#'which one has autism' audience interpretation

[aroaceleovaldez]

one of the things i'm most disappointed in HoO with is how the series sets up a really beautiful continuity to the first series but now extending from a primary focus on disability to a wider focus on intersectionality (which in itself is a REALLY fascinating place to discuss particularly Percy's character and the overlap between his experiences as a disabled student and how many readers interpret his experiences as him experiencing racial bigotry in part due to his racial ambiguity and how those experiences have overlap and what does that look like for specifically a disabled student of color, etc etc) - like, there is so much set-up for so many things: we have the introduction of a bunch of new major characters, the majority of whom are explicitly not white. We have set-up for queer intersectionality topics (Nico, Jason's bi-coding, Piper being mspec as well eventually). We have set-up for gender intersectionality (all of the girls and the intersection of their disabilities and gender and for everyone other than Annabeth also the intersectionality of gender and race). We even have other forms of disability than just the primary focus of ADHD/dyslexia coming to the table with stuff like Frank having dyspraxia coding, Frank and Hazel both having childhood terminal illness survivor coding, Hazel having seizure coding, Leo having autism coding and Nico's autism coding making a comeback, Percy's book 1 PTSD even gets some references in Son of Neptune, Leo and Nico's depression get big spotlights, also Nico's general grappling with becoming weaker and new physical disability. Heck you could even dive into Jason grappling with gifted kid syndrome and how that plays into his experience with ADHD/dyslexia versus someone like Percy whose same learning disabilities present differently. There's so much set up right at the beginning of the series to dive into...!

...and then Rick does literally nothing with any of that. and it sucks. and then in TOA he does even less with it and just drops nearly all of the disability stuff in general which sucks even MORE. Also it's all made even worse by dropping or magicing-away the existing disability coding because Rick changed his mind about it (Frank's dyspraxia and Hazel's fainting episodes going away, etc etc)

Like, TKC emphasized the themes about how the Kane Siblings grapple with colorism a lot! MCGA talks about queer topics and disability and how those intersect with homelessness! The entire first series has SUCH in-depth metaphors about disability! But HoO and TOA just totally drop the ball about it and don't even try! The most TOA ever gives is the world's blandest directly-spoken-to-the-audience one sentence blurb and pretends that qualifies as representation and that they've fulfilled their quota. TSATS is even worse about the disability erasure and speaking directly to the screen and calling that representation, not to mention how little the TV show erased the majority of references to disability from TLT alongside Percy's PTSD and made Sally an autism speaks mom while they were at it. And while I haven't read it yet I hear CoTG is equally not great about how it handles Percy's disabilities (or Annabeth's).

HoO could have given us so much but it didn't and i will never forgive it for that 😔 also the fandom could stand to talk more about intersectionality cause it's a really interesting topic and there's so much opportunity to explore it in the Riordanverse that does not get nearly enough discussion.

[computerram]

sorry to report I have a new brain disease

[pokeblader3]

Honestly I want any anti-Huntlow person at this point who says the couple has no appeal or thematic value and is just a generic hetero ship with the attractive male love interest to look my disabled ass squarely in the eye (looking down, with your ability to stand.) and tell me that people who look like Hunter are considered "conventionally attractive", and that I've not gone to disability and autism support groups filled with people with face/body scarring and disfigurings that severe (often tied to disabilities),

and conditions that will never get better that had literally no friends outside the support groups because y'all treated them like freaks for having a misformed lip or not having full upright-ness of their body (I have a feeling Hunter's eye bags might never go away, like I feel the 24-hour eye bags I have had in real life for several years might never go away),

and that the choice to portray a love story between a disfigured, fundamentally different person in love with a healthy plus sized Asian girl who was bullied and given severe mental issues and now finds strength in his reassurance and literal help as one of the people who helps stabilize her so she can be a badass.... is conventional and what cishet white audiences want lmao.

We have 3 bisexual female characters, the two leads are given female and nonbinary love interests with more screentime, and the m/f bisexual couple is late-series and with a gender dynamic of a strong woman who fights to protect her friends and domestic-violence survivor partner, who now is being characterized primarily by his desire to be soft and domestic (sewing? gardening? wanting to just be seen as a human?) isn't still groundbreaking? There literally is no way it could be more fair and appealing of a concept to you.

Like. I'm starting to think maybe some of y'all have bad reasons for being vocally against the ship which is full of people who just want to be positive and left to themselves (and have much of the crew on their side as fans). Maybe if a ship like this is being put in your gay show, it's just as groundbreaking for different reasons you don't see.

Some of us cripples (including us queers) have partners who Hunter and Willow remind us of (especially with the amount of transgender grimwalker Hunter interpretations I've seen or fan concepts where Willow eventually starts using her plant magic to help stabilize Hunter's body in older age from Grimwalker decay as a partial root being), mostly people just like you, just more open-minded and willing to see us (and literally hear us, if you've seen none of this, somehow, yet) as people.

And I don't just speak for myself, I have a plus sized South Asian bisexual girl friend who says Hunter and Willow's gender dynamic was one of the few times she ever saw herself in television and loves it equally as me.

[ellaphnt]

Is it actually racist to relate to Toshiro as an autistic person? The argument seems to be that calling Toshiro autistic disregards the context of his culture, but I feel like the manga made it pretty clear he has issues even beyond his restrictive cultural norms. No one else he knows from his homeland act like he does, and I thought they made it pretty clear that he was an odd child even in the context of his culture. Maybe it is just a coincidence, but I feel like there's room to acknowledge the contexts of his cultural upbringing while also relating to an autistic reading of his behavior.

Hi hi! I agree! Toshiro/Shuro’s behavior have roots in growing up Japanese, but his behavior has made him an odd one, even at home. I like to say he’s sort of an “outcast everywhere.” I think it’s definitely one reason he envies Laios, and also possibly one reason he is infatuated with Falin! I’ve written about Toshiro and Falin before (as many have!), about how he views her as 1) someone he wants to be like and therefore liked by, and 2) someone who might understand him. He doesn’t have a lot of those types of people in his life.

Not to mention the lack of confrontation. Hien, Benichidori, Maizuru, Tade, all don’t fear speaking their mind! They do it many times. Only Toshiro, hm. I find him relatable in many ways, and I’m sure Ryoko Kui did that intentionally. Was this made for a Japanese audience with commentary on their culture? Yes. Can non-Japanese audiences relate to it anyways? Yes. Can his behavior also be attributed to autism? Can it be an intersection between both his cultural upbringing and possibly learning to mask? HMMMMM either way, I’m really glad autistic POC fans have given their take on it. Tons of POC and non-POC have already spoken about just the cultural part. I’m glad to see commentary on both.

Hearing other POC fans analyze his character is amazing, but I was worried the “it’s just his cultural upbringing” angle would mean his nuance as a character will mainly stay in POC circles. POC relate to POC! (Not a blanket statement, I’ve seen POC who don’t like Toshiro and that’s fine. Not to mention the frequent inability to relate to each other) But if someone is not POC, namely white, and the faults of his character are ONLY attributed to being POC, why try to sympathize with him at all? Lowkey, that might be one of the reasons there was so much hate towards him last week. I’m not saying Toshiro must be any way palatable to a western audience, but hopefully you see my point.

Which is why I think, again, that Ryoko Kui made him relatable to a broader audience. Toshiro’s behavior stems from being Japanese but the fight is not JUST about that culture clash. It’s about anyone who find it hard to confront others and speak their mind. And thats why his character was picked up by autistic fans too! It’s a broader experience than people give it credit for.

You’re in good company of fans who also see themselves represented in either a cultural and/or autistic interpretation of his character! No it’s not racist. Reading autism into a character does not undermine their cultural upbringing. Autism does not flatten a character’s nuance that does have a lot to do with his cultural upbringing. On the contrary, it ADDS to it.

A character can be both. Think it makes them cooler tbh. They have their own things to work on still, they still have their flaws. They could even do something wrong and hurtful! (Shocking!) It doesn’t excuse anything, it just adds another layer to them.

And in the end, it’s just a reading into the media. A singular take, if you will.

I hope I covered everything you mentioned!

Ending it off, here’s some posts other POC have made about this topic because I cannot speak for the community!:

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 2, Wave 2, Poll 10

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Julian Bashir-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Qualifications:

Disability: Along with being generally awkward with conversation and not knowing how to talk to people, a part of his backstory is that he was “underperforming” in school so his parents got him illegally genetically enhanced to “fix” him (in the show this is treated as a horrible fucked-up thing that they did LGBTQ+: He has a relationship with another male character on the show that everybody behind-the-scenes (except the homophobic producer) treated as canonically romantic. The homophobic producer had to tell the writers to stop putting Bashir and Garak in scenes together because they got along too well and he didn’t want the audience to think they were a couple. The non-homophobic producer said in a documentary looking back on DS9 that one of his biggest regrets about the show is not making the relationship actually canon.

He was canonically intellectually disabled as a child, which his parents attempted to "correct" with illegal gene editing. This eliminated his intellectual disability, but he displays many many autistic traits still (socially awkward, infodumps, hyperempathetic, echolalia, blunt). This lends itself to the popular interpretation that the gene editing couldn't "correct" his autism, but it did change exactly which autistic traits he had. One of his closest onscreen relationships is with Elim Garak, a relationship that both actors have since said is romantic in nature, and Andy Robinson (Garak's actor) has explicitly said he played Garak as being attracted to Bashir. There is also some possible evidence of Julian being trans; in one episode, he says this of a situation in which he had to transfer a fetus from one of his friends into another due to an emergency (paraphrased): "The fetus was in distress, and the only available candidates were Major Kira... and me." This line potentially implies he is capable of carrying a fetus. Furthermore, he canonically has a name that his parents used to call him that he refuses to answer to now (Jules). In-universe, this is due to him finding out about his genetic engineering, but it is very transgender of him.

Propaganda:

He uses all of his free time to role play historical events with his best friend - He intentionally got one question wrong on his finals so that he wouldn’t be valedictorian - On like 5 separate occasions he gets invited to medical conferences then kidnapped on the way - Season 2 episode 22 “The Wire”

He is so awesome. Very autistic, very interesting character. He's an extremely caring doctor, to the point he once stayed on a plague-ridden planet with no futuristic tech, mixing medicine by hand for weeks in an attempt to cure the populace. Which he succeeds at, by the way!! He also, after finding a rogue group of former enemy soldiers who have managed to kick their dependence on the drug used by the enemy government to control them, Julian agrees to try to formulate a way for all of the soldiers to be free of their dependence. He only fails due to interference. Also, when Garak is suffering withdrawal from a brain implant, he stays by his bedside for days on end, caring for him, and even going to the heart of hostile territory to ask the head of the Space KGB how he can cure him. And that's not all! In addition to being a very dedicated (if often unethical) doctor, he is also a space tennis player! He has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth immediately upon meeting anyone new, and not just because of his canonical foot fetish! I'm not joking about that. It is canon.

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @convenient-plot-device is the second submitter.

Israel ‘Izzy’ Hands-Our Flag Means Death

Qualifications:

Gay, amputee

Propaganda:

Has a very interesting arc with losing his leg in the second season, also very gay. He’s neat, very funny.

[backstage-autorin]

I can't stop thinking about the HTDIO scene where the characters read the blog post

Content note: the quotes from the blog post will have ableism in them, which is called out in the context of the show but may not be what people want to see on their tumblr feeds.

I've seen the show twice, once in early January and again at the closing performance, so I didn't pick up on everything (unfortunately I forgot what Tommy's line was and until my 2nd time seeing it I misremembered which character had a specific line.) The first time I saw it I felt the breath get sucked out of the room at the opening line that Dr. Amigo read; I didn't get quite the same feeling the 2nd time but I saw it but I feel like the closing show was more fans seeing it one last time/who had seen it already and had somewhat braced themselves for the scene. (That being said, the 2nd audience cheered more when Remy's livestream included the phrase "Nothing about us without us, while I heard less of a reaction from the audience my 1st time).

But one thing that stands out to me about that scene is how the lines are perfectly crafted to tie into the characters' storylines and hurt each character individually.

To break it down by character with the caveat that the quotes are gonna be incomplete paraphrases(in alphabetical order except for Drew because I remember his line being last in the scene):

Caroline: "most will never marry or have children" (a few scenes ago she was singing about hanging family pictures down the hallway with Jay) (when I first saw the show I thought this was Marideth's line, tying into her conversation with her dad about dressing like Santa for her hypothetical future children)

Jessica: "most may never be able to live on their own" (throughout the show she has been working on trying to move out of her mother's house by learning life skills like cooking and the fact that her crush on Tommy is partly due to her search for a boyfriend who can drive so she no longer has to use unreliable government transport)

Marideth: "the nightclub is full of loud noises that can cause meltdowns and tantrums" (Marideth's sensory issues are prominent throughout the show--her opening line is an opinion of the scent of soap, she hates zippers that touch her skin [at least that's my interpretation of hoodie zippers being ok when dress zippers are bad] and the loud sounds in the diner stress her out. However, we also see that she has strategies to deal with unpleasant sensory input, like noise-canceling headphones)

Mel: "kings and queens for one night" (erases their existence as a nonbinary person)

Drew: "when you think you can't do something, think of the young boy with autism asking a girl to dance" (not gonna lie I also saved this one for last because there's so much to unpack. Given the fact that Drew is a high school senior, "young boy" is pure infantilization. At the end of Act 1, we see him want to ask Marideth to the dance but end up asking her if she wants to borrow his book about Pangea instead. In the long run this works because the book helps Marideth process her feelings for Drew, but in the short run the article line looks like it was written to taunt Drew for chickening out at the last second. This line in the article also ties back into the beginning of the song under control, when Drew contemplates his life thus far and the pressure he feels to "be the poster child for if he can then you can")

I just feel like the way the lines are individually crafted to each character's storyline needs to be talked about. Also if anyone can remember what Tommy's line was (with or without a connection to his storyline) that would be appreciated.

[realbeefman]

your analysis of house md is so fascinating and it makes me wonder, what's your take on the g*od doctor? I find it hard to reconcile that they're by the same person but maybe there's an obvious reason behind-the-scenes why they're so different that I'm not aware of

had a long discussion with my mom (who has actually watched the good doctor in it's entirety, unlike me lol) about this ask.

i think it comes down to the intention with, and context within which each respective series was created. i'm assuming your ask is referencing the way autism is portrayed in each series, so that's what i'll focus on here.

house md is created in 2004, in an era of television where the antihero protagonist is becoming increasingly popular - house is coming out of an era of television that created iconic, enduring characters like walter white, tony soprano, and don draper. house very much belongs to this antihero craze, and he's written to intentionally be an asshole, who acts like an asshole to everyone around him, and continually ruins his own life.

house md isn't created to be an uplifting, heartwarming piece of television, with an autistic main character who is just trying his best in a horrible, ableist society. we, the audience, aren't meant to interpret house as autistic at all.

this is explicitly told to us in 3x04, "Lines in the Sand." (brief summary for context: the team treats a severely autistic 10 year old in the A plot, while in the B plot, house performs shenanigans throughout the hospital in an effort to annoy cuddy into giving him his old, blood-stained carpet back.) in this episode, cameron, acting as the audience, interprets house's behavior as him being resistant to change, which in her (the audience's) mind, is proof that he is autistic. however, the narrative reinforces again and again that no, actually - cameron is wrong, because he really is just doing this to get a rise out of cuddy. this is eventually reinforced when wilson, the voice of narrative reason and in this episode, the voice of our dear showrunner mr. shore, lies to cuddy about house having "asperger's" (autism) before later telling house that he isn't autistic - just a jerk who wishes he had an excuse for behaving like one. the episode ends by reprimanding the audience for having come up with such a theory - the answer is simple, he isn't autistic, just a jerk!

in stark contrast, we have the good doctor himself, shaun murphy.

the good doctor is an adaptation of a k-drama by the same name, and airs it's first episode in 2017. the american television landscape is an entirely different place, and antihero protagonists simple aren't in vogue anymore. attitudes towards disability are, on a surface level at the very least, changing, and america's tastes have changed as well.

shaun murphy breaks out onto the screen as an intentionally autistic character, in an era of television in which our hearts are meant to be warmed. unlike house, shaun's autistic traits aren't something that have been unintentionally included in the writing of his character, the fact that he is autistic is literally his defining character trait. shaun isn't meant to be a standoffish jerk, who goes about the hospital reigning abuse upon those around him and attracting lawsuits like a malpractice magnet. shaun is a severely autistic man, who is incredible at his job, and most importantly, we are supposed to like him.

so, on the one hand we have house, who the creator's didn't intentionally write as autistic, who was written in an era where douchebag's with a penchant for offensive behavior was vogue, and on the other hand we have shaun, whose autism is the reason we, the audience, are supposed to root for him.

while i do think there's a whole other laundry bag of complaints to address in the way in which the good doctor treats shaun as a character, and particularly in how the show itself portrays autism, i think those critiques are best left to somebody who has done more than a cursory overview of the show and a consult with their mother, and fundamentally, i do believe authorial intent is the major contributing factor to the difference in how these shows portray autism.

[camilishpilish]

howdy, i saw your reblog asking for rap suggestions

you should totally listen to “to pimp a butterfly” it’s probably the single greatest album of the 2010s and it has some of the strongest themes and symbolism that i’ve ever seen in an album. it is just absolutely gorgeous and it’s worth listening to in its entirety and paying attention to everything. it also has like an incredibly shocking and beautiful ending for the album.

if you want a single song you should listen to “all outta ale” by MF DOOM. he has one of the most unique sounds of any rapper and the most complex lyrics.

also tyler the creator. he is cool and very popular. although he also makes more poppy sounding songs. actually he had like a big change in his sound.

also if you don’t want to listen to a whole kendrick lamar album i really enjoy Wesley’s Theory, Alright, King Kunta, i, and Backseat Freestyle (which is from a different album good kid m.A.A.d city)

Hi!! Thank you so much for the suggestions! I did listen to the whole album (took me three days to do so apparently añslkdfj) and my favorites out of it where Alright, i, and mortal man. I think it might be cause those are the ones with the most consistent rhythms- it might me the autism, but the more flowy, jazzy vibe of the other songs didnt scratch my brain as much. I definitely feel that a lot of the lyrics in Pimp a Butterfly went over my head for lack of personal experience, and maybe a little english being my second language and me mostly dealing in tumblr slang. But those last few songs were incredibly artistically profound, I loved it when he just started breaking into a conversation with the audience and then with someone else. I can also definitely see what you meant with unique sound for MF DOOM. There was an almost bouncy instrument (?) in the back of the track that i very much enjoyed. I do think those lyrics also went over me. Im not that great at poetry interpretation, im more a fun wordplay person.

And I've heard Tyler the creator before, apparently! Entirely through tiktok, but still. I think him being more Pop puts him closer to what i usually listen to (im a big melodies person, I really like singing along to songs and i *cannot rap* for the life of me jsjs) and is definitely very pleasant sounding, but i didnt find myself gravitating towards it particularly much. All in all, nothing scratched my brain in the specific way that gets it put on my playlists, but I'm very glad to have listened to all this! It was very interesting to delve out of my comfort zone a little

[olderthannetfic]

Hi there! I hope you're having a nice day.

Little bit of a rant and a bid for advice, if you or your readers have any. I hope that's alright.

I'm currently writing a fic or maybe multiple fics (plot bunnies be running rampant in me brains) about a rarepair of two guys. I'm a bi woman and have basically zero social skills, so in order to properly understand other people's body language, I like to look up guides or articles about body language between two people, although I know those things are full of bullshit and don't mean anything, and it's hard to find articles for example about whether another woman's body language indicates interest in you if you're a woman yourself, but eh, they're still better than my brain which is usually like "eh, could mean this or that or this or that or this or that or- basically could be anything, I wouldn't know that lol, now I'm tired and will shut off, bye" aka useless as well.

The results I've found have been absolutely useless. I like writing characters in a slightly plausible-sounding way, so I like incorporating body language as in acting choices or subconscious body language (or whatever a proper term might be) in my writing to make it sound more in-character. So for stuff like this, I usually just think "ok what is that person's expression and if I do it, what would that indicate me to be feeling currently", and I don't know if other people do that or if that's just me being bad with social stuff and intuition about it again, and if I should really try to get re-evaluated for autism which I have been advised to think about doing multiple times in multiple direct and indirect implicative ways such as people being like "hey btw are you autistic? no? you sure?" or "I know you got a negative diagnosis as a kid, but maybe that was wrong and you might wanna do it again because of all your social struggles and sensory stuff etc.", heh. (Have been diagnosed with ADHD though, so that might also just be it.)

Sorry for the rambling. English isn't my first language, so if anything sounds strange, that's to blame.

My question or rather bid for advice is: I am wondering if you or your readers might have any advice on where to find resources for reading body language and romantic or sexual implications in body language between two parties, in this case between two guys.

(Hopefully this is not too nonsensical or insensitive or something like that because that's not my intention. I just really don't know how to human or if there actually is some difference on how different people of different genders flirt consciously or subconsciously or if that's some weird unnoticed transphobic bio-essentialism shit that I hadn't yet noticed and sorted out of my head because I don't want to be transphobic since that sucks.)

--

Weeell...

If people have links to guides, that's great, but I do think that in the context of fanfic, people often write flirting that they find sexy or they write whatever the canon style of interaction is and recontextualize it as how these particular guys flirt.

They're not usually thinking "What does flirting look like in general?" and then having the characters behave in a new way.

A lot of our interpretation of body language in written fiction has to do with information we get from the POV character about how they're feeling internally. For the non-POV character, we may have the POV character's thoughts on what the body language means, but we're generally interpreting it based on media cliches and based on knowing this is a ship fic.

So the other dude acts like he doesn't like our POV dude and the POV dude is like "Alas, my pining is unrequited!" and the audience goes "Ooooh, it's one of those fics!"

If the goal is writing certain types of fic, you may not need a guide to How People Really Act as much as one to How Fans Interpret Such and Such a Behavior from Canon as Subtext.

[carriesthewind]

Entrapta, Autism, and Empathy

As you can probably tell from my icon, I love She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. And one of my favorite characters is Entrapta - I love her as a character, I love her storyline, I love her design, and I really really love and connect to her as an autistic character.

In particular, I want to talk about how the show depicts her relationship with empathy, because it’s so unique in my experience of media depictions of autistic and autistic-coded characters.

The topic of empathy and autism is…a whole thing. I have a lot of feelings about how empathy is talked about and framed in general scholarship about, and media depictions of, autism (and the whole way theory of mind is treated in those contexts as well. Flames, flames on the side of my face).

One big problem, in my opinion, is that the way a lot of scholarship and media depicts autistic people is not necessarily based on our actual experience of empathy, but how neurotypicals perceive our empathy. (And in my experience, to go back to theory of mind - much like people who think they are “empaths” often just project their own feelings onto others, non-autistic people seem to frequently believe that having a well-developed theory of mind means they can *actually* know what is in someone else’s mind, and not recognize that they are just simulating and projecting). And while some autistic people can and do absolutely struggle with empathy, I really hate how it is often written about and portrayed (especially since very particular depictions are universalized).

So. Entrapta!

A major subplot of Season 5, Episode 2, “Launch,” is Entrapta and the other princesses emotionally reconciling after Entrapta has returned to the Rebellion. The central conflict of that resolution is the other princesses’ perception of Entrapta as lacking empathy and compassion, as summed up by Mermista midway through the episode: “I should have known better than to trust you. You don’t care about Glimmer or any of us, you only care about tech!”

Entrapta’s response is to ask, “Are you all…mad at me?”

This is the turning point of the episode, which recontextualizes everything we have seen of Entrapta’s behavior so far. Up until this point, the princesses and the audience have seen Entrapta as lacking in empathy, as having hurt the Rebellion and not caring, of being inconsiderate of their feelings of hopelessness and fear for their friend.

For example, there is a moment early on in “Launch” when Mermista asks, “Are you gonna help us or not?” Entrapta doesn’t respond until Mermista says, “If you help us find Glimmer, you can go to space.” The other princesses (and presumably the audience) interpret this as Entrapta not caring about Glimmer, only about going to space. But that interpretation requires assuming that Entrapta understood what Mermista was referring to when she asked her first question - that she understood that Mermista meant, "help us find Glimmer."

Likewise, the princesses assume that Entrapta doesn’t care about having hurt them while she was working with the Horde. But from her perspective, she has no reason to believe she did anything wrong. Remember, she believed that the princesses abandoned her, they left her behind, that Catra and the Horde rescued her and were her real friends. It wasn’t until Adora explicitly told her what really happened in Season 3 that she ever questioned otherwise. She still didn’t entirely believe Adora at first, but after Catra betrayed her and revealed that Adora was right, she went back to working with the other princesses.

When Frosta tells her that they are mad because her robots were hurting them, because she helped almost destroy their kingdoms - she flinches back. She’s hearing this for the first time, and it’s the first time she has seen what it felt like from their perspective.

Importantly, once she recognizes the feelings of the other princesses, she has no trouble understanding and sharing them. And she responds in a way that they don’t understand at first, running back toward the spire. But she is finally able to explain in a way they can understand - she is trying to fix what is broken, trying to use her tech to help them and Glimmer, because she feels their loss and pain, and she feels empathy for Glimmer, all alone in the Horde, needing the other princesses to rescue her.

(I also love that in the scene where she tries to explain that she knows she’s bad with people, and is trying to make up for it by being useful, the shot deliberately cuts off below her eyes – where most non-autistic people look for emotion and connection – and instead focuses on her hands – where many autistic people express our emotions.)

This depiction of empathy matches my experience as an autistic person. Speaking personally, I often struggle to recognize what other people are feeling, especially in the moment, and especially if I have to do so based on body language. It’s easier for me if I have time to think about and process what someone has said and done. Like any skill, I’ve gotten better at it as I’ve gotten older, but I still sometimes miss things unless people explicitly lay out how they feel. It’s also frequently hard for me to respond in a way that the other person will recognize as empathetic, especially if they are a new person or I’m in a place where the social norms are different from what I’m used to. It was especially bad when I was young - when I was upset, I wanted to be left alone, so I would really struggle to respond in any sort of affirmative way to other people being upset, because I worried about making it worse.

But once I do recognize what other people are feeling, I have never had any problem feeling empathy for them. I’ve gotten pretty good at expressing that too, but it’s hard when people act like I didn’t/don’t feel empathy, because I didn’t respond the way they wanted or expected me to.

And it really really sucks to see that stereotype consistently depicted without nuance in media depictions of autistic people. Which is part of why Entrapta’s depiction feels so fresh and meaningful.

Because Entrapta is incredibly empathetic! I’ve seen her described as immoral and cold, especially prior to Season 5; but she is probably the most empathetic person in the show! She can be self-centered and she’s focused on pursuing her interests to sometimes dangerous ends and methods, but she still overflows with empathy; like an inverse of her First One’s disk, she makes other people more empathetic just by connecting to them. While Catra was able to bury her feelings about Adora and hide from consciously recognizing her mistreatment of Scorpia, it was her betrayal of Entrapta that gave her nightmares and started to really break her down. Her connection to Hordak was deep and - look, I have a lot of emotions about Entrapta and Hordak.

But the point is, she was able to form an emotional connection with him when no one else had. And after he formed that connection to her, he started forming real emotional connections to others as well (not necessary positive connections - see, e.g., Catra - but emotional connections nonetheless!). She is the one who insisted on taking Wrong Hordak back to Etheria, and is the one who helped him through his existential crisis. And, for the most literal example, we can look at Emily. Emily is literally a robot that had no personality or feelings - until Entrapta made Emily her friend.

And then there’s Episode 9 of Season 5, “An Ill Wind,” which has a single moment that encapsulates part of why I love this characterization for Entrapta so much. While the protagonists are sneaking into the town of Erelandia, Entrapta winks at Wrong Hordak while congratulating him for blending in. Wrong Hordak tells her she appears to have a facial tick. She almost immediately understands what he means and why he misunderstood, succinctly explains what winking is and how to use it, and encourages him to try winking himself to assert his newfound independence from Horde Prime.

It’s a really great character moment (and the beginning of an adorable running joke of Wrong Hordak winking) - and one that I don’t think could be done nearly so smoothly without a character that is both autistic/autistic-coded and highly empathetic. It requires a character who could understand why Wrong Hordak is confused by winking and who is both willing and able to easily explain what winking is, and who can empathize with his emerging feelings about his independence. A relevant comparison is Adora’s early Season 1 struggles to understand social conventions outside of the Horde, and Gimmer and Bow’s struggle both to understand her difficulties and to figure out how to help her adjust. In my experience, many non-autistic people have difficultly recognizing when and why people are confused by different body language and social conventions, and have even more difficulty explaining these things, since they come so intuitively to them (much like someone who is naturally gifted at math may find it difficult to write down their thought process step by step).

Wrong Hordak and his character arc are, in my opinion, so important to the themes of Season 5 and the show as a whole - and like so many similar arcs on the show, Entrapta’s empathy is critical to the shape of his arc. She may not have an elemental stone to connect her to the planet and the other princesses, but she doesn't need one - she is complete in herself. Her autism may make other people struggle to understand her, but she never has difficultly connecting to them.

[butchamy]

Okay, as promised on Discord, here's a rambly micro-essay about David Byrne's music and autism. In case this post somehow reaches a wider audience, a preface: I'm not a scholar or an expert on any of these topics, I'm just an autistic person myself with a high school degree in humanities, so try not to take it too harshly if I get things wrong or generalize too much!

The inciting incident for this post, so to speak, was me talking about how listening to Talking Heads music or David Byrne's solo work often makes me feel a little less lonely than I usually do. Not like David Byrne even knows I exist, but just for a few minutes, I get this sensation that there's someone else in the world who thinks about things the way I do, which is a feeling that's hard to find through regular conversation with other people, even fellow autistics. I'm sure a lot has already been written about how music can often be more emotionally resonant than simple conversation, but in this case specifically I think it's because Talking Heads music, in a way, is autistic.

Now there's a lot of music that's exceptionally popular among autistic people, and a lot of music made by autistic people. And I'm sure a lot of those would also qualify for the label! But what I specifically mean with the music being autistic, is that a lot of ways in which the music is described or (mis)interpreted, especially by neurotypical music analysts, just feels similar to how autistic people (and several other people on the neurodivergent spectrum, I'm sure) are described or (mis)interpreted. Neurotypicals often seem to interpret David Byrne's personality as a distinct persona, as funny, or in some way ironic or satirical. Most neurodivergent Talking Heads fans I know though instead just see him as extremely sincere and open, which from what I've gathered, is also how David sees himself. And I reckon that's partly because a lot of the themes in his lyrics are atypical but relatable in a way that neurotypical people just wouldn't really expect, I think?

It's full of admiration or even adoration of the mundane or banal, like municipal workers or supermarkets or even the simple act of being. Sometimes there's an apparent tonal dissonance between the subject and the feeling of the song - Everybody's Coming To My House can be read on the surface-level as a song that's about just inviting people to look at your home, but it has a threatening, almost ominous sound to it. Flowers and Heaven both describe something that people would generally give positive connotations, but in ways that are more ambiguous or outright negative. Animals almost seems to be the poster child for this as I've seen several people question what the intended message of the song even is. And while on the surface that might indeed come across as some form of irony or satire, I think to a lot of autistic people - at least to me and several other people I know - it just reflects how often we can struggle with really identifying or making sense of our emotions.

We might feel really happy about "boring" things, or suddenly have a negative reaction to a "good" thing, and I find that this frequently results in people thinking I'm either fickle/irrational, or trying to somehow be ironic or funny. And David Byrne's music makes me feel like that dissonance can be a form of sincerity, too. If there's one thread I'd say runs through almost all of his work, both with Talking Heads and solo, it's almost a sense of naivety regarding emotions, in the positive sense. There's not really good emotions or bad emotions, emotions just are a part of existing and because existence is valuable, emotions are valuable, regardless of subject or context.

[autisminfiction]

Just watched Avatar: The Way of Water. I for one think it’s much better than the first film because it explores much deeper themes. Among these themes is how different cultures interpret neurodivergence differently. One of the lead characters, Kiri, is canonically neurodivergent - she is diagnosed with a form of epilepsy after having a seizure underwater. Importantly, humans attribute her spiritual experiences to frontal lobe seizures. The fact the movie embeds us in the Na’vi culture causes the audience to take their spiritual interpretation as granted for truth, but there is some ambiguity to it, and many real world cultures regard neurodivergent individuals as sacred. It’s the same phenomenon here, but our perspective is being inverted from what we are used to. This is also the reason I’ve always had some degree of dislike towards the term neurodivergence - it’s a reflection of our cultural bias to reduce personality and other cognitive differences to neurology. By inverting our biases, the film exposes us to them, though people may still overlook them anyway, just in the opposite direction.

Beyond her explicit neurodivergence, Kiri has other elements to her character which are neurodivergent-coded. I hesitate to say autistic-coded specifically at this point, but I have seen other people make the claim. One particular moment that stood out is when Kiri is bullied for her neurodivergent behavior. She also belongs to a different culture and subspecies from her bullies, but her neurodivergence was the impetus for their harassment, and the reason she was targeted over her siblings. This is a common experience for neurodivergent children, especially autistic children. While she struggles socially, she exhibits autistic hyper-empathy where she is closely connected to animals and aspects of nature. She also appears to visually stim frequently as she observes her environment, which is reflected in the movies visuals, and has a close attention to detail. These features lend to the impression that she neurodivergent, and possibly autistic - should also point out that epilepsy is a common comorbidity of autism as well.

The last thing I’m going to note about her character is that due to the circumstances of her birth some people believe her to be a Christ figure. The plausibility of this is increased by how circumstances of her mother’s death could both provide a pseudo-scientific explanation for how her mother could have underwent parthenogenesis and a spiritual explanation for how she could be the child of the god of their culture. This is fine and all, but I hope that if this is the direction the show ends up taking that they don’t skew so hard in that direction that her nuances as a relatable neurodivergent character are lost. It’s clear that there are going to do with more her character in the future, and I hope she remains the most interesting character in the franchise so far rather than a plot device as we see more of her.

[accio-victuuri]

CPN : interpreting xiao laoshi’s oasis photos 📷

here we go again clowns. thank you to xiao ge for sharing photos from his personal collection. 🤍 same disclaimers applies, it’s all speculation. If you don’t like bjyx or cpns, then don’t read. It’s that easy.

1. Yibo is at it again, at this point it’s already funny and beyond coincidence. When XZ posts, his interaction points goes up. How many times does this need to happen before we accept that this guy logs in and checks his Oasis only when his man posts? GG posts at 22:15. Yibo is at 0 on 22:18 then it goes up 22:21! It’s okay Bobo, we know you check his posts and interact with it. 😌

2. The usual photo of the Moon, which is a BJYX symbolism. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I initially made a post about it here. However the uniq thing in these shots? There seems to be a Green Hue to it. and who loves Green? Bobo. The cpn thought is he found that it looks green and thought of Yibo so he sent it to him.

3. The first two photos are actually from a Korean Drama. Hahahahaha! He is watching something new again and lowkey recommending it to us. People are saying it’s like he is going through dramas with 9 douban score and above lol.

Drama Name : Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Synopsis : Extraordinary Attorney Woo tells the story of Woo Young-woo (Park Eun-bin), a lawyer with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), working at a large law firm. She has a high IQ of 164, outstanding memory, and a creative way of thinking, however she has low emotional intelligence and poor social skills.

It sounds very interesting! ✌🏼

and what a nice moment in this drama, LGBT theme right here 🏳️‍🌈 WATCH IT!!!!

Though I don’t think he watched it because of this episode, I feel like it’s a sign that he is not a homophobic shit like some people desperately want him to be. He is not clueless. If he really is anti queer content, then he would not recommend this. This is episode 2, so people will be able to watch it as soon as they try this drama. He knows his audience— a lot of people will try what he recommends. So for him to go out of his way and make a post out of it, or including it says something. I’m really proud of him.

4. People are also sharing the meaning of whale when it comes to love.

Whales in love symbolize courage, because whales are in short supply. I want to stay at the bottom of the sea even in the presence of oxygen.

The whale is very figurative in love. Dependence and perseverance at the bottom, so as to reflect the courage of love. Straight forward and not afraid of any interfering factors.

Also this quote from a Hongkong writer, Huang Biyun.

"I love you, like a whale to the sea, like a bird to the forest, it is inevitable.”

EDIT : The character in the drama also likes whales 🐳

Here is a quote from Ep 4:

"for whales, aquarium is a prison. its slavery where you're locked up in a tank, only eat frozen fish and have a show all year around without a rest. they must be stressed because of it."

This is a scene on Ep 10 where he shows a photo of a Whale that made her cry, but she really wants to see one IRL.

That’s all for now. I might update this main post or maybe just make a new one if something comes up. ✌🏼

sources:

https://m.weibo.cn/detail/4790540031492155

https://m.weibo.cn/status/4790533819471943

[ebonysficcollection]

A review of The Roundabout Way of Fate by @itsmyartfam

Overall, I'd probably rate this an 8/10

Take a shot every time the word "greenette" is used and you've got yourself a one-way ticket to alcoholism lol

I liked the lore about Healers in the MHA world, how healing Quirks were almost like their own category of Quirk classification (Emitters, Transformation-type and Mutation-type), and how Healers are prime kidnapping targets for villains because of course they are. It all made sense and it was an interesting bit of interpretation I wasn't expecting to get.

One of the things I always look forward to whenever I read canon rewrite fics is seeing how exactly the author will rework certain parts of the original story, and this one? Not bad. Like the fact that Izuku and Bakugou are actually friends, and that Izuku is the one that gets kidnapped by the League.

I have some thoughts about the application of Izu's Quirk. In the fic, he has a healing Quirk that allows him to heal both new and old injuries. This includes scars and physical disabilities, and I just... I don't know. I feel like people should just be allowed to have scars and physical disabilities without treating it as a problem to be fixed. Like, in the fic, Izu heals Tensei so that he can walk again, and I really don't know how to feel about it. Because, on the one hand, I feel like it almost cheapens Tenya's whole arc about taking his brother's hero name, but also, like, some physical disabilities do make it harder for people to do certain activities, and can even be an inconvenience at times, but at the same time, it's still a part of them, and for most people, it's likely a part of themselves that they wouldn't want to get rid of even if they could. But I also don't know as much about this as others, especially considering that I don't have a physical disabiliy. I'm technically disabled (I have diagnosed ADHD, autism and PTSD, all of which apparently count as disabilities) but none of those are physical so it affects me differently, therefore, I don't know if I can appropriately weigh in on this topic.

One of the good things about this fic is the fact that it's constantly asserting over and over again that despite not being a villain-fighting hero like the others, Izuku is not a pushover or a delicate teen mom healer-type that needs to be protected and coveted. Izuku has agency and is incredibly capable and is still very much a hero in his own right. Yes, he needs help sometimes, but the author doesn't make him a damsel in distress like a lot of healer!Izuku fics and content I've skimmed over. Because Izuku isn't a dainty, helpless nurse; he's the hero equivalent of a combat medic with actual skill who's well-versed in and knowledgeable about his craft, who learns and adapts and develops over the course of the fic and can hold his own in a fight when he needs to, which is so refreshing to see in a healer character.

This fic also does a great job of prioritizing and expanding on Izuku's relationship with other characters that aren't Bakugou and Todoroki. Like the Big 3, Recovery Girl, Shinsou, Iida, and even Kendou and Monoma from Class B. It's so good, you guys.

Also, long-haired Izuku is to die for.

Dialogue is good and natural and flows pretty well.

The technical medical information is, I assume accurate, and even if it's not, it's delivered so well and convincingly. So, even if it isn't accurate (I have almost no way of knowing), it still sells it with confidence, which is good when getting your audience invested.

Even though Izuku has a near infallible healing quirk, the story and characters (read: Recovery Girl) make it clear that he has to actually know stuff, too, and he can't just go around using his Quirk to fix everything, because there's always the possibility that he could fuck stuff up and make it worse on accident if he doesn't know what he's doing. Love it when characters have to actually know stuff.

There's a particular scene with Izuku and Kendou that had me on the edge of my fucking seat. It was so well-written and nail-bitingly tense that I almost passed out in relief when it was over. I won't spoil it here, but mind the tags if you decide to check it out. Suffice it to say, it's really good.

[gay-disabled-characters-showdown]

LGBTQ+ Disabled Characters Showdown Round 1, Wave 4, Poll 9

A character being totally canon LGBTQ+ and disabled was not required to be in this competition. Please check qualifications and propaganda before asking why a character is included.

Check out the other polls in this wave and prior here.

Julian Bashir-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

Qualifications:

Disability: Along with being generally awkward with conversation and not knowing how to talk to people, a part of his backstory is that he was “underperforming” in school so his parents got him illegally genetically enhanced to “fix” him (in the show this is treated as a horrible fucked-up thing that they did LGBTQ+: He has a relationship with another male character on the show that everybody behind-the-scenes (except the homophobic producer) treated as canonically romantic. The homophobic producer had to tell the writers to stop putting Bashir and Garak in scenes together because they got along too well and he didn’t want the audience to think they were a couple. The non-homophobic producer said in a documentary looking back on DS9 that one of his biggest regrets about the show is not making the relationship actually canon.

He was canonically intellectually disabled as a child, which his parents attempted to "correct" with illegal gene editing. This eliminated his intellectual disability, but he displays many many autistic traits still (socially awkward, infodumps, hyperempathetic, echolalia, blunt). This lends itself to the popular interpretation that the gene editing couldn't "correct" his autism, but it did change exactly which autistic traits he had. One of his closest onscreen relationships is with Elim Garak, a relationship that both actors have since said is romantic in nature, and Andy Robinson (Garak's actor) has explicitly said he played Garak as being attracted to Bashir. There is also some possible evidence of Julian being trans; in one episode, he says this of a situation in which he had to transfer a fetus from one of his friends into another due to an emergency (paraphrased): "The fetus was in distress, and the only available candidates were Major Kira... and me." This line potentially implies he is capable of carrying a fetus. Furthermore, he canonically has a name that his parents used to call him that he refuses to answer to now (Jules). In-universe, this is due to him finding out about his genetic engineering, but it is very transgender of him.

Propaganda:

He uses all of his free time to role play historical events with his best friend - He intentionally got one question wrong on his finals so that he wouldn’t be valedictorian - On like 5 separate occasions he gets invited to medical conferences then kidnapped on the way - Season 2 episode 22 “The Wire”

He is so awesome. Very autistic, very interesting character. He's an extremely caring doctor, to the point he once stayed on a plague-ridden planet with no futuristic tech, mixing medicine by hand for weeks in an attempt to cure the populace. Which he succeeds at, by the way!! He also, after finding a rogue group of former enemy soldiers who have managed to kick their dependence on the drug used by the enemy government to control them, Julian agrees to try to formulate a way for all of the soldiers to be free of their dependence. He only fails due to interference. Also, when Garak is suffering withdrawal from a brain implant, he stays by his bedside for days on end, caring for him, and even going to the heart of hostile territory to ask the head of the Space KGB how he can cure him. And that's not all! In addition to being a very dedicated (if often unethical) doctor, he is also a space tennis player! He has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth immediately upon meeting anyone new, and not just because of his canonical foot fetish! I'm not joking about that. It is canon.

The qualifications and propaganda paragraphs correspond, @convenient-plot-device is the second submitter.

Frankie Stein-Monster High

Qualifications:

Frankie has always had detachable limbs, that sometimes are useful and other times bothersome. Frankie has also often been hcd as some kind of queer. In G3 of Monster High, they now additionally to their detachable limbs, have a prosthetic leg. And Frankie is now canonically nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. As well as apparently having something romantic going on with Cleo (idk i don't keep up with the cartoon) (but any relationship would be queer for them, as they are nb, lol)

Propaganda:

I love Frankie. I love Monster High. I have loved it since G1. And I do like a lot of the changes (although very much not all) that they made with G3. Especially Frankie. Having them be femme presenting nb is awesome. And also having a prosthetic leg!! I love this

[switch]

For the fate character thing: Moriarty and Vlad just bc I like hearing you talk about them

oh boy you're not getting any prompts skipped with this one! it's gonna be a long one.

Vlad:

favorite thing about them

everything. he's tall, he's 45, the eyeshadow, the eyelashes, the beard, the hair, the skirt, the thigh high boots, the cool tattoos, the aquiline nose, the turtleneck, the pointy teeth, the earrings, the fluff, the deep voice, the chest window that one time, the sewing thing, he's tsundere, he's scary, he's smug, he's cool, he's weird, he's cute, he has incredibly unique lore, he has fun gameplay, i have never loved any character more than i love vlad.

least favorite thing about them

HIS SPRITE SUCKS AAAAUGH I COME TO WORK AND I HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS MESS

favorite line

the legendary,

brOTP

vlad and tamamo, vlad and siegfried, vlad and shakespeare, vlad and moriarty, vlad and crane, vlad and carmilla... vlad needs more people to hang out with...

OTP

vlad and male mc........... and vladcha.......

that aside, i've also enjoyed vlad x siegfried and vlad x georgio. those are cute.

nOTP

i'm going to hunt darnic for sport. also, not a fan of him x carm, considering... his uncle-niece relationship with liz. but, i do also get that some people really don't like fgo mashing carm and liz together and prefer to interpret them separately, which is fair enough. just not my thing. i prefer their relationship as familial, i think it's nice.

random headcanon

he hangs out in mc's shadow a lot (based on his quick card animation i feel like he should be able to do something like that, i've seen other servants interpreted as being able to do this as well).

unpopular opinion

he's best husband

song i associate with them

WOE, CHARACTER PLAYLIST BE UPON YE

favorite picture of them

that's really difficult. there are a lot of very different, but still good vlads. honestly, maybe just his ascension 3 art if i had to pick one?

i mean, this is the vlad i see every day in fgo. that's my husband right there.

Moriarty:

favorite thing about them

once again pretty much everything. he's 50, the mustache, the eyeliner, the eyelashes, the glasses, the cool cape, i like how his outfit blends fantasy elements without being too made-up, ulysses butterflies are my favorite, the military touches are neat, he has pointy teeth for no reason, how deep his voice can get, the RAITA hands, the black gloves, the shoes, the skirt-apron thing in gray collar, the coffin, he's funny, he's cool, he's evil, he's weird, he's smug. he represents a real high point in FGO with shinjuku.

least favorite thing about them

do i even have to say it. well, he's pretty much in joke character hell now, his sprite is really outdated, and his kit is awful to play with. sigh. eh well.

favorite line

where do i even start lmao

brOTP

i don't think anyone actually really likes him but moriarty and vlad, moriarty and shakespeare, moriarty and babbage

OTP

moriarty and male mc. again. what do you want from me. and vladcha. leave me alone.

i've also enjoyed moriarty and moran. people have to make up their own moran for this one, though.

nOTP

it's not a proper "nOTP" as the kids would call it, but (and i must stress that this is my great mouse detective bias showing) i prefer moriarty and sherlock having a sort of "bitter exes" dynamic (even if they were never actually involved) instead of romantically pairing them.

for one thing i just think it's really funny, but also i do find the idea of moriarty trying to "get over" someone he was literally made to exist around compelling, and i think especially post-shinjuku makes that another viable route to take with his character.

random headcanon

autism.

unpopular opinion

they really need to let him be more evil again instead of just the funny endearing dad the audience likes. i get that there's only so much he can get away with in chaldea but come onnn they've been doing this for years now, i'm worried the writers are gonna forget at this point. i want him to do something fucked up again. i miss it. him caring about mc does not inherently preclude him from doing something fucked up.

song i associate with them

ditto, character playlist

favorite picture of them

that's also really tough since he has a LOT of official art. probably a tie between Eyelashes Book Cover VS Gray Collar Fuckhands