#this is actually my first time giving an autism headcanon to kind-of a real person

[probablyaseamonster]

p!smp Guqqie is a rich lesbian who is canonically dyslexic and noncanonically autistic and who loves collecting crystals and I love her sm

[can-of-w0rmz]

@shotofstress

When I tell you I read this I saw it and I WHEEZED I was in TEARS and I shouldn’t be bothered arguing about it but quite frankly I’m trying to procrastinate anyway and I’ve had a god awful week and need to take out my frustrations somehow, ergo, I’m going be petty not because this person disagrees with my reading of the novel, but because they implied that in reading queer or neurodivergent elements in a work, people “can’t see the important themes that the novel is about” which actually does piss me off a fair bit

Right so first before we argue we’ve got to decipher because English apparently isn’t this person’s forte for someone who is, apparently, such an avid reader and esteemed critic of English literature. Also I just realised I haven’t really provided any context here so apologies this was in response to that joke post I made about mischaracterising Frankenstein adaptations (again yes the pettiness is not lost on me but I’m embracing it anyway)

“He is not gay nor autistic” cheers this person disagrees that Victor Frankenstein is either gay or autistic. To each their own. Wonder what kind of backup they’ll have for that argument.

“Pls stop seen representation of us everyone bc u can’t make the difference,” Right so this is where we get confusing, I’m going to take a wild guess and I think they’re trying to say “please stop seeing representation of us everywhere because you can’t make the difference”, and I still don’t know what “make the difference” means, but we’ll go with it.

“read nothing new”, alright so they’re saying people who see representation everywhere read nothing new, and then the kicker that’s kind of the only reason I decided to respond to this anyway, “nor really see the important themes that the novel is about.”

First off, “stop seeing representation of us everywhere”, let it be known that as I make a hundred jokes about Victor Frankenstein being homosexual, I myself am thoroughly through and through without a doubt bisexual as the days are long. Absolutely love men. Also adore women equally. So no, I am not a Disney corporate executive trying to squeeze in as many queers as possible for the entire purpose of using the fact they have representation in media to excuse the fact it’s a shite film but also, not trying to revisit every old piece of media to squeeze representation where it doesn’t really fit or make sense just for shits and giggles. (Also just saying, you made this comment on Tumblr. So even if I was just going haywire with lgbt headcanons on my favourite media with no real backup, who gives a shit? Who actually gives a flying fuck? I don’t. Let people live, man. It doesn’t mean they don’t understand the source material just because they’re having fun and playing loose with it. It’s Tumblr, not a Netflix adaptation. Let people do whatever they want and have fun with it. It’s cool.)

But like I said, I do have backup and a lot of it so let’s get into that, shall we?

First of all, whoo, autism. I’ll be real not really a hill I’m going to die on but the wording you put of “he is not autistic” is just ridiculous because yeah, no, there is a lot of perfectly decent ground to read Victor Frankenstein as autistic and a lot of people do, mostly people who are autistic or otherwise neurodivergent themselves. Just because in the 18th century people didn’t necessarily have the language for things doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, and I mean, now we do. So what’s the harm in using it? They had their own language for things back then, do we have to revert back to speaking in early 19th century English every time we want to refer to a character who was written back then as neurodivergent or lgbt or anything else?? What’s the point in that??

But yeah, Victor Frankenstein. I can’t even be bothered to explain and to be honest every single other person I’ve said “Frankenstein is autistic to” has immediately responded “oh yeah, obviously”, even my father who famously is just hypercritical of all sorts of headcanons just went “oh yeah no for sure the man is definitely autistic no doubt about it”. So instead I’m just going to include some quotes.

My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things indiscriminately.

It was my temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them.

From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation.

Two years passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder.

Like I said, self explanatory. It’s harder to come up with an argument for why he isn’t autistic than why he is, and frankly, what’s the harm in reading him that way? It doesn’t really change anything about the plot or themes, and his character doesn’t change. It’s just a very probable diagnosis for said qualities. It doesn’t change them, whether you use that word or not. The concept of autism was coined in 1911 anyway, so its not like Mary Shelley’s going to be sat at her writing desk in 1817 writing in big bold letters “BY THE WAY, FRANKENSTEIN HAD AN AUTISM DIAGNOSIS.” It doesn’t change the fact that people still had autism back then, just because the term wasn’t discovered yet. Anyway.

Now, second bit. “He isn’t gay” – now, if you read Frankenstein and thought “ah yes, this man seems perfectly heterosexual to me”, then honestly, sure. Go ahead. But to say that reading Victor Frankenstein as queer in any way means that people “don’t understand the important themes of the novel” is completely bloody ridiculous because, again, there is astronomical ground to read him that way.

Victor Frankenstein never really shows interest in any women in the novel, except for Elizabeth, who he has been raised, since he was five years old, to see as his “gift” and was told by his mother since he was a very young child that he was going to marry her – to the point where his mother, on her deathbed, tells both Victor and Liz: “My firmest hopes of future happiness were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now be the consolation of your father.” Also, they’re cousins/adopted siblings. If you don’t think that’s fucked up, even by the standards of the time, I’m not really sure what to say to you. Of course he married her. And before he married her, he generally expresses very little romantic interest in her bar just expressing as much affection as you would a close friend or sister, or seeing her as his “gift” who he “has to be wed to”. Read any other story from this time period, in this genre, and you will not be remotely questioning whether they’re actually attracted to each-other or not. In fact, here’s an excerpt from The Vampyre, another book born from the same trip to Geneva that Frankenstein was, by John William Polidori, about the protagonist’s love interest:

And that’s only part of it. So. Yeah. Victor’s lack of romantic affection for Elizabeth is not “a product of its time” nor “a product of its genre.” And The Vampyre is a short story.

And so you may be saying, “well, just because Victor doesn’t show any interest in women doesn’t necessarily make him gay”, and yeah, true that (ace and bi Vic hcs y’all are valid) but there is very good basis to take the reading that he is attracted to men.

For one thing, just the fact that he’s so particular about creating “the perfect man” is subject to a lot of queer readings in itself, but let’s be real here, you all know me enough by now to know that I just want an excuse to rant about Clerval and Frankenstein. And rant about them I shall.

First, I’m lazy, so here’s an excerpt from one of my previous essays I’ve written that I’ve never posted everywhere on Frankenstein in general:

Just as The Creature is Victor’s narrative foil, so is Clerval. He's equally ambitious and fascinated with the secrets of life, however he’s healthy with how he goes about it and healthy with how he keeps the balance between taking care of himself and pursuing his dreams, while Victor goes over the edge and neglects himself and his sense of morality to complete what he set out to do. He's supposed to represent the ideals of gothic romanticism in Victor and he's supposed to be his anchor and support, (something the Creature doesn't have), caring for Victor during his illness, (“reanimating” him, almost, once again showing that comparison between both Victor and Henry, as Henry “reanimates” Victor with compassion and cares for him after, and Victor reanimates The Creature in a haze of obsession and mania and immediately abandons him, showing what Victor could have been), and constantly accompanying and being sympathetic and empathetic towards him. I also find it very interesting how he does also seem to have those darker aspects to him, lying to Victor’s family about the extent of his illness and caring for Victor in his apartment despite the fact that, for all he knew, from the evidence lying around his workspace and Victor’s feverish rambling, he very well could have murdered someone, and Clerval chooses not to press him on the issue and instead to intentionally help Victor cover it up. The fact that Clerval exhibits these traits only makes Victor’s own downfall all the more tragic when we consider that it likely very much isn’t a stretch to imagine that Clerval, too, likely exhibits a lot of the same morbid curiosity as Victor; he isn’t a superhuman figure with purely positive attributes who is completely far removed from Victor’s situation, the only difference is that Clerval chooses to prioritise his own sense of morality over his selfish aims, which only emphasises the point that Victor’s downfall is, ultimately, Victor’s own fault. When Victor "kills" the Creature’s chance of the same support and love (his unfinished bride), the Creature kills Henry and sends Victor into a downward spiral of suicidal thoughts and heavy depression because the character that represented that stability, that romanticism, that balance of keeping healthy, is dead, and that throws Victor downward into his inevitable obsession with the monster's destruction and his own death.

On this point, I feel like it’s worth bringing up that a reasonably good case could probably be made regarding a lot of queer subtext in the novel, although I won’t rant about it excessively as it obviously isn’t the focus, the theme of love is a very prominent theme as I’ve previously mentioned with The Creature; familial love, platonic love, parental love, romantic love, and I don’t think it’s particularly much of stretch to suggest that Shelley, intentionally or unintentionally, might have added a lot more romantic subtext than given credit for. Not that it matters particularly narratively speaking what kind of love is portrayed, but in reference specifically to Clerval and the Ingolstadt chapters there’s a very good argument to be made regarding Shelley’s poor relationship with her own husband and how she may have projected a lot of her wish for that kind of care and sympathy into his character, perhaps not taking into account, or perhaps she did, how it would come across – author intentions are mostly lost with time and we’ll ultimately never know for sure, but even for the standards of the late 18th century when the novel was set and the early 19th century when it was written, “I desire the company of a man who could sympathise with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may deem me romantic,” and “your form so divinely wrought, and beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and consoles your unhappy friend,” probably weren’t standard platonic sentiments.

And honestly on that essay excerpt, that still sums my thoughts on that subject up pretty much perfectly. After all, a character in a book talking about his best friend going “I loved him with a mixture of reverence and affection that knew no bounds” as well said best friend tenderly nursing him back to health, and the character talking about how his body is “divinely wrought and beaming with beauty” and gently pressing his hand and referring to him constantly as “my dearest”, “my dear” and “my beloved”, while living together and travelling together and talking about how his voice “soothes” him and “cheats (him) into a transitory peace”, pretty gay!

And yes, before anyone says a single thing, if it wasn’t already obvious from the essay excerpt, I do understand “the important themes the novel is about”. I do understand that there are more themes and characters and subject matter, and more than that, I bloody love it! Because this is one of my favourite novels! Of-fucking-course I’m invested in it on a deeper level than “ooOoooh what classical literature characters can I RUIN with my gay agenda today!” But you commented this on a joke post, a joke post, again, on Tumblr. No harm but Jesus Christ if there is a singular platform I can go on and just post stupid bullshit about two book characters from 200 years ago being soft and gay without having to justify that yes, I did in fact read the book, and shock horror yes, I do know that there are other themes, it’s bloody Tumblr. (Absolutely love you lot btw especially all my lovely fantastic incredible mutuals all your takes and readings and art is 👌✨ chef’s kiss)

Oh and by the way, op, I noticed you reblogged this:

And to be honest if I had to say any take or reading was a misunderstanding of the text, it’d be that one (as well as “Victor is sexist for cutting women out of the creation process” takes – Christ that’s just gross. And feels mildly if not explicitly homophobic.)

So just for shits and giggles to counter that argument, here’s another excerpt from the same older essay as before:

Speaking of Hugo, it is rather interesting how many adaptations and literary criticisms seem to go down the route of the Hunchback of Notre Dame moral of “who is the monster and who is the man?”, suggesting that Victor is the “true monster” of the narrative. And, as much as I am a decent Victor Hugo fan, (I’m over 50% through Les Misérables, have you seen the size of that book? I’d have to be), in reality the point of the story is that neither Creator nor Creation are more monster nor man than the other – Victor mutilates corpses and brings the creature to life, and allows Justine to be executed without owning up to his actions, and The Creature murders a child and a multitude of other innocent people, Clerval and Elizabeth who had nothing to do with anything and Ernest left completely alone with his entire family dead. We can’t acknowledge The Creature’s sympathetic qualities without also acknowledging Victor’s, and regardless, sympathetic motivations don’t make up for immoral actions.

Also this meme, which I can’t for the absolute life of me remember who posted it originally I’m sorry I use it all the time in GCs whoever it was you’re so valid:

[borbology]

idk if anyone has asked this before but may i ask for some knight headcanons? specifically sword and blade,,?👀

YESSS I have been waiting for this ask! I have a lot of hcs about Sword and Blade that I'd love to share. GET READY FOR A LONG POST!

To start off, I have the post where I drew what I think they look like under their armor (I also birthed this cursed image).

First of all, and as much as I love them, I think Sword and Blade didn't get a big enough personality in the anime. If I were to describe them in my hcs, I think that Sword is generally the more chill one out of the two. He strikes me as the kind who is easy to hang out with, but he can be unexpectedly funny or stubborn at times. Sword is more gentle with the way he speaks, whilest Blade is bri'ish and has an ocassional potty mouth (says wanker and consistently gets away with it because no-one knows what it means). Because Blade has a harsher voice in the dub that somehow makes me want to make him the bolder one of the two. He's the one who's more likely to express himself. We gotta hear more of that hilarious voice afterall lol. In making his design I gave him his one eye that he has in the game sprites. I've really enjoyed drawing him very expressive so I decided to make him a creechur with big emotions.

I love thinking about how they interact with eachother. I see them as brothers. They've been through a lot, love eachother, but also get into shenanigens and bother each other sometimes.

Their relationship is both endearing and hilarious. Between the two of them, Blade is actually the older one -- I decided that because it's funnier if he's the eldest even though he's shorter. At this point they wouldn't know what to do with eachother. I think that they share a room next to Meta Knight's quarters, and that they have bunk beds. I actually have a sketch of their room that I want to finish someday soon.

As for their personal lives, it's important to me that characters have substance which makes them feel like real people, so when I make my own characters I always give them five things to help with that -- hobbies, desires, a favorite food and favorite drink, a birthday, and trivia (some little traits that have no real impact on the character in their story but still exist and are interesting). This is something I love doing and my autism always has me making lists/filling out self-made questionares for characters. I highly reccommend it, it's fun as Hell and a useful tool for writing character.

Sword:

He can play guitar and he likes music in general. Once I decided to give him antenna I thought it would be neat because bugs hear by picking up vibrations, so the vibrations of music are probably very pleasing. He also likes to watch sports because he has become quite athletic since training under Meta Knight.

He is happy with the state of his life but once he feels like the timing is right he wants to find a girlfriend. My man has been alone too long. Part of this is because he feels like he missed out on getting to experience relationships when he younger (due to the war). He'd like a girlfriend, but he's somehow embarrassed to talk about it and he worries how Blade would feel if he spent some of time with another person.

Sword likes comfort foods like macaroni and cheese. He enjoys the taste of ginger ale because it makes him think of the ginger beer they sold at home (whatever the kirby universe's equivilant to australia is lol)

His birthday is June 14th (I do have a system for how I pick chracter birthdays btw but I'm not willing to share it you just have to trust me)

For trivia, he likes cats, and he's allrgic to peanuts

Blade:

He likes to relax in his off-time and scientifically the best way to do this is by playing Animal Crossing, so I gave him an Animal Crossing town because I love Animal Crossing. It'd be funny if there was a game in the Kirby universe where you played as a cappy or something in a village of creatures like Rick, Kine, and Coo. He also likes to practice baking (he and sword said in the anime that they both always wanted to be cooks, but they were too afraid to tell this to meta knight. plus its fun for him to watch meta knight eat all the treats and still somehow try to deny he has a sweet tooth lol)

Blade, unfortunately, is British - which means that he, unfortunately, likes British food. He will eat beans on toast and make everyone around him uncomfortable. As for his favorite drink... peach nectar lol (bugs love sugarsugarsugar)

His birthday is March 9th (don't question meee)

For trivia, he likes dogs (its funny if he is a dog person while sword it a cat person). He's got just the one big eye so cats give him allergy. I also subscribed to the idea of him being trans because of the difference in his voice between the sub and the dub versions of the anime. Just this alone comes with its own set of hcs I won't get into here.

Lastly, I felt the need to dive into their history. Their backstory about being survivors of the war and having to resort to robbery to survive is so interestingly tragic and something I feel like people don't pay attention to enough when it comes to portraying them. They had to have homes and family and friends that they both lost before happening upon each-other and deciding that two is better than one when it comes to staying alive in the barren hellscape that they now roamed. I plan on making some art about this topic in the future so I'll leave out my hcs for now.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK FEEL FREE TO ASK QUESTIONS

[kai-selfships]

SING + SING 2 HEADCANONS (human au)

Part one: main characters

Picrew link, art by Naylissa on various social medias

(One year passes in between movies so for characters who are in both movies, there will be two ages listed)

I’m posting this here instead of on my main because you guys are used to me being cringe <3

Also, important: I chose each character��s ethnicity based either on where in the world their species of animal lives, or (for animals that live all over, like pigs or mice) other contextual things (like Gunther’s accent)— basically, please understand that I’m not making Johnny black because he’s a gorilla, but because gorillas in real life can be found in equatorial Africa— however if you’re black and still find this offensive, please dm me and you can explain to me what’s wrong, and I’ll do anything I can to make it better :)

Buster Moon (he/him, gay and trans)

36-37 years old

5’0”

Australian

Autism, bipolar, and PTSD (after working with Jimmy Crystal)

Hair started going gray due to stress, so he dyed it all

Forgets to eat a lot

Works too much, gets bad burnout

Is best friends with Rosita; she reminds him to eat and sleep and stuff when they’re on the road

Has electrical burn scars on his hands from when he and Ash messed with the electric fence on Clay’s property

Was dating Eddie in the first movie, but they broke up which is why he’s not there in the second movie

Rosita (she/her, bi and ace)

40-41 years old

5’5”

Latina (I chose this for her because of her name)

ADHD, depression

In canonverse she had two litters of piglets, one with 15 and one with 10

In human au she only had five kids— Carrie, Hannah, Kelly, Leo, and of course Casper

Her husband, Norman, is very supportive of her identity— they were going through a rough patch in the first movie because he was taking on too much work (hes a Lawyer) and didn’t have time to spend with family, but they work on it together and have a much healthier relationship now

She got a degree in journalism and used to work for a newspaper

She has been closeted bi all her life, but only found out about the “asexual” label once she met the theater group (mostly Gunther) and learned more about the queer community

Speaking of Gunther…

Gunther (he/him, queer)

39-40 years old

5’5”

Immigrated from Germany when he was a teenager

Was not accepted by his family for being queer— he hasn’t had any contact with them for most of his adult life

He’s very well adjusted and stable now, though

A lot of his energy goes towards helping out his friends at the theater, who are still figuring out who they are— like Rosita!

He gets along surprisingly well with Ash, probably because Ash really needs a really positive friend to hype him up

Gunther has been doing dance since he was a kid, and is really good at it

Johnny (he/him, gay)

19-20 years old

6’0

Very sweet and supportive with his friends

Kind of a puppy punk— he’s discovering a lot of new music and ideas through Ash haha

Always bruised and sore from dance practice

Loves skateboarding

Used to straighten his hair (like in the first movie) but now he takes better care of it

Helps Nooshy get tattoos and piercings because they’re afraid of needles

His late mother is the person who inspired his love for singing

Also loves to do other kinds of art

Dropped out of school at age 16 to help out at the garage so his dad could focus more on his other business

His best friends in the group are Ash and Meena

Ash (he/him, transmasc)

19-20 years old

5’3”

Brazilian

Actually went to middle school with Johnny, but neither of them remember the other

Gives himself stick and pokes

Came out and started his transition in between the first and second movies

Also has electrical burn scars on hands like Buster

Is kind of withdrawn from his family— they love him a lot and want to rebuild their relationship, but Ash feels guilty for having chosen his ex-boyfriend over them when he gave him an ultimatum

Still doubts himself about his gender identity a lot because he grew up thinking everyone felt that disconnected with femininity

Loves getting piercings

He still wears really artistic makeup for shows

Hasn’t even thought about dating anyone after his ex— not because he carries a torch for him, but because he feels like his mind and body has been “ruined” by having spent so much time in such a manipulative and toxic relationship (I’m toootally not projecting haha /sarcastic)

Meena (she/her, transhet)

23-24 years old

6’1”

She and her family are Indian (I chose this because in the second movie she’s a lot smaller than Alphonso, and to make it work with both of them being amab I decided she’s an Asian elephant and he’s an African elephant)

Anxiety, dyslexia, rejection sensitive dysphoria

Her parents have always been supportive of her transition, but it took her grandparents a few years to warm up to it

She has been out as a trans girl since she was a young teenager

She’s been taking singing lessons since she was a kid

Attends a community college in the area and is really self conscious about the fact that she’s not pursuing any other higher education because her cousins and parents are all very scholarly

Her parents are both professors

Gets really dysphoric about her height and size

But she feels really EUPHORIC about her beautiful long hair and the jewelry she likes to wear!

Looks up to Buster a lot even though sometimes he doesn’t make the best choices

Miss Crawly (she/her)

82-83 years old

5’4”

Salvadoran

Half blind and hard of hearing

Was very good friends with Buster’s late parents

Is extremely good at cooking; always feeds the theater group when they work late rehearsing or putting on a show

Is actually married, but none of her friends at the theater know her husband very well

Has two adult children too; she loves them very much and talks on the phone with them a lot, but they both live out of state so she only sees them and her grandkids every few years

Doesn’t mind when Buster doesn’t have the money to pay her; she may technically be an employee, but she views her job at the theater as just helping out a family friend

Is definitely more competent that she appears to be

Porsha Crystal (she/her, lesbian)

19 years old

5’7”

Has lived in Redshore City all her life

Autistic

Has a lot of followers on her official social media, but she also has a few secret accounts so she can goof off with her friends without her dad knowing

Really admires Ash, even if he took a while to warm up to her

Dyes her hair as a way to be in control of her appearance— Jimmy always chose her hairstyle and clothing so she looked “normal”, but didn’t mind if she dyed it because that’s kind of typical for modern teens

Loves to do colorful and fun makeup

Had a little bit of a crush on Suki when she first started working for Jimmy, but obviously that was one-sided because Porsha’s a lot younger than her

Nooshy (he/she/they depending on the day, genderfluid and bisexual)

21 years old

5’4

Finnish

Depression

Was homeless prior to meeting the gang, now lives with Johnny

Dyes his hair black

Is afraid of needles

Gets a lot of nightmares and doesn’t sleep well

Doesn’t spend a lot on clothes, upcycles their own stuff

Still just does street performance as her job

Clay Calloway (he/they, trans, genderqueer, bisexual)

62 years old

5’5”

He and Ruby are t4t

Stealth in public, and has no living family members— the only people who know he’s trans are his friends, who he came out to after a few months of getting to know better

Ash is like their grandson

Completely left behind their old life when they moved to Redshore

Ruby transitioned later in life— when they first started dating, they were technically a mlm couple

Literally hates Jimmy Crystal so so much and is very open about it

Porsha helped them start a social media account. He’s not very active on it besides replying to fan messages and posting things about the shows he does.

[beevean]

And another thing!!!! (My mind is occupied by this topic a lot this morning lol) The people who put those headcanons on the characters only focus on the Fun UwU Quirky parts of being neurodivergent. The amount of times I've seen stories or art of the tremendous drawbacks having such neurodivergencies brings with it can be counted on one hand. It's always the "omg Sonic is so hyperactive he's totes ADHD he likes running and struggles to sit still!!" in a So Cute So Silly So Relatable way, never the "you cannot get anything done despite mentally SCREAMING at yourself to get up and do your tasks, you think everyone in your life can't stand you, you insert your foot in your mouth every time you speak, you can't finish a task to save your life" way. It truly makes me wonder how people who give every single character a Fun Quirky So Silly neurodivergency think, especially when they only focus on the endearing parts.

"If "neurotypicalness" is associated ... can have a personality too." It's exactly this! Why would I want to go around saying I'm straight if everyone immediately declares me a boring bigot because of that? Why would I tell anyone I'm not sure if I'm neurodivergent or neurotypical if the latter will immediately make me come off as someone with zero interests who is a dick to anyone even slightly off what is considered "the norm"? I wouldn't say people stating these things are directly harmful, especially because in real life people simply do not think and act like on Tumblr, but I do firmly believe that it is simply hurtful for people who fall in the 'bad' categories. (But then again, I am also firmly convinced that Tumblr has a general mindset of "They hurt us first so now we get to hurt them back, for justice!!!", completely ignoring they have no idea who the recipients are in their daily life and what they stand for, so...)

Also I was actually thinking the other day of the Sonic Chest Fur theory, and... Sample size of four people. Good job, y'all! I honestly think that claiming that you can give your Forces Avatar chest fur regardless of gender is a more solid claim about how chest fur is not male-exclusive than stating that Sonic is Totes Trans because he lacks it. And also, that argument has never stopped anyone from headcanoning Shadow and Silver as trans.... I'm curious what would happen if you brought up the Sonic Has No Chest Fur argument to state those two cannot be, were it not that I think it'd be equal to throwing a bomb straight into a hornet's nest.

I don't know what else to add, we're on the same page 😂

There is definitely a tendency to cutesify autism and ADHD here. I have neither, so I'd rather not insist too much and leave others to speak out, but even I know that both come with massive challenges. That's why they're called disorders! They don't have to be life-debilitating ofc, they're not curses, but I can imagine how some ND people might be irritated by others, especially fellow NDs, simply ignoring their struggles because they're not appealing. Ngl I'd find a realistic portrayal of Sonic with ADHD much more refreshing than the usual "hehe he's hyperactive he's just like me fr fr <3"

(at least, when I see people headcanon a character as for example having BPD, they do acknowledge the difficulties that come with the disorder)

And yes, I do realize that Tumblr is not real life. Apparently 90% of people here are both ND and LGBT+, the complete opposite of real life. I get it. I don't want to come off as "wanting to be oppressed so bad" or whatever, at this point I'm too old to care. But still, young people are being shaped on Tumblr and especially on its nastier little sibling Twitter, and I don't want teens to internalize that cishet NT people are boring shells of human beings at best and asshole bigots at worst.

Personally I'd sooner headcanon that Shadow and Silver are a different kind of hedgehog compared to Sonic - they both have fur and eye markings, plus a similar eye shape, it's interesting. I also have... opinions on how generally trans Sonic is portrayed, but eh, I think I'm being problematic enough :V

[daily-commission-fear]

So because of everything that’s happened and because I’m Autistic myself I wanna try and write some headcanons of a gn mc with Autism with the brothers. Also please remember this is my first time writing something like this and I also have dyslexia so this probably won’t be the best but this is very self indulgent anyway but still please tell me if I make stupid mistakes anyway let’s go

Lucifer

He saw it on your record before you came to the devildom, told diavolo and barbatos about it so they could set up anything extra that you may need and while he didn’t tell his brother directly that your autistic just in case that would make you uncomfortable he set some ground rules with them on what not to do.

Originally this was just for diavolo and so the exchange program went well. But the More he got to learn and care about you it turned from must make sure they can manage so the program will go well to I need to make sure there not just getting by also comfortable and happy

If you have sensory issues his rooms always open as its chill most of the time and if you are the type of person that needs headphones on as long as you promise not to tell Levi he will get you the newest ones that are wireless so you can were them all the time in public.

If you have a special interest loves to hear you talk about them while he does his work your voice is calming to him although if you special interest is something his brothers love he may direct you to them not because he doesn’t want to hear you just because you might be able to distract them for a while and will probably get a better conversation from them (but he won’t admit that part to you)

If you are non verbal will ask you what you want to communicate in diavolo meetings and will say it for you

Mammon

Guess pretty quickly that your autistic even if your good at masking because of what lucifer said before you came plus because of the witches he’s around humans engouth to pick up on that kind of stuff. Though he won’t say anything to you just in cause it makes you uncomfortable waits for you to talk to him first

If you need/want a stim toys he’s your man as he’s got a couple himself just the small ones that you can use in your pocket in class although if you need one he hasn’t got he would go out and bye you one just don’t tell anyone

Also the first one to start using tone indercators if you need them. He learnt the hard way through upsetting you one day that some of the stuff he says actually comes across as insulting and hurtful and he doesn’t want to ever do that again

If your having a melt down don’t worry your first man is on his way! you two even have a text system set up for him to nab you out of situations if you ever need it.

Even if he doesn’t like your special interest that much if there any updates on it will tell you straight away

Levi

I headcanon Levi as autistic myself so that’s what I’m going for here

Spider man meme. But for real he would be so happy there someone else like him maybe your not as much as a normie as he originally thought

Of course his special interest is TSL and now he knows your not gonna mock him when he info dumps he’s gonna try and get you into it as well so expect a lot of late night binge watching

If you got sensory problems his room is the best. If you need calming music high end stereos everywhere, to many lights it’s completely dark in here he will even turn of his glowing key bored is that’s to much, need to move your hands he has an old XBOX controller that doesn’t work but makes nice sounds when you play with the buttons , Need some visual stim henry is very cute and likes to do loops honestly the list goes on

Communication is so much easier together as you both make sure to speak in ways where it’s not so dam confusing.

“This is just like the anime the new kid from a different world is just like me and know we both helping each other in our differences while slowing becoming closer and closer friends”

Over all you both help each-other out

Satan

If you need any help masking he’s the guy to go to he’s often wonder if he’s autistic himself. But anyway he’s willing to help you if you ask him but makes it very clear that you don’t have to do it around him his brothers or even anyone in the devildom they don’t exactly care about that kind of stuff down here

If you say it’s for the human world and because of the way autistic people are treated there he is 100% ready to throw hands he finds it disgusting what people are saying and doing. Austim speaks is strangely gone the next day.

If you stim with an animal will definitely use this as a way to finally push lucifer into getting a cat for the house. Although the cat is definitely for him will often plop them down on your lap whenever he notices your boarding on a meltdown

Always makes sure what he’s feeling is clear to you as you can’t always pick up on it like his brothers can but instead of making it obvious what he’s doing to everyone you have a hand signal system

Asmo

If you can’t use face masks or certain scrubs because it overloads he will go out of his way to find ones that you can use. Got to keep your skin fresh

If you have certain textures of cloths you can’t wear he finds himself avoiding those as well so he can hug you still if that’s something you okay with

If your not okay with physical touch he will back of may take him a couple of days to remember but respects you

Also if you can’t pick up on flirting will stop doing it as much not because he doesn’t love you (romantic or platonic) but because he doesn’t want you to feel uncomfortable once you realise what he was doing unless you tell him it’s fine

Beel

If you have a same food he learns how to cook it even if the Learning process was hard and he will make some for you to share when he notices your having had a bad day

If you stim orally he has some stim toys to give you back when he first fell lucifer got him a bunch hoping it would stop him eating house from home but of course It didn’t so now he has all these unused ones laying around that he hopes you will love. he would also go out and buy you a new one in the shape of your same food

Nobody messes with a demon that is double everyones height so if mammon isn’t available beel your next best choice if you need to get out a room quickly

He’s e so strong no matter who you are he can easily pick you up and rock you if that’s what you need he does that with belpie a lot so it would be no problem on his end

Belphegore

He hasn’t been to the human world for a long time so when you explain what autism is his reaction is very much “oh humans have a name for that know” it’s called something completely different in the devildom but overall he’s very whatever about the whole thing

Though don’t get me wrong he will do everything he can to help you if you need it. A demon causing an overload it’s alright he’s just got yeeted a hundred miles

Gives you soft toys if you need them for stim he’s got thounds that he sleeps with so no skin of his back

Talking about sleeping if you need weight on you he will just lay on top of you (with permission) if you need it

He also finds your voice calming he has a video of you info dumping about something on his phone and will listen to it to go to sleep not because your boring but because he finds your voice so lovely and now he’s tired

[lord-of-christmas-lights]

I could post regular Narnia headcanons...

Or I could post the continuation of this post and go into depth about how Eustace and Caspian are affected by deity Narnia. Welcome back to Inhuman Narnia 101 and it turned out just as long as the first one so buckle up.

Check out this post by @dorianviolet for another awesome version of Inhuman AU Caspian

Warnings for slight body horror mentions including blood magic stuff, slight religious themes and theological discussion towards the end.

Before anything: This AU directly contradicts canon a lot. I don't care, that's why it's called an AU. Some of it is deliberate, some of it is accidental. I haven't read the books in a number of years, so this is all based on the movies and general information I've picked up from fanfic and tumblr. Discussion on this post is welcomed, criticism and arguments are not. Thank you.

First off, here is the link to an exploration of Dragoning, the Eustace-centric fic I wrote about this. I refer to it repeatedly in this post so if you want the full thing, there it is.

Second, let's get into this. So in my last post, I talked a lot about Narnia, her general existence in this AU, and her motivations as a character. She wants the people in her world to be a part of her, and no one else. Some of this is a conscious choice, and some of it isn't. Eustace's changes throughout his time in VOTDT are definitely not purposeful. It was his greed that drove him to the treasure, it was his own "curse" in becoming a dragon. That was not Narnia reaching out to him and purposefully trying to mold him to her world. As such, he takes on more of an observing role.

Eustace doesn't ever actually directly address his cousins on the subject of their inhumanity, in this fic or in any other I write. He simply sees it, notes it happening, and moves on. Even in the sections in my fics where the subject of inhumanity in general is brought up between Eustace and one of his cousins, it's always about Caspian, the greater Narnian world, or himself.

"Eustace asks why, and Lucy answers. Narnia changes people, she says. It happens to everyone, but the closer you are to her Heart, the greater it is. I don't know where Dragons are. Perhaps closer than we realized. It's exhilarating, isn't it? Aslan will return us to normal though, at the end of our journey." - AEOD

I don't know why, but I don't like the idea of Eustace trying to directly address the Pevensie brand of inhumanity. That line above takes place after his UnDragoning, after the way he sees things has changed, and I see it as him asking what exactly has changed, you know, why are Dragons different than boys?

That brings me to how Eustace himself changes. Now, if he hadn't gone and turned into a Dragon, I imagine Narnia wouldn't have taken much note of him. He's a random human, stuck-up, not at all in line for ruling her lands, and just kind of exists without much else going on. She still would have affected him a little, as she does to all humans in her world but it would have been almost entirely spiritual with no physical changes. And then we got the greatest fuck around and find out scene ever. He becomes a Dragon.

I love dragons, always have, I have a very deep spiritual connection to these creatures, and as such, I have gone all out on worldbuilding for Narnian Dragons. Again, the quote from AEOD, "...the closer you are to her Heart, the greater it is. I don't know where Dragons are. Perhaps closer than we realized." In the Inhuman AU, Dragons were the first creatures Narnia (the deity) and Aslan made when they created Narnia (the world). They just really liked the dragon shape from other worlds and thought, "Hey wouldn't it be cool if our world was populated by these big fire-breathing lizards?" Now I don't actually remember how often Dragons are mentioned and/or featured in the books so I'm going with my idea that Dragons are a somewhat rare but not extinct species. They have to be created through magical means, often through physical transformation of people or objects, though there are a few known cases of natural-born Narnian Dragons. Eustace's creation was the curse on the treasure, though I don't see his Dragoning as a curse itself. As in, the curse isn't in the being a Dragon, it's in how the Dragon was created. So, Eustace experiences this accidental change into a creature that's closer to Narnia's Heart than pretty much any other being in Narnia. They were her first creations, forged from the fire in the Stars, and they are the closest to her magic. And that gets her attention.

Now, if you went and read AEOD, you'll have noticed that one of Eustace's biggest changes (aside from the obvious physical ones) is his vision. This is just a natural thing for Dragons, they are far more in tune with magic and the earth and everything than everyone else, but Narnia's special interest in him definitely amplifies the hell out of his magic sense.

"The people here say dragons see the oddest of things, and he has to assume it's a hallucination....He refuses to give into its whims, reminds himself it's just his imagination. Until Reepicheep comments on it." - AEOD. Following this quote, Reepicheep mentions to Lucy that her inhumanity is returning faster than Edmund's and Eustace has a total panic attack at the idea that what he's seeing is real. He sees what everyone else does, Lucy's stained fingers and Edmund's ability to manipulate words, but he also notices stuff no one else does like the stars in Edmund's throat and the echoes that follow Lucy's words. This is further cemented after his UnDragoning, where the extra stuff he perceived has vanished. Now the general idea in this AU is that the closer to Narnia's Heart you are, the more you know and perceive. Everyone can see some of the more obvious inhuman aspects of the Pevensies, but there are things that only Dragons, druids, Stars, and some other magic folk really close to Narnia's Heart see. I'm not going to get into an exact chart of what certain characters can and cannot see because that can change over time and such and I'd rather leave it mostly up to personal interpretation on what other characters do and do not perceive about the Pevensies and other such inhuman characters.

(Side note—I had to pause in the writing of this post here to go to my second meeting for an autism assessment and I think if I just showed the doctor my notes app and the inhuman/dark fantasy narnia tag on my blog, I'd get the diagnosis instantly lol) So anyways, Narnia senses Eustace becoming a Dragon and is like "Ooohoo what's this?" and starts sort of digging into him in the same way she does to her Kings and Queens. This triggers his already enhanced perception of Narnia (the world) to get even stronger, and this is when he starts seeing stuff like people's souls, Caspian's second heart (more on that soon), and looking at Lucy/Edmund/Lilliandil becomes almost painful because Narnia's magic is so bright in them. Aslan then UnDragons him, which Narnia really doesn't like btw, and Eustace is back to being a fairly average human.

This is where stuff established in AEOD ends.

Now I have so many ideas and half finished fanfics written out in my notes app about Eustace, UnDragoning, and inhumanity and it would be impossible to cover them all here, so I'm just going to go with the highlights. One of my favorite ones is the idea that after Eustace's UnDragoning, he still feels very connected to being a dragon. He's had this taste of pure inhumanity, and something like that doesn't just leave a person. There's a fic I read once long before I was fully invested in this fandom about Eustace and draconity that I will never stop thinking about and was actually the reason I started considering Eustace and Narnian Dragons in this AU. One of the really important things to note is that once a Dragon is created, they can never be uncreated. They can be UnDragoned, where their physical form is returned to whatever it was before their Dragoning (a rock, a talisman, a faun, etc) but their soul has changed on a fundamental level to that of a Dragon. Now for Eustace in my Inhuman AU, this manifests spiritually as a deep longing to return to being a Dragon. Physically, he experiences fun side effects like increased heat tolerance, nails that grow faster than normal, and because Narnia likes to meddle, a single ridge of scales along his spine. In some versions of my drafts, he stays at the end of VOTDT and experiences a slow Dragoning because Narnia's influence on him is that strong, other versions he stays but never quite returns to the Dragon he was before, and in yet other versions, he returns to England and loses that connection enough that physically, he will never be a Dragon again. As I said, Narnia is fascinated by him, she's never really had a human Dragon before, but he is still just a random guy who happens to be related to the Pevensies and as such, she doesn't invest as much time or magic into his inhumanity.

So that's Eustace. This is already such a long post but I promised to talk about both him and Caspian so here we go.

Now, in my last post I talked a bit about how Narnia (the deity) affects the other humans in Narnia (the world) to an extent, but it's nowhere near the amount she does to her Kings and Queens, and also this diminishes more and more the farther you get from Narnia (the country). Telmar is fairly close to Narnia (the country) but as we see in PC, a lot of Narnia's magic and spirit has been diminished by the time Caspian is born. Up until the awakening of the land during the battle, Caspian is essentially 100% human. However, this changes very quickly.

It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment Caspian becomes a King of Narnia. Is it when he refuses to kill Miraz? Is it when Aslan tells him he's one? Is it during his actual coronation? Yes, yes, and yes. I try not to pin it down to an exact moment. By the end of PC though, he's definitely noticing some changes in himself. I have an unpublished part 2 to an exploration of Inhumanity (my only other actually posted fic on this stuff) that I swear I will clean up and get posted soon that goes into further detail on the changes he's noticing at the end of AEOI. Some of the big ones include a second golden heart, seeing some of the life magic in the world around him, and a golden glow on his palms. He also slowly develops the ability to heal, though it's not always consistent. Magic takes practice, lots and lots of practice. In pt 2, the glow on his palms has gotten so bright and also spread around his head like a halo, and Lucy shows him how to conceal it so he's not impossible to look at, but because of Magic™ there's still a dusting of golden powdery stuff across his skin. His blood turns golden because Ben Barnes + golden blood is such pretty imagery, and like the others, it gets sucked down and absorbed into Narnia's Heart when he bleeds in battle. Also when I say he's got a second heart I mean he's got a second fucking heart. Ribcage shift and all. (His appearance doesn't actually change, it's more like a pocket dimension thing going on inside him, but he sure as hell can feel it happening). Having Narnia as a patron goddess just means you have to put up with a second puberty sometimes lol.

Anyways, there's a line in AEOI that I feel explains this stuff really well. "He cannot truly protect the land without becoming a part of it himself." Narnia changes her Kings and Queens because she wants them to be a part of her. Aslan doesn't really see these changes as necessary (in canon, a world without deity Narnia, they don't happen), and if the storyline we pick is the one that's the constant cycle of humanity and inhumanity, it's sort of a push and pull between them. Aslan wants the Pevensies, and by proxy anyone else who rules Narnia or experiences these changes, to keep their humanity, to stay as they were Created by him. Narnia, however, wants them to be as much a part of her as she is of them. It's very clear in both the books and the movies that Narnia (the world) is where these characters belong. In the end, they all come home to her (yes, Susan too because fuck Mr. Clive Staples Lewis). Caspian being anything less than fully inhuman is something she cannot handle. She is constantly having to recreate the Pevensies, reestablish her hold on them, only to have them return to England and become mostly human again. Caspian cannot be taken away from her, he is in this world by birth and she is going to do everything she can to shape him into the ruler he needs to be.

Once again, I would like to state that Aslan and Narnia are not opposing sides of good and evil. Gods cannot be defined by human standards, and to think either Narnia or Aslan completely in the right or wrong in this AU would be, well, an interesting standpoint, but really not the one I'm going for here. I'm not going to say it's a misinterpretation, I am very open to hearing people's thoughts on this AU, and everyone's going to see things differently. Just, please reread what I've written about them before you start making that argument.

Anyways, that wraps this post up because I have spent the better part of the past 6 hours writing this. I spent way more time on Eustace than I intended but it's just so fascinating to think about inhumanity from his perspective considering he's the only one in canon that actually was (briefly) inhuman. Again, if you got this far, congratulations! If you use any of my ideas mentioned here, please tag me, I am so starved for inhuman Narnia content lol.

[heraldofzaun]

what are your thoughts on viktor and being neurodivergent? though like, obligatory disclaimer that if riot ever did come out and say that "hey! viktor is canonically [something]" that would be catastrophic but i think it is a little bit of fun for consideration

Oh! Well I like to think he's autistic, which is partially because I am too. (Of course in canon it would be catastrophic because haha, oh man, look at how they've treated Blitzcrank's biographies ever since they gave him an updated one. There's some coding in there, alright, and I am... not a fan...)

I’ve posted a lot of long posts recently (this is no exception) and this is also on a kind of tricky subject, so I’m readmore’ing it.

So anyways, while I have to admit that some of the reason why (my) Viktor is autistic is because I am - I think that you can make a general semi-convincing argument. Or I'm so wrapped up in my own interpretations that I can, at the least. Anyways, from here on out when I say Viktor I mean my personal take. Your mileage may vary on applying this to other interpretations.

(Also, thoughts on new lore Jayce's being kind of coded to be like, a stereotypical autistic dude? (If you have any I mean.) I don't like that Riot is doing it, of course, but I've seen a few good rehabilitative takes on it in fandom. @hamartio's Jayce springs to mind, because their Jayce has been developed over the years and also written by someone who like. Cares. Anyways, I have my own personal Jayce ideas that rely on his old lore so he's not really an asshole there, at least in those regards, so I don't really have many thoughts on new Jayce. I think new Viktor is... pretty coded as well, but it’s also insanely stereotypical. The whole “always working, always wants certainty, gets into automation not because he (primarily) wants to help those injured by catastrophes in Zaun but because the catastrophes interrupt his work” thing makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I’ll write sometime on why the rewrite of his lore fails, in my opinion, to hit upon the same themes of his first - would that be of interest to folks? Anyways, this parenthetical is too long.)

I think that autistic Viktor is cool and makes sense, somewhat because of the fact that the ways he goes about solving his problems are, er, unorthodox. (Of course I am not saying that the GE is because he’s autistic, because that’s stupid. This is why I’m kind of squirrely about talking so openly about what I think Viktor’s got going on, and why I don’t really trust if a non-autistic person headcanons him as autistic. There’s a lot of room for that headcanon to just reinforce the “autistic people are supergeniuses with no emotions that work based off of Facts and Logic” trope, and I hate that.) Since a lot of autism is about feeling adrift from/at odds with neurotypical society, I think that Viktor’s general solutions and also his idealistic leanings in the face of everything Zaun is tracks for that. Roboticization makes sense as a way to stop suffering and death, because it’s more achievable than individual feats of immortality through magic or whatever. Viktor doesn’t really get why people would be so opposed to it - he’s made it clear that while he dislikes his own emotions and wants them gone, he doesn’t expect others to cast off theirs. (Maybe he expected that when he was in the thick of his emotional pain, mostly because he couldn’t imagine others choosing differently than he at the time, but not in the current day.)

Of course, externally, when the scary cyborg man who admits to cutting off his own limbs says “no, being a robot is cool, you can keep your emotions even”, any Zaunite (or any person) is going to interpret that as “he is definitely lying”. Viktor doesn’t quite make that leap. (I have thoughts on the whole Theory of Mind concept and I don’t mean to say that Viktor can’t empathize - he does, and does too much - with others, but I think that in this instance he just can’t quite understand sometimes why people don’t believe him.) He also doesn’t quite get why people would be so attached to the bodies that they’re currently in, especially if he can make a mechanical replica. Or why people might want to die and pass into non-existence after a life well lived. (To him, personally, there’s always more to do. Also he’s terrified of death but that’s another topic.)

I also think that Viktor’s empathy is of the hyper- rather than hypo- kind, partially because I feel like outside of self-advocacy groups the mere concept of autistic hyperempathy is seen as like... impossible? It’s also because he generally seems to be kind of an emotional guy in canon before Stanwick, what with the lore saying that “almost no trace of the original man remained” in reference to Viktor reemerging as someone without emotions. That, combined with the fact that he was described as having a “hope to better society” before everything went down, kind of makes me believe that he was a naive idealist type. (Again, not that autism makes you naive, but...) But yes, hyperempathy. Hence "no pain, no wars, no suffering, no death” being part of his ideology for the Glorious Evolution. He gets pretty ripped up about people being hurt, and it’s really only gotten worse over the years as he’s grasped the full scope of pain in the world.

Personally, I write pre-Stanwick-incident Viktor as someone who is still somewhat awkward with expressing emotion, but it’s not due to him not having them. It’s due to the fact that the ways in which he naturally expressed them and in which he interacted with the world were just... seen as odd/different/etc. (I don’t think Runeterra has an autism diagnosis or particularly excellent psychology, even in Piltover and Zaun, so he just gets the “you’re a weird dude” treatment for his entire life.) Stimming or smiling a certain way or talking a lot about his interests or, you know, the general autistic existence is weird to most people around him, as it unfortunately is in real life. So he’s more reserved until you actually know him, because he’s just masking all the time. (Fun fact about my Viktor: he’s pretty expressive under that actual mask of his. It helps to not have to micromanage expressions all the time when he isn’t experiencing a bout of flat affect due to [gestures vaguely at everything else going on with his mental state], although he sometimes feels poorly about not being able to manage himself. But that’s his issues, and I think it’s good for him to show emotion.)

Side note - Stanwick was able to do such a number on Viktor due to: a) Stanwick being very charismatic and manipulative, on top of being an actually smart man and scientist - he’s really a great example of a “good Zaunite”, in the sense of being good at being what the culture rewards, b) Viktor actively dealing with the death of his parents and Stanwick being an older adult who’d treated him kindly and had never seemed put-off by Viktor’s oddities, and c) Viktor not realizing that he’d get backstabbed, because yes he knows that that happens in academia but Stanwick’s nice. Whether or not the outcomes would have been the same if Viktor were more competent at being “a good Zaunite”... well, probably not. Viktor ended up where he did because of who he is.

(Secondary side note: Viktor has a very strong and very black-and-white sense of what’s right and wrong, as well as general black-and-white thinking. You can see how that would have... not helped in the situations he was put through.)

This is getting kind of rambling, but I guess the point of this is that Viktor’s wanting to remove his emotions may be cloaked in the language of them being “inefficient” or “unhelpful”, which would feed into autistic stereotypes, but it’s really more of a matter of them being too painful and raw for him to process. He feels too much and hurts too much, and no amount of positive emotions in the world will (in his mind) make up for the pain he’s felt and will feel. So it’s better to not feel anything at all, isn’t it? At least then you aren’t overwhelmed by it all.

Viktor just hasn’t fit in with Zaun for all his life, really. Not as an odd child who can tell you all about science-fiction and techmaturgy, not as an odd and reserved teenager/young adult, not as a bright young doctoral student still dealing with grief but trying to make the best of it, and... not as the Machine Herald. But now he’s given up on trying to fit in, for better or for worse.

(Other miscellaneous and less serious autistic thoughts on him: generally a pretty fixed diet, partially due to being autistic but also due to what’s easily available in Zaun + what agrees with his stomach. A fan of weight and pressure - I like to think that the reason his outfit is like that is that he finds it comforting, and also that he has a weighted blanket or two around. Special interests of general techmaturgy, robotics, and science-fiction. He can talk for hours about any of those, and has. Both his parents were mildly spectrum-y, his mother a little bit moreso, so they just kinda assumed that him being him was out-of-the-ordinary and a bit strange but not something “horribly wrong”. Oh! And his third arm, which is under a little less conscious control than the rest of him, still stims sometimes when he’s working or otherwise not paying attention to it.)

This was very long and jumped around a lot, because I find it hard to give a convincing paragraph-by-paragraph argument about exactly why I think that Viktor is autistic, or rather why I headcanon him as such. But hopefully it was interesting! I just have a lot of thoughts on him, as well as the general state of autistic-coded or perceived-as-autistic-by-individuals (both allistic and autistic) characters in media and so it’s very hard to do anything concise without branching out into discussing other topics.

[arizona-trash-bag]

I can totally explain a bit of my thinking behind seeing lwj as autistic and wwx as autistic/adhd!! Before I get into specifics though, let me preface with where I’m coming from. I first saw CQL and then read the EXR translation of the novel. I prefer MDZS to CQL, but also want to acknowledge that because I do not read/speak Mandarin I am inherently experiencing this story second-hand and therefore am probably missing out on a lot of nuances. I am trying to learn Mandarin, but it will be a long time before I am even a little close to fluent lol.

Another preface- obviously not all autistic people present in the same way, and many of the things that I will mention are not solely specific to autistic people either. It’s one of those things where all of it added up together points towards asd, but each one individually would not on its own indicate asd, you know? Also, I will say that many of the things I picked up on for both characters are autistic traits that many autistic people have vs the clinical characteristics (much like most of the case I could make for wwx’s adhd would be adhd traits he has rather than symptoms that would lead to a real-world diagnosis.) Edit: OH! I almost forgot to say, that also all of these traits I’m listing are from a western perspective, and I would LOVE to read more about how autism presents in different cultures and to see conversations between autistc Chinese people specifically, so as to see if these traits are specific to western autistic people or not, but again, I do not speak Mandarin or Cantonese or any other Chinese dialect, so that’s a little inaccessible for me atm.

Ok, SO, for both characters I would list: strong sense of justice, lack of care for society’s opinion (I feel like it could be argued that lwj does to a certain point, but imo he operates more from what he morally considers to be correct and from a place of familial duty vs catering to the opinion of society at large), and then more vaguely, they both seem to be “nerdy” (this doesnt feel like the most accurate term, especially because it's not like being scholarly is specific to their characters, especially in ancient fantasy China- it’s more that their particular hmmm, flavor?? of love of knowledge feels very neurodivergent to me, vs like, being scholarly because it’s the thing that is expected of a Young Master, if that makes any sense at all- like the difference btwn someone getting an engineering degree because it is expected of them vs because they genuinely love engineering), and lastly for both- I would say that they are canonically kinky, and while I can’t cite any statistics, there’s a pretty high correlation between being autistic and being into kink. Obviously, not every person who is not vanilla is autistic, and not every autistic person is into kink…….but there is a high correlation.

For lwj specifically, the things that made me think he might be autistic are his lack of outward emoting combined with his depth and breadth of emotions, how he seems to thrive in and quite enjoy the very structured environment he grew up in, and then the last one off the top of my head (side note, I feel like a week from now I’m going to randomly think of other examples lol) I’m not actually sure IS an example, because I know (thanks to the awesome post from hunxi that you linked to that I had read previously) that his succintness does not equal autism, but I do kind of feel like it is very autistic to Always be so formal and to Always talk in textbook perfect language.

For wwx, I also think he likely has CPTSD! I’m not going to list anything for adhd or cptsd since we both agree on those :) As far as being autistic goes, there is, of course, the high prevalence of adhd/asd comorbidity. For specifc traits- while autism can show up as lack of facial expressions/tone, it can also show up as being overly exuberant and overexpressive. Especially for younger autistic children this can show up as being overly friendly/no boundaries w/ strangers (just?? going home with a random man who says he knew wwx’s parents???), making unusual connections that others do not can be both asd and adhd, his disregard for social status (disregard might be a strong word, and also I feel like this might be one of those things that got lost in translation and if I had read the original text I might have a different opinon, but what I mean here is the way that often autistic people learn certain social rules and try their best to follow them, but often do not pick up on specifics related to social hierarchy that are not spelled out for them- I think jyl’s take down of jin zixun is a great example of the /oppossite/ of what I’m talking about, and is a very neurotypical interaction. An example also of what I mean by disregard for social hierarchy, but from my own life, is how I’ve reflected on past convos w/ my boss only to realize that what I thought was just an interesting conversation about our opinons on a particular subject was actually them trying to tell-me-as-my-boss something they wanted me to do. We ended up doing things the way I wanted to do them because I didn’t realize that they were telling me to do something because they didnt explicitly say so, and because I just don’t pick up on when people are saying something from a social hierarchy pov. Idk if this makes sense or not, so I’m happy to try to expand if you would like me to. I feel like wwx could be described as having alexithymia, which is very common in autistic people, but could also be due to his cptsd. And then, I don’t feel like this is a true point because it is kind of based on headcanon? but wwx feels very demisexual to me, which is much more common for autistic people than it is for allistic people. But him being demi is not canon, just my perception of him (I see him as demisexual gay w/ massive comphet, but I know lots of people see him as bi, which also totally makes sense!!)

Tbh, I’m having a harder time than I thought I would listing wwx specifics. I might go through the book sometime this weekend and see if there are specific moments that pop out at me, but tbh w/ him its more that he Feels very adhd/asd to me?? Idk, I was diagnosed w/ adhd when I was 8, and all 4 of my siblings plus my father have offical adhd diagnoses. I’m 29 now and was only diagnosed as autistic earlier this year.  All of my close friends have always been either adhd, asd, or adhd/asd. There have been multiple people I have met that I’ve suspected were neurodivergent who have later told me they started looking into it and are now seeking formal diagnoses. I mention these things, only to give full context when I say that I have spent a lot of time observing the differences between interacting with neurotypicals and neurodivergents. I mean, obviously, it’s possible that I could just be projecting, but to me, Wwx gives off late-diagnosed/heavy masker autism/adhd combo vibes. Again, maybe I am projecting, but I did try to analyze whether I was or not previously, and determined that since in the past with other favorite characters (who I probably share more similarities in personality with) I did not feel like they were neurodivergent, so I figured that probably I wasn’t? That feels like a very convoluted sentence, but what I mean is that I have not thought that about other characters who have been my fav, so I figured that while I do project in certain areas that this particular area probably wasn’t one of them. Or, to say it in yet another way, since i did not project any of my neurodivergencies on past favorite characters, I figured I probably didn’t start doing so now.

I would love to hear more of your perspective on this, particularly because I worry that I do not have the cultural touchstones to realize when something wwx or lwj is doing is not actually a sign of being neurodivergent. I try my best to research things I don’t know about and to listen to fans who actually do have that cultural understanding, but there’s only so much I can look into on my own when I only speak/read english. And also, I love mdzs and I love talking about both adhd and autism, so I’m glad to talk about these subjects with someone else who also likes all of those topics :) Sorry for sending a book of a response and also I hope you are having a great day!!

wow wow wow anon THANK YOU for doing your research and acknowledging your blind spots you seriously made my day. I wanted to get to this as soon as I made that rant while sharing cyan’s post bc this is specifically an example of a well researched proposition based on actual lived experience and critical thinking.

I almost want to ask you to come forward so we can take this convo elsewhere for a more nuanced discussion bc you’ve already hit upon an issue that’s been holding me back from making a big blathering masterpost on the matter - that the ND experience is so unique and individual, and no one person can dictate someone else’s experience. at the end of the day, if you personally relate to these characters and gain more understanding of yourself and your experiences from them, who am I to take that away from you?

in a public space though I have to make the discussion very broad in order to accurately contextualize these issues, bc in typical autistic fashion I feel morally compelled to Do My Best and Get It Right even as the masses show no inclination of returning the favor, so apologies for the boring backstories I have to get out of the way before we can approach anything resembling new ground.

first from a diagnostic standpoint, while I recognize the traits you listed (and appreciate your clearly nuanced understanding of ND expressions) and would find value in exploring them in a personal context, they are not unique to adhd and/or autism and wouldn’t constitute a basis for diagnosis in a clinical setting. I know that's probably beside the point for this anon, but there's enough edgy teens hoarding labels out there without tacit encouragement from scientists (yes I am technically a scientist, even though my ideologies these days range from conventional to... wildly esoteric, shall we say)

from a cultural standpoint, it’s important for me to emphasize that the concept of neurodivergence is a uniquely western notion. for those unfamiliar, the term 'neurodiversity' was only coined in 1998. I was born in 1991. I existed for a whole 7 years as an autistic person before the idea of being neurodivergent was even a thing. this ND acceptance thing is very, very new - people were not making tiktok confessionals about their adhd diagnosis journeys when I was growing up.

china, like most asian countries, is about 20 years or more behind on just about every social issue compared with western countries. to better illustrate, the experience of being ND in china falls much closer to the conventional experience of disability (i.e. being eugenicized out of existence) than the tentative ND acceptance movement that’s been kickstarted in the past 20 years in the anglosphere.

safe to say, there is no ND coding going on in chinese media. characters are either explicitly ND or they're not. there's no basis for a creator subtly inducing ND-like traits in a character, because there's no such thing as ND awareness in the cultural context of where mdzs was written and consumed. any resemblance is purely accidental, as they say.

as to how this resemblance could exist - I could go into the layers and layers of historical, cultural, social and religious context that make up these characters and the xianxia genre as a whole. for this anon in particular i'm happy to, because they've done the work. please please get in touch in some way where we can have a fully fleshed out chat if you're interested in taking this further, I realize i’ve basically addressed none of the finer points you’ve raised but honestly it’s another level of discussion to be had that cannot be summarized in one blog post haha.

as for those who would scream 'but special interests!!' at a character whose sect was founded by a literal monk - what would be the point?

PS. to comprise a starting point for why it's possible to see ND4ND everywhere in media if you looked hard enough - I refer you to the seminal red oni blue oni trope 💁‍♀️

[whistlesanbells]

Community Headcanons

Just a random list of headcanons I have, organized by character (feat. A lot of Britta x Annie)

Jeff

I saw someone mention that Jeff might have an ED, and given what we see with his relationship with food, and how he is willing to go as far as to hurt himself to be the best at something (in this case be the best looking) it makes a lot of sense.

A lot of people headcanon Jeff as bi but honestly I just take him as cishet. He has many many issues but I don’t think sexuality is one of them, because half his personality is his attraction to every woman that breathes lmao

Exudes top energy but really the minute someone else tops him, he gets insecure for a bit but ends up really liking it.

Britta

Raging bisexual. I feel like she’s known for a long time, but never told the group because it would just be another thing for them to poke fun of about her.

In the same vein, I believe Britta’s parents were very homophobic, and that’s why she cut ties. I think she came out to them at a younger age and it was messy. It would make sense that she would refuse to tell the group why she didn’t get along with her parents: because she wasn’t ready to come out to the group yet. Instead it gets framed as her just rebelling for no reason.

We hear almost nothing about Britta’s past, except for a few offhand comments about a dinosaur-related trauma. Britta is incredibly quick to deny talking about her past, which led me to believe that she has some kind of trauma. Personally, I believe she was r*ped in her childhood, which would explain her extra effort to comfort troy when he lied about it. It would also explain why she is so fervently for women’s rights, especially when it has to do with bodily autonomy.

Dyslexic!Britta makes so much sense to me, because her parents were likely unsupportive, so she didn’t get much help or accommodations in school at a young age. This probably led to her habit of going out of her way to do poorly in a class so it looks like she’s just not trying, so she doesn’t have to face the reality that she never developed good study habits and she would have a lot of trouble in school even if she tried. Even though she doesn’t do well in school, she’s really smart, she’s just not great at articulating her points :))

She was a tomboy in elementary school before it was considered socially acceptable, and she was bullied ruthlessly for it. In her true, “stick it to the man” fashion, she never grew out of it.

Britta is terrified of Annie finding out that she won’t do well in school even if she DOES try, because she’s afraid Annie will lose respect for her.

Annie was the only one in the group she came out to, because she trusted her to keep a secret and not to judge. Annie asks her a LOT of questions, but Britta puts up with it.

Acts like a top, is really a bottom.

She has a crush on Annie from 21st century romanticism on, but never expresses it because she doesn’t want to make Annie uncomfortable.

Troy

Gay lmao

I definitely feel like he had a crush on abed around end of season 3/ beginning of season 4, but it was unreciprocated.

Troy has an inherent sensitivity that makes him the heart of the show, but it took a while for him to feel comfortable with that. I feel like he had a lot of parental pressure to be perfectly straight and masculine, since he was raised under a strict religion.

Troy never wanted to be an athlete. I believe he wasn’t allowed to explore his interests because he demonstrated talent for sports at a young age, and that’s what he was pressured to do for the rest of his life.

Troy doesn’t always understand how Abed functions, but he is always accepting, supportive and understanding. Instead of trying to understand how his brain works, he memorized the patterns of what bothers him and what doesn’t, and uses that to help his friend in the best way he can. It’s super sweet :))

Abed

Aro/ace Abed rights!! I haven’t seen this one as much, but I really like it. I genuinely don’t think abed has much interest in relationships, which has absolutely nothing to do with being neurodivergent. I think he feels pressure from the group to date, because that’s what they think is “normal.”

I LOVE Annie and Abed’s friendship but I definitely don’t ship them. Sure, they kissed once, but she was attracted to Han Solo, not abed. Annie was attracted to dean when he was actually like Jeff too, but she DEFINITELY wasn’t attracted to dean lmao. Instead, I think they’re both really close because they’re both neurodivergent, and Annie understands him more than anyone else in the group, albeit not entirely. They also have a special handshake you can see at the end of season one :)

This isn’t a headcanon but it’s *technically* never stated in the show but Abed definitely has autism. l DO headcanon that Annie has his safe foods written down in a list because she’s the only one who knows how to cook in the apartment, and she knows it’s important to him.

Abed has all of his friends’ likes and dislikes memorized and written down, as well as their birthdays, as a result of psychoanalyzing them. He gives the best birthday gifts and never forgets.

Definitely was the ACB (creds to film theory on that one)

Shirley

I don’t have a lot of theories for Shirley, because we see a lot of her personal story in canon. However, I do believe that she wasn’t always such a devout Christian. I think she was raised with Christian ideals, but it wasn’t central to her personality until Andre cheated on her. After she went though a dark period of (likely) alcoholism, I like to think that’s when she turned to Christianity, and it gave her hope. She loves it so much because it genuinely did save her from a bad time in her life.

I think she is a big part of the reason why Troy, Abed, Britta, and Annie are afraid to come out to the group. They assume she would never see them in the same light, when truth be told, she would love them all the same. I think she would be uncomfortable at first, but either she would come to the realization or britta would convince her that it is inherently Christian to love everyone, no matter what. Her motherly instincts take precedence over her Christian ideals.

Shirley views Annie as the daughter she never had, but is very careful not to tell her for fear of hurting her feelings. She very much enjoys helping her navigate college and seeing her mature. She also loves all their girl talk since this is the aspect of parenting that she doesn’t get with three boys. In the same vein, she loved teaching Britta how to have friends who are girls, and she likes to think she played a part in raising her.

Pierce

I don’t like pierce enough to psychoanalyze him lmao

Annie (saddle up, this is gonna be long)

Lesbiannie, obviously. Annie’s romantic tendancies SCREAM compulsive heterosexuality. Annie’s relationships with men are always schoolgirl crushes, and she even admits to abed that she never really liked Jeff, she just liked the idea that he was available and willing to love her. It also makes sense that she can’t stand the idea of not being perfect in every way, including heterosexual (because she confirms that her parents are bigoted and that’s likely what she was taught). I think she would have a lot of internalized homophobia, and she would be very insecure about her sexuality, seeing how she acted during the STD fair.

I would love to think Annie also had her first ever real, I like this person for themselves and not just because they’re attainable crush on Britta. She always looked up to her because she was so cool and far less uptight than she was, but as they grew closer, she saw her in a different light. I ship them hardcore lmao.

Annie has ADHD!! I could talk for hours about this, mostly because I have very similar struggles to Annie’s canon character arc (minus the drugs lmao) and it’s mostly due to my adhd. Long story short, she was likely raised undiagnosed until she discovered it herself, which led to trying adderall and overdoing it because she was unsupervised. She was likely very insecure about her ADHD, which led her to overcompensating academically. Because she masked so much in academic settings, it’s likely she didn’t have much of a social life because that’s where her symptoms presented themselves more.

In addition being friends with abed has made her far more comfortable unmasking. If you watch her in studies in modern movement you can see her stimming (flapping her hands, rocking back and forth and swinging her arms) way more than usual. She normally fidgets by fiddling with her fingers by her waist and pulling her elbows tight to her sides in a position suspiciously similar to raptor arms. Not only is this a common and discreet way to fidget, it is easily passed off as good posture. This makes sense, as it is Annie’s trademark resting position.

Annie reads YA books and a LOT of fanfiction for fun. The group expects her to be more well versed in classic literature, but the girl just loves her some vampires. It’s where she learned a LOT of her....dnd tricks ;).

Top energy that Jeff never let her use DEFINITELY comes out with Britta.

She helps Britta study and teaches her all the study habits she had to learn, and Britta’s grades improve a little bit!!

Switched to pantsuits because of britta, I like to think she had some influence on that.

Lost interest in Jeff after Basic Sandwich

Knew that Abed was the ACB the whole time, she definitely had it figured out in that binder lmao

Anyways enjoy, just figured I’d write this down somewhere haha

[skopostheorie]

Uhhhuhhhhh uhhhh how do u think it would go down if Imposter revealed his true face and his talent maybe perhaps <3? With ishimposter

CONGRATULATIONS YOUVE UNLOCKED MY AUTISM.

so here’s what i think. it appears from this line that ishimaru has an idea that imposter is not togami.

“to...togami-kun... no, i... whether that is the way to address you, i don’t know, but it doesn’t matter!”

my Pure Headcanon; what if this was not because of the way he looks (like we all know people aren’t able to tell them apart by looking) and rather because of the way he acted! because ishimaru says this right after imposter gives his dialogue about the baton right? which is why ishimaru got so emotional because it was so honourable (which i’ll GET to) . so basically ishimaru starts to realise over the course of the school year (before this festival) that sometimes when he talks to togami it isn’t actually togami. he spots imposter from a distance sometimes doing his Leadership Thing with his class and he’s like “huh. the real togami would never” and then he’s like “look at him leading his peers! it’s so admirable!! i love that!” and stuff. so he slowly starts to distinguish them and gains a huge respect for imposter. by the time this canon baton interaction occured it was like.... ishimaru had already Seen Imposter Around and thought he wss just so good and so when imposter addresses him he gets very emotional andbdfjghfjdfjdfgh. i promise this is going somewhere

SO BASICALLY AFTER THIS they actually become friends and stuff and idk how that friendship goes because when i daydream about it i may or may not just skip to the kissing. but they jsUT!! feel very similar because no one else really understands why they care so much about leadership and ensuring the safety of the group. but they DO ans it’s like woah!!! i feel seen for the first time!!! can we make out?? but they dont say that last part bcos tgheyr dumb. i PROMISE THIS IS GOING SOMEWHERE

but imposter feels HHHHHHHH! because when ishimaru is ranting about god knows what he always brings up something like honesty and staying true to one self. because the THING IS. THE THING IS. ishimaru is so EARNEST he is a little too honest. he sees someone walk past them and he’s like “do they know their outfit doesn’t match” and imposters like laughing inside because oh my god ishimaru don’t say that out loud. and when ishimaru says that no matter what anyone says you should not falter in who you are and your passions

it Hits imposter because. ah. Ah(tm). he like. sticks around ishimaru cuz it’s refreshing and he says things he knows he needs to hear but the longer it goes on the more he’s like? oh god i’m lying to this person. this person is the literal embodiment of honesty and im lying. To Him. ishimaru technically knows what imposters deal is and he just finds it kind of funny and assumes hes pretending to be togami for fun or something but imposters like This Is Bad. he’s nervouse. but in a way he starts feeling like he can tell ishimaru soon BECAUSE

ishimaru is v genuine and so he’s constantly talking abt HOW AMAZING AND MANLY IMPOSTER IS !!! LIKE WOAH!!!!! and yes that is trans rights also but thats not the point rifght now. like that baton thing? tip of the iceberg. imposter will be like “i tidied the gym” and ishimaru’s like YOU DID??? :’DDDDDDDDD CAN WE MAKE OUT except he doesnt say that last part because hes still dumb.

and imposter knows ishimaru means the truth but the thing is he KNOWS. togami isn’t known for being manly or one who looks out for his friends or anything that ishimaru goes on about. the thing is (hc time) imspoter chose togami of all people because he wanted to be admired. he’s never got to so much as live before but as togami byakuya he’s like!!!! the KING of sex! so rich and awesome! wow! and of course everyone at school is like “omg. youre the fuckign togami. so rich and powerful we love your fat cock”. and imposters like niiiiiice! except NO not nice because while the temporary validation makes him happy he feels empty! because he feels it cant compare to the real him! and ishimaru values him for things that are ACTUALLY who imposter is and what his real qualities are!

and so imposter has this new feeling that maybe he’s worth something?????? like hell ishimaru couldn’t lie if he tried so that’s pretty epic. and so while he kinda feels like hell for lying to ishimaru because they’re pining at this point . but he’s kinda like?? excited in a way? like i finally feel like maybe my real self is worth something! as me! and he’s hoping that maybe ishimaru will like that person too??? oogoohohoh wow segsy.

so one day theyre like. idk. studying maybe . because they’re still pining and it’s actually a date like look at this dialogue you KNWO this is romantic asfuck

“ILL MAKE AN EXCEPTION TO DO IT WITH YOU” BRO WHAT ???????? /CRYING

and imposters like you Know what. Fine. and he tells ishimaru his life story. ishimaru is unsuprised at the premise because he’s a Clever Cookie >:) and knew it wasn’t togami but he’s jsut. so touched by imposters story. because oh my god. no one should feel worthles s there is no reasson especaily someone as beautiful and sexy as imposter????? he doesnt say the sexy part

like this for example. ishimaru FREAKS IT LIKE wow!!!!!! anti corruption king!!! and imposters like haha yeah i hate money and such B) ishimarus  liieke oh ym god youre even sexieer now.

and then they kiss or somethign idk im not a fag bye.

[princesssarisa]

Assorted thoughts on “Little Women”

 In no particular order.

*I’m glad I waited this long to read the original, unabridged novel. If I had read it as a teen or a preteen, I just might have followed countless girl readers’ example of having a crush on Laurie and being angry that Jo doesn’t marry him. Reading it now, I’m able to see him as the well-rounded, likable yet flawed character he is, not just as a girl’s prize, and realize that while he and Jo have a beautiful friendship, they wouldn’t have worked as a couple. The canon pairings of Jo/Friedrich and Amy/Laurie are the right ones.

*About the controversial issue of the characters’ ambitions... None of the young leads achieve their childhood dreams in the end; Alcott’s intended message was clearly  “We don’t always achieve our dreams, but life can still be happy in ways we never expected.” That’s all well and good. But apart from Meg’s gender-neutral dream of being rich, the characters’ “castles in the air” are all in defiance of their expected gender roles: Jo wants to be a famous author and Amy a famous artist, two fields normally reserved for men, while Laurie wants to be a composer instead of going into his grandfather’s business. And all three of their endings are distinctly more gender-conforming: Jo becomes a schoolmistress, Amy becomes a society lady, both become wives and mothers, and Laurie goes into business “like a man.” I think it’s fair for modern readers to be disappointed by that conformity, even while appreciating the realistic message about childhood dreams. Those feelings aren’t mutually exclusive. For modern audiences, I think the standard adaptational change of Jo publishing her own version of Little Women at the end (instead of 20 years later in the last sequel) is a good change.

*About Jo needing to control her temper... I understand why this annoys some feminists. So often women are expected to suppress all anger and never stand up for themselves. Maybe it is problematic that role model Marmee explicitly never shows her anger, but only purses her lips and leaves the room. But personally, I think it’s presented in a healthy, gender-neutral way. Jo’s anger isn’t a problem because it’s “unseemly” or “unfeminine,” but because it can lead her to do cruel things to others. The mistake that teaches her the lesson in “Jo Meets Appolyon,” letting Amy skate on the thin ice, isn’t a loud, aggressive act of rage, but a cold, silent act (or rather inaction) of spite. Besides “control your temper” doesn’t mean “never stand up for yourself.” The book has several examples of women calmly yet firmly calling out other people’s bad behavior (most often Laurie’s ^–^) and it’s portrayed as entirely right. And though it’s tempting to be annoyed by Mr. March putting his finger to his lips when he sees his wife starting to get angry, it’s also a nice subversion of gender stereotypes to see a marriage where the husband is gentler by nature than his wife and is a calming influence on her. Stereotypical couples are the other way around.

*As a person on the autism spectrum, I relate strongly to Beth. I fully embrace the headcanon that Beth herself is autistic and that Lizzie Alcott might have been diagnosed as such if she had lived today. So it hurts a little to see other readers call Beth “boring,” “annoying,” a “doormat” and “the worst of the sisters.” Although she is idealized because she was Alcott’s tribute to her dead little sister, she’s not the cardboard cutout of bland feminine virtue she’s so often been stereotyped as being. It’s clear from the start that Beth isn’t “normal,” either by our standards or by past ones. Her crippling shyness isn’t just “sweet Victorian modesty,” but portrayed as a real flaw that she struggles to overcome. She’s been homeschooled because as a child her social anxiety made regular school unbearable for her. She still plays with dolls, believes in Santa Claus and has imaginary friends at age 13. She has no desire to get married, or to have any kind of career, or ever to leave her parents’ house. And because of all this, she clearly has a low opinion of herself: hence she tells Jo that she was never meant to live long, because she would never have been anything but “stupid little Beth, trotting about at home.” But the narrative belies her words. In both of her illnesses, so many people rally around her and reveal how much they love her and how valuable her quiet kindness has been in their lives. Ultimately she dies in peace because she realizes her life hasn’t been worthless after all. With my own social struggles, my tendency to be “younger than my years,” and my own desire to have a quiet life close to my family instead of going out into the big, overwhelming world and doing big, overwhelming things, I find her storyline beautiful, because it gives me hope that my life is just as valuable as anyone else’s.

*I also relate to Jo, as so many readers do. The result is that I’m of two minds of the chapters “Calls” and “Consequences.” On the one hand, there’s no doubt that Jo is at fault in those chapters and does more-or-less deserves to lose the trip to Europe. She’s genuinely, purposefully rude to her aunts and to the other people they visit and she humiliates Amy and harms her social life – at the subsequent fair, the Chesters ban Amy from the art table because Jo insulted them. Plus the only reason why she has to join Amy in the calls in the first place is because she promised she would, so it’s hypocritical of her to whine about it. But on the other hand, I do empathize with Jo. With my own my social difficulties, I relate to her hating formal occasions where she has to dress up, mind her manners, make small talk about topics that don’t interest her with people she dislikes, and always be “agreeable” and “docile.” For Jo and for so many of us, it’s so hard to be that way, yet it’s the mold that all women were expected to stuff themselves into in the 19th century and to an extent still are today. Amy is lucky that she enjoys playing that social game and that it comes naturally to her. So it’s easy to sympathize with Jo’s envy when Amy is chosen to go to Europe, to feel as if Amy is rewarded for her social conformity while Jo is punished for failing to conform, and to feel as if the message is that all girls should conform like Amy. Fortunately, the book as a whole doesn’t send that message: even Amy achieves her ultimate happiness by letting herself be a bit more like Jo and call Laurie out on his laziness and apathy, when back in “Calls” she had argued that a lady should never show disapproval to a man.

*I don’t understand why some commentators think the chapter “On the Shelf” is so horribly sexist. Well, actually, I do. It’s tempting to find fault with John for being “jealous” that Meg is focusing more on their babies than on him and for “neglecting” Meg and spending carefree evenings out while she slaves away with the twins. And for Meg to be told by her mother that this is her own fault for “neglecting her duty to her husband” understandably rankles some feminists. But I honestly don’t think there’s any real problem. Meg genuinely neglects John and overtaxes herself by devoting every waking minute to the twins and letting neither John nor anyone else help her, because she’s afraid that otherwise she’ll be a bad mother. John isn’t jealous of the babies, he understandably feels ignored and useless. Nor (despite what some critics think) does he cheat on Meg, or want to. He just goes to a friend’s house rather than sit alone at home; Meg’s fear that his eye is roving to Mrs. Scott is just a product of her own stress. The resolution is arguably just the opposite of sexist: Meg finally lets John take an equal share of child-rearing duties, lets Hannah babysit often so they can both have time for themselves too, and steps out of her domestic sphere to share talks with John about politics, literature, etc. By the end of the chapter, their marriage is more egalitarian than ever.

*I’d like to read a fanfic where Jo meets Rodolfo from La Bohéme. I wouldn’t ship them, since they’re even more “too much alike” than Jo and Laurie are, but I’d like to see them meet. They’re both lively, passionate, temperamental ENFP writers, whose minds are full of “castles in the air” (they both use that exact phrase), yet whose lives both turn out differently than they had hoped, although Jo’s outcome is much happier. Both also adore a sweet, gentle, sickly young girl (Jo’s sister Beth/Rodolfo’s love interest Mimí) whose death they both regard as the end of their own youth. Furthermore, both of their authors modeled them after themselves. Jo is more down-to-earth than Rodolfo, though, and I’m not sure if they’d be friends or hate each other – Jo would definitely be indignant to learn how Rodolfo emotionally abused and broke up with Mimí because he couldn’t bear to watch her die, when she herself nursed Beth day and night through both of her illnesses and never left her side. But it would be an interesting meeting.

@fairychamber, @thatvermilionflycatcher

[child-of-peace]

So I was watching Fitzsimmons clips on YouTube, and noticed a scene I had quite forgotten existed (given that I watched the first season in one day with my friends, it’s no surprise I didn’t remember this part) but I wanted to talk a bit about 1x20. (This will be an in-depth Fitz-centric analysis of that scene, just to let you know.)

I’d like to make clear from the outset, this is completely my own opinion based on my own experiences. Other people may read the scene differently and that is completely their own opinion and I respect that.

I’m autistic myself and I headcanon that both Jemma and Fitz are autistic too (though really it should be canon with all the signs they’ve given us throughout the show). The clip I saw was of Fitz very clearly having a meltdown, but because the video I was watching was only about Fitzsimmons + every time they say each other’s names, the clip only showed a couple of seconds of it. So I found the episode in question and looked for the scene.

For anyone who plans to watch the show and has not already seen this episode or heard any spoilers for it (though how you’ve managed to avoid spoilers, I have no clue!), I’m about to reveal one of the biggest spoilers for Season 1, so maybe just scroll past this post.

Anyway, so in the scene we see Fitz, Coulson and Trip standing by whilst Jemma is doing an autopsy on the dude who, as this scene later reveals was killed by Ward. Fitz clearly saw Ward as a big brother kind of figure and as we all know, was unwilling to believe Ward was capable of this.

Throughout the early parts of the scene, Fitz is displaying some of the “signs of distress” (as noted by the National Autistic Society) which can be seen as a precursor to a meltdown: pacing, repetitive questioning and even, as Jemma is giving her report, going completely still. Also, when he talks to Trip and Trip puts his hand on Fitz’s shoulder (terrible decision), Fitz pushes him away saying “Don’t touch me.” (This likely would’ve made Fitz more overwhelmed because contact can be Bad especially from a near stranger when you’re close to/having a meltdown.)

The meltdown itself doesn’t hit until Jemma says “Ward did this.” You can see beforehand, she is hesitant to say anything, partially because she can tell Fitz is getting overwhelmed, but she has a job to do. The next moment, Fitz flings something metal across the room and pushes everything off the nearby surface, because this information is too much, because it’s bad, bad, bad and he’s overwhelmed.

Jemma knows what’s going on. Of course she does. They’ve been best friends for eight years by this point, this is certainly not the first meltdown either of them have had in front of each other. Each autistic person has their own rules about what works for them and what doesn’t when they’re having a meltdown. So Fitzsimmons probably have a routine, little things they do to calm each other down, such as the hand-on-shoulder thing which they do all the time to comfort one another. The hand-on-shoulder thing in and of itself is important because it’s a somewhat safe place to touch and familiar for them and if the comforted party needs more, they can go for a hug, if that’s enough, they can put their hand on the comforter’s and if it’s too much, they can easily move away. This shows they have their rituals.

Whilst Coulson and Trip are shocked at Fitz’s “sudden” outburst, Jemma gasps at the noise, but then immediately steps towards him. She knows what she’s doing. She calls out his name, and when he starts hitting the wall (which is something that will cause him pain), she reaches for him (this is a bad idea unless you are sure the other person is comfortable with it) and she tries to stop him from hurting himself by moving him away from the wall.

Here’s where it goes wrong. Now to be clear, I don’t think that’s through any fault of the writers or the actors here, but rather, the reaction from a neurotypical (or at the very least allistic) character is very real and true to what can happen in real life, and therein lies the problem. Coulson gets involved.

Coulson clearly views this as a fit of rage or something to that effect, and therefore, his reaction is to treat Fitz as a younger colleague who has lost control of his emotions due to anger and is now acting out, rather than recognising what Jemma does: that Fitz is not okay. When Fitz leans over the table, Jemma puts her hand on his shoulder; familiar, safe. But then Coulson is there, by his side, saying, “We need to hold it together, listen” as though this is something that Fitz can control, like all he needs to do is put a lid on his “temper”; bad, bad, bad.

To hear this as a response to a meltdown will not help you to calm down. It’ll only make you more stressed. This is shown when Fitz, after Coulson says this, hits out, knocking something else off the table. Jemma’s crying. She doesn’t know how to help Fitz because this is their boss stood in front of them, and what can she say in front of him. She can’t tell him to back off and give Fitz space. She can’t tell him that he’s not helping. All she can do is watch as her best friend struggles. The only support she can offer is her hand on his shoulder.

“All that anger, all that pain, you need to hold it in and focus on Skye.” Pain, yes. Anger, no. He’s not angry. He’s overwhelmed. Holding it in won’t help and is certainly not healthy at all for him. And as for focusing, it is so hard to focus on something else when your brain is still struggling to process one piece of information. And Coulson doesn’t stop talking, doesn’t stop trying to “motivate” Fitz into redirecting his “anger”. And when Fitz doesn’t respond, because he’s trying to calm himself down so that he doesn’t feel like he’s a hindrance to his team like his father probably led him to believe, Coulson grabs his shoulder (not roughly) and pulls him up so that Fitz will look at him. Fitz lets him, because what else can he do, this is his superior and his father most likely drilled some bullshit into his mind before he was ten, but he doesn’t look at Coulson’s face.

Fitz, in his overwhelmed state, cannot stand to make eye contact or even attempt to pretend to make eye contact. Instead, he averts his gaze, keeping it low, as Coulson tells him what he needs from him. Then Fitz meets Coulson’s eyes when Coulson says “can you do that?” To a neurotypical, maybe this sounds like an “I need you to do this for me, cool?” (I wouldn’t know) but from an autistic perspective, this sounds like “are you capable of doing that?”. This, therefore, to Fitz sounds like Coulson is saying “your autism is getting in the way of your work and your inability to maintain the standards a neurotypical would be able to maintain makes me question whether or not you are suitable for this job”. Of course, that isn’t what Coulson is trying to say, but for Fitz? Fitz, whose father called him stupid and incapable when he was young. Fitz, whose peers mocked and isolated him. Fitz, who struggles to open up and forces himself into being someone else around NTs because, in his experience, they don’t understand him and many won’t even try. Fitz takes this as a reprimand.

So he nods, because he can’t speak right now, but he’ll be the person they need right now. Because if he isn’t, will they give up on him? Fitz leaves the room, head hung low, Jemma just behind him.

There is no follow-up to this scene, but I imagine that, when it was just him and Jemma, his meltdown struck properly. And, as far as I can remember (which apparently isn’t very far), he doesn’t have a meltdown like this in front of his team again (with the exception of Jemma’s disappearance, when he lost the one person who understood him/the love of his life, but even then, with witnesses, his meltdowns seem contained), most likely a result of this and the trauma he still carries from his childhood.

You can find the scene in question on YouTube here.

TL;DR: In my opinion, Jemma’s interaction with Fitz during his meltdown in this scene was based on years of friendship and trust and actually listening to what he needs. Coulson’s interactions with Fitz, while well-meaning, were probably more damaging than helpful. If you have an autistic friend/family member, find out what their specific needs are when they have a meltdown, and try to keep a calm voice and don’t overwhelm them.

I’d like to make clear here, that I love Coulson as a character, I just think he reacted badly in this scene because he didn’t recognise what was happening. Plus, Coulson is completely justified in wanting to help Daisy (Skye), but he’d have better luck if he let Fitz calm down and sort his thoughts out first!

[princesskokichi]

soda, byakuya, rantaro, and ibuki with a s/o with adhd

i think i understood your ask ! however, i’m only going to write headcanons with a s / o with adhd because i tried writing the original ask and i felt like i wasn’t doing the adhd community justice with the way i described some things in the original way i wrote it. 

also, i didn’t specify that the s / o is nonbinary because my headcanons are usually with a nonbinary / non-gender specific character already ! so i just went with my normal writing form.

if i still did the adhd community wrong with anything i wrote, please let me know so i can edit it ! i don’t want to offend anyone or write any misconceptions since i’m not the most knowledgeable in a lot of disorders.  - mod kokichi

[ S O D A ]

- soda honestly paid no attention to how wild you could be some times

- i mean, its just you ??? you're allowed to do what you want ??

- he is a simp and would not stop you from doing anything

- before you were even dating, you warned him about your adhd diagnosis by the doctor

- his exact words were " oh, alright. cool. do you want to learn about cars ? i could use someone with a lot of energy to help out. "

- you did, indeed, learn about cars, or at least learned enough to help him out

- and you do help him out with whatever project he's always working on

- and you must say, it's rather fun

- it's something to get your attention on, and it's fun to hang out with your boyfriend like this

- so most of the time you were kept with something to grab your attention

- however, not every day can there be something to grasp your attention, and on those days, you really start to worry about yourself

- you sometimes can get so bored that you feel like your trapped in the house, even when you're able to go outside at any time

- soda is pretty good at finding something to do, being a rather energetic person as well

- so even when you actually are stuck at home, he can usually find something to do to keep you afloat

- he really doesn't think about your adhd being a disorder, he just finds you to have a rambunctious personality

- honestly most of the time when you're begging for his attention out of boredom, it doesn't even cross his mind that your adhd might be acting up.

- he just gives you what you want most of the time, and it's great

[ B Y A K U Y A ]

- okay, i have to be real here

- at first, when he met you for the first time, he thought you were really annoying

- your personality is completely opposite of who he is as a person

- and he found the way you acted to be strange

- but after spending a little time with you, he learned strange wasn't a terrible thing

- he means the best most of the time

- even when he has a headache, and doesn't want to deal with anyone

- he'll still make sure that you're okay where you are

- he seriously has a little station in his office just for you to hang out in when you get bored of watching him do paperwork

- it consists of a computer that chihiro helped him install with things that would stimulate your adhd and keep your attention on it

- a few stimulation toys ( i don't know if they're used with adhd, but i use them a lot for my autism )

- and some books he knows you like to read

- so you won't be too bored when accompanying him to the office

- everything he does may seem to be slightly degrading, like scolding you for walking to the park on your own

- but he really means just to take care of you in his own way

- relationships, in general, are something that he struggles with, so when you add on adhd that needs constant stimulation, he gets a little stressed out sometimes

- just like how he tries not to get upset with you, you have to be patient with him

- he is constantly trying to be the person you need him to be, with small steps

[ R A N T A R O ]

- he was fully aware you were hyperactive way before you even told him you had adhd

- so whenever he's around you, he prepares for a wild ride

- it's rather out of his personality to be constantly doing something

- he's a man who likes his peace and quiet sometimes, which is okay

- rantaro has no problem finding something for you to do or giving you attention when you really need it

- he almost takes care of you like you're a child in a way ??

- but he does it out of love i swear

- he kind of treats you like he does his sisters

- purely because that's how he learned how to take care of everyone

- after you admit to him that you have adhd, he'd be a little more attentive to your needs

- he'd be the kind of guy who goes outside with you just so you two can walk to the park together

- he really likes how your personality is almost starchly different from his own

- and thinks that you two work together really well

- even if you didn't have adhd, he would still make sure you had a good relationship with his sisters

- but it's even better when you have adhd because they all love how playful and fun you can be

- on your worst days, he's there to take care of you if you need him too

- not everything is always so pretty and he's aware of that

- he communicates with you all the time to make sure that you feel comfortable around him and that he was doing the right things when he's taking care of you

- he lowkey enjoys when you come up to him with a random idea in your head that you have to get done right. now.

- he just thinks you balance him out really well

[ I B U K I ]

- adhd ?? what's that ?

- at first, she had no idea what you were talking about when you explained to your girlfriend about your diagnosis

- ibuki believed it just made you hyper sometimes,

- and that was okay because she was hyper too !!

- i headcanon her with adhd as well, but she just doesn't know what it is really

- she's not really good with medical stuff and things like that, so she doesn't really think too much about it

- or, at all, really

- she's always got something steaming in her head, and almost never do you spend a boring day

- so she's really good at keeping you stimulated with your surroundings instead of bored

- however, upon request after a particularly wild concert that left you with a ringing in your ears and a headache for the rest of the day

- she does make sure not to OVERstimulate you

- she would ask if you were okay with everything before, during, and after whatever she has planned that day if it's going to be wild

- just to make sure you were safe, because she's pretty bad at consoling

- but really good at taking your attention away from negative thoughts

- she wants you to have lots of fun and be safe at the same time, so she really likes to bring you along on her adventures no matter what time it is in the day

- she finds you really fun to be around !!!

- especially when you're the one who initiates something fun during the day

- she'll also listen to every one of your rants because !! you're just so smart ?

- she never would have thought of some of the things you do, and she's always amazed

- you have her entire heart, basically.

[fiore-rosewood9]

14 and 23?

Thank you for the ask kind tumbrl-er. Before I start I would like to mention that anything I say is related to personal experiences in a fandom and there is no right or wrong answer. People come in all shapes and sizes and that also means - Different sets of experience.

TRIGGER WARNING - Mentions of slurs, r*pe, p*dophilia, creepy behavior, mentions of psychological analysis on a character, personal experiences with fandoms and a long rant. If any of these disturb you, please refrain from reading this and skip this post. This is not meant to cause drama, but I had to involve them to explain my point. I also mention sensitive topics like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 9/11 and the r*pe of Nanking, if you are related to any of these or have someone you know who died during this time, please refrain from reading, because I was extremely emotional and cried a bit while I wrote these, because what I wrote still has an effect on me.

Again, this is not meant to bash/hate on any ship mentioned here.

This is not meant as a personal attack for anyone who ships these. Also this may be a rant, I apologize for writing a whole novel and not a short answer, but I feel passionate about what I write here. This is going to be a really long post, so I do not blame you if you don't read all of it. I am going to mention a lot of things that are not related to the ships, but they do have significance in my mind and are related to my rant. With that out of the way, my answer is under the cut -

14 - Has a fanbase ever made you ship or not ship something? Why?

Yeah, I have been forced and threatened to ship certain things, via texts which made me leave certain fandoms. Hetalia is a cespool simply because I have been in it 8-9 years and can speak confidently about what happened to me. I thought the hate and immature fans in hetalia all left by the time it was 2016-17 but nope, there are still bad apples here and there. I just try to tell them I am not here for childish games and I am not here to debate which ship is the ''best'' since that is what certain people did all the way back in 2013. I am here just to enjoy my self and reblog fan art and headcanons and talk about hetalia and other fandoms and appreciate the manga/anime.

- Ciel x Sebastien (Sebastien is just there for Ciel's soul) I mean he does care for him in some aspect and I think he said something like - "I will always be with you til the day you die, my lord". There is a normal age gap between adults, and then there is lowkey p*dophilia. How old was Ciel anyway ? 12-13? Even though he is a teen, at this age people are not really mature in many aspects. I have collegues who have what you may call ''Sugar daddies'' in the west and let me tell you, they don't really act nice to their sugar babies. Unless it is some sort of consensual sex roleplay and you are living in a fantasy with your partner, most girls and boys I see feel ''trapped'' by their words.

The sugar daddy (In rare cases mummy) exploites them for attention and tends to lash out if the baby looks at their phone and doesn't pay 100 percent attention to them and tries to buy their attention which is simply wrong. Okay, I moved way offtopic, but certain ships kinda remind me of this unhealthy dynamic in a way. I know my opinion isn't worth shit since this is the internet and everyone thinks they're the next new hot thing around here but I just see them as servent and master and more like frenemies where Sebastien would do anything for Ciel, but you see, that is kinda his job. Just like how doctors act professional and it is their job to cure/heal you if you have some sort of pain.

- Izuku Midoriya x Bakugou Katuski - (I was in this fandom for a short time and only watched up to a certain season so please excuse me if I what I say is not accurate, this is also a long rant so you can skip if you want, in the last two paragraphs I explain about the pairing speciffically) So like from what I remember Katsuki is a bully. I really despise this ship, purely because bullying to me is not something cutesy and fun that people do. It makes you wish you kill your self faster because self harm no longer works. There was this weird person on tumbrl that sent me hate through tumbrl and I made a post about them, how I was a ''bad person'' for hating on this ship. I mean, I am allowed to dislike and even hate what I want. It is not you who has went through trauma and has CPTSD is it? In my high school, even though it was an economical one, except learning Economics, Accounting, Finances and other stuff I also got to learn things like Psychology, Ethics, History and Geography.

And each subject is tough, as in - You can't pass high school if you don't know the details. Except the book that we used in school that we learnt our lessons from, we were also made to carry two other books that we used for exercises, and other than that we had books that were by different authors, we had to read, but they didn't lift our grade in any way. So I have learnt psychology and world history for 4 years in high school and I learnt world history and world geography for 3 years in middle school. And now the first year in Uni, I got to learn psychology for year too. They also made us buy 9-10 books by different psychologists and write about them. From what I hear from my americans friends and collegues, they kinda don't teach you world history, it is like unless you know all of Thomas Jefferson's favourite foods you will be failed. I don't know if this is true, but judging by how they teach what Communism and Socialism is, in the american schools, I am kinda losing hope for what americans actually know about the outside world, aka, anything that is not the US and Canada.

I am not a psychologist and I have never studied to be one, but my own problems and the problems of my family and friends made me start reading even before high school in order to self improve as a human being because I have - Fatal flaws. I also have a few mental illnesses whcih have been diagnosed by psychiatrists, but where I live, mental health and the lgbtq+ is extremely shamed. This is why I never tell anyone I go to a psychologist, because people don't understand you and laugh at you and shame you. The lgbtq is harassed and can't marry or adopt children, however, this somehow is not a hatecrime. Which extremely frustrates me since this is against human rights in my book. You can't just harass a person for their sexuality. I may not have a phd in psychology but I naturally tend to help people and listen to their problems. It seems that I also give good advice and help people well, so sometimes in friend groups I am know as the ''heart'' and the ''psychologist''. I say that because I know a lot more than 4-5 articles that I read on psychology today, healthline or verywellmind, while people nowdays read a few articles and call them selves a psychologist. I am not one, but have the skills and knowledge to be one and can spot articles with old outdated information that hasn't been relevant in the past 30 years or so.

But that is the majority of people, who concider it a mental illness and base the lgbtq on what stereotypes they see on TV and what their parents told them. The internet is made for global use and that means that anyone can write all kinds of shit and use it. However there are a lot of problems with this when it comes to psychology and psychologists and psychriatrists. Many people still believe myths and things that were proven to be wrong. For example, in my country the word - Autist/Autistic, can be used as a slur, it is similar to what the Americans have in the - N and R words. And this is extremely upsetting, because while I am not on the spectrum, I don't think anyone should be degraded and be shamed of this label. Autism is a spectrum, but here it is used to signify that someone is slow. They're not slow, their brain just works differently. But that can be used for other illneses too. I think anyone suffering from mental illness deserves the support of family and friends and a normal life. I think anyone who is a decent and kind human being deserves a peaceful life.

So in real life Bakugou x Izuku would be a crap pairing. Because bullies x their victims do not mix well. Bullies in real life are cowards. They're like predators in the jungle. They are not real leaders. They always settle for someone who is clearly weak and vulnerable (This case - Izuku has no quirks and is useless in their world) so being beaten up, emotionally and verbally bullied isn't really fun. On top of that, when a bully develops an unhealthy dynamic, other people of the group, who never oroginally bullied the victim and were neutral or even friends, go and bully the victim, because they can and they will. Usually victims are powerless and telling the teacher and sometimes beating up the bully doesn't really make the bully leave you alone and respect you. And sometimes, you end up in the hospital with a broken leg and an arm and small injuries in your chest because bullies can't handle anyone standing up to them and ruining their status. Bullies have extreme, neurotic fear of being alone, so they find other assholes and bitches like them and attack always people - Who never did anything to them to insult them.

The bullies create it them selves. No one is an easy victim, not the person who wears glasses, not the anorexic girl that sits on the first desk, not the boy in a wheel chair, not the man with a stutter, not the woman covered in scars, no one. It is also a fact that schools profit from bullies since bullies usually have rich parents that think their child is somr sort of angel when in reality their child loves to make others cry and hits them when they don't get what they want. The problem with bullies is that they are hard to stop. Sometimes telling them off works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes punching them works, sometimes it doesn't. Etc. We can't predict which bully is bluffing and which bully is serious and will beat you up. They do not realize or care that they hurt their victims, even if the victim becomes a millionaire, to them, this person will always be inferior weakling that they need to torture psychologically and make them cry. They're sadistic. Bakugou from what I remember became jealous and only stopped bullying Izuku when he became ''strong'' that means strong physically. And for boys, it is generally easier, you hit the gym and no one bullies you. But what if you are a girl? I don't see girls being more respected or feared for being muscular. It is kinda like the jock x nerd. Cute in theory, but in reality it is beyond abusive. Even if the victims kill them selves bullies do not care. They just move on to another victim and are proud that they broke someone and are not as weak as them.

America x England - (OOOOH BOY, HOW MUCH DO I WANT TO BE CANCELED, HAHA) Well, as someone who has been 9 years in this fandom, I have a long history with this pairing. I do not know if I ever explained why do I hate it so much? I have a long and complicated history with it. This where my inner historian comes in. My uncle is a professor in history, but not in our city and we are not very close but I was always interested in history, but now I am a bit skeptical when it comes to history, because you never know how someone can twist it since history is written by the winners. Whatever I say in this post, is not meant to cause drama or offend anyone. From now on I am going to use, vulgar language and this may not be suitable for some readers

This is not meant to be hateful towards people who ship it, but I hate this ship, with passion. This has to be the worst ship, in the fandom history, ever. If you want, feel free to block me if that triggers you. I don't know from where to begin, since I am going to get canceled if I speak my own personal truth and my experiences. I have read the manga when I was 13-14 and have matured since then. The hetalia fandom in the past was more different than in 2021. So like there were ship wars, fan arts, roleplaying, everyone cosplayed hetalia and homestuck since they were the biggest fandoms, Carley Rae Japsean's song Call me maybe was blasting on the radio, Gagnam style was the shit and life was good. I was young, naive, full of hope and looking for fandoms to join in, since it is was a relativly new concept for me. I did not know what these cutesy boys I saw on deviant art were so I decided to scroll down through the comments to see what it was, and I read the name - Hetalia. If you then pay me one million dollars/euro and tell me that Hetalia is going to be my favourite anime and the fandom I stay the longest in - I would have rejected the money and not believe you. Pshht, Hetalia? What does this anime about personification of countries has that the other animes don't? Well, to that question, I can't answer and still ask my self.

When I first came into the fandom I only knew about it from deviant art and from a site called - Shamchat. This site no longer exists and has a site specifically made to fill the hole of it. I roleplayed and I think my happiest years in the fandom were 2013-2015. Those were the years where I met really, really kind fans. It is like everything else went downhill and the kind and sweet fans left one by one. And I was just left with hateful immature tweens and teens who only cared about their OTP and didn't care about other fans's emotions. I apologize if this sounds like a pitful story and I am pitying me, I did not mean it to sound it this way, or as a whining. I do not like whining.

They also seem strangely neurotic if you ask them why they ship UsUk. I can perfectly tell you why I ship anything without being mean. They just straight up insult you and send you passive agressive smileys - : ) - like this and never explain why they insult you, they just curse you. I do not understand why you make America to be the top? When he is clearly a power bottom?????? I mean, if you ever look through canon manga England and him as a country in a history book you wouldn't think he is a ''uke'' (I really hate the little girls who use japanese and think they kniw the language just cause they watched the anime and think they're quirky if they saw kawaii out loud). In fanfiction he is not fleshed out, he always seemed to blush and say baka and be a boring character over all. While Alfred is this dumb himbo/bimbo character that can't put 2+2 and laughs at everything like a small child. He is 19, for fuck's sake.

He is still a child and people can mature up until 25-26. But these ages are not real ages. For example Germany is 20, even though Bismarck unites Germany in....1871 if I remember correctly? Don't quote me on that and the americans have freed them selves in 1776. So technically Germany as we know it, should be younger but isn't. And they're both still awkward babies. America doesn't have a concrete religion but from what I know, Christianity seems to the most popular religion there as for now. I don't know if Alfred (Even though he is fictional) would identify as a catholic, protestant, puritan or some other stuff but he is awkward, he has a boyish charm that Ludwig does not have. So I can't imagine these good bois being tops with experience. Usually tops/doms come with lots of experience behind their back, or at least this is what people say whom I know who are also part of the lgbtq and bdsm community. Alfred just doesn't have the vibe of a top, he is more of a switch to me, or at best a power bottom. Ludwig has a dom/top vibes but he is extremely awkward in all senses of the word. America doesn't have a concrete religion but from what I know, Christianity seems to the most popular religion there as for now. I don't know if Alfred (Even though he is fictional) would identify as a catholic, protestant, puritan or some other stuff but he is awkward, he has a boyish charm that Ludwig does not have.

So UsUk was forced down my throat ever since I can remember, I have been insulted, threatened and took 2-3 hiatuses purely due to bullying. I Really HATE, HATE, HATE - feminine Arthur. I do not know why this is the fandom's fetish, or at least used to be even though some fans still draw him that way. I really love art, I used to draw and still do. I went to classes through out almost all of my life and I know my proportions. Whether you look through normal fan art or hentai manga (Arthur has the most porn idk how or why) he always has these weird proportions.....of a malnorished tween girl. There is some porn of him either as a child (A toddler by the judgement of his body) or of Alfred as a child, and they fuck. How is this supposed to be hot for anybody? I also remember (Which is why I left amino) on amino that users were extremely childish and lied about their age. Like no, you're not 17 and a half and are ''too mature for your age'' you are 17 and that still is a minor in my book. Also in one of the translated hentai comics there is this...idk how to describe it, there is this shaving scene where Alfred becomes a man and has his first boner from what I remember, the artstyle is great, but the scene can be described a child grooming. England lies to America how boners are a horrible disease and it can only be cured if he stays next to him. He then goes to France who tells him that boners are healthy and normal at this age and is upset at England for lying to him. Then when he frees him self America smiles, laughs and pisses on top of England I think he later fucks him. Like people can try to force their weak argument over england being a uke somehow now, but Pirate England is a top, how in the hell would anyone think he is a bottom?

UsUkers also love weird fetishes and force them down your throat, and not only shame you when you don't ship the ship, they shame you when you don't have their fetish. So like people go to my dms and ask me if I want to MPREG with Arthur beign the ''woman'' in the relationships, and golden showers. I also remember leaders acting unprofessionaly towards me. Some user was sending me child porn and when I told one of the leaders they just told me it was my problem and to fuck off. It deeply upset me so I took a hiatus and when I returned I was just met with another shit wave. I think I left last year because some girl was harassing me and constantly wanted attention. I told her to leave me alone since I have lectures and can't speak to her right now and she told her friend I was ''mean'' to her and her friend started insulting me in every comment on every posted I posted, be it fan art or fanfiction I wrote. Also they can't roleplay properly. I feel like I am in 4th grade where children used to insult each other. Like what stupid (probably american white girl) thing going to tell me this time ? Hmmmm option A - Alfred says that Arthur has horrible teeth, option B - Alfred says that Arthur has horrible cooking, option C - asks for sex and wants to impregnate him even though they are both males, it seems to be quite jokes among them. I get that americans want to see their country as this buff, strong, brave, macho type, but real people have strengths and flaws. In my opinion no country is dumb, they all look after their personal interest and empires love to exploit others, it is just how it is. They basically use english stereotypes and call it a day.

Before leaving I went to another ''better'' amino where I blocked one of the leaders. I don't remember if their name was Alfie or something else but it was something like that. And another leader asked me to unblock her, mind you. I was hesitant but I did. I usually do not block people unless they share content that causes negative reaction out of me - panic attack/rise in adrenaline/shaking/desire to puke/anxiety/etc or they have been a total asshole/bitch to me in the past. So I don't have the screenshots, since I changed my phone a few months ago. I used a Lenovo one and now I have an old huawei I used to have since we don't have money for a new one. So I saved the screenshots where they started saying how Francis is a rapist and I thought we passed this phase. I told the original leader and they all seem to not speak english well but she told me that this leader thought I was mean. I mean...she joked about rape, am I supposed to text - XD LMAO YEAH THE R WORD IS FUCKING FUN, YEAH DUDE YEAH! XD LOL LMAO. From what I see, if I have explain his behavior, he just has a high libido, which is nothing to be ashamed about.

There are also different types of attraction - Aesthetic, Romantic, Sexual. And he appreciates anything beautiful. He also says that ''You can't force love on anyone'' and is generally a really sweet guy. Also from what I see he copes with his loneliness by having casual sex while Arthur copes by abusing alcohol. People cope with loneliness in different ways, for him LOVE is important and he craves intimacy. He is suggestive and says sex jokes which is relateable. He also has moments of walking around naked, and while that may be perverted, far more people have done more perverted things than him. Also Greece and Turkey have a lot more sex than France has ever had. I don't know if it is canon or fanon but I read somewhere that Greece loves sex without a condom since it excites him. France is perverted but so are many other people, if a person is assertive towards such personality he will respect the other person's wishes and not force the issue, because he understands the concept of boundaries. It seems that some fans are either too young or too stupid to understand what is common sense and boundaries. Some couples in real life suffer from mismatch in their libido which is why they go to a couple therapist and ask how they can revive their sex life.

He is not a creep. I have met old men stalking me around after school and I have had a guy at a bar putting something in my drink not knowing that I saw everything so I just left. Real creeps do not understand the concept of boundaries and the fact that people are not their sexual slaves, they crave power and dominance and love ruining people's lives, it doesn't matter who their target it, as long as they are depressed and on their knees crying and shaking in pain and fear. So yeah, rape is not something to laugh at but it seems the shitty girls that got into hetalia think it is peak comedy. With Antonio it is different, I do not like throwing the term - P*dophile around because that is a harsh accusiation but from what I remember from manga...didn't he try to steal North Italy who was a child...to marry him? He never wanted South Italy but got used to him at some point, so I am sorry for ruining all of the Spamano shippers's fantasies. He also raised him. Which brings me to the second point.

England raised America. Period. It is canon, it is in the manga, he found him as a child. England loves America because he is the first thing that did not hate him, for him. Europe in the past hated England, this is why France jokes that he is the - black sheep of Europe. He was abused by his brothers, especially Scotland and threw things at him and chased him away. Scotland is not only an abusive alcoholic though. He is more complex and loves his brother in his own way but historically England was not kind at all to Scotland. So these people were telling me that I am a wh*re because I don't ship their precious UsUk? Well guess what honey, England isn't a useless girly bottom, America is neither a top, nor a dumb guy and England most likely changed his diapers. Also why would America blow his revolution if he wanted to be free? I mean England taxed the hell out of him and was a bit of a narcissitic asshole, so why shouldn't America want to be free from tyrany?

Also for people who bring the - BUT FIORE, ENGLAND KILLED JEANNE'DARC SO THAT MEANS FRANCE SHOULD HATE HIM, YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE! - well hun, France held a grudge for centuries until he got even by helping America with Spain and Prussia to free him self from England's grasp. America was the only thing that didn't hate him because he didn't know him. He was an alone child and he finally had someone to take care of him and listen to him talk, that wasn't a human, that didn't die (Davie) and England is an introvert but he has many issues which is why to him the loss of America hurt so much. Because everyone else hated him, or at least in his mind it looked that way. Portugal was always his friend and in a rare case lover and France had a love/friend/hate relationship with him. People can make the argument that France took care of him but France was probably around 12 in human years and England looks to be around 10 when he wore that blue dress of his and when England had a bow and green cloak and shaggy long blonde hair. France still cuts off his hair to this day. While England was in his late teens 17-8 when he found America who was clearly around 5-6. Their pairing doesn't make sense from a psychological point. So I would love to not have any usuk shit in my feed. I have enough abusive people in my life who treat me like a punching bag, I don't need to get upset online too.

Alfred looks 5-6 years of age and believe it or not some children piss them selves even to the age of 10. Some have medical problems but that is not an issue for now. I have been a nanny. I have taken care of children of all ages, and they're telling me? That I should ship a ship where some guy changed another's diapers but the other guy grew up too quickly and now they are dating? IN WHAT WORLD, I REPEAT IN WHAT WORLD?Does that mean I should feel some sort of sexual attraction and would like to bang children I took care of, because they went to the gym and have what society conciders the perfect body? I guess in their mind I should. In reality somewhat every country is related to hetalia so the boundary between what is incest or not is vague. But even when usukers bring the - BUT THEY ARE NOT BLOOD RELATED? - so what, incest is still taboo and some say that since they don't have blood relation it is not incest, but this is why stepbro/sis memes are so prevelent. Since it is a taboo and taboos get some people excited sexually. Whether they are blood related or not is out of the question, Arthur did take care of him as a child.

This is not meant to cause the old FRUK VS USUK wars, but in my experience USUK fans are extremely harsh and cold, at least to anyone who doesn't ship their precious ship. It is like they can't stand anyone who simply objectivly says - I do not like this ship. Bruv, do you know how many other ships I don't like in other fandoms, and no one has given me shit or threatened to hack my computer and send people to beat me up, simply because I DON'T SHIP USUK? maaaan-Let's not forget that these hypocrites also spread lies and said that ''Himaruya said that UsUk is canon'' and there was this black and white fan art that rolled around Twitter, Facebook and other social media for a while and people believe it. I think Hetafacts or some other youtuber debunked that it was nothing but a pure lie. It should not matter what ship is canon, what should matter more is fans being civil and kind to another but no, let's insult other pairings and make people hate ships they didn't originally hate just because.

Here is another ship I don't like - Russia x China. Also another ship - Russia x Prussia, also another ship Russia x Lithuania, or Russia (Romantically) x Latvia, or Prussia x Liechtenstein (Romantically). I even met one person who shipped Sealand x England lol or England x Seychelles x France or Belarus x Liechtenstein (Romantically) I dislike all of these ships. Do you see the word hate anywhere? No, because I don't hate them? Do you know why? Well no one told me - ''I hope you die raped in shit'' and told me that I am ''r*tarded'' in my comment section on youtube because I said that I do not care about certain ships. You see I used to feel this way about UsUk too. It was meh, I don't care, I see them as father and son, because England literally raised him. Also England is proven to be a horrible neglectful father and a workholic and alcholic. This is the reason why Sealand is taken care of by Sweden and Finland.

I always saw him this way so I don't know how the new fandom just started seeing him as the gremlin that he is when he was always a fucking old grandpa gremlin, not a soft uwu useless femboy that loves sex and screams BAKA every 3 seconds and blushes for no apperent reason whatsoever. I have many things that I don't ship. For example I feel conflicted towards pairings like - China x Japan or Japan x America because the r*pe of nanking is a thing and Japan denies and while Japan may have attacked America, americans kinda rationalize the two bombs and laugh at it while if anyone mentions 9/11 they freak out. So they can joke about other countries's misfortune but if it theirs - NO,NO,NO! I think global issues should be adressed in hetalia and people should make vent/rant art. If you are an indigenous person and a white guy comes to you and asks why you wear normal clothes and he says that indigenous people only wear feathers and all, this is why we need to speak to children about racism. Or being told that being latino/a makes you ''Inferior'' somehow (IT DOESN'T), or you're black and you get told by a white person how you should go back to your home land ''with the bananas''. I can joke about my own country's problems but it feels extremely offensive if the country that did the crime (R*pe, destruction of religious monuments, statues of popular poets from my country, more r*pe, stealing boys and babies and forcing other religion on them so they can kill and r*pe their own mothers and sisters. )I do not blame their descendents for what their grandpas did to us, what I can't stand is the superiority complex they have and how they insult this country and speak in their own language like we don't understand them and pretend like nothing happened, which is why I hate a certain hetalia country with passion.

It really sucks how due to Covid the hate against asians has risen, I heard from my favourite youtubers how certain people harassed them and hurt them for ''spreading covid'' or something. Well this just horrible and we really need to re-think how we treat people who were not at fault for a fucking global pandemic. I don't know where Yao Wang would stand, since he is a fictional country but unless somebody projects their homophobia and xenophobia through roleplay or art and send me hate art, I don't really care who they are as long as their are respectful. I can't stand usuk, and I can't stand the fans. I try to block every account that has this content which sucks ass since they look like cool people but no, it has to be fucking ew ugh usuk they draw. I sometimes feel like a bitch for blocking them since they're not the same fans that have insulted, threatened and harassed me but I would like to not blow my chances and risk ever talking to them. If you want to, you can call me a hater, a basher or anything, I don't care.

In a way everyone in hetalia is related but lets say that I do not have concrete hate over this ship but the serial bullying I received from fans over the years. Which is why I ship things like Seychelles x Iceland or Hong Kong x Iceland and I can't choose. Usually when UsUk fans ''defend'' their ship they have two arguments - It is cute and - the revolutinary war and how much england missed him. Two people may look cute together but would their emotional maturity and personalities match? These are important questions, which is why for me Gerita personalitywise, matches but the emotional maturity gap is way too much. For UsUk America lacks basic emotional maturity, raises his tone, cuts off people when they speak, weird obsession about being a hero and a tiny bit of narcissism here and there, he overly trusts him self which can cause as much problems as someone who doubts them selves. England is in another place mentally is honestly much better off with anyone else that is not America or Canada. Portugal, Spain, France, Russia, Japan,etc. America also has more developed friendships with countries like Russia, France, Siciliy and probably Japan and Vietnam. I think he can date Lithuania for me their dynamic is so wholesome and pure and everything click together. Russia also works but some people are put off by it due to the cold war. RusAme/UkFr is much more than just love/hate relationship, I don't know why people have the impression that they constantly fight and make up. Normal couples don't do that. Whether it is incest or not it is debatealbe. I have seen dynamics like theirs and let tell you that these people always ended up divorced.

I will share some quotes from people on different social medias I have found that describe it better than me -

Quote number 1 - from fanpop

"USUK is actually one of my most hated anime pairings followed by Spamano a few places behind for the same reason. The thought of raising a child as a son/brother only to bang him when he's older is nothing but disgusting and makes England seem like a pedophile for "falling in love" with the child he adopted and raised. I honestly can't understand why so many people insist that America and England aren't brothers and that the pairing isn't incest when Himaruya, the anime director and characters in Hetalia have confirmed that America and England are indeed brothers. Some USUK fans claim that America's independence makes them non-siblings. That's just ridiculous. Even if America would say "I don't want to be your brother anymore" directly to England, it still won't make any difference and it certainly doesn't change the fact that America was adopted and raised by England. If the USUK fans want to ship this pairing, it's fine, but denying that the pairing is incest is just annoying. It makes it seem like they think incest is gross, but desperately try to deny that USUK is incest only to continue shipping it or to keep telling themselves that USUK will be canon, which will never happen just like (unfortunately) every other Hetalia pairing except (possibly) AusHun.''

Quote number 2- from deviant art

''t's this reasoning that made me think back to all the Journal reads, essays and editorials many of the Anti UsUk fans write about why they hate the pairing. They usually mention about the pairing being incest, pedophilia and/or not cannon. While all of those might be true, I think there's more reasoning to why UsUk usually never works. It isn't to say those shouldn't be mentioned, because they should be, and I will mention them. First off, incest. Yes, UsUk is incest, but not because they share blood, but because they're BROTHERS. The fact that England adopted America should not be anyone's excuse for why it's not considered incest. Incest means sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other. The definition of related is belonging to the same family, group, or type. Neither of these say anything about sharing blood, or having to be born from the mother's womb. If your parents divorced, and your father married another woman, who becomes your mother, she would be considered related to you, since you both belong in the same family. America and England are brothers, they're family, they belong in the same family, and even share the same family name (Don't believe me? Britain's full name is United Kingdom of Great Britain, just like America's full name is United States of America, which was declared by Acts of Union in 1707 before the Revolutionary War. Coincidence? I think not 📷). No, I do not count their human names, since they're mainly names used for the fanbase to use. Now, for pedophilia, that's the one that can be questioned. On one hand, if England and America are shipped when both are adults, then it shouldn't be considered pedophilia. On the other hand, they are about 800-700 years apart. Though, the same could be said with America and other countries like Japan, Ukraine and Belarus. While America may not be the youngest country, technically speaking, he's certainly the youngest most powerful country. So, if anyone in the fandom is going to pair up America with anyone, male or female, that country is most likely going to be thousands of years older than him. So, do I consider UsUk pedophilia? Well... not if America is already a grown adult. So, unless there are fanart or fan fictions with England being sexual or flirty with kid or youth America, pedophilia isn't really the big issue (especially since I haven't seen pictures or fanart of England being sexual or flirty with kid America, and are perhaps the only brotherly pictures and/or fan fictions I can find of England and America). Being that everyone knows that UsUk is CERTAINLY not cannon, I want to go more deep into why I feel UsUk doesn't work. Let's set aside the fact that it is incest, and look at this pairing from a realistic standpoint. I want to start from the bottom up, which would be the back story of how England's and America's relationship started. Why is this relationship so memorable, and considered adorable? Why does it work so well? To put it simply, the relationship between England and America is very relatable. They both reminded me of my two brothers, and my dad and my uncle. It's the story of the little brother, who looked up to the older brother as the greatest thing on earth; the most perfect person in the world. He could never think of anyone else that could be compared to his older brother. Then, suddenly, that little brother grows up and realizes that his older brother is a compete jerk, or isn't as perfect as he originally thought. Usually, this is hard for any little brother to grasp, and, once he does, the relationship between him and his older brother starts to friction. They no longer share the same relationship they once had. Little brothers can relate to America in trying to grasp and understand that his older brother wasn't the big, perfect person he once thought, when he says, “you used to be so big.” At the same time, older brothers can relate to England in losing the innocent little brother that thought he was the world, then having to watch him grow up, and turn into a complete

jerk himself, or lose his innocence. It isn't that England never saw any flaws in America, even as a little kid, but it's hard for him to watch those innocence and naiveness suddenly flushed down the toilet. Now, America is surpassing England, and England now needs America to help him at times. From what I've seen from my brothers and uncle, it's very hard for an older brother to admit he needs his little brother's help, that there might be things his little brother knows more than him, and to actually call or go to little brother for help. This is continually seen with England and America during World War 2 where America volunteers to help, and England continually refuses, but yet seems to need the help (this is especially seen in the Blitz series). When anyone takes these two characters, whose relationship represents and older and younger brother of our generation, then turns it into a gay relationship, it completely ruins the amazing buildup that Hidekazu Himaruya was intentionally going for. It's not that gay relationships are not relatable, but the one that's made in the UsUk fandom isn't something that gay couples can relate to. Turning something that was never intended to be a gay relationship into one is actually the reason why there are gay men and women that dislike yaoi. It's not only a misrepresentation of England and America, and their relationship, but it's a misrepresentation of gay relationships in general. That's mainly where it boils down to why I dislike UsUk. Yes, homosexuality is one of those reasons, being that homosexuality was VERY looked down upon back during World War 2, especially during the colonial days (if you were caught in the act of homosexuality, you'd most likely be kicked out of the city and, if not, be beaten by countless cowboys, then killed, and those cowboys would get away with it, not being punished for said act even if they were caught). More than likely, England and America were homophobic back during those days, since many Americans and Englishmen were completely against homosexuality. It wasn't until around the Cold War, or during the 1960's, when the world started changing their viewpoints. Though, with that aside, UsUk, to me, just can't work with the back story and buildup of the show. Though, the same should be said for many yaoi fandoms in general. Many of them just don't work with the cannon buildup set for the two male characters. If people try to pair America and England up, keeping the cannon story line of their relationship, it comes out as unrealistic, and a misrepresentation of gay relationships, the relationship between England and America, and history in general. It isn't to say that nobody should write UsUk. In my opinion, whatever shipping you want to use is completely up to you. Though, if you want to write a UsUk fan fiction, it needs to not ruin the cannon relationship buildup set for England and America. In other words, I don't want a UsUk of any type to use the same cannon back story from the Hetalia series, otherwise it just becomes very unrelatable, and ruins the intended relationship buildup between England and America as older and younger brother. Anyways, those are my thoughts on UsUk, and why I don't like the pairing in general. You can agree or disagree, but I wanted to get my thoughts out. You can let me know in the comments about your thoughts on UsUk. I'm interested in knowing what your thoughts on the fandom, whether you're a UsUk fan or completely against the pairing, like me.''

23 - Have you ever had a ship become canon, but you didn’t like how it was portrayed?

- Korra x Asami (It looks rushed and I think Asami deserves better, in my eyes Korra constantly changed relationships and has immaturity issues, I watched the show a long time ago tho)

- Light x Misa (Misa deserved someone who cared for her)

- Erza x Jellal/Gerard (Erza deserved better, the guy looks like he is an extra or made of plastic)

- Ban x Elaine (I really dislike this ship, I read some articles about Japan and I do not know if this real/legit and please excuse me if I spread misinformation, but from what I read, some people said that Japan has p*dophilia problems. Certain mangaka or their word for the comic/manga artist, put loli characters on purpose to please a certain fanbase that likes this type of content. I look like a loli somewhat because I have small frame while other girls matured on body way too fast, I remained skin and bones up until the age of 19, after that I somehow started to gain some weight on my legs but that doesn't mean I am still not short and skinny on my upper body. Old creepy men, asking where you live and asking you sexual intimate questions when you just want to buy you self some dinner after school, isn't my idea of fun. Which is why - 100000 years but has the body of a loli is bullshit. There are older women who have smaller bodies but no matter how young you look, every human being starts developing wrinkles and hair falling at some point in their life. They may be small, but they surely don't look like lolis.

[ourimpavidheroine]

So I saw your repost about the headcanons and pairings, and honestly... I love your fics, I think they're really well written and I see the Wuko chemistry in there, but in regards to the original show? I'm kinda giving you the side eye. But seriously, I'm glad you see it even if I don't! I think I just don't see pairings in general like that unless someone throws them to my face - hence, why I spent countless hours of my teenage years despairing about the lack of companionship fics in One Piece.

Side-eye anon here. In case you don't know One Piece, it's at least to me the ultimate companionship manga. And all the characters are too in love with adventures to even pursue romance. I've seen maybe one romance fic that I thought was believable, and it was based on the idea that two guys were just emotionally messed up enough to think that fighting constituted of showing affection. Rant over. I was seriously invested in this for many years, sorry to sprout this all on you :D

Oh, there was absolutely no intention on Bryke’s part to make Wuko a thing in the show. Whatsoever. I’ve commented on that many times on this blog! Wu was queer-coded as fuck (apparently they didn’t have anyone on the writing team who was able to pick that up, yikes) but it was very clear that was unintentional on their part and the intent was to make super annoying heterosexual Prince Wu a foil for het Mako’s growth over the show.

Nah, any interpretation of the characters being a couple in actual canon is wishful thinking on the part of viewers, or at least at this point. I am 100% cognizant of that and have been ever since Book 4 aired.

What I did think was that the characters had potential to have a continuing relationship, and I thought it could grow into a romance, given the right treatment. The characters as they were in canon could develop something deeper if I explored that, and I was interested in exploring that with those particular canon characters. I liked the canon dynamic between Wu and Mako and I loved (and still love) the actual ATLA/TLOK worldbuilding and wanted to play in that particular sandbox. I did have to make Wu somewhat more bearable to do it (I had to lose his annoying slang, for one thing, and I totally used Huan to do that) and that was actually a challenge I set myself. Can I make this annoying little shit less annoying? (I like to think I did.)

Do I think I’ve made anyone ship Wuko who hadn’t done it before they read my fic? Well, based on comments that I’ve gotten, I have. Was that my intention in writing it? No. Not at all, actually. I assumed that the people reading it would be doing so because they already shipped Wuko (and honestly couldn’t imagine why else they would be reading it) and any comments I’ve gotten telling me I got someone to ship it have surprised me, believe it or not.

But here’s the thing: I was interested in the long game with these characters, not just a quick fic to get them in bed with each other. (Not that there’s anything wrong with a quick fic to get them in bed with each other!) Just writing some quick Wuko smut was never my intent. I wanted to explore a lifetime with them and their particular canon dynamic, through marriage and children and aging and change and growth and everything else. That’s the kind of writing that I love reading as a reader, and it’s what I wanted to write as a writer. 

I have had, over the nearly six years (!!!) I’ve been writing my TLOK fanfic set myself some goals as a writer. Could I write a successful letter fic? Could I write a diary fic that actually won over people who loathed first person? Could I create OCs that were believable, that could fit right in with canon, that would add to the universe rather than distract from it? Could I explore family dynamics in a way that resonated with people? Could I write in a way that would include representation without it being contrived or smacking people over the head with it? Could I take a reviled character (in this case, Baatar Jr.) and give them a redemption story that actually works (and here I am giving Bryke’s dreadful Kuvira redemption comic the side eye myself)? I wanted to learn and grow as a writer and fanfic gave me a way to do that, and I have 1000% used TLOK to do that. Both with my Wuko fics as well as my Beifong fics. 

I am a super cerebral person, which makes me a super cerebral writer, I suppose. Blame the Autism! My fanfic is a hyperfocus for me, for sure. It’s always been about that so much more than it ever was shipping Wuko during Book 4. (And if anything, all of my Beifong fic is proof of that.)

I don’t know anything about One Piece (even still, I can feel your love for it) but I completely understand wanting more companionship fic. I don’t think every single relationship has to be about love/romance/sex and I also don’t think every single story has to revolve around that either. So no need for side eye at all, my Anonymous Friend. :) It’s precisely why I very rarely read fic that is just a basic excuse to throw two characters together for romance/sex and why I don’t write it, either. If I am going to ship something that isn’t explicitly canon, then I am going to take the time and effort to make it believable, to draw readers into that world, to let the romance blossom in a way that works for the characters and the worldbuilding.

So here’s a question for you - a real question, an I am seriously interested in your answer question, a no sarcasm intended question - what kind of thing would you want to see in a Wu and Mako fic? What kind of plot, what timeline, etc. If you are willing to answer, of course! I am genuinely curious and genuinely interested as a writer.