#autistic coded characters need to stop being so relatable or im gonna have to get some kind of testing done lmaooo

[alvie-pines]

WHO'S UR FAV IN EITHER FRANCHISE AND WHO'S THE ONE YOU DRAW MORE OFTEN

YAYAYAY OKAY

so in transformers, honestly, i think its gonna be starscream, with megatron a close second. im a decepticon fan through and through, and i love both of these bastards. imo they both have enough redeemable qualities to make them interesting, and they also dont have the pressure to be Good Role Models For Kids because theyre the villains, so i feel like they can have more interesting personalities--but thats just me with my preference for nasty fucked up little guys. i think screamer's relatability (to me) is what tips the scale in his favor--being an abuse victim & autistic-coded. at least, g1 screamer was autistic coded and im stubbornly applying that to all screamers. it helps that he's funny, too. his arrogance is played for laughs while megatron's is portrayed as more threatening. that in itself is an opening for a whole essay's worth of social commentary but i will stop while im ahead.

in mlp, my fav of the mane 6 is twilight because GOD i related to her SO MUCH as an autistic kid. 6 year old me saw someone who, like me, struggled to make friends, but instead of validating my burgeoning "whatever i dont need them anyways" mindset, gently introduced the idea that friendship can be difficult AND worth it. ms twilight sparkle did so much for me and i owe her my life o7. in terms of minor characters, honestly, i am a HUGE thorax and stygian fan, but i think stygian is gonna have to take the cake here because i get more worked up about him in comment sections. styg is so important to equestrian history, he was literally the element of friendship before twilight, and yet he's only in two episodes and gets brushed over WHILE THE PILLARS GET TO BE IN MORE EPISODES. AAARGH. he's mistreated both in-universe AND out of universe. please free my boy! he's suffered enough!

the transformer i draw the most is EASILY starscream (i love his sassy little poses) and the pony i draw most is probably twilight, if i dont count OCs and ponyification designs. twilight is fun to draw and she holds a special place in my heart.

[squids-kids]

aight so

since i really need to start actually TALKING abt my characters instead of just pining without providing the sweet deets, im gonna do what i do best:

show my bias

thats right. buckle up kids we��re talkin bout helix.

AIGHT. so i try to make it very transparent that im autistic so i thought, may as well start this off talking about my autistic characters.

well…. autistic coded.

with helix (as with my other non-human ocs [nexus, v1rus, 3d, etc]) i make it a point to not push human ideas/diseases/diagnoses on them as their genetic make up, ideals, minds, EVERYTHING about them is supposed to be inherently NON-human. parallel in many aspects? yes. but not same.

therefore, while things like aspd (3d and nexus) bipolar & bpd (v1rus) and ocd and autism (helix) aren’t canon, they are meant to be coded in a way that if they WERE human, they could and WOULD be given such diagnoses canonically.

but we don’t care about those other guys right now, we care about helix.

as hes coded as such, he has many autistic traits. such as sensory issues (light sensitivity for example) and does engage in self stimulation (stimming).

a more in-depth analysis is as follows.

helix cant stand the sound of sirens of any kind. even catching the tail end of a fading police car siren is enough to have him hunched over clutching his ears (which are more sensitive than humans) in pain. the feeling of sand and caked on mud is also Bad and while its more mild, he still would rather avoid any situation where he may come into contact with those things. as stated above, light can also be a huge pain for him, but his ability to cope with it varies by day. certain background noise we as humans have grown accustomed to in our daily lives (clocks ticking, air conditioning/fans, etc) can also slowly overwhelm him if he doesn’t have a proper distraction.

in regards to stims, his are mostly of the self harming category. when under stress, he will often subconsciously grab his arm and dig his nails into the fabric of his shirt (or bare skin when no fabric is covering it). this can often lead to divots in his skin that can last from a few minutes to even hours. if a stressful situation escalates, often he can and does draw blood from this. finally if the stress reaches a certain point, he does end up clawing at himself. at that time blood is all but assured and unless he can be removed from the situation or at least be distracted from the negative stimuli, this has led to him actually tearing off his skin in extreme cases (as he cant feel physical pain, its easy for him to not realize just how much harm hes doing to his own body). in times where he gets overstimulated by noise, he HAS ripped at his ears and in worst case scenarios, even attempted to remove his hearing (often by attempting to rupture his eardrums, which, while successful for a time, due to his regenerative abilities its never a proper solution) as time goes on however, especially with meeting gh0st (whos elder brother was/is autistic) he’s able to find more healthy stimming outlets. he begins to wear brimmed hats more ofte to help with light overload and often carries around noise cancelling ear buds.

now as for special interests, this is where he kind of “falls by the wayside” of being a “typical” autistic by manys standards. he doesnt have any interests that he intensely focuses on. though this is more related to past trauma than anything else. in even just regular interests, hes…. actually rather boring. for a very long time he isnt shown to have any particular interest in anything, and in many cases, actively AVOIDS any situation that may lead to potential interests surfacing (he uses this as a form of “self punishment” as he deems hes “not worthy of having fun”. while this IS subject to change, its a slow going process for him. hes very uncomfortable with learning new things and has a lot of unhealthy coping methods and ideas that he has to unlearn before he can really begin to grow more as a person.

the closest thing hes ever had to any type of SI would be fireflies and ‘order’ (however the latter can be written off as just his nature, being the physical embodiment of the concept).

in personality, he is very, very literal. things like jokes, sarcasm, and lord forbid, FLIRTING, are all conundrums to him that he finds very difficult to decode. that being said, he IS often sarcastic, himself, though while he can distinguish HIS sarcasm, others is impossible to read. this often leads to him being the butt of jokes and with his coworkerd, he hears “jeez henry lighten up a bit” on the daily at least 3 times before noon.

—

ANYWAY, this has gotten INCREDIBLY long, so i should probably stop here for now.

and yes, many if not most/all of helixs autistic behaviour and mannerisms are based on myself. art imitates life, and he IS literally a piece of myself.

[sol1loqu1st]

hi i want to talk abt foi bc its legit among the coolest things ive done; this is long as Fuck but the book is longer i just really wanna talk,, abt this,,

it’s a high fantasy set on the northernmost side of a huge desert (a sea borders its northern side; beyond the sea is a country filled with plains and forests)

there were seven tribes (i still need to look up definitions and see if thats the most accurate term for what im goin for; im thinking abt just using ‘city’ tbh but yknow) in the desert:

-the riches tribe, whose people could shape gemstones and metals (think metalbending but add precious stones in the mix; each person can only control one thing and ur power is usually decided by the stars or some shit)

-the elements tribe, who could control the forces of wind, fire, water, or stone (now LITERALLY think atla; powers are passed down genetically and a few people can control two elements if their parents controlled different ones)

-the land, sky, and sea tribes, who could control animals related to their tribe (land tribe ppl can also learn to turn into their favored animal, sky tribe ppl grow wings as toddlers, sea tribe ppl can breathe underwater & usually live in the sea on the northern border of the desert bc they dont do well on land; powers are decided based on the animals’ preferences – e.g. if ravens had a specific affinity for a kid in the sky tribe the kid would grow raven wings and be able to communicate with and eventually control ravens)

-the time and space tribes, who destroyed each other 60 years ago, and have the power to speed, slow, or even stop time during the hour of their birth, or manifest physical objects from glowing blue energy that makes up everything in the world (also can see in the dark, i guess?)

60 years ago, a huge war happened between the seven tribes, wiping out the space tribe completely (except for one person; more on that later) and destroying all but 200 of the time tribe, who repopulated to about 1,000, and ruining a Lot of stuff in the other five tribes. for the most part the remaining 5 tribes (minus the time tribe for Reasons) have rebuilt themselves but hints of the past war linger. no one is aware that the time tribe survived (they rebuilt their city FAR from the original location). the time and space tribes faded from public consciousness pretty quickly since all their historical records were destroyed; most of the knowledge about them now is legends and myths

in the present day, 5 children (one from each of the remaining tribes) who lost various loved ones to the same glowing blue knives (created, ofc, by the surviving member of the space tribe, ebon (…courtesy of 2012 me’s genius naming skills, they’re all gonna be like this it’s part of the aesthetic), though the kids dont know that or even recognize it as a space tribe power) are approached by an old man (guess who! its ebon) who claims to be the last surviving member of the space tribe and apparently has evidence that the time tribe is plotting revenge and theyre the ones that killed the kids’ families and he speaks of a supposed prophecy that 5 kids who the time tribe had stolen from are gonna defeat the time tribe once and for all

the kids (and at this point, hopefully the reader too) are the wrong kind of genre savvy, and believe they’ve been approached by gandalf or some shit, and each end up Accepting The Call

(meanwhile back at the time tribe, the king and his rebellious teenage son talk about the future of the time tribe. teenage son, midnight (heyy GUESS what hour hes able to use his powers) learns to use Time Powers that are suspiciously dissimilar to the ones ebon was talking abt the ppl from the time tribe being able to use. midnight uses his powers to get more sleep bc his dad kinda overworks the shit out of him bc like the future of this horrifically unstable and tiny city is in midnight’s hands, basically, and we learn that Its Dangerous bc if u get stuck slowing down/speeding up time after ur 1 hour is up u basically become Time Tobias and ur trapped like that Until You Die)

if uve made it this far i think its time for a proper introduction to the 6 protags of part 1 (another is added in part 2 but we’re not there yet)

-eagle, from the sky tribe, a Massive Fuckin Jock Who Loves To Sport. shes 14 and pretty athletic but tends to chicken out when shit gets tough and so never makes it to the Fly Sport Playoffs. shes a Massive Optimist at first but then she finds her parents dead (hint: it was ebon). she deals with this throughout the novel i hope im writing her well lmao because i wanted it to have a Legit Impact on her character and not just be angst. A N Y W A Y she instantly pegs ash and emerald as The Rich Kids (ash is legit a rich kid, emerald is just from the riches tribe where they traditionally sew gems and shit into their clothes) and judges em for it

-snake, from the land tribe, a 13yo, Lonely Autistic who loves reptiles. (ok i mean. this is high fantasy and im really not sure if autism is a diagnosis in high fantasy. ive done my absolute best to code her as autistic and she is in fact autistic i just dont say it in canon bc idk how to bring it up) ppl dont like her at first because she comes across as cold but actually shes like the most adorable fuckin dork youve ever seen shes great. she doesnt talk hardly at all unless shes Super Comfortable around the people shes with, which is a challenge for me to write but tbqh shes my absolute favorite of the bunch,, also her only friend ever was a thief named lore who was (supposedly) killed by GUESS FUCKEN WHO

-ash, the 14yo daughter of one of the 4 ruling families of the elements tribe. her family’s genetic power is fire but she could never figure it out (later she discovers her power is actually water; im…..still figuring out how that works genetically she might just be adopted lmao) ebon brought her the news of her parents’ deaths and managed to kill her little sister while her back was turned; somehow she does not suspect him. shes kind of a snob and doesnt really /get/ the rest of the group and comes across pretty rude at first. (also, she and eagle deal w their very recent grief very differently but idk her exact Grief Arc yet)

-emerald, who i think is? 12? 13? i cant remember but somewhere around there; shes from the riches tribe, was orphaned as a toddler and raised by supposedly extinct desert dragons (which are basically 12-20ft desert iguanas), which were all wiped out horribly by more of ebon’s shit space weapons. she lived with ash’s family for a while when they were years younger but eventually emerald got blamed for ash’s lack of control over fire and was forced to leave, she found the riches tribe and discovered that she could metalbend emeralds lmao. shes a storyteller and raises money for orphans now i guess

-shark, a scrappy homeless 10yo from the sea tribe who will steal anything shiny enough. he has pointy teeth and an eyepatch (which covers a golden sphere in place of his eye) and hes reckless as fuKC. he was too young to remember his parents but when questioned about it he remembers blue knives (GUESS WHO). hes pretty unaware that sharks are infact chaotic neutral sea predators who do not give a shit about him even if he can communicate with them and he starts the novel with a Pretty Serious Bite Injury™. he takes a lot of shit apart and puts it back together in horrifying ways. yknow sid from toy story? basically thats shark if sid lived underwater and was portrayed as a fundamentally good person

-midnight, the 16yo prince of the time tribe, a Rebellious Teen™ who doesnt want responsibility and has Horrible Insomnia. he thinks his dad is Evil And Controlling and probably listens to heavy metal behind his back (meanwhile his dad is actually pretty decent just busy as Fuck trying to keep the time tribe from accidentally inbreeding collapsing and trying to show midnight how to lead; hes overprotective but not evil). he broke a pattern of various people born at midnight/noon alternating every century and people think hes Destined For Greatness™ or some shit; he is having absolutely none of that will someone let this child sleep instead of waking him up in the middle of the night to practice magic

anyway yea thats p much all ive edited so far and tbqh i dont remember a whole lot of details but That Is My Book!