#around that time I developed some autistic traits in my personality :/

[hammill-goes-fogwalking]

sympathy for the outcasts <3

[cripplecharacters]

Hello, I'm writing a character that is autistic. I'm autistic and white (afab) and my character is black (amab), can I use my own experience with autism as a "draftc for his character? If not, what can I do to make the writing feel correct/original?

(sry if I made any grammar mistakes, I'm not a native speaker)

Hi asker,

Ultimately, autism is both race- and sex- and gender- neutral. Symptoms and traits are not going to vary drastically because of any of the above things.

So yes, you can use your own experience as a basis for your character. What you'd need to pay more attention to is the responses of other people to your character and the culture that they're being raised in.

For example, black disabled people are treated especially heinously by law enforcement, so if you were going to include anything about that, a little black kid might be taught as much as possible by his family to be careful around cops and develop a script and to not stim around them. Masking and not stimming in a case like this isn't a case of hiding your true self, it's about protecting your life and safety. And yet, this doesn't actually have anything to do with this character's autism being any different than a little white boy his age. Just that it is treated differently.

And, like any character of color, the only way to make them isn't just to make them live the same life culturally than a white person and then change the color of their skin. Researching about their culture and including bits of that in their life is important – things like food, values, hairstyles, cultural events, holidays, and such.

I want to add that the assigned genders of your characters don't matter as much as you think they might. I know it's common to refer to 'female/girl autism' on the internet as its own separate beast, but there isn't really a material difference in symptoms and traits. Some traits will be seen differently socially by others, like with race, and people might be treated differently depending on their sex about how they behave, but the behaviors themselves are not divided nicely on a gender line or anything like that. That misconception, really, is just born from misogyny, sexism, and societal expectations, not from autism itself being different.

Hope this helps,

mod sparrow

Hello,

mod Sparrow covered the actual question, so I'll mention the AGAB part.

There is no sexual dimorphism related to hormones, genitals, or chromosomes in autism. The severity of a person's symptoms or how they experience them is unrelated to any kind of sex characteristic, nor to a past decision made on the basis of at-the-time appearance of the person's external genitals, which is what AGAB is.

The "girl/boy autism" is a sexist dichotomy that is completely made up and presents girls as inherently less disabled by their autism. It erases the severely disabled girls and women who do have autism and shows "girl autism" as more manageable and pro-social than "boy autism" which is impossible to control and anti-social. That's nonsense and the same kind of erasure of women as in every other minority.

The only real difference that is based on gender is how it's socially treated by others, just like mod Sparrow mentioned. Men's autistic symptoms are generally considered more acceptable than they would be if they belonged to a woman, even if the symptom is exactly the same. If a man shows autistic tendencies, he can be considered "intriguing and unique", but if a woman did the same, she would be "off-putting and weird".

This, however, obviously isn't based on what the person's AGAB was. A transgender woman's autistic behavior won't be seen the same way a cisgender man's behavior would be. It will in fact put her under more scrutiny than a cis woman would be under, not less. AGAB is a past event that serves no function in this question, nor in most contexts. AGAB doesn't answer for gender, presentation, chromosomes, hormone dominance, organs, functionality of these organs, or anything else other than what someone arbitrarily said about a newborn. Categorizing people based on what gender they were assigned at birth - rather than any present characteristic - is bioessentialism.

I know this is not an answer to the ask, but please question what a past evaluation of the character's genitals would inform here that their actual gender wouldn't.

mod Sasza

[snakeautistic]

I love finding characters I can relate (/project onto) within media. There’s something so comforting about seeing yourself on screen. I end up headcanoning most of them to be in-line with my identities (lesbian, wasian, autistic) because they are literally me in my head!!

Anyway here’s a long ass list of my favorite characters and why I head canon them as autistic for fun!! If you have any others you’d like to add I’d love to hear them. (And please note this is just my interpretation, and highly based on my experience with autism. I’m not saying they’re definitely autistic or that all the traits I listed are the dsm-5 criteria or something.)

Princess Bubblgeum from adventure time:

This girl is peak evil scientist autistic. Her intense need for control, the way she carefully observes the citizens she created, an outsider to them, not quite like them… god it’s so perfect. I read her as being somewhat low empathy as well, it’s hard for her to change her perspective to that of others. Plus the fact her brother neddy is a pretty obvious metaphor for higher supports needs autism. I think they of represent how autism runs in the family and appears in all sorts of different ways in different people. They’re sort of two different representations of the spectrum.

Marcy wu from amphibia

I mean this one is just obvious. The biggest nerd of all time. So obsessed with her RPG special interest that she literally sucks her and her friends into a fantasy world. She’s clumsy (just like me fr), very smart but super socially awkward, a little oblivious and naive. She’s terrified of change, especially if it means abandoning the few social bonds she’s been able to make. I honestly find it hard to believe this wasn’t intentional.

Entrapta from she-ra

Another pretty overt example. I do have some issues with how she was portrayed in the show- (keeping her on a leash was weird.) but overall I really love her. She understands her tech, not people, and it can cause her to come into conflict with other characters. Their treatment of her makes me sad at times, but it’s realistic. I also love some of her other quirks, her love of tiny food, her exitable demeanor, ect.

Pearl from Steven Universe

Peridot is the more obvious example of an autistic character in SU, and while I agree she’s coded that way, I personally resonate more with Pearl. She is not very socially aware, and bothered by disruptions to her routine/ broader life changes. She doesn’t like to break rules (despite being a literal rebel lol.) I find it interesting how she seems to have the poorest understanding of life on earth out of the gems, despite having lived here for thousands of years. She is graceful, but has an almost sort of awkward gangly-ness to her that I relate to. Her neuroticism is also very similar to how my anxiety disorder presents.

Pearl has a tendency to infodump, without realizing those around her are uninterested. Even her relationship with Rose struck a chord with me. The hopeless devotion to her, the way she followed along at her side. It’s how many of my friendships have been. Obvious it’s not exactly the same considering Pearl having originally been her servant, but while not being an explicitly autistic trait, that sort of clingy, starstruck relationship is something autistic people are prone to developing. She does little hand stims at times too that I love to see.

Poison Ivy (specifically the version in the Harley Quinn animated show)

I’m surprised I haven’t seen more people mention poison Ivy. Fiercely intelligent and deeply introverted, she isolates herself from all people, and only connects with and understands her plants. (Which her deep affinity for can definitely be read as a special interest.) She very overtly has trouble forming relationships with others.

She’s blunt, socially awkward and a loner, has something of a flat effect and a monotone voice. Those around her initially read her as cold and impersonable.Her struggle with social anxiety as well as intense fear of failure/ low self esteem is also very relatable to me. She also often struggles to express/understand her feelings and emotions. Her radical political ideas and the fact that she’s literally an ecoterrorist paints her as having a very strong sense of justice and a somewhat black and white worldview. (Me)

Finally, her relationship with Harley just SCREAMS neurodivergent solidarity. Harley Quinn is (I think canonically) adhd, and they’re both outsiders in the world that found each other and just… get each other. She’s Ivy’s closest and only friend and amazing girlfriend and god it’s all so perfect.

They remind me a lot of the relationship I have with my best friend with adhd except theirs is gayer.

[rubykgrant]

I made some adjustments to the colors/added a few more details, so here they are again! My Super Hero kids, that I first came up with a LONG time ago with my best friend, way back in middle school. I started with 5 characters... which turned into 7, and because I kept on going, that turned into two teams of 7 characters! A lot has changed over the years, but the "core" concept of the characters was always there. The things I've updated genuinely feel RIGHT, like this is who the characters were always supposed to be. (I also added descriptions to the images)

From left to right-

Casual; Lisa West, Bobby Gold, Ella Noble, Deke Garden, Rodney Bright, Cloe Chance, Min Shirabe

Heroes; SuperNova, Sunburst, Ferris, Rosewood, Vivid, Spellbound, Lyric

The basic plot of their story is two groups of kids begin developing super powers, and naturally want to start being heroes and villains about it (though, the "villain" kids aren't "evil", just little jerks/brats/punks who have some angst to work through). In the larger scheme of things, there is a lot of insidious background problems the kids slowly become aware of, and they all start working together to deal with it (a slow realization that the world they live in, while seemingly "normal", is actually recovered from some kind of post-apocalyptic event, and the concept that "heroes" have been used as tools or weapons in the past becomes clear. it is an unfair responsibility, but the kids are determined to change the system that the adults around them use to destroy each other... also, they have plenty of fun shenanigans, too. these are kids with super powers after all~)

Lisa/SuperNova's powers are enhanced strength/durability, flight, and the ability to control/conjure flames (she can also concentrate fire into intense heat-blasts). Personality traits; compassionate and courageous, sarcastic sense of humor, casually rebellious attitude. She is 16 (sophomore, held-back 1 year in 6th grade), her best subjects are history and art (crafting/woodwork), but she struggles in math. Lisa plays on her school's soccer team, and has taken several martial arts classes. She also enjoys cooking/baking, and horror movies. Lisa is autistic. Background; Native American Hopi/Norwegian/Columbian (dad's side), Inuk and Irish (mom's side). Gender/sexuality; nonbinary (she/her), bisexual, demisexual

Bobby/Sunburst initially thinks he only has powers after stopping an experiment that was trying to recreate what SuperNova can do, thus giving him similar abilities (his REAL power is being able to absorb energy, and that lets him copy/combine/enhance other powers), less of a strength-boost, but he can also conjure/create fire, and is eventually able to fly. Personality traits; conscientious and ambitious, modest, eager to help, curious. He is 12, a child prodigy (placed in 7th grade, but takes a few advanced classes) who excels at science/chemistry/physics. He's also just a kid who enjoys playing video games/tabletop RPGs, skateboarding, and collecting comics. Bobby is autistic. Background; he is Black, Kenyan and Greek (mom's side), Dominican and German (dad's side). Gender/sexuality; cis (he/him), heterosexual

Ella/Ferris can control metal, moving it, liquefying and reshaping it, and manipulating magnetic fields. Personality traits; talkative, insightful, calm and clever, witty and off-beat humor. Ella is 14 (skipped ahead to be a sophomore), a genius with electronics/machines (likes to collect vintage/out-dated devices and up-grade them), doesn't seem like she takes things seriously but is totally reliable, and is a big fan of sci-fi literature. She is always good for a philosophical conversation. While she isn't interested in being the center of attention, she isn't shy either. Ella is autistic. Background; she is Black, South African/Italian (dad's side), Ethiopian/Spanish/French (mom's side). Gender/exuality; transgender girl (she/her), heterosexual

Deke/Rosewood has nature powers, connected to plants and flowers (making them move or rapidly grow to great sizes), also able to decay/regenerate plant life. Personality traits; likes to make people laugh, mellow and easy-going, quietly sensitive. Deke is 15, a sophomore in school. Deke's interests are earth sciences, including botany and ecology, and cares a lot about the environment (they're family has a small farm and ranch). Sometimes seems like a daydreamer in class, but is actually very smart. Deke also likes to collect different scented candles/incense, and keeps a first-aid kit handy for emergencies. Deke was injured as a child, resulting in an amputation below the left knee (has a prosthetic leg, and also uses other mobility aids when needed). Deke is dyslexic. Background; Irish (dad's side), Jewish Ashkenazi/Romani (mom's side). Gender/sexuality; nonbinary (he/they), bisexual

Rodney/Vivid creates solid forms of colorful glowing light, using it as shields for defense, or an energy blast as an attack (he can also turn himself/other people/objects invisible by reflecting light, but have to stay still), and as solid surfaces for movement. Personality traits; soft-spoken, kind and clever, a little socially awkward. Rodney is 14, and a sophomore in school (previously went to a private school that was too competitive and harsh). Rodney is good in most academic subjects, and also a very creative person, with an interest in surreal/abstract art (both whimsical and horror), working with different mediums (painting/sculpture). He's somebody who likes to have lots of little snacks (and is happy to share). Rodney has anxiety. Background; Rodney is Native American Lakota, Ogala (mom's side), Sicangu (dad's side). Gender/sexuality; cis (he/him), gay

Cloe/Spellbound is a witch with magical powers (associated with darkness/night and the moon), but she is also capable of telepathy/telekinesis. Personality traits; withdrawn and cynical, determined, thoughtful. Cloe is 15, a sophomore (previously doing independent study after leaving a school where she was bullied). Cloe has spent a lot of time alone, and struggles to be comfortable around others, but slowly opens up (despite being argumentative, she's also very sympathetic toward other people). She likes fantasy/sci-fi/horror books, and enjoys reading about the history of folklore/mythology. Cloe is a little afraid of deep water (generally doesn't like to swim without something to float with), and isn't comfortable with touching/contact with anybody outside of her family/friend group. Craves extra sour candy. Cloe is autistic. Background; Cloe is adopted, raised in London. Both her adoptive and biological family are English, Scottish/Welsh (biological dad's side), Romanian/Polish (biological mom's side). Gender/sexuality; cis (she/her), asexual

Min/Lyric has music/sound themed abilities, she can let out a scream so loud it creates a sonic-boom, identify/mimic any sound or voice, and uses "magical musical energy" to make solid objects (usually in the form of musical instruments, for emphasis). Personality traits; self-assured, welcoming and friendly, loyal, optimistic and energetic. Min is 14, a freshman at school. Her talents are music and fashion, but she also takes gymnastics and ballet. She has studied classical music (with a broad interest in different genres, and contemporary music), and participates in a lot of talent shows/chorus groups/plays. Min is outwardly a social-butterfly, but isn't worried about fickle/fleeting popularity. Min is plural (DID), and has synesthesia. Background; Min's family is Asian American, Japanese (dad's side), Chinese (mom's side). Gender/Sexuality; cis (she/her), pansexual, asexual, polyamorous

[ask-artsy-oncie]

The children of Laios and Kabru! My first drawing of them was as very young children but I always find it much easier and more fulfilling to design more grown versions of characters because they have more developed personalities that can show through! In this case they're all fully grown here, with the eldest being 20 and the youngest being 16. (I'm also a dumbass and meant to put "first queen regent", not simply "first queen")

Some more about them under the cut

The name "Kilala" came up when I was looking for names related to "Ambrosia", because I think Laios would hear that Marcille's staff is named something that means "food of the gods" and fall in love with the concept and want that name for his kid, to the chagrin of everyone in his immediate vicinity. I imagine Kabru would attempt to compromise by looking into names with similar meanings.

They all inherited monster features from Laios, mostly subtle things like heightened senses and fangs and claws, but then Cassius was born with a tail (resembling one of the two Laios had in his monster form). He'll grab onto it as a nervous tick but for the most part I don't think he actually likes having a tail. It singles him out, since his sisters all have much subtler features than he does, and he's not the kind of person who likes being the center of attention. Sometimes he hides his tail in one of his pant legs so he doesn't have to think about it.

Laios and Kabru planned on having three kids because Laios is vehemently against the idea of adhering to the tradition of "first born son has to be the successor". He lived that, and he hated having that loom over him. So if he has to have kids, and one of them has to succeed him, he'd rather it be whichever kid ends up wanting it, rather than having it be decided for them. Ergo, multiple kids leaves more chances that one of the kids actually wants to be the next monarch. Three sounded reasonable so that's what they planned for, but then the third "child" turned out to be twins.

And yeah, as it states above, Cassius did not want to be king. Luckily for him, Kilala was more than willing to follow in her dad's footsteps.

They call Laios "dad" and Kabru "papa".

I don't actually know if Kabru would be able to pass down the gene for his blue eyes or the gene for his family's brown eyes, since his eye color is a genetic mutation. Gave the kids a mix of both for variety more than anything.

Kilala's hair is on the redder side due to Laios's mother's red hair. Meanwhile, Pamina looks more like Kabru's mom.

Melora is often in work clothes and wears her hair short because she's working with metal so often, but she does have moments when she wears fancier clothing, she's not opposed to it by any means. She just takes care of her nicer clothing, unlike Pamina, who will only really do as much as roll up her skirt and/or sleeves to protect her dresses.

Pamina is immensely comforted by the smell of gardenias (and as a kid even wistfully thought of having her name changed to Gardenia) and carries around a vial of perfume of it. She also, maybe paradoxically, loves the smell of dogs. I imagine the castle has plenty of dogs living in it by the time the kids are born, and she can often be found with her face pressed up against one.

Pamina and Cassius are the only ones of the four who end up having kids of their own.

Kilala is a horrible liar and would regularly get herself and her siblings in trouble by virtue of not being able to hide their troublemaking. Kabru insists that being an honest ruler is a strength she can utilize rather than focusing on her inability to convincingly lie.

When Kilala and Cassius were young children, like shortly after the twins were born, Kabru would try to get them to mask their autistic traits. Eye contact and "fidgeting" was a big problem for the both of them. The first major fight Laios and Kabru had as parents had to do with this, because Laios did not want to pressure his kids to be "normal" the way he and Falin were, while Kabru specifically wanted his kids to be prepared and protected against being ostracized like he was. They both wanted to protect their kids, but had completely opposing ways to go about this. Ultimately, I think, the kids ended up being taught how to mask but aren't outright pressured to do so.

[theorahsart]

Would you happen to be able to compile a list of all the evidence/mentioned traits you know of that point towards Robespierre having autism, possibly with some sources of said evidence? You have my deepest gratitude if you do happen to be so kind as to take the time to answer this ask.

Hello! I'm sorry for taking a while to answer this- it of course was the kind of ask that requires some time to write! I'm gonna break it up into two posts, I hope that's okay. I'll just @ you when I do the next part.

I feel like I should start with saying that I'm not an expert in history (feel like I have loads to learn tbh). But I am an expert in autism, as I'm autistic, and know the topic thoroughly from cultural/social/medical perspectives- several of my educational comics are used in training programs by doctors and diagnoticians. So, you can trust everything I say about autism in this post.

You probably can't trust everything I say about Robespierre though lol. Compared to some actual historians I've talked to here, I haven't developed the skills of being able to discern when the info I get in books can be fully trusted, and the more I study Frev the more evident it is that just because I've read smth in a book, doesn't mean it can be trusted as fact haha. I've read 3 different posts from different historians in the last year that've debunked several 'facts' presented to me in published books loool

But anyway! I still personally think Robespierre was autistic, and I'll lay out why in the 2nd post.

I think it would take me more free time than I have to list *all* the evidence I've come across, so it seems best to break down how you diagnose autism in modern day, and then put that in context to some examples.

So this first part is just explaining *one way* in which medical professionals break down autism and the traits. Then in the next post I'll explain how I've applied those to Robespierre specifically.

How we think about and diagnose autism from modern day pov

I wanna start by breaking down how diagnoticians think about Autism specifically.

Autism doesn't encompass a specific set of traits that every single person must have in order to be diagnosed, because autistic traits vary so much from person to person.

Instead, you break down a diagnosis into different areas of life in which someone might be struggling. How this is broken down can vary a little between tests, but it's generally split into these areas:

Social

Social reciprocity (how sociable you are with others)

Non verbal comminication

Verbal communication

Maintaining relationships

Restrictive and Repetitive behaviour

Repetitive speech or movements (basically stimming)

Routines and change

Highly fixed/intense interests

Hyper or hypo reaction to sensory input

And then basically, if enough of these areas are having a significant impact on your life, you're dx'd as Autistic.

You can see when broken down in this way, that:

You can be doing fine in some of these areas, but still be dx'd if there's a lot of other areas listed you're struggling in.

A NT person will likely have some sort of trouble in one or two of the listed areas (because we all have strengths and weaknesses). That doesn't mean they're autistic.

An autism dx is concluded from two things- if you struggle in more of these areas than less. And if those struggles are significantly impacting your life.

Just to note, I'm only talking from a diagnosis pov here, which is wrapped up in cultural contexts and the reasons we decided to give this way of being a label. Theres lots of traits we can also break down that aren't based around what you find difficult.

You could be autistic and go your whole life not knowing or needing a diagnosis, if say, you lived a lifestyle where you could avoid people and situations that are making you suffer. Your autism might make you excel in life, depending on your life.

But just esp in modern day, many of us dont have that luxury.

I'm using this type of dx in the context of Robespierre because I believe he did have difficulties that impacted his life and career, and it's significant to me to compare his behaviour and health to other politicians working in the same stressful circumstances.

But yeah I'll write this in a second post. Thanks for your patience!! 🙏

[the-violet-galaxy]

On the topic of Ruin

EDIT: Just for reference, with further updates a few of these opinions have changed, but a lot of the sentiment is the same. (I also hadn't watched everything from the show yet, so my knowledge of some of the lore was spotty).

-

So. We just learned a lot about Ruin, didn’t we? The big twist and who he was all along.

Let me say, I adore this show! The story has been incredible and I’ve been at the edge of my seat the whole time. It’s been fascinating going back and forth about Ruin, listening to the arguments about whether he was good or evil. And when he was revealed to have built Eclipse all along, it was a matter of whether he did so knowingly or not.

But. Now we know for certain that Ruin did it willingly, and he was 100% aware, and faking being nice the whole time; and even if I WANT to hold out hope for him, there keep being less and less ways for Ruin to somehow be good or redeemed at the end of this. It seems Ruin might be confirmed 100% to be evil through and through, no Jekyll and Hyde, second personality, or return of the virus, like a lot of us had hoped.

And… I don’t know if I like this twist.

… Sadly, I can't say I do.

And I’d like to give my thoughts why! I have a lot to say, both from the perspective of a Ruin fan and from a storytelling perspective. So there's lots of analysis and personal feelings mixed together down here!

(And of course, there is still more to be revealed, but this is how it stands now.)

My first point is that it loses the show of a very good character.

Ruin was a great character! He was so unique in his personality, traits, and mannerisms compared to the rest of the cast, and his interactions with others were tons of fun.

It also just made a ton of sense to have him around: he is basically Canon Eclipse from the Ruin DLC, so letting him be here is just a Big Brain move.

There was so much potential for where he could go, given his backstory. He was a person who had 50 years of his life stolen from him, his entire world and everything he ever knew was destroyed, HIS BODY was the tool used to do it; and here he was, waking up in a new world his evil self tried to destroy, after being saved thanks to the kindness of several strangers who had every right to kill him but risked so much just to give him a chance. And now, unmoored here, he’s just trying to rebuild anything resembling a life --

There were SO many things you could do with this, SO many interesting ways Ruin could have developed… the angst; the sheer guilt of having killed so many people and destroyed so much; the fear of what he would see, if his memories from his time with the virus ever got uncorrupted; the TERROR he feels that his virus self might not actually be fully gone, and the desperation to NOT turn back into his other self and hurt anyone ever again -- the feeling of being excluded by everyone in this new dimension, he stays out of their way because he feels somewhat responsible for his Virus self hurting them, being the Weird Person who tries to fit in but really has no place anywhere, just wants to have a new life and new family with these people… (His relationship with Solar in particular was so interesting to me.) Ruin could have made up with Sun, after a long time of Sun being uncomfortable with him.

He was just one of the most fun characters to have around, including his streak of doing weird things. (And this is just personal, but I’m autistic, so I read that into a lot of his mannerisms. I loved him.)

And he paralleled many characters too!! In a way, you could say he was similar to New Moon: Ruin was created when his Sun and Moon fused, meaning Ruin is technically an incarnation of them, but he’s NOT them -- the way New Moon is an incarnation of Moon, but he’s not Old Moon. Ruin and Moon could have had formed a connection through that, at some point.

(And in this new arc, if we go with the idea that Ruin is innocent and a second personality was the one doing everything, then Ruin would be a parallel to Eclipse himself!! Eclipse is fabricated and nothing about him is “real” – the same could be said for Ruin in this event, where his second personality is literally messing with his brain, making Ruin also a "fabricated" personality of some kind. There is a line Ruin says when Eclipse kidnapped him that I always found interesting, where Ruin offered to heal Eclipse’s mind like therapy, which Eclipse shot down… I always liked that idea, that Eclipse and Ruin could bond. If Eclipse learned RUIN wasn’t to blame and it was a second personality, then, well, it could have happened. Why would the writers throw that idea out if they knew they would never do anything with it?)

As it was, Ruin had an entire WORLD of potential. And his existence made sense on a meta level, with link to the DLC's Canon Eclipse.

But that’s all gone now. Ruin being 100% evil just loses all that.

I think they did too good a job of making Ruin an enjoyable character to have around, if they knew he was going to be evil the whole time and were going to kill him in the end. (At the same time, they also didn’t utilize him in certain ways, like how Ruin never got a therapy session with Earth and was excluded from some of the group events, which logically would have been good for covering his tracks.)

Could there have been both a Good-Ruin and Ruin-Remade-Eclipse-Twist at the same time?

I’ll talk more about it in the next point, but I genuinely think the writers could have had it both ways if they had wanted to. They could have let Ruin be a good and innocent person who can stay around as a member of the cast, while STILL having him be the rebuilder of Eclipse and the source of other evil things. How?

The Two-Personalities theory! It’s been a theory for a while that Ruin has more than one personality inside of him, the second personality usually theorized to be his Virus Self. When he slips up and says stuff like “OUR head’s spinning a little bit” when getting the memory scrub from Moon, for instance. Ruin would be innocent and unaware, while his Virus/Other Self takes over when he’s not mentally present and does the bad things.

(Or alternatively: Ruin as an innocent person WAS real for a while, but his virus came back at some point.)

If that is what happened, they could have their cake and eaten it too.

And I think that would have been a better utilization of the worldbuilding given to us. Elaborated further:

I feel they could have utilized the worldbuilding in better ways.

One of the most interesting parts of the Show is how it plays with the concept of identity for these robots. There are several characters that are new incarnations of previous characters, but are distinctly different people from their previous selves. Bloodmoon, Moon, Eclipse, etc. 

Look closer at Moon. Even if they are incarnations of the same person, Old Moon and New Moon are completely separate individuals. New Moon lost his memories and remembers nothing of being Old Moon, which is WHY he is a new person. It would be completely unfair to blame New Moon for what Old Moon did – New Moon did not kill those children, New Moon did not abuse Sun, because he does not remember it. Because he does not remember it, he shouldn’t be punished for those things, because HE did not do them. What this means is that MEMORY is one of the key aspects in a robot’s identity, and their identity can change depending on those memories.  

Now take that, and apply it to Ruin: how interesting would it have been if RUIN, the one we saw in the videos, was actually fully innocent and completely unaware of what his body was being used to do the entire time? Because his evil past self/second personality had been controlling him and literally editing over top of his memories while his body was building Eclipse and preparing the Arcade plan, so that Ruin had no idea anything was going on? For all these months, Ruin GENUINELY believes he is innocent, and doesn’t remember doing anything that brought Eclipse back; he’s in distress when suspicion falls on him because he “knows” he did nothing wrong, and he’s relieved when Moon scrubs his mind and finds nothing there; phew, now they can trust him. But then! Along with Moon, Solar, Sun, and everyone else, he would find out he WAS doing it all along. Ruin could be utterly HORRIFIED and aghast that his worst fear (turning back into his evil self) had come true. And imagine the angst for that too, “my memories have been messed with so much – I’m basically a fabrication of a personality, DO I EVEN COUNT AS TRULY EXISTING!?” 

This could even lead to an interesting moral conundrum for Sun and Moon too. Moon is already on the warpath and has less patience for Ruin’s life (especially with how much harm Ruin seemingly did to them), so would Moon be eager to KILL Ruin (or if not kill him, then at least give Eclipse permission to do it)? Or would Moon be talked through it, sort of realize “Ruin doesn’t remember any of it and didn’t do it himself. It’s not his fault. The same way Old Moon’s actions are not mine. It would be unjust to kill him because RUIN wasn’t the one who did any of it.”

Many possibilities.

...But no, none of that ended up happened.

Instead Ruin is a “was always evil, all along” kind of guy. Which is… pretty disappointing considering the other possibilities. It genuinely feels like “the most obvious option.”

Also, Eclipse has literal command orders built into his head.

So in theory, maybe the innocent Ruin could have had something like this too. Imagine: His second personality, doing things whenever Ruin is mentally asleep, also embeds Ruin's AI with those command prompts that force Ruin to do unusual things. Ruin builds his own body and he doesn't really have a good reason? The commands subconsciously forcing him to. He goes down into the bunker? He has this weird, pathological obsession with doing things with arcade machines he can't quite stop? THE COMMAND LINES, BABY.

Then when it comes time for Moon to memory-scrub him, the second personality could just. Corrupt the lines, hide them with the rest of them.

(Then OO DRAMA later on when everyone realizes Ruin's condition. Just as Eclipse knows he'll die if he differs from his plans, Ruin realizes he's being forced to do things and will die if he doesn't. Hey that's another connection the two could share.)

Eclipse has been right about everything, but this twist sort of invalidates a few of the things Eclipse has said.

Eclipse honed in on Ruin and was correct the whole time. But let’s look at a few episodes, to hyper-analyze some of the things Eclipse said.

The episode where Eclipse kidnapped Ruin:

Ruin: I was far too busy elsewhere to have any, uh, meddling with your being—

Eclipse: You see that’s the funny thing. I don’t think you realize what you’ve DONE. Or what you ARE going to do.

This implies Eclipse ALSO believes Ruin doesn’t remember his actions.  So if Eclipse has been right about everything so far, why would he be wrong about THAT?

In the same episode, after Eclipse tells Ruin: "I'm going to torture you" and leaves, Ruin is left all alone. Because Eclipse has left, Ruin has no reason to keep up the facade of being scared any longer, and YET, he still sits there hyperventilating for a few seconds before saying:

"Oh GOD...."

why would he do that, if he knew he could drop the act?

There’s also the episode where he confronts Ruin, he says:

“What did you do, huh? Changed a bit of your memory? Wiped your whole brain with a magnet? What did you do, huh?”

And I still just feel if Ruin genuinely changed his whole memory and brain, that his entire Ego/Personality should change. 

There’s also just the amount of Eclipse’s “Are you terrified of me?” and scaring Ruin that whole episode.

If Ruin WASN’T in a different, innocent personality at that moment, Eclipse would know he’s not scared. If Ruin BUILT him, he wouldn’t be scared.

Ruin offered to “repair” Eclipse’s mind at one point, comparing it to therapy.

Which Eclipse shot down, of course. If Ruin was 100% faking and knew what he was doing the entire time, and he knew he was never going to do anything of the sort with Eclipse, why would he EVER offer this to Eclipse? Why would the writers throw it out if it was never going to go anywhere?

It loses a perfectly good redemption arc.

One thing about the Show is how its redemptions rarely stick, at least for long. Lunar is like, the only one who has gotten a redemption arc and stayed alive. Killcode died shortly after his redemption. Old Moon tried to change, really he did, but he died before he could ever make the changes he needed to.  Eclipse is currently being worked on in a way, but that is still a LONG ways off. Etc, etc.

Then we had Ruin, who was another successful “redemption”, and it was pretty good to see!! …Which is now ruined (hah) because he was never good to begin with.

LEADING INTO ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT:

It makes all that effort the other characters went through for nothing.

Sun and Moon tried so hard to help Ruin, they took a risk for him to cure him of his virus – but in the end, this was the Wrong thing to do.

The characters did the right thing!! And they are being punished for it!!

And elaborating on that further:

This is going to negatively affect all the characters going forward.

This entire arc, Moon has been dealing with negative thought patterns and paranoia, and a lot of that paranoia manifested when he was investigating Ruin. He acted pretty cruel to Ruin in many ways, especially during the interrogation. This is why I thought it was very good for Moon when he did the memory scrub, found nothing, and realized he was being kind of a jerk, so he apologized to Ruin and pulled back a bit. He didn’t STOP LOOKING INTO HIM, but it was a lesson for him, to not to let his aggression reign over him when dealing with people he was suspicious of.

(One of the most concerning parts of Moon’s paranoia was how he said he didn’t trust ANYONE. He says so directly to Eclipse: “trust is a FARCE.” Despite this, in some way or form, he DID let his guard down around Ruin and began to trust him just a mild amount.)

WELL NOW THAT’S ALL GONE! Moon will never trust anyone ever again. The last person he gave the benefit of the doubt to turned out to be a multiverse-destroyer. Moon now has every reason to double down on his aggression, his paranoia, his mistrust of other people; in the future I doubt he will ever be so kind or lenient with people. He would probably be more likely to “attack first” when seeing a potential threat. And Sun as well; Sun will have much less reason to want to be kind or to take a chance to help a villain, because one time he helped Ruin and it blew up in his face.

So… good job. :/

It just kind of feels like the most obvious twist that could have written with the pieces on hand.

It’s like… There are a million different moving parts for this mystery -- multi-personalities, the virus, ways to play with memories that change identities, command orders embedded into robot's skulls – and then they chose the most straightforward way to use them.

Over the course of the storyline there were SO many signs pointing to Ruin (one of the Thumbnails even had a Creepy Face hidden in the corner) that it felt there HAD to be some kind of twist involving personalities or memories or someone else controlling him. I don’t want to say bad writing, but….

It almost makes Ruin a little too powerful.

I feel it’s almost cheating in some ways. Ruin is able to edit/corrupt his own memories so Moon couldn’t access them…… but RUIN still know them? Why didn’t Ruin literally forget those things, himself? It feels a little TOO powerful, a little too unrealistic, for him to be able to fool all these scanners and all these people SO easily. ESPECIALLY because we know Moon and Solar (and Eclipse definitely) went snooping around Ruin’s stuff before and looked at his computers; how did they, two galactic supergeniuses, never find ANY hint that Ruin had tampered with the security camera broadcasts when they were doing it?

When Ruin is supposed to be acting, he sounds just a little too sincere.

This is more of a minor thing, but in some of the episodes, when something dramatic happened to Ruin, it doesn't feel like he's acting in-universe; he sounds very sincere.

Just some examples: when he's interrogated by Moon and sounds so sad about being threatened. When Eclipse menaces him several times he's so scared. And many just other instances just. (And again, since I'm autistic, I read some of his stranger mannerisms as just being through that lens. Even if he acted strange sometimes that doesn't automatically equal fakeness.)

And I dunno, maybe he should have had more instances where it didn't feel so sincere.

This makes Solar the only person from another dimension who is good.

Pretty much everyone else from the other dimensions is bad or evil in some way, (aside from like one Sun from the one-off dimension where Moon never existed.) And I love Solar, but for some reason, it just doesn’t feel RIGHT that he’s literally the only person who is totally cool with the Celestial family.  Does anyone else feel that way?

Minor thing: When Moon apologized to Ruin, they said they would make Ruin a bedroom out of one of the alcoves.

Then they didn't.

Petty reason: Ruin was my comfort character, my personal one.

Lol, lmao even, my poor heart. It's broken.

And there are some various other thoughts, but this is also really long, so I'm going to stop here.

At the end of the day, I was really passionate about this character, and I’m disappointed to see it go the route that it did. There WERE ways to have Ruin still be good while also being a villain, just by giving him a second personality. And giving Ruin a second personality, to play around with the worldbuilding of robot memories and how Ruin isn’t responsible due to his memories being different, I personally think would have been more interesting.

Is there ANY hope for Ruin still being around after this? I’m not sure at this point. It’s looking less and less likely that there is a way out for Ruin. It’s looking less and less likely that there are two personalities, or even that Ruin was infected to begin with. 

If he somehow makes it out I’ll be ecstatic, but until then, I have a feeling we might be saying goodbye to him soon.

I still love this Show very much! And the story isn't over yet. So we'll just have to see if it can pull something off with this. But as it stands, I just have to respectfully say I think a mistake has been made in the direction they are going with it.

[the-nexverse]

@thicc-pirate oh boy this is gonna be a hard one

BIG FAT DISCLAIMER: all the knowledge i have about mental disorders is very basic and the most i'll do is read the disorders' wikipedia articles and maybe one or two other articles from trustworthy sources. also please note i'm in no way a psychology expert, so i don't know specific terms or variations, i'll go for a general view on the way they think and view themselves and the world around them, and if there's an illness that matches those conditions, i'll mention it. but again, i am no expert on this, i could very well be wrong about any of it

Agnes: my heart tells me some cluster B personality disorder, but with more of an isolation flavor. substance abuse, bursts of rage, lack of empathy and reckless behavior are there, but also a general internal void/lack of purpose that she fills by finding someone to follow. that could be a dependant trait, but not in the way DPD is described. she also develops depression during arc 3, and deals with depressive symptoms throughout arcs 4-5

Ryan: he has some narcissistic characteristics, but that doesn't really mean he has NPD. he's empathetic, maybe even too much for his own good sometimes, but he's also calculating and manipulative when he wants to, even if his goals aren't for his own gain/selfish reasons. he does have a very black-or-white view on certain topics tho

all of this is about arcs 1-2 Ryan. arcs 3-5 Ryan's issues could fill up an entire book lmao. being locked up, isolated, physically assaulted, tortured and so much more fucks him up in the head so much, but i haven't really developed that part of him too much. PTSD, C-PTSD or both. can it be both? i don't know. i have to look a lot into it, it's too complex

Lisabel: APD straight up from the DSM-5: disregard for others' rights, lack of empathy and remorse, bloated self-image and manipulation, sprinkled with sadism and straight up psychopathy. all of it completely untreated, and she's in no rush to get herself checked. she's perfectly fine!

Eric: ngl he might be the only neurotypical person in the room lmao

Léan: 100% autism spectrum. hyperfixations, sensitivity to loud sounds or bright lights, stimming, some compulsive behaviors, difficulties socialising, etc. Eric wanted to adopt someone who wasn't very likely to get adopted and give them the love they deserve

Rask'r: i doubt there's a lot of research on mental illnesses in TES, but he has dyslexia, and as a lukiul (an argonian that grew up away from the Hist) he has argonian-specific social autism, aka can't read body language and his own body language is undecypherable to other native argonians. add that to wolf-like behavior like tail wagging and you got yourself a complete mess of social cues!

Raz: also dyslexia, some degree of anxiety for sure, abandonment issues, general childhood trauma. another bundle of complicated things

Donovan: not a mental illness per se, but definetely suffers from acedia/apathy

Lee: can you diagnose a non-sapient being with mental illnesses? i think so. PTSD and social anxiety, but he gets rehabbed :]

Vreytus: unidenfitied identity issues and feelings of emptiness/lack of a goal in life (which he fixes by himself. it goes well. for real :) )

Bug: trauma from being experimented on and all the social difficulties of not having been socialised with humans. otherwise they're just weird

Voirdity/voirds: there are no existing words to describe Voirdity's issues

Chad: definetely checks most boxes for NPD, but with time and lots of forced practice he learns to tone it down. not the best therapy method, i know, but probably the best you can get during the post-apocalypse. also self-esteem issues after he became physically disabled

Lewis: social anxiety and autism spectrum. hyperfixation, difficulty with holding eye contact, stimming, autistic self-injury, big meltdowns. to be fair, he's exposed to a lot more of stressing stimuli (Half Life events) so his reactions are a lot more intense and uncontrolled

thanks for the ask!!

@creators-club

[veganspaghettios]

I started this blog for other reasons and now I'm here to talk about how narcissistic abuse is real and the only people that disagree are narcissists that don't want to get therapy and people that are being gaslit by narcissists that don't want to get therapy (and haven't experienced this particular kind of abuse)

Until you're timing your bathroom breaks so that you can finally text your dad back because your girlfriend thinks you're cheating every time you're texting someone, but you have to make the breaks short enough that she doesn't know you're texting and then catch you texting your dad and scream at you, I don't want to hear "call it emotional abuse". Because that's not what happened.

Because I was in fight or flight mode so constantly, I began to lose my short term memory pretty badly. I have over a hundred random ass notes that make no sense to me now because I had to try to quickly jot down notes about what was going on that mattered to remember in the future because I was being gaslit constantly and I needed to remember what she was saying often enough to be able to be sure I did in fact hear her say it.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a trauma disorder and that's why you need to get therapy for it if you have it. Someone asked me why I would call it narcissistic abuse when we don't call it autistic abuse or cancer abuse etc.

We don't really have any examples of autism developing a specific type of abuse patterns. However, and I'll speak on this as an autistic person, we do talk about all disorders, including this one in how it affects others around the person. There are some autistic people that are quite rude by accident and not knowing what might come off callous or mean. The reason autism doesn't get an abuse pattern named after it is because these things are not consistent (it's such a varied spectrum) and are not severe enough to add to the danger level of a person.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder gets an abuse pattern named after it because it very specifically has such severe and dangerous traits. People are murdered by their narcissistic partners. My friends were worried I might not make it out alive.

[thelensart]

Hello, Aceweek!!

Basically all of my characters could be read as ace in some kind of way, but let’s focus on one of them.

This big, tall pine tree right here is Uxue. She’s a solitary shepherdess who, in her story, fights against a curse laid upon her by her own mother, an overprotective and stubborn sorceress who, with the best intentions, cripples her ability to make a name for herself.

I always thought of Uxue is canonically autistic, and most of her personality traits, body movements, mood, and way of directing herself regarding the world, is based off my own experience as a very socially retracted autistic trans woman, reason why I gave her such an unusual look, although I never thought of her as a transgender. She’s not very talkative, certainly isn’t social at all, instead preferring to work her days away in the hills with her sheep, from place to place, but always in the familiarity of the wilderness. Her best skill, or “special interest”, one might say, is gunslinging. She’s quite a good shot and revolver-trickster, although the curse laid on her doesn’t quite let her reach her full potential. This in particular is a parallelism, through fantasy magic, to the way many of us in the spectrum feel about our special interests, unavailable to develop them under the crushing weight of a system that demands productivity out of us.

As for her asexuality, the bread and butter of this post, from the moment I began to sketch her first drafts, I wrote her as asexual on a gray area, which correlates with her autism, just like in my very own experience. Her general reclusiveness, the harshness she feels on interaction with another people, does cause her a certain yearning to be loved by someone quite close, and that someone is a shepherdess from a land afar, called Marcela. She visits her from time to time, to spend some lovely days out shepherding together. I never thought of them as girlfriends, nor as close friends, because I never felt like labeling these two would be half interesting. While I never actually made it canonical, both of them can be read as aromantic. My own experience with aromanticism, discovering I was on that spectrum, that romantic love was a world I didn’t quite understand but I was capable of loving someone back very dearly, influenced that ambiguous subtlety between the two quite a lot. Regarding explicit sex, while Marcela certainly isn’t asexual, and in fact, is quite promiscuous, she understands Uxue’s needs due to her good socialization skills, and such needs are to stay away from conventional sex. Uxue, much like me, doesn’t generally like being touched, yet she loves physical contact with someone she trusts a lot, and feels comfortable engaging in soft displays of affection and vulnerability. Much like a lot of us autistic folks around, Uxue has a hard time displaying affection in standard ways, but I intentionally wanted to write her as a woman of many faces. She might be solitary and sometimes uncaring, but she is terminally, tragically sweet, even though one might have to peel off a lot of layers before seeing that side of her. This is something I wrote for her after yours truly met the person who did tear down my own barriers. Here are these two on my sketchbook:

But what’s these strange names and strange clothes Uxue is rocking around? As an end note, if I may, I’ll nerd out about the place she’s from. In this universe, a vague post-apocalyptic fantasy, the factions’ culture, dressing customs, and bestiary, are based off very loose interpretations of Iberian pre-roman folklore and more recent, regional folklores. Uxue belongs to a tribe which is vaguely based off the valley of Roncal, in Navarra. Here are some very loose sketches of her general Basque-inspired vibes.

Her name, in Basque, means “dove”. One must point out that Navarra and the Basque country, while sharing a language, have different cultural customs and identities. Although, in the story, Uxue’s faction, especially regarding the bestiary, is an amalgamation of both. Uxue is a good gunslinger because her tribe has a tradition of solving the problem of menacing creatures, all pulled from Basque-Navarrese folktales, by prioritizing speed and aim. This was an idea that came to me after investigating the area to make the factions. Near Roncal, there’s the royal arms factory of Orbaizeta, one of the most important weapon manufactories of Spain during the late 18th to late 19th centuries. Today, it’s abandoned and overgrown. That and a general knowledge among the Spanish that Basques have a tradition of steelworking, gave me the idea of a post-apocalyptic culture famous for the quality of their guns and the skill of the wielders.

And that's all, folks!

Don't get spooked!~

[subcon-crybaby-charlie]

To start off we have our two main characters Spencer and Billy. This post will be primarily about Spencer and his relation ships with the other characters most singular posts will be like this more so just detailing how I would personally handle the character. And Spencer since he's technically the main character while Billy is supposed to be the secondary main character I'm doing him first. 

First off a life before living in LA in the show his dad mentions there from cowtown USA, I have actually looked this up just to see if that's the name of an actual place and it's not it's very specifically just another way to describe a cattle town or places that have a lot of livestock. I have decidedly made him from somewhere in the Midwest, mostly I feel like somewhere in Kansas namely because there is one or two horror films about tornadoes it could work for developing an admiration for horror. Plus he just seems like the type of kid that would stand outside to record a tornado. I also feel like this is what draws Shanilla to him as a friend, because she gives horse girl energy to me for some reason. So she could be genuinely interested in like living on a farm, Spencer didn't actually live on a farm he just do a lot of people who did. 

Oh also my Spencer has a pet cat, it is an orange and white cat and his name is King, technically it's Stephen King but I feel like that's copyrighted so it's just shortened to King. King is a retired Barn cat and he used to be feral. King is technically supposed to be the family pet, but he warms up more to Spencer so he is just Spencer's cat. Also, King can see Billy, most animals can see Billy. Most animals also do not like his presence.

Spencer's relationship with Billy is more so of a sibling dynamic, with Billy obviously being the older brother that does not want Spencer in his space or around at all at least until he gets used to him. I kind of imagine Billy's relationship with all of the kids kind of just being like Eda with luzAnd her friends where he starts off being like not very close to them but he hangs around them because they're the only people he knows of that can see him, and at first he kind of maybe this is them a little because he's like 19 (technically he'd be almost 30 if he were alive but who's counting) and there 14 year olds they're practically babies to him. But as time goes on and he starts to appreciate their presence more he starts to get closer to the kids. Mainly Spencer's and Spencer kind of lives with him. Chanella regime and Mallory are his friends, he meets Rajiv first and she meets the rest of his friend group through them. again relief will have his own separate post because I changed him significantly that's no longer the same character same goes for Mallory and Shanilla though Shanilla I changed less about and Mallory didn't have a lot to start with. 

His parents and sister are kind of the same his parents are out a lot due to work and he's left alone with his sibling Jessica is kind of just basically the same she's 11 she thinks she knows everything. One thing I did change about the parents though is their hobbies Spencer's mom like she still cuts hair but mostly just her kids she's already shown in the show to have a talent for baking so I can imagine it being a dream of hers to have her own bakery meanwhile hugh was exactly the same he wants to be a mechanic but he sucks at it he sucks really bad at it no one has the heart to tell him though. 

I also changed or rather elaborated on why Ponzi hates Spencer, because there's no real reason outside of Spencer just shows divergent traits it seems, by the way my version of Spencer is on some level autistic, so I decided that the exact reason Ponzi hates Spencer so much is because as soon as he found out he was related to Billy he decided to make his life a living hell because of the whole broadcasted talent show thing that Billy was on and the fact that Billy crushed his dreams.

Now one to his design, with my version I wanted to make him resemble really a little more you'll see this more when I show my Billy design. This is mostly in the sense that I made their face shapes more similar, also my Spencer has a mullet because why not I also turned his T-shirt into a short sleeved hoodie. Smaller details that I added to his design are the gap in his teeth, there's no real reason for this I just thought it looked neat, and freckles. I mostly just felt these smaller aspects would give a little more life to his design, I saw some edits two years ago that showed Spencer with freckles and it made him look like a completed design to me so that's why they were added.

So I have some concept sketches, I have a sketchbook primarily to doodle my versions of the DTMG characters and related OCS. I blame ginganinjaowo(joking). These doodles are done in water based marker and usually aren't as detailed as they would be in my primary sketchbook. And alcohol marker drawings that are more accurate representations.

There are a couple Billys in some of these so enjoy those as a little teaser for his post ;3

[rickless-self-indulgence]

also sorry to send two asks in a row but do you ever consider the moral dilemma ricks have if they genuienly develop feelings like (prepare for a ramble i am SO sorry)

"i fell in love with myself, from another universe" THATS GOTTA POSE AT LEAST SOME MENTAL INSTABILITY. how would you feel if the most beautiful person youve ever met (personality wise at least) was a slightly different version of yourself, or if you were cloned and suddenly you developed feelings??? how would that even work??? imagine the judgement too bro that would be insane

AUTOSEXUALITY???? does it even matter if your partner looks ridiculously similar to you or not??? i think part of the reason why opposites attract a lot of the time is because genetic diversity gives an evolutionary advantage but in a scenario when thats completely thrown out the window how does that work? would prime and c137 rick have the same genetics??? Hefhv.dnbabmvvjdk

i think too much my thinking has thonked its last thunk

DUDE WGAT NO WAY YOU FUCKING HIT ME WITH A CRISIS AFTER MY DAY COSPALYING @ SCHOOL 😭😭/lh (<= written when I first red that)

I THINK ITS PART OF THE APPEAL like Ricks find the world around them so futile and disgusting they resort to settle with the only people who share the same hyper specific views of the world as them. In my opinion, it’s where most of Prickcests conflicts comes from, Prime likes C137 for his brains and his ability to solve problems in a way that’s different enough for him to not have considered it but can’t possibly understand why he cares so much about anything else than their relationship and it’s kind of the same for C137, he’s extremely smart and autistic so being understood and feeling seen is kind of his grail. Prime gives him just that plus the thrill of being a little bit fucked up in the head.

But we’re talking about general rick4rick relationship not… Their frustrating particular case lol although I can’t help but mention them since Prime (in the garage talk) explained so well the perks of only being around other version of himself. As a Rick the things you love and hate the most are yourself, it makes up for such interesting conflict because trying to ignore someone’s toxic traits is impossible and trying to mold them into the idealized version of them you got in your head is straight up manipulative. The vicious circle of stubbornness and love and hope and escapism leading to rick4rick relationship always violently falling apart is so fascinating to me and you completely understood one of the key elements for why it’s this way…

THANK YOU cinna, thank you for sending this ask it literally rearranged some of my atoms, shook my whole world and bursted a door open in the back of my mind

[bleue-flora]

Hey same anon :]

Undiagnosed more in a "he's clearly some type of neurodivergent, but his parents refuse to acknowledge it and shame P!Tommy for any type of coping mechanisms he tries to form (stop shaking your hands, we're in public. Stop making that noise, it's annoying. You dont need the plushie, you're too old to carry it around. Cant you stop making things up for attention?) so sometimes he meltdown badly and gets completly overwhelmed even tho normally he doesn't mind/likes lots of noise and people"

And thats when he asks to go to Exile, because he's overwhelmed, doesn't want anyone to see him like that, and is deeply upset about how a happy moment turned sour so quick. + he doesn't want to scream at his friends if they try to talk to him :[

[context]

I mean you have a right to believe what you want or make up your own kid Tommy for this concept of it all being an imagination game between kids, but again in my mind I don't think any version of Tommy is or should be considered neurodivergent/autistic, he just doesn't have the characteristics and that's saying something considering that the spectrum is pretty diverse. And I say that as someone who is autistic and has ADHD, whose friends are pretty much all diagnosed or undiagnosed neurodivegent with autistic and/or ADHD, whose family has a whole bunch of neurodivergence and who sees a therapist regularly who specializes in autism. Now I'm not going to claim I know everything, but I think from personal experience both from being around others and my own life as well as having researched and studied it enough to say Tommy is an annoying kid, but that doesn't make him autistic. Some kids are just annoying and loud and stuff but that doesn't mean he's stimming or whatever. Plus we don't see cc!Tommy stim, we don't see c!Tommy stim so why would p!Tommy, a kid who plays c!Tommy in his game of make believe stim? It doesn't make sense.

Some common traits of autism (obviously not all inclusive) is logical minded, struggle to understand emotions, tendency to be honest to the point of rude (not to say we can't lie but it's not our default and if we are lying there's either a reason or it's part of masking), tendency to follow rules and like fairness and justice, tend to be good at patterns and puzzles... do those sound like Tommy to you? because while the spectrum is diverse these are just a few examples of him missing the mark entirely... or perhaps the biggest reason Tommy isn't autistic - he doesn't make sense to me. He lacks all logic and the things he does do not make sense to me or my autistic friends I've told, not because I am unempathetic or unable to see people's point of view (I have actually spent a lot of time working on myself to develop those skills), but because he is neurotypical and I will always struggle to understand them because my brain does not think like they do...

[iamsonormalaboutninjago]

I severely headcanon that Harumi is autistic, and the show provides enough proof:

1. Before the great devourer attacked we see Harumi playing with her ninja action figures, in her own world making dialogue to herself. This is common with kids, yes, but as an autistic person I used to do the same thing with my Legos when I was her age.

2. After the attack we see her in the back of the van unable to talk to the paramedics, where she got her nickname. Becoming nonverbal after intense emotions is a clear autistic trait. In Garmadon Rulez we also got in her own words that after the attack she didn’t want to talk about what happened.

3. Hyperfixation with Garmadon. Often due to important childhood events, autistic people can develop hyperfixations relating to them, Harumi’s in this case is Garmadon. After the battle Harumi gained what seems to be a hyperfixation around Garmadon. She hailed him as a hero, wrote about him in her journal, fantasized and daydreamed about him being her new family. This obsession went on for years and encompassed hours of reasearch on how to bring him back, forming a gang around his revival, and a lot of fanart.

4. Inability to let go of a hyperfixation. Oftentimes when autistic people get hyperfixations they can get stuck in the belief that they have to stick to it. Harumi can be seen clearly questioning if what she did was right during S9 when Garmadon destroys Mr.E. We can further see this is s16 when she’s weary to trust the overlord to the point he has to threaten her life to get her to bring him back. After his reveal she is very hesitant to work for the overlord, another being that caused untold destruction to her home city, which she clearly witnessed as a child. It was only when the overlord threatened Lloyd’s life (even due to lack of screen time you can see that Harumi becomes less involved with the Overlord in the episodes she is in) and when it was revealed that he caused her parents deaths that she finally let go.

5. As well part of her getting “stuck in her ways” is her hatred of Lloyd. She demonized him as a kid because she used to think of the ninja as being an unstoppable force, but when she saw Lloyd during the battle she realized that he was just as scared as she was, and she took it very badly. This fixation that Lloyd was a weak and vulnerable ninja who got more praise than he deserved continued only until he proved her wrong, by being courageous against his father, standing up against the Colossus, and continuing on when all hope was lost. It’s clear due to season 16 that when the building fell on her she was incredibly disappointed that Lloyd didn’t come and save her; because of that we can estimate that during S8 and S9 before her death she started to realize she was wrong about Lloyd and started to even gain some feelings for him.

Some other small things I’ve noticed:

1. Her rooms a mess, common autism trait but also could’ve been just to throw off Lloyd

2. Great at art, we can clearly see how detailed her sketches are in Garmadon Rulez

3. She has a very fine sense of what’s good and what’s not, viewing things in definites/ black and white is very common for some autistic people

[starry-skies-116]

Miko Nakadai Facts (Reboot AU:)

Sixteen years old, Japanese American, heir to multibillion dollar weapons and energy company Nakadai Industries and the illegitimate child of CEO Yoshiro Nakadai and his secretary Sonya Wang. Her defining traits are straightened tresses of jet black hair and bright, piercing copper eyes. At the start of the show, she dresses in more formal clothing- a blazer, a pencil skirt and an insufferably high ponytail- and she doesn't have her iconic pink hair streaks yet.

***

She comes across as cold and arrogant, but hides a softer side to her personality beneath. She serves as a little bit of a foil to Jack in some areas- academic, diligent, determined and resourceful- but due to them both being rather emotional, impulsive and dramatic, they often enable each other's antics and get into trouble more often than not. They're practically the definition of "sharing a braincell."

***

She's also a part-time reporter that works for a tabloid newspaper called "The Daily Blaze." It's mentioned a few times that a mild-mannered and timid man named Craig is her editor, who freaks out every time he learns that she risked her life to get front-page material for her article.

***

Unlike the original version of Miko Nakadai, this version of Miko didn't have a loving family- her upbringing actually stunted her development and her empathy. A childhood of constant emotional and even sometimes physical abuse at the hands of her controlling parents has left her bitter and cynical. She was forced to suppress her interests and her autistic traits, rendering her lonely but also heavily distrustful of others.

***

At first, she's harsh- bitter and angry at the world. She responds to any attempts at socializing with quick and blunt responses. She sometimes does and says things that are outright evil, in the sense that they wouldn't be too far from what a bully would do. She doesn't understand how the consequences of her actions would affect other people because she constantly acts on the anger that poisoned her at such a young age.

***

She's also very vindictive and quick to snap, responding to anyone wronging her with retribution- even if it hurts her. She even lets a coworker get robbed because of how they insensitively mocked her for her rich background- and when they tearfully confront her about it, she coldly throws their own words back at them, saying: “I missed the part where that’s my problem.”

***

This is why her dyeing her hair and changing her clothes to a more 'punk rock' style holds a much more personal meaning to her- those pink streaks and space buns are symbolic of her letting go of her anger and reclaiming her freedom back from her oppressors as she turns her life around for the better. It represents a new beginning for her- one that the kindness of those around her had given her.

***

Her dynamic with Bulkhead, as a consequence, is reversed- instead of her being the one to encourage him to let loose and get into trouble, it's basically the other way around. She's done with the Wreckers' shit at first, but really, she's never felt more free than when she's around them.

***

She likes punk rock and shoujo anime, and is a huge cat person. She used to run a podcast before it was taken down by her parents- which is why she begged them for a job opportunity anyways. They did do a nice thing for her- the collaborative broadcast- but they only did it just so she could shut up. A similar incident happened in the past with her electric guitar, with them throwing it out.

***

She has two older half-siblings- Himeko and Sora, both of whom are twins that are in college. They were both born from Yoshiro's first and only marriage that spiraled and ended in a divorce, and pretty much raised her way better than her parents ever did.

*** She wears full sleeves because she has to hide the bruises on her arms that she gets from her parents sometimes- when the Autobots first discover how she's being abused via the bruise on her wrist, Bulkhead's immediately ready to commit ten felonies for his human and then some.

[sugar-spice-everything-vice]

can u tell me more about how u think carl is autistic, i agree with you but i wanna hear more about it

oh i kinda wanna make a list of all the autistic traits Carl shows with references, but that might take a while. for now, here's some autistic traits Carl has, imo.

note: autism presents itself in lots of different ways in different people!

Carl is not the best with conversations; he isn't often shown initiating conversations; he can be a pretty quiet kid; but also when having a conversation he doesn't always know the "appropriate" way to respond; namely, he sometimes says things that other people find strange/unhinged/etc.

He totally struggles to understand social cues in general

Carl also isn't the type of person to do small talk; if he doesn't have something to say, he won't say anything; he doesn't try to fill the silence; not liking/doing small talk is a very common autistic trait

Carl struggles to explain/express himself something; arguably this could be because of his emotionally stunted development as his siblings also struggle in this area, but I think Carl struggles with this beyond emotions. I think sometimes it doesn't even occur to him that he should explain himself. Like when he was trying to catch the guy that stole the war medal.

And Carl struggles to ask for help from others; this is also arguably because of the environment he grew up in; but I think, unlike his siblings, for Carl it's less about not wanting to ask for help and more in the vein of it not being something that occurs to him; he just does things by himself, but if someone offered him help, he would take it.

Carl's face is often blank/unemotional

Carl struggles to understand people's tone like when they're joking + not understanding things like rhetorical questions

Carl has difficulty understanding how other people feel; he often needs direct communication

He has a lower than average need for social interaction; Carl has no issue with not having friends and spending time alone

He has trouble figuring out when someone wants him to do something if they don’t specifically tell him. When people give him vague statements or metaphors, he gets confused and struggles to read between the lines. (i.e. he doesn't understand when people are trying to make a pass at him unless they're being very direct)

I think he might mirror the speech of those around him which somewhat falls under this. But I think the White Boy Carl era could be seen as him mirroring the behavior and speech patterns of the people he spent a year in Juvie with rather than him trying to be someone he's not.

We don't necessarily see rigidity, inflexibility, and adherence to routines in younger Carl. But he thrives when given structure in military school and it's possible that this could be why.

His terrible sense of style can fall into this too as he tends to like wearing the same types of clothes and patterns.

I would say Carl's fixated interests are guns. Like Carl doesn't know about a lot of things he should but show him a gun and he can immediately name what kind of gun it is. I'd argue he has other interests like horror movies and fighting, but it's not to the same extent.

Having difficulty following conversations is something I could see Carl struggling with; but I don't have any specific thing to point to in regard to this.

Also; based on my own experience; I think it might be more common for autistic folks in the hood to react to certain things like sensory issues + social struggles with repression and aggression as opposed to compliance or reservedness which is what's usually shown in media. I have no proof of this. But it makes sense to me given how much more dangerous being different in the hood feels. It's also how me, my family, and people around me who I suspect might also be on the spectrum are so it's a hunch and maybe slightly projection.

also also - there's several mentions in the show of Carl having a low IQ; I just want to clarify that IQ and autism are completely different and unrelated things; but the fact that he scored low implies that he probably has something else in addition to ASD. I'm of the opinion that he also has a learning disability and maybe also ADHD.

In the case of ADHD, I also want to note that when someone has both ASD and ADHD, the symptoms do sometimes counteract each other and make certain traits less overt; for example, Autism means you have a need for structure, but ADHD means you struggle to maintain structure.