#gob bluth is autistic

[anonymous-tals]

Sometimes you’re too overwhelmed to do an elaborate drawing and you just gotta sketch some little guys being silly and goofy.

Gob and Buster have the neurodivergent sibling bond.

Michael is forced into a one-sided-neurodivergent sibling bond, haha.

If Tony ever leaves the house without Gob, I think Gob would likely, like, text him intermittently, if not all throughout the time that he’s out.

[island-ofthelost]

Evidence of the Bluths being Jewish (master list)

Reblog with more if you know of any!

-The creator, Mitch Hurwitz (who’s Jewish), specifically created the family to be ambiguously Jewish (essentially, they were created with Judaism in mind). In an interview with the New Yorker, Mitch said the Bluths were partially based on his Wife’s Jewish family, and they got “more Jewish” as the show went on.

-Both Jeffrey Tambor and Jessica Walter, who played George Sr. and Lucille (the patriarch and matriarch of the family) are Jewish.

-Bluth is a fairly common Ashkenazic last name, this was also specifically in mind when creating the family. In an interview, Mitch said that he gave them a name that was “Jewish, but not too Jewish” (and essentially making them that by extension), to have wiggle room on jokes/situations.

-When George Sr. “converted” in jail, he already knew Yiddish/Hebrew, what a yarmulke was for, and seemingly everything else about Judaism (his reason for conversion was seeing a reflection of the Star of David on the wall, just fyi).

-In season 1 episode 4, there’s a mezuzah on the doorframe of the Bluth model home, which was five episodes before George Sr’s prison conversion.

-This is a bit of a stretch on my part, but when White Power Bill stabbed Gob, he screamed “White Power!” but Gob’s… White…. Now, this could just be Pokémon speak (re: Annyong), but it was specifically stated that WPB was antisemitic.

-Unfortunately, the whole thing with the “Bluth Nose”.

-Perhaps unfortunately, they do fall into a lot of media stereotypes. Most glaringly, the Overbearing Jewish Mother (Lucille), as well the Jewish American Princess (Lindsay) and the Nice Jewish Boy (almost every male character save for George Sr. and Gob). If the Bluths were canonically Jewish these would be blatant stereotypes and I don’t know how I feel about that…

And if any of you were wondering, yes I am Jewish.

[ur-fav-is-autistic]

Gob Bluth from Arrested Development is Autistic!

[arrestedexgirlfriendafterhigh]

Just in love with my new header thing.

The wee babes🥲

[theflannelwizard]

Oops, I lied about sending all my questions in one, I thought of an actually specific question and not just a super general one five seconds after sending the ask:

Do you have any neurodivergent hcs for Buster and Gob(or other characters if you hc anyone else as neurodivergent)?

This is such a good question!! Okay!! It got long so I'm putting it under the cut, but TLDR: undiagnosed comorbid autistm and ADHD for both of them plus ADHD Tony Wonder :) I forced myself not to get into it with the rest of the Bluths cause this post would be a mile long but i did put cursory thoughts about them in the tags. All of this is spitballing and I'm definitely open to hearing other opinions!

Whatever is going on with Buster’s brain is the same thing that’s going on with my brain, so most likely ADHD and/or autism but DEFINITELY undiagnosed. None of the Bluths have the diagnoses they need and if someone (Tobias) tries to so much as allude to them being neurodivergent in front of George Sr. and/or Lucille it gets shut down immediately.

Anyway Buster reads more autistic than ADHD to me but it could be either or both. He has trouble reading other people’s emotions and regulating his own, he’s “strange” and “childish” in ways that are direct responses to how he was raised but also just read as neurodivergent, he’s got safe foods and takes things literally and has no clue how to read social cues and stims and gestures vaguely at all of him is just so very ND. Also the thing with ADHD-havers being randomly struck with bouts of guilt or self loathing? I think that’s him. ADHD was recently reclassified as an anxiety disorder, too, which we know full well is Buster, and it would not surprise me if his panic and anxiety attacks were brought on by sensory overload and RSD and other ADHD things at least some of the time.

As for GOB, I think he’s got the same deal but he reads more ADHD than autistic. I think they both have both but it presents differently in each of them. I’m fully on board with both magic and bees being special interests for that man, and he also just moves and talks and interacts with people in a very neurodivergent way. The stuttering when he’s overwhelmed is, to me, adjacent to (if not straight up being) him going nonverbal. He definitely has RSD too, look at how devastated he is when anyone rejects him ever. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was bipolar, getting manic when he’s really into a project and then falling into depression for weeks or months at a time.

And, just as a bonus, I think Tony Wonder has ADHD. He recognizes it in GOB and helps him with learn to function in a healthier happier way and his siblings are so confused cause GOB just magically started getting more normal?? Except it’s not magic (and it’s not an illusion lmao) it’s just coping mechanisms. Tony’s been collecting them from various therapists for like 30 years. He has no clue how anyone in this family thinks they’re neurotypical.

[autisticheadcanons]

George Oscar "Gob" Bluth II from Arrested Development is autistic.

[ao3feed-arresteddevelopment]

The One Who Almost Drowned

by anonymoustals

After the family pageant of the summer of 1982 went awry, Gob is sent to his room to think over his reckless actions. Think about what he’s done. And, he does that. He thinks a lot. A lot, a lot. And, then, he thinks about what he can do next.

Words: 20231, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Arrested Development

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Characters: George Oscar "Gob" Bluth, Michael Bluth, Lindsay Bluth Funke, Byron "Buster" Bluth, Lucille Bluth, George Bluth Sr.

Additional Tags: Depression, Angst, Big TW for suicide, Like, if that stuff gets to you, DO NOT READ THIS, no one dies, but still, similar tw for eating disorders, but it’s not as delved into, Eating Disorders, Suicide, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Anorexia, Bulimia, Pre Show, Trauma, Friendship, Family, Vacation, Autism, ADHD, OCD, Autistic George Oscar “Gob” Bluth, ADHD George Oscar “Gob” Bluth, OCD Michael Bluth, Proshippers dni

from AO3 works tagged 'Arrested Development' https://ift.tt/7AjDQWt via IFTTT

[autistically-zoinked]

Arrested Development hasn't been a special interest of mine in years but I faintly remember headcanoning Gob as autistic and you know what? I was right.

[mallratsys]

Arrested Development is abt untreated and undiagnosed autism in Upper Class/Wealthy Families.

[anonymous-tals]

I just thought I’d post this so I can add it to the catalogue of moments that can lend towards reading Gob as neurodivergent.

He’s just stimmin’ a lot here. He looks like he’s going to burst with joy. Gob definitely uses a lot of physical contact in his stims; he’s definitely hyposensitive to touch and stuff. He uses a lot of rocking and fidgeting.

It’s especially notable since his abundant movement is in contrast to the rest of the family, who are standing pretty still.

I don’t really have much else to say. I just wanted to share.

And idk if this is something or just movement unrelated to fidgeting but I’m putting it here anyway.

[anonymous-tals]

Epic Gob stimming to The Final Countdown animation moment.

Also, here’s just the gif of it because I had to edit some stuff about it for the video.

[anonymous-tals]

Listen, it’s a free country, if I wanna make an AU where Gob Bluth and Marta Estrella from Arrested Development are friends as teenagers, I can do that. It’s allowed. And no one can stop me.

Marta enjoyers rise up.

Here’s a sketch of a future one and two of the sketches for the ones above, which I’m including just cause I think they’re cute.

[anonymous-tals]

His ass is not watching the movie!!!

The artwork on the fridge was drawn by Gob(and Tony drew Gob in the big drawing).

Close ups of picture frames, etc below:

The Bluths definitely would have, like, very few photos from the siblings’ childhoods, other than Buster, and the photos they did have be would, like, not be easy to find since it’s not like the parents would really care about keeping track of most of them(again, other than Buster’s photos) so Gob’s contribution to the house is, like, mainly from one of the family’s photo shoots and a couple photos from his childhood that he happened to be in frame for.

[anonymous-tals]

[anonymous-tals]

My sister said the way I described little Gob staring at the waiter from underneath a table in a scene I was writing reminded her of the autism creature so I drew him as a kid and also as an adult as the autism creature.

Additional sketch of the scene I described to her(he’s under there cause he’s a little gremlin with no impulse control and wanted to explore, he’s eventually coaxed out with a soda):

[anonymous-tals]

In the Bluth family, seeming competent and being able to keep yourself together is something that gains you respect. Of the siblings, Michael and Lindsay do this very well. Michael is definitely the most competent of the bunch but, at least in terms of life skills and probably other areas, Lindsay is just as incompetent as Gob and Buster are. I mean, she tried to put the water the chicken thawed in on the uncooked chicken because it was ‘chicken sauce’ and, to her, that made complete sense. But, this wouldn’t necessarily come across in how she acts normally, I feel; that level of unawareness. Mainly Michael but Lindsay too aren’t seen as embarrassments. And, they’ve earned that respect from their parents through their ability to pull themselves together and at least look like they know what they’re doing. Gob and Buster, on the other hand, are not good at this at all. Although Buster doesn’t typically try to put on a more competent persona(he’s not in a position where he needs to do that for love), we can see him trying to do that when he’s ‘in army’. It’s not convincing, at least to the audience. But, as I said, Buster doesn’t usually try or need to try to pretend like he knows what he’s doing. Gob, on the other hand, is trying to put on a competent persona of sorts all the time, doing poorly done impressions of his family or people he thinks will be impressive to others or get him respect.

When he’s in charge of the company, he clearly has no clue what he’s doing but he’s doing things that he sees his brother do or that he feels is a business-like thing to do. Making impressive claims to get work done fast, not knowing that they absolutely cannot do it that fast. Michael suggests an amount of time and he suggests an even shorter amount of time because that’s what’ll get the crowd going! That’s a what a business man does! His whole suit thing is him trying to be a charming, amicably teasing authority figure that people at the office like but he doesn’t know these people well at all. He isn’t friends with them. Also, his attempt at being charming/funny comes off as pretty rude. Maybe if he was friends with the people in his office, it wouldn’t be seen as rude or be so awkward but he’s seen his dad be like that, he’s seen people in general act like that, so that must mean that if he does this, people will like him! But, he’s mistaken in thinking that the company likes his dad because they don’t. But, because he believes they like George, he misinterprets their behavior as favorable towards his dad and the way his dad acts as friendly. So, not only is it a poorly done impression of his dad in general but it’s already based off of a bad person who won’t get Gob the favorable opinions he desires. And, in the fifth season, we see him do pointless things like moving the company to another floor to try because it seems like a business-like thing to do.

There’s the way he acts in regards to women. He’s gay but trying desperately to prove to himself and others that he’s straight. His behavior already feels incredibly stilted in the earlier seasons, especially since we know he lies about sleeping with women all the time. On one occasion, he says that he slept with the business model and that, “she had all kinds of orgasms,” as if that’s a normal thing to say and, on top of that, all they’d done was make out so it was a lie. There’s another time where Michael was said to be one of the “few intelligent, attractive and straight men in this town,” to which Gob replies by saying he’s slept with more women. It’s a competition to him. In the fifth season, it’s even more obvious since we have the added knowledge that he’s gay that we didn’t have in the previous seasons. After begging Michael to not have to sleep with Kitty after being asked to and not doing anything at all with her, in fact, even taking a call from the man he’s in love with while he was supposed to have been sleeping with her, he later smugly says, “Kitty’s pretty sweet on me,” which we know is him pretending because he refused to do anything with her and was incredibly uncomfortable at even the idea of doing anything with her. It’s like he’s providing evidence and adding in statements just to prove how heterosexual he is, keep up his reputation as a woman-getting, straight guy(and we know that it was obvious to the others or, at the very least, Michael that maybe it was all a ruse since, when he finds out Gob slept with a man, he screams, “I knew it! I always knew it!”). Getting women is presented as a thing you want to do a lot of and brag about and he does that/lies about it but he does it in a very intentional fashion. It’s a very curated persona. He doesn’t really get why people talk about women so much or why they talk about them the way they do but that’s the way he’s “supposed to act” so he parrots what they say and do and it just comes off as incredibly stilted because 1. it’s not genuine and he doesn’t experience any attraction to women so he’s having to go off of what probably sounds right and 2. he doesn’t 100% have a grasp on the whole culture of alpha-male-getting-women-and-bragging-about-it. All he knows is that they say these things and, in order to blend in, he needs to say those things too(but as is typical, he doesn’t do a very good job at blending in).

In one episode, Gob suggests that they should build a tiny town like they do in Godzilla movies to try and fool the Japanese investors into thinking that they built a bunch of houses when they really didn’t. Gob says to his dad(who’s using a guy to talk for him because he’s on house arrest), “What do you think, dad? A whole…tiny town.” His dad sarcastically tells him, “Another brilliant idea, Einstein,” but it doesn’t come across as sarcastic when the guy speaking for him says it. Gob is happy and is hopeful that his dad would want to help build it with him only to be shut down by his dad clarifying that it’s a stupid idea. Gob looks hurt. But, then Buster eagerly offers to build it with him only for Gob to stiltedly shut him down saying, “Oh, great. There’s another brilliant idea, Steinberg.” Then he looks to “his dad” as if to say, “Ha, what’s up with this guy?” in regards to Buster, like he’s in on it with his dad. Looking to him to be like, “I did a good thing! I’m like you!” This is a really great and clear cut example of Gob trying, key word, to do an “impression” of his dad. First of all, it doesn’t fit the reply. Buster didn’t even propose a new idea. He was just saying that he could help. And, second of all, he said ‘Steinberg’ instead of ‘Einstein’, clearly not grasping what that name meant or how it was pertinent to the message being sent by the statement other than the fact that it was used as an insult. I mean, Gob has a history of this with the whole ‘geobead’ thing. He doesn’t know why he’s being called Einstein but it’s clearly used in a negative connotation so he followed along as best he could.

Even his first magic show that started his loved of magic was him trying to do something that Michael was going to be praised for in an attempt to get the positive reaction he would’ve gotten.

There are a bajillion more examples of this sort of stilted behavior from Gob and I could go on forever about them but this is all to say that Gob is attempting to do what his siblings do, seem competent, seem like he knows what he’s doing but he isn’t very good at masking and he doesn’t understand the meanings of the gestures he’s imitating so he ends up just looking foolish and/or rude. Gob was expected to be the person his brother is, expected to be like his dad, but he isn’t and his parents unjustly hate him for that. And, it’s the fact that he can’t even pretend to be like his brother or his dad that makes him hated even more. If Lindsay wasn’t able to put on a competent act as well as she can, she’d be just as disliked as Gob is. Gob is bad at masking, which he shouldn’t even be expected to do in the first place, and his family just looks at him as if it’s Gob’s fault for how he is and how he acts, his dad especially. As if they aren’t the ones treating him in ways that perpetuate his behavior. They put this pressure on him to do better without ever providing him with the resources to do so, looking at him flounder and scoffing even though they never even taught him how to swim. As if it wasn’t their job. They just looked at their child and said, “This one doesn’t work like we want it to,” and tossed him to the wayside once Michael proved himself up to their standards while also being actively resentful and hateful towards Gob about how he “failed them”. They keep that pressure on him and he keeps trying to live up to it and failing at doing so. He is told to act in ways that work against who he is instead of working with himself. Instead of finding ways that would help Gob thrive, they realized he wouldn’t be “easy” and discarded him. And, I don’t have much more to say than that’s just really sad, ya know? Like, poor Gob, man. He’s trying so hard. Trying to do things the “right” way but he always does them wrong/“wrong”. He has always tried to live up to his dad’s expectations by doing a poor rendition(not to his knowledge) of what he sees him do and that only makes them more mad and sick of him. It’s a losing game either way. Because, if he’s himself, the family will hate him. And, when he tries to be like them, he’s just a bother to them and he’s dismissed(not saying his worse behavior is justified, it’s just kind of depressing). It’s even worse because they keep him on a string of hope so they can use his trauma against him to manipulate him for their own benefit. So, he’s just stuck in this limbo where he’s told that, if he keeps trying, maybe he’ll get love but it’s all a lie. And, then they just dismiss him whenever he struggles. But, there’s no chance of winning if he doesn’t play their game so he keeps playing that game. Keeps hoping that, if he tries hard enough, maybe one day it’ll click. And, he might be unhappy but at least he’d have his parents love and respect. And, that’s worth the world, right?…Right?

I’m just repeating myself at this point. I don’t really know what the point/message of this all was. It’s just some sad Gob thoughts I have. I suppose the message to take away from this can be that George and Lucille are awful.