#he’s literally peak autism representation in almost every way and it’s literally not even on purpose . it just IS

[soullessjack]

i think one of the other autistic aspects in jacks character that’s like a little hard to see unless you’re also autistic, because it’s more of a common experience than a visible trait, is the sensitivity he has to people perceiving him as “different.” like, yes he actively wants to be strong and protect people and embrace his powers/what he is for a good purpose, and he even likes to show off and impress or entertain people with them. yes he’s well aware of his capabilities + Most Powerful Being status and literally weaponizes it against their enemies, but then at the same time he’s extremely uncomfortable when people regard him as “different” or dangerous, despite him knowing and owning that in other areas.

when mrs butters says that sam and dean should be afraid of jack bc of how insanely powerful he’s become, he never argues against his power level, only that he’d never hurt them; again, he knows his strength and uses it against various enemies even proudly sometimes. a large part of his character is just grappling with what he is and accepting that, which in turn ties into using it for Good to fight the Evil that’s supposed to be inherent to it. au bobby almost has him thrown out of the camp because he’s a “half breed” who will “inevitably” turn on the humans there because of it, and later on rationalizes that jack must be fully evil now because without his human side (a literal biological aspect that can’t be taken away), all that’s left is Lucifer. jack is essentially feared for being half-angel and looked down on for being half-human, for literally being a lesser human being because his other heritage isn’t human.

while jack obviously embraces their human heritage more, they do also make some effort to accept their angelic heritage for what it lets him do. suffice it to say, “this is who i am and I can’t change it but I can do something with it.” so then, when people view him as something weird or dangerous or simply different, when they see him negatively while he’s actively struggling to make positives out of it, he doesn’t deal with it very well. he strives to be “normal,” while still maintaining the protective role he’s able to fill specifically because he isn’t normal.

and for me, the autistic parallel lies in that directly. the more I’m realizing about myself and my autistic identity, the more I’m able to understand myself and embrace it—and even though my family jokes here and there, they also embrace me and help me feel more comfortable and confident in who I am. but it still feels like almost every day, I’m going through loving myself, messing up because I’m autistic, hating that I’m autistic and stuck like this forever, and learning to love myself again despite my faults. wash rinse repeat. as I become an adult and have increasing responsibility and pressure that I’m unable to take on because I’m autistic, I resent that the world isn’t built for me; that it actively hates and mocks me. countless tiktok core-core videos about how I am fundamentally a lesser human being or not even human to allistics, just because I am autistic. I flip back and forth all the time between “I hate being autistic because I struggle like this and I’ll never stop struggling” and “I love being autistic and I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t but I hate how difficult the world is because of it.”

and honestly both can be true; I don’t enjoy the executive dysfunction and exhaustion I’d deal with even in an ideal non-ableist society, but I enjoy being able to have special interests and experience certain things in a unique way. and conversely, jack likes being able to protect their loved ones and do cool tricks with their angel powers, but they don’t like being rejected or othered by everyone else because he’s half-angel. self acceptance is incredibly difficult to maintain when you aren’t outwardly accepted, and it’s even worse when you’re actively rejected—which true for anyone, but especially in the autistic experience. and again, even if the world was accepting of autistic people, I would still probably struggle to accept myself personally because of the ways it disables me. in that same way, even tho jack is (mostly) surrounded by people who accept him as he is and are equally as weird or “monstrous,” he still feels ostensibly Different from them and is actively othered from them by heaven and hell and dean in 15x18 arguing about his True Place.

another layer of this is that, even jack’s supportive accepting equally-weird family has their moments of othering him without meaning to; he is fundamentally dangerous [against his will], and they’re not being unreasonable when they’re afraid. i think dean even frames it as, “we aren’t afraid of you, we’re afraid of what you can do to other people,” which means to separate jack’s inherent dangerousness from their personhood, when jack so easily conflates the two (and even that itself can be seen as separating your symptoms/behaviors from your personhood).

a lot of dadstiel ppl might be mad at this, but even cas has the tendency to impose Jack’s value with the paradisal destiny Kelly told him about, despite also saying that Jack only needs to be himself to be loved. neither his or Kelly’s love are conditional on that basis, but it inadvertently created a standard for jack to hold themself to and is part of the reason he seeks to make Something Good out of what he’s been taught is Inherently Bad. he’s expected to succeed and actively wants to, but because their natural tendencies for retaliation or anger or impulsivity (things they view as inherently evil in them), as well as their lack of total control, causes jack to falter in fully succeeding and ergo, continue the struggle to love himself on the basis of meeting cas and kelly’s accidental standard.

it’s not their fault and it isn’t Jack’s fault either, because it’s all fundamentally a matter of genetics and circumstance, but it’s obvious to anyone alive that’s ever struggled with self consciousness and esteem that it’s hard to love yourself when the love you receive from others seemingly falters in a specific area, because then you fixate on the area where their love falters and you either strive to fix it or spiral into a crisis that there will always be some aspect of you that isn’t lovable.

thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[quantumkris]

Rules: Tag nine people with excellent taste.

Tagged by: @severeinfatuation

Colors: The two best colors for me are both Green and Hot pink. Ever since I was born I’ve always loved green and I honestly have no idea why. It brings me feelings of mental freedom and happiness (I guess because it pertains to nature probably). And hot pink because in my mind it represents comfort, support, and my place of euphoria; eden. It’s a color that when I look at it in any format, I receive feelings and thoughts of comfort and love, and while though a rarity for me, it still comes somewhat.

Last band t-shirt I bought: I never really have “bought” any band shirts. The closest is of ACDC, but I don’t listen to them so I wouldn’t count it <)’-’)>

Last band I saw live: I don’t have the social confidence to even try to go to a live concert in the first place, let alone it probably triggering sensory overload, which wouldn’t be a good thing. Just ain’t meant for concerts, I’m not one of those people that can go to parties and or loudly packed places and come out of it having had fun.

Last song I listened too: Eden - Take Care. Eden when I first discovered him, honestly was a big stepping stone to have me express and open my locked away emotions. From the first song I listened to of his, Statues, I honestly broke down into tears and had cried for hours on end. It wasn’t just the lyrics that caused it, it was the frequencies, how the song sounded, how they traveled through more than just my ears. Ever since then, every single one and all of his songs and future releases would impact my emotional output. Take Care is the most recent one that had the same sort of reaction from Statues, strong emotions coming from it. It’s even more evident as before I even found Eden, I rarely ever showed any “strong” emotions. I never cried on the outside as for parental upbringing, but again, after discovering, all of that went out the window and even today I still tear up to his songs. They’re truly connective with my body and soul, and I can confidently say that he is a big reason for why I am able to express emotions much part today.

Last movie I watched: Uhmmmmmmmmm do Anime’s count for this one?.. I hardly watch any “mainstream” movies anymore. But I guess the most recent movie would be of Dragon Ball Super: Battle of Gods. Oh my fucking god was it pure art that movie. 17 years after Dragon Ball had been produced and THIS IS WHAT THEY COME BACK WITH!? FUCKING YASSSSSSSS. Dragon Ball in of itself is a unique cartoon as it gives me so much stimulation and goosebump type feelings when watching it. This movie was no exception It was just ughh, amazing and perfect.

Fun fact for Dragon Ball btw, it’s the only anime of which I will ever watch in Dub format as I live for the screams of it. The Japanese just.. don’t bring the goosebumps as the English actors do like Sean Schemmel and Chris Sarbat <(’-’(>

Last three tv shows I watched: Again, I don’t really watch too much of T.V. anymore, but going back a few years, I would have to say Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty, and actually Code Name Kids Nextdoor as I recently have been binge watching it just for nostalgic purposes. Gravity Falls ending made me so fucking depressed let me tell you. If Disney were to bring it back for a 3rd season, I would put my college savings into that damn show JUST AS A DONATION AND THANK YOU OOOFFF. And Rick And Morty, it peaks my Physics and Philosophy interest honestly. I love the profound laws and logistics of the show. Fuck the memes and reputation of it, I don’t follow the “community” I follow the show.

Last three characters I identified with: Mmmmmmmmmmmm you can be pissy with me but I’m going to MOSTLY stick to Anime for this one just to make my life easier  (つ'ヮ')つ.

Top 3 here starting with #1 (not anime surprisingly) being August (or Auggie) from the book Wonder. I first picked out and read this book alllllllll the way back in the 7th grade, and today I still re-read this book. And with the movie representation of it just having come out recently, I re-read it for maybe the 8th time now. I still love it so so much. The reason why I am literally August in almost all aspects is that he is a character who was born with a facial deformity (I was born with a mental disability, Autism). Through his first years of life, he had to have ~27 surgeries to try to “fix his face” (in my first years I had to go to the doctors several times for them to run tests on me in order to diagnose my Autism). He also was isolated from public schools because no kid could look at him without being scared shitless and fearful of him, so he was homeschooled (I wasn’t ever homeschooled, but I went through the same thing in public school. Being isolated, left alone, and just having myself). I don’t want to spoil the end of the book, but the ending also HUGELY relates to my life in more recent years, so if you know me well enough then you can connect some dots there. But I’d still suggest just reading the book ;D

2nd would have to be Violet Evergarden from the Anime of that same name. Yes.. it’s weird that Miri suggested it to me and I put her as my 2nd, but I already had it in my to watch and just forgot about it ITS DESTINY OKAY DONT OVERTHINK IT. But with Violet, just how I described with Eden and my lack of emotions, is a perfect mirrored version of me when I was younger. Not on the kind of “robotic” standpoint of her exactly, but in the sense of how she doesn’t understand them. Sure, I knew happiness and sadness and emotions like that back then, but more “out there” ones like Sympathy and Empathy to be specific enough. With me not having those two, mostly because of my Autism, I, by no exaggeration at all, had no care for human life at all. I did not care if someone was hurt, I did not react when someone had gotten angry at me, and even to my own mother, I didn’t react when she got injured or anything. It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t react, I simply did not know how to or why I had to. My brain literally could not process a response when Sympathy or Empathy came into play. I would freeze, which in a sense, yes, made me seem like an asshole or psychopath, but it was truly just me at the time. No I didn’t blame my Mild Autism because I knew it didn’t control me, I knew i could branch out from it. And looking back on that today, I obviously did. Obviously now I care about people, I know how to react in situations, and more recently than not, I know how to help people in emotional distress than most people. I actually use this helping as a source of bringing up some self-esteem. Knowing that I’m able to help people with something that my past self could NEVER do is amazing. I literally have 2 close friends that say call me their counselor because I know how to talk to them so well. Only now am I just understanding and applying these two things, but hey, I had a bad start (◞‸◟；)

and the 3rd character would have to be Meliodas from The Seven Deadly Sins. This character honestly is my happy and loopy side of me that doesn’t often come out. While it’s only when I'm comfortable with people that this side of me comes out on, Meliodas reallyyy hits the nail on the head. He’s humorous, jokes around in a more.. kinky matter, to which I do this also, but again, wouldn’t know that if i wasn’t comfortable with the people I’d be talking to <)’-’)>. And he also has his protective manner, to which I’m the same exact way with my friends, family, or significant other (if I were to have one). Most times I may think on myself as a burden for how I check on my friends, but I mean if they weren’t okay with it then they would say something, so I always have to tell myself that anyway.

Book(s) I’m currently reading: Currently reading 3 books for my Philosophy class: The Joy of X (a book of math and reallyyyyyy taking it home with how amazing the conceptualization of math is. And with my nerdy ass, why wouldn't I loveeeee it). And Man is The Measure (Basically a pure philosophical book that goes layers and layers deep into several subjects such as Metaphysics, reasoning, perception, and so on). Even with having those 2 books for class purposes to read, I still fucking LOVE THEM TO DEATH. The 3rd one is a book that my Grandpa had given to me when I was literally 6 years old. He basically told me when he gave it to read it when I'm in high school. The book is called UFO’s and the Unified Field and is a pure Physics book. The weird thing about this is that I didn’t get into physics until I was 9, so how did my grandpa KNOW that I would love this book in highschools time!? My explanation: Destiny  (っ^◡^)っ ❤️