative ease. It had been more apparent when they hadn’t been upset but the way Yanis walked was… with purpose. Every step seeming deliberate and not to be questioned. While that cocksure confident way to carry oneself wasn’t all that remarkable, it stood out in Yanis.

And Gerry needed a good long while to figure out why.

Michael had badgered them to get out and socialise. It was the last week before winter break and there was a social happening of the engineering faculty. Gerry had put on a nice button shirt and proper slacks before touching up their black nail polish and putting on a hint of eyeliner.

Yes, he was cautious not to accidentally draw humans in but that didn’t mean he wasn’t allowed to tart themself up. Gerry hadn’t even really planned to talk to anyone, if they were being honest. Just mingling among people and feeling alone in the crowd instead of feeling alone by himself.

That was, until aquamarine and black varnished fingers held a bottle in his field of vision. Gerry couldn’t fight down his smile before closing their eyes. Shaking his head, they just let it happen. Let that gentle affection wash over him for just a moment.

“Thought you might be here tonight”, Yanis held out the drink,

“The crown cap is still sealed.” Gerry pulled a face as to not smile despite themself. He sighed,

“You’re quite persistent.” Yanis raised a rather expressive brow at him,

“If you honestly wanted me gone, you would have told me. So I dare say you don’t want me completely gone. It’s nice having someone who can keep up with my ADHD jumping through topics, plus being able to overlook what allistics call me weird for.” When he finally took the bottle, their smile turned from friendly to bright. He bit his lip, trying to hide it behind the bottle. Yanis offered them their bottle opener.

“Got me there. And yes, having a neurodivergent friend is quite unwinding”, he admitted. Opening the drink, Gerry took them in. A proper once-over. They weren’t primped either but certainly had put thought into their casual suit not clashing with their once-again stark-red hair. Gerry having seen Yanis cycling through vibrant red washing out to ginger, before they went back to dyed poppy-red.

Gerry felt admittedly awkward standing together with them. Very much aware of how they had avoided them after all. Nursing their drinks, they kept quiet. Even though Gerry noticed Yanis also taking in his appearance. After some time he sighed,

“I’m sorry. It’s…”, they broke off, shaking his head.

“Complicated?”, Yanis offered with a huff,

“That’s one way to put it, I suppose.” Gerry raised a brow at them. Before he could ask what they were referring to, though, Yanis turned to him properly.

“Did you notice there’s a dance floor?” They blinked in surprise,

“Uh… yea, I did.” Yanis snorted, taking his empty bottle from them and depositing the glass on a nearby tray for used tableware.

“So, can you dance?”, Yanis’ smile inviting and warm,

“And would you dance with me?” Gerry froze, biting his lip and looking away. He knew they shouldn’t. They were very much aware that Yanis needed to keep their distance from him. He swallowed thickly,

“I can dance but…” Yanis hummed expectantly.

“We shouldn’t, okay? I don’t want to elaborate on that.” Yanis’ face cleared as they gave a soft ‘oh’ of understanding.

When Gerry looked back at them, Yanis was looking at them. The expression in their eyes making him pause. A glint of intent, resolve. But their overall demeanour had changed as well. That deliberate way they carried themself was back, not in a way that intimidated. But even standing next to Gerry, he could see they were moving with an intent, with a conscious focus on the way they moved to get there.

Yanis licked their lip,

“I will respect your turndown. But I would like you to know that I know.” Gerry froze. Raising a brow, Yanis’ tone turned gentler still,

“And I really don’t want to push you towards anything. Or put you up to anything.” Gerry felt his amusement bubbling up when Yanis said as much. The idea of someone human inciting a mythical or magical person to anything at all seemed a bit laughable.

“I’m aromantic myself”, they shrugged,

“And asexual.” Their smile turning into a bit of a smirk, cheeky just around the edges. Gerry’s face cleared in surprise, his jaw dropping a bit. His amusement freezing over with a faint ‘oh’ of their own. Before he grimaced,

“I am aromantic, yes, but that’s not it. I’m sorry, you’re a really nice person. You have been nothing but friendly and a reliable friend at that. It’s…”

Yanis closed their eyes, brows raised, before they snorted.

“Let me stop you right there. I know you have been avoiding me, I have respected that you were avoiding me”, they looked him in the eye,

“If you want me gone, I won’t bother you again. I’ll be out of your hair and we don’t have to even talk again.” Gerry felt his face fall, nervously biting his lip once more. Yanis wasn’t done just yet,

“But if you would like to, I want to get to know you”, a short jerk of their head,

“Properly get to know you. I think both our first gut feeling about the other was that we could become pretty great friends. And that’s all I’m suggesting.” Gerry needed a moment to process that. To let sink in that Yanis was really just curious about his friendship. Something they had so far always had to be wary around. At least until Gerry knew whether the person in question was human. Yanis huffed,

“While you process whether to give us a try, I’ll get us new drinks.” Gerry blinked, then nodded when they realised Yanis was waiting on his okay. Another one of those bright friendly smiles before they turned away. Gerry didn’t know what it was but they followed Yanis with his eyes. Their red hair easy to make out even in the crowd.

Just as he was about to turn away, he noticed something. Yanis was a very body-aware person, conscious and deliberate to a point it might seem standoffish. They had explained how it related to their chronic back and joint pain. But as Gerry watched them move through the crowd, he realised just how easily they moved around people. Almost light-footed, turning out of others’ ways with ease.

Despite them being almost as tall as him, and dressed in dark clothes, something about Yanis’ way through the crowd seemed almost airy.

It didn’t fit. It should have clashed immensely.

As they moved back towards him, Gerry realised what had been so weird about Yanis’ bodily confidence. They didn’t seem to make way for themself. Not at all. While that sureness was clear as day, written all over their most minute movements.

The way Yanis moved was the harsh opposite. Gerry was tempted to call it floaty. He knew they could make a way for themself through people, had witnessed as much a few times in the bustle of the campus. But how Yanis moved around people seemed just as natural.

Not even the slightest touch between them and the people around, as if some shimmer was keeping Yanis from being touchable. Kept up their airy strut, as if they weren’t turning and stepping around people.

The contrast did not make sense. And seeing as Gerry’s best friend was a changeling, well, if things didn’t make sense, it was likely some faerie or other was involved.

Which, on the one hand, would mean Yanis was safe from his own magic. But on the other hand it would raise so many more questions around them. About them.

Gerry couldn’t help his sceptical look when Yanis returned. Frowning at them, unsure whether to trust what they had seen.

“You're looking at me like that again”, Yanis raised a brow at him. Gerry gnawed his bottom lip,

“You’re a bit of a mystery, if I’m being honest.” But took the offered bottle none the less. Yanis’ warm smile returned,

“Well, I suppose it’s on you whether you care to figure me out, then.” An easy shrug as they raised a brow at him.

Gerry didn’t reply. They had not clue what to reply to that. And what they wanted to reply in the first place. Yanis didn’t push him. Much to Gerry’s relief. They fell back into companionable silence, emptying their drinks. When the bottles were empty, Yanis looked at him for a long moment. Searching their face. Yanis’ expression fell a bit, their smile not reaching their eyes anymore. Still, they only grimaced a little before sighing,

“So… have a good night, then.” Taking his empty bottle to take it away with their own, Yanis turned to go. Looking back over their shoulder,

“I guess I’ll see you around.” And with a final shrug and smile, they were gone in the crowd. Gerry stared after them before he closed their eyes and sighed. Silently cursing themself, he turned away from the crowd as well. One hand coming up to cover his mouth. Yanis had been right, if Gerry really had wanted them gone, he could have told them as much anytime. If they had wanted Yanis gone, he could have told them as much when they literally offered to leave him alone.

But Gerry didn’t. Because Gerry hadn’t and still didn’t want them gone.

They spent another few minutes turning things over in his head. What he had to consider if they really tried building a genuine friendship with Yanis.

Once he started looking around for them, Gerry regretted their delay. Not able to make out the red shock of hair, Gerry pulled out his phone. If he couldn’t find Yanis, he might at least tell Michael about his hunch. They had been friends for forever but Gerry still wasn’t all that confident to make out people that were connected to faerie. It was his best idea at the moment but he might just as well be off. Asking Michael for his opinion was a solid thing, also maybe it could distract Gerry if they really didn’t find Yanis again. Which meant Gerry would have to approach them around their next shared lecture.

Pocketing their phone, he looked up and around once more.

And huffed in amusement, Yanis standing almost directly in his line of vision. Albeit turned from them and leaning with their chin propped up over a bar table. Despite having avoided them, Gerry knew their usual posture well enough to see Yanis had to adjust to their pain at the moment. Holding their weight cautiously and reducing tension in their back and legs. Coincidentally, Yanis was looking at their own phone when Gerry came closer. And if he wasn’t mistaken, they were looking at the recent chat chronic between the two of them. The small frown pulling down the corner of Yanis’ lips gave Gerry a weird boost of confidence.

As he stepped up to the table, Yanis looked up.

“Du schon wieder”, they raised a brow but their frown had vanished. The quip good natured and accompanied by a small smile. Gerry couldn’t help smiling themself. With a slight head-tilt, he shrugged,

“Well, I can admit that I went looking for you.” Feeling a blush creep up on him, they tried fighting down his smile. Yanis turned to them fully, still with one elbow leaning on the table, they raised a brow. Giving Gerry a once-over. A short jerk of their head,

“Okay, und?” Gerry took a deep breath,

“You wanted to dance with me”, he shrugged,

“How about that invitation?” Yanis’ smile brightened a bit, stepping away from the table and coming closer. They offered him a hand,

“Your lead or mine?”