#I personally blame the neurodivergency for this feeling

[voltaspistol]

There are some leftist spaces that make me, a queer disabled neurodivergent woman living in poverty, feel excluded and hated. I'm gonna be vulnerable for a moment, please don't crucify me, Tumblr. I had dared to say, in a mostly private space online that I thought was full of like-minded individuals who were all very accepting and understanding of the difficulties that come with intersectionality, that I felt guilty I wasn't giving money to Palestinian gofundmes as much anymore because my own financial situation is perilous, and I suspected I'd already given money to one or more scammers, and it had made me hesitate to put my trust in more GoFundMes. When you're living on just SSI? Getting scammed really fucking hurts. Money is always tight and there's not a lot of options for making a little extra. You can't pick up more hours of being disabled, and you try going down to the Social Security Administration and asking for a raise. It ain't happening. I was expecting some kind of, I don't know.... Tips on how to tell if the person saying "verified" wasn't a sock puppet account? Or maybe someone else commiserating that they too felt guilty they couldn't do more? Instead? I got all-caps screamed at by a person who accused me of being a white colonialist Nazi bitch who would suck Netenyahu's cock if it meant being able to keep more money to my greedy little lily white Zionist ass and I could go fuck myself with my buddy Genocide Joe making sport of killing Gazans. And the page owner scolded ME for speaking in a nasty way about Palestinians, not the person screaming profanities in caps lock. I unfriended the page owner without taking a screenshot, I was just so mortified and filled with self-hatred and blinking back tears, I didn't want to stick around for what these people were going to say to me next as I saw ".....someone is typing....." So that was. Um. Unexpected, I guess? But what happened next shook me to my fucking core. My brain all but announced, reflectively, in a voice that was not my own, "See? Fox News was right about these people, they hate you for the color of your skin and expect nothing but endless handouts" before I even knew what was happening. Like I was a fucking sleeper agent Tucker Carlson. And I was SHOCKED that my brain just .... Jumped to being a racist shithead?? Like, shit, I was exposed to Fox News as a teenager because my dad was a fucking racist shithead (may he continue to burn in hell) but if I didn't have the presence of mind to say, "Wait. Wait. Was that my own thought, or was that the racist crap I was exposed to bubbling to the surface????" then what was happening in the heads of people who don't have my years of therapy to make me second guess my first thoughts? I cried for a while, took stock of my beliefs, and realized that, huh, some leftist spaces are full of assholes who just spend all day trying to be the bestest leftist and anyone who isn't trying for that coveted spot as Karl Marx's Presumptive Heir becomes a training dummy for everyone who is jockeying for that position. If the Capital-L Left can make a queer disabled neurodivergent woman living in poverty feel excluded and hated and othered and blamed for all the world's problems, I shudder to think what leftists like that make regular old white men feel like. There are some leftists that are just plain fucking toxic. You are fortunate to have never accidentally found yourself among them, but yes, they definitely exist and they are the stuff of nightmares.

"The left makes white men feel excluded and hated" HOW. Where. By whom. I am a white man and I have never been anywhere that anyone showed any sign of being bothered by that, on or off the internet. Literally what the fuck does that shit mean at all. What in god's name are they blubbering about. Everyone I've ever met on what they consider "the left" has been immediately friendly and open and laid back and never called any attention to our differences at all. It's like they see the mangled pseudoprogressive gibberish of faux-liberal new york times democrats and just assume it accurately represents what any regular person on any known planet believes.

[freckleslikestars]

Y’know that feeling when you’re hungry and all you want to eat is a bagel like you wanna make the best damn bagel you’ve ever eaten, but also it’s like half four and you don’t have bagels (or any fillings at all) in the house and you also don’t have anything for dinner apart from cinnamon rolls and literally why is the only food in your house cinnamon rolls what the fuck is wrong with you but you’ve just made coffee so you don’t want to have to go out and buy food to cook for dinner or food for bagels so you just sit there staring at the wall because you can’t focus on what you’re drawing because your stomach keeps rumbling

[spiltcandycoatedpunkblood]

'adhd is a superpower!! it's not a disability!!' like shut up!!! sure, i wouldn't be the same person without it because it has shown me what good things i've done with it. but it IS a disability!!! it is a disability!! do you know how many things i don't get done and the meltdowns i have??? and i didn't go through school being bullied for undiagnosed neurodivergent traits to be told 'it's not disabling!!'. i sure had enough of a bad time in education without getting constant shit for being too emotional or daydreamy or interrupting or not being aware of social cues or not getting sarcasm or being super passionate about interests that often lasted like, a week or so. do you know much grief i would've saved in later life if that was even one aspect of my trauma that didn't make everything so fucking difficult???

[starphobe]

fh fandom back to wishing death on a fictional teenager for being mentally ill and not learning how to cope with that in a healthy way. what else is new

[dreamsy990]

people who talk about masking are really interesting to me because like. i think i tried to mask but i certainly did not succeed. teach me your ways

[holyfever]

truthfully i spent christmas eve getting obliterated from liquor because it is painful to force myself into socialization but i havent stopped masking during the holidays. i havent been able to. every time it gets more painful. i ended up drinking so much that all i could do was curl up on the floor and cry. i couldn't stop crying and didnt even know where it was all coming from bc it had obviously triggered some sort of huge release that i didn't know i was holding in, from places i can only guess.

and then my mom told me today, "you were so good, though".

after telling her that i was still recovering, still feeling sick, all she could tell me is how well i did at pretending. people didn't even recognize how fucking drunk i was bc even then, i just contained everything and put on my best behavior until pulling an irish exit and spending the rest of the night crying and being sick. i dissociated the entire christmas day until i went to bed early and slept for 12 hours, which still wasn't enough. but life goes on

[evangelifloss]

Thinking about a certain scene in Dungeon Meshi that completely encapsulates the Autistic experience of making friends as an adult and how hard it is to try and navigate it without ending up getting hurt.

Like IDK about y'all, but this is a common problem ALOT of Autistic Adults face when trying to make friends with other people, because unlike children who aren't good at keeping their opinions to themselves, Adults ARE. In society, we're even encouraged to "keep the peace" "be polite" and etc, which commonly leads to awful scenarios as shown above when Laois finds out his buddy has come to resent who Laois is without actually telling him. All too often the friends that we love to hang out with, people that we're so happy to spend time with, don't feel the same way and in many cases, come to blame us for our social cues or lack thereof.

And when/if we do eventually find out how our friend feels, Dungeon Meshi hits us with another painful panel of how that usually ends up playing out.

It's hard for Adults with Autism to make friends, and even harder to maintain them because alot of the ways Neurotypicals tell other Neurotypicals that they don't like a certain behavior is by quietly disengaging. Whether that involves having one sentence answers, going quiet, or having a certain tone in their voice, all those things signal annoyance or disapproval, but for the Neurodivergents, those subtle cues are completely missed.

And yet when we inevitably discover we DID do something, it is natural to ask "well why didn't you tell me?" because in our minds, it should've been the next step in the equation. However for the Neurotypicals, that's NOT something to bring up. Its important to be SUBTLE about the issue at hand and rely on signals to tell the other person. Blame is placed on us for not noticing the "obvious" signs of disapproval rather than the idea of talking it out as such things are uncomfortable and harder to do. Alot of the time what ends up happening is resentment due to the idea that it was "obvious" and the fact one didn't notice indicates a deliberate ignorance rather than a complete unawareness. It ends up calling into question our quality as a person and our sincerity. We get called "fake" or "malicious" or even "stupid" for failing social cues rather than questioning the decision to be indirect and vague.

For a manga about exploring the dungeon, it seems that the artist would rather explore very real and prevalent dynamics in society with the adventuring premise as a backdrop. I felt VERY seen in these panels, and many others, because it happens so suddenly and dare I say it, plainly. There's no dramatic build-up or spectacle made and in essence, it just Happens.

I think that's what makes the scene hit even harder. It seemingly comes out of nowhere for Laois, like how it always comes out of nowhere for alot of people, and it's never a dramatic twist either. It's always mundane and hurtful. A sudden unforeseen bump in the road that ends up calling into question one's entire friendship with someone and consequent other friendships. It asks "what if other friends feel the same. What if the people that I really like actually hate me and I don't know it?" Or at least that's what I came away with after reading the chapter. I've been where Laois was and the only reason I'm not there now is because I lost the naivete I had and doubt everyone else's sincerity.

[shunthepotato]

Is it bad that I haven’t even started anything at my new job and want to quit already?

[avelera]

Man, there’s all these little beats in OFMD S2 1-3 where people keep EXPECTING Stede to be upset or horrified about Ed’s actions and then he’s just. Not. In a way that reminded me of how a lot of fanon kept softening Stede into someone who doesn’t swear and is horrified at Ed for setting those ships on fire when imo to my eyes he was horrified for Ed because Ed was still so clearly distressed about it.

- Zheng Yi Sao asks Stede how he’s doing now that he knows Ed did horrible things to his crew and there’s this beat and Stede just pivots to, oh yeah, sometimes Ed is troubled. Like it didn’t occur to him to be upset on the crew’s behalf he’s worried about Ed.

- Izzy keeps trying to spare Stede’s feelings and cover up Ed’s spiral, but Stede clocked what was going on with Ed immediately and wasn’t the least bit intimidated or bothered. The knives brought the room together. Of course Ed’s trying to burn the world down or die trying. Duh. And I genuinely don’t think the STUFF in the Revenge mattered even a fraction to Stede as much as the signs of Ed’s breakdown broke his heart. It’s just STUFF, who cares.

- Lucius had to SPECIFICALLY call out Stede for not being surprised or bothered by what happened to him. What Ed did. Stede has to almost consciously remind himself to express polite concern. He just doesn’t actually care, instinctively or automatically, about what happened to Lucius. Part of it is he blames himself more than Ed. Part of it is he just doesn’t care, Ed is the priority.

They’re little blink and you’ll miss it pauses in some cases. Micro-expressions. The absence of a reaction. But honestly, I will scream it to the end of time, Stede is not some nonviolent creampuff scared or upset by Ed’s evil ways. He wants to join Ed in the atrocities. The man ran away to become a pirate. He asked if Lucius was taking notes during a murderous raid.

Stede’s at least a little on some kind of whackadoodle pirate comedy neurodivergence spectrum to the point where he actually really actually struggles to empathize with people, even people he cares about!, if their feelings conflict with his hyperfixation (piracy) and the love of his life (Ed Teach). He’s always, ALWAYS going to pick Ed over Lucius or Izzy or his crew or even his own feelings, if the option is there. He will literally throw himself overboard to get to Ed’s side. No pause. No consideration of anyone else or even his own safety.

Stede sometimes seems to have to consciously remind himself things like, oh yeah, the crew, I need to see to them. Not because he’s heartless or doesn’t care, but because it takes a bit of conscious effort for him to see beyond the laser-focused spotlight of what and who he does care most about, he has to remind himself of social niceties and other people’s feelings (just see him running away in the first place!) when he gets an idea in his head. It’s as if he had to train himself to consciously care about some things other people care about and as a neurodivergent person myself, that felt very familiar in a comedically writ large sort of way. I’d even argue that’s where all his aristocratic social niceties come from. They were his guidebook for how to do things “right” in a world that otherwise made no sense to him outside his hyperfixations. He practiced being a person through the aristocratic training because it was all so foreign to him from the start, including caring, actually caring, about the needs of others. Not because he’s consciously evil or consciously a jerk. The instinct just isn’t there unless he practices at it until it becomes reflex to ask how others are doing, because on his own his brain just doesn’t really notice or care.

I just… hope the fandom notes and has as much FUN as I do noticing all the little moments where even people inside the story of OFMD expect Stede to act in a normal way and instead he remains unhinged, laser-focused on Ed.

Stede’s not just an Ed apologist, he truly doesn’t blame Ed for any of it. He blames only himself. He doesn’t always voice this but he really really only cares about anyone else including the crew as a DISTANT second and he has to consciously REMIND himself to do so. He is able to rally to take action, to care about their physical needs like safety during the rescue, but he still struggles, deeply struggles, to remember to show empathy in a non-performative way for anyone except his special person, Ed.

Stede’s not a creampuff, not a nice guy, not some emotionally or morally perfect angel. He has to consciously practice caring about literally anything else but what he wants to do and his special person. And to me that’s a thousand times more interesting than shoving him in a box labeled “the blond, pacifist do-gooder good guy” in their relationship.

[000marie198]

"I thought if you get to know them, you'll grow to love them just as much as I do."

So like...

I know that Sonic assuming that Nine would just do what he wants is bad, specially since part of his reasoning came from thinking he would be and act just like Tails would...but.

You can still see that Sonic was actually pretty excited to have Nine in Green Hill, at the point in time of those screenshots Sonic thought that Nine was fine going to live in Green Hill, there was no reason (from his pov) to convince him that living in GH would be great. To me at least it reads as Sonic being really excited about not just getting his world and friends back (which obviously he would be happy about) but also about Nine being there with them specifically.

He talks about meeting Tails, having fun together in green hill...like, dude really just adopted the kid. They were family now, no questions asked.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for threatening to become a girl's step dad to troll her into blocking me and stop dragging me in a group chat ? Jenny (23F) blew up because I (24NB) said she'd be a shitty social worker bc of her specific autism symptoms + class bg. My gf (45F) said it was warranted because of how  overwhelmed i got by the wall of text with triggering details of my abuse. I never told my GF that the fight started because Jenny called me a gold digger. I also never mentioned that I ended it an hour later by posting pics of Jenny's mom in the chat, ignoring her ranting and discussing the vacancy left by her dead dad*, and how i could fill said vacancy. 😬😬😬 Might of gone too far with this one.

Backstory: I lived with Jenny when I was houseless indefinitely. She only let me stay for two weeks because it would be too "distracting" to her studies. Jenny was incredibly rich, didn't work, and her parents paid her rent for a 2 bedroom. She admitted she got rejected from every grad school she applied to except for the one her mom was in charge of. Her mom bought her a condo in the city the school was in. She kept asking me how she should decorate it, completely ignorant to how uncomfortable this made me and my other friends. Jenny was oblivious constantly to how she made others feel. She was actually the most incompetent person I've ever met in terms of comforting other, always tone deaf and completely absorbed with her own, single traumatic event. She made constant jokes about the abuser I was fleeing and even compared this stalked to a /serial killer/ documentary she watched, but never EVER showed any signs of internalizing how I almost lost my life to another person, how that might affect me or even just bum me out. Seriously, I've never met someone else who was so incapable of even being sensitive to issues that were /EXTREMELY SERIOUS/. Forget comforting, the stuff she routinely said to me and my other friends to try to cheer us up was beyond degrading. It was wearing on me a lot.

Jenny herself was neurodivergent. She often said her autism prevented her from understanding the feelings others had, reading their expressions, and tolerating crying or loud noise-- she forbid her musician roommate from doing both. None of those mean shes a worthless person, but all of those things would make someone a horrible therapist or social worker. Oh my God, literally every time I talked about my recent trauma, she would talk about herself and then blame her autism when I told her it just wasn't helping.

The final piece of this was I had a nervous breakdown and screamed at her over discord that she was a shit friend and needed to give up on social work, for like an hour. NOT MY PROUDEST, but I ALMOST DIED. I was living with her because SOMEONE WAS STALKING ME. and I would have liked to not have my abuse JOKED about. HOW DID JENNY RESPOND!? She began dragging me, through the mud, in the group chat, for, dating, an, older, woman, who, paid, for, my, air bnb, because, !!!she!!! wouldn't let me live with her for more than a week. I was HOMELESS. It became all about "OP you are such a b*tch, you are with a woman twice your age and she pays for everything now but you are still a miserable and angry person. You are so blah blah blah you are an ableist, you said I can't become a social worker bc of autism blah blah blah you have major major issues, Go back your rich granny and leech off of her you useless, fucked up little gold digger."

U_U Then, she started graphically describing how I deserved my abuse, so I shrimply began to troll. And yes, I pulled out my magnum oppus like fucking playing blue eyes white dragon, oh yeah I slipped her a pristine Jenny's mom facebook photo and said "Hey you never said your mom was so cute. Maybe, I could leech off her next and become your new dad." Yes, her dad died.* She blocked me immediately. Its OK. It was knives out for Jenny as soon as my GF gifted me a pair of $700 Isabel Marant shoes** , the most EXPENSIVE thing ive ever owned in my whole life, and Jenny saw me excited and called her mom to buy her a pair. It's, absolutely OK, if I am the asshole. I wear my crown of thorns, judas that I am, but I really, really think Jenny was being cruel. *he died 18 years ago ** the shoes are no more because i fell into my gf's rich friend's koi pond

[moonspiritmars]

ope I just realized a big reason I was feeling really frustrated/angry on behalf of Evan with the discourse surrounding if K asked for consent or not to fix Evan's arm was because as an autistic person, Evan reads very autistic to me. So when I see people say K asked for consent and then go back and watch the scene and the words "can I try to fix that poorly healed bone," are not explicitly said, I think about all the times I have been harmed by people being vague (both on purpose and not) and not saying what they really mean. The amount of times people have said that I gave consent for something when I very much did not, because they interpreted what I said as consent to fit their narrative and actions is much too many, and for so long people wrote it off as me being naive, turned it around on me, made it my fault when I was the one harmed, the one with my boundaries violated. Oof.

I have had this happen with malicious people and I've had it with non-malicious people, and that's important because K is not malicious, I think they just care so much that sometimes they don't know where to put all that love and care. Also, I read K as neurodivergent/could see them being neurodivergent too, so this isn't me saying they were acting like a neurotypical person, I just think that even neurodivergent people sometimes get really wrapped up communicating in their own ways and forget that for some of us our understanding of language is deeply literal and reading between the lines/interpreting our words differently than what was explicitly stated can be really, really harmful for all parties involved. (sometimes I can hurt people too with my literalism! it's not all black and white obviously)

Like I said, I feel deeply for K because deep down at their core I truly believe their actions aren't about seeing people/things as objects needing to be fixed (despite it coming off that way sometimes), I just think they see themselves as inherently worthless if they are not always using all of their energy trying to help. I get that, and how it feels like you're drowning when you're not giving yourself away to people and causes because theres too much, always too much, love and care and concern and it makes you feel like you're going to implode. One of the hardest lessons I've learned is that sometimes my need to help, to fix, to care, to give, is a little bit more about having control than it is just wanting to help. When you grow up with chronic instability you claw and scratch at anything that might anchor you, and often it's the need to feel like you have worth, you mean something to other people, and you're willing to give yourself away as long as it means you have stable footing beneath you. All of that is to say that I do not blame K (or other people with similar circumstances to mine) for having an unhealthy relationship to control, it's just that in learning so many of my actions are also attached to deep insecurity I've been allowed to finally start healing the way I deserve to heal, and I just want that for others too.

Anyway I need to get my Sam post out before the next episode because I didn't finish it and then watched last nights episode and that was a huge mistake because now I have even more I wanna write about. She is such a complex and beautiful character and every single one of her actions speaks to who she is at her core and I just wanna give her a hug. Truly feels like the peak example of being alone doesn't always mean you're lonely, and being lonely does't always mean you're alone.

anyways pls don't get mad at me I'm sorry if anything came off wrong, all I was hoping to do was explain why I was feeling the way I was in case it helps others understand why they were feeling similar/different things during that scene. Like I said, I love K, and also this wasn't slander towards anyone who isn't autistic (also autism manifests in different ways), I just realized how my experience as an autistic person with adhd always really shapes how I view the media I consume and found it illuminating in this scenario especially.

(can you tell I've been chronically misunderstood my entire life by the way I'm prematurely apologizing also people being upset with me makes my tummy hurt because I take it really personally and would rather keep the peace than hold firm to my opinion at times)

((but I mean if I said something wrong I wanna know asddfgjrlgk wow y'all are learning a whole lot about how my brain works through a lil post about dnd oops))

[ingravinoveritas]

So, some folks have probably seen by now that the trailer for Michael's appearance on The Assembly this Friday has dropped, and the first question shown is, "How does it feel to be dating with someone who's only 5 years older than your daughter?"

Already, I am seeing people clutching their pearls in response to this, particularly on Twitter. Saying that it's an inappropriate question, that this person has an opportunity to ask Michael anything and chooses this, that he looks so uncomfortable, and so on. One piece of context that seems to be missing is that (to my knowledge), none of the interviewers are fans of Michael's. They were given the opportunity to do research prior to the interview and developed their questions based on that, but none (again, AFAIK) are coming from the vantage of being a fan. So immediately, that gives a different sense of where the interviewers are coming from and how this shapes and informs the interview itself.

What also came to mind is that if Michael is uncomfortable, it's worth thinking about why that might be. It seems like a lot of fans have created this perfect portrait of Michael and Anna's relationship in their minds, so if we are to follow the logic of that--if his and AL's relationship is as sunshine and roses as many people believe it to be--then Michael might be surprised by the question, but probably wouldn't be uncomfortable. Yet in the trailer, we can see the change in his body language and the way he tenses up immediately after the question is asked. Because for as talented an actor as he is, Michael absolutely cannot seem to hide his true feelings as himself.

I also definitely think that whatever answer he gives to that question will be a PR answer. Which is not to suggest that Michael will be dishonest, but rather that he will be polite, but likely without saying what he really feels about their relationship. Again, do I think he owes anyone his full, unvarnished emotions? No, of course not. But Michael is a fully grown adult man who is more than aware of the consequences of his actions, and he does not need to be "protected" or shielded from such questions. So if fans are uncomfortable with Michael's discomfort in talking about a relationship he's been in for the last five years, it might be a good idea to think about why that is.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that the editing of the trailer is already confirming some of my previously-held fears where the autistic/neurodivergent interviewers are portrayed as rude/weird, and Michael is "so brave" for taking on the "challenge" of being interviewed by "those people." It's somehow a combination of objectifying and dehumanizing, putting us (I include myself, as an autistic person) in the category of "other" for actually saying out loud what other people are only thinking. This both entirely disregards the producers/editors tacit encouragement as part of the format of this, and Michael being willing to answer, and demonizes/places the blame on the ND interviewers instead.

That is my take on the trailer, at any rate. I still intend to watch the full show once it's released, and am hopeful that the joyful atmosphere found in other parts of the trailer will prevail throughout the show. Happy as always to hear from my followers with your thoughts, so feel free to chime in...

[ewingstan]

On 14.5. Don't really like how much focus is being put on whether or not Amy "isn't well." I could say that this framing of how to consider Amy fits with Vicky as a narrator, but the amount of focus the question is getting feels like the text itself considers it important. The idea that there's some ethically-relevant metaphysical difference between "normal" harmful actions and harmful actions resulting from mental illness, such that we should assign blame to the former but not the latter—its certainly common. But one of the strengths of Worm was that it poked holes in it, that "everyone's actions are a result of the circumstances they're placed in" was one of its central themes.

Call me a filthy Hard Determinist, but t feels like we've taken a step back. We went from "people behave in ways that harm others when put in certain circumstances, and society should focus on preventing those circumstances rather than punishing people for their reactions" to "there's a type of person that does bad things because they're bad, but be careful not to confuse them for someone who's just neurodivergent and a minor!"

[qweei]

(tw: vent, bullying/isolation trauma, mental health discussions)

growing up as an undiagnosed neurodivergent person, constantly being punished for being different or doing something wrong, but never being able to understand what exactly you did and why you’re even being punished for it. instead just left to wonder your entire life if there's something wrong with you, can be a whole trauma of itself.

its the feeling that you deep down know you are different and you're doing something wrong but you don't understand why or how.

i grew up confused why so many of my teachers just straight up hated me, even though i wanted nothing more than to get their approval and praise, why almost all my classmates did everything to avoid me even though i tried so hard to be nice to them, and why it was so hard for me specifically to make friends when everyone else could do it so easily.

a feeling that all to often just gets blamed on me, whether that'd be because of some unspoken social rule i broke, despite never knowing it to begin with. my presence being off putting somehow, or simply just some things not coming naturally to me. like i'm constantly being belittled for not knowing the instructions despite never being given any.

it's my fault no likes me, because there will always be something i'm doing wrong. is it the way i speak? is it my facial expression? is it the way i walk? is it the way i smile? the way i laugh? is the way i dress? is it something i said? something i didn't? what is it, what exactly am i doing so wrong that makes me deserving of being treated like this, i was just a kid.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

we’ve already talked about the more blatant forms of ableism concerning entrapta, like the way the princesses treated her, but another thing i want to mention is how the narrative around entrapta is also a bit ableist. namely, i want to talk about the way entrapta’s reasons behind being a morally grey character.

entrapta is morally ambiguous, that’s pretty obvious and i have no complaints about it. i do like morally grey and complex characters. however, what rubs me the wrong way is the fact that entrapta’s moral greyness is a direct product of her autism, according to the narrative. she doesn’t join the horde just because catra manipulates her, she also does it because.. the horde has cool tech stuff and gadgets. basically, entrapta is okay with endangering thousands of innocent civilians, if it means that she gets to play with fun gadgets. she says it herself, that she’s “on the side of science”.

now as an autistic person myself, i get that neurodivergent people can be quite passionate and sometimes singleminded about their hyperfixations. but never to this point. if i was offered a job that involves my hyperfixation, but that job was corrupt or directly hurt other people, i wouldn’t accept it. same goes for most neurodivergent people that i know. especially for those who are more on the high-functioning side of the spectrum, like entrapta. we know how to differentiate good from bad. we use our critical thinking skills.

i saw a few spop critics say that they don’t blame entrapta for joining the horde, because the princesses treated her like shit. and i have to partially disagree with this take. yes, entrapta had all the right to be mad at the princesses. but the horde wasn’t just targeting the princesses. war isn’t, and has never been, a heroes vs villains conflict. if anything, the princesses are the ones who are least affected by the war. entrapta should at least have had a moment of epiphany where she realizes how terrible the horde truly is and the harm she has helped it to cause. but no, even though she gets “punished” (i.e. mistreated) in s5, it doesn’t really drive forward a good message. the princesses are only mad at entrapta because they feel personally betrayed by her, not because her actions were wrong on a larger level.

i guess it’s no surprise coming from the show that treats the war like a silly game, but i still resent the fact that the creators basically imply that autistic people are stupid and don’t have a moral compass. also if i’m not mistaken, i believe someone in the crew made a really distasteful joke about entrapta being a tr*mp supporter because “she doesn’t know any better”. again, all of this boils down to ableism and the trend of infantilizing neurodivergent people.