#i just wanted to write about empathy chilling with the rest of the skills bc he's my fave but suddenly. backstory hfdhgfg

[volivolition]

the voli in my head who's a fucking dweeb (affectionate) - Once we're finished writing this, we'll get to format the work skin layout on AO3.

the echem in my head who's a fucking menace (affectionate) - ?? "get to"?? *that's* the part you're looking forward to????

[nacsygen]

i was going to go on a further rant about how i wish i didn’t know as much as i do about ww2 but y’all don’t need that, writing it out and deleting it was enough.  i’ll just say there was a big difference between growing up with the narrative “nazis were evil, we were the good guys, and it’s very sad that your grandfather died on the beaches of normandy without ever meeting your not-yet-born father but he died a Hero so it’s okay,” and then growing up and reading appallingly realistic and detailed descriptions of the firebombing of dresden and other german civilian cities by the allies, and - and - you know what yeah maybe writing it out and deleting it wasn’t enough bc now i’m dwelling on atrocities again, and the void’s giving me a speculative eye.  i’ll stop.

i think maybe it is the difference between my grandfather dying a hero (posthumous medal of honor and everything) and my father living as a murderer for having the same damn job.  my father lied about his age very early on in the vietnam war so that he could enlist with his older friends, because he was  an impressionable 16-year old idiot  (who’d started drinking at 15) who wanted to go off on an adventure with his friends to the other side of the world, and maybe end up like a war hero like his sainted forever-22 father.  maybe hoping he could be something more than the ever-worse sequence of deadbeat/abusive stepdads his increasingly depressed and alcoholic mother brought in to futilely try and replace the lost love of her life. to be better for and also get away from a whole bunch of half-brothers and sisters that he was never really suited to be the oldest brother they needed him to be, who he still did his best to shield from the various violent men in their life, with the backdrop of a mother too drawn into herself to intervene.  and my father was always a stocky and strongly-built man, but he never grew to more than 5′4″.

so at 16 years old, in 1962, they shipped him off to vietnam to become a jarhead and, when they saw his skills on the range (skills my brother and i share, so maybe it is kinda innate), they put him into training to become a full scout sniper.  yeah, like in Jarhead, except in a real on-the-ground combat war.  he was in the war for a lot longer than a draftee - maybe five, six, even seven years.  it was good for him, the regimentation, the control.  he liked it. he needed it.  he’d never had it before. it was good for him. i remember asking my dad once, and i remember it very clearly.  it had to have been either before my parents got divorced, so i would have been maybe six or seven, or one of the few occasions after i saw him before he moved to jamaica for a few years, so maybe nine or ten.  i think it was more like seven, though.  by this time my father was on 100% disability from the VA due to PTSD and in maybe the worst of his alcoholism.  but i asked him once while watching him work on a job in the sweet florida sun, with me having just enough of a grasp of knowing what the vietnam war was, what war was, and that he’d been in it, “daddy, did you ever kill anybody in vietnam?”  and he laughed and said “yeah, quite a few people.  it was my childhood that really fucked me up, though.”

and understand that apart from that last part, which is one of my earliest very clear memories (and how fucked up is that?) this whole narrative, i’ve put together from bits and pieces of information over the years from both parents, and knowing how similar to our core my father and i are.  it’s a big part of why we haven’t talked in going on five years, bc as sad as this all paints him to have as an origin story, he’s still ultimately an asshole who doesn’t know how to deal with feelings and turns everything into a fight (bc, again, became an alcoholic at 15, got worse and worse, and didn’t get dry until his late 40s and was pushed into a swift divorce with two young children involved).  i understand him at his core because we have always, my whole life, been too similar in all our worst ways, and some of the good ones too.  but i still feel great empathy for the 16 year old boy with one drunk neglectful, distant, incredible at times mother and a series of abusive alcoholic not-dads and a stream of half-siblings, with the legend of his heroic, wonderful, brave orphan hard worker forever-22 father hanging over his head literally since he was born. and then he went to war, like his father did.  he killed enemies, like his father did.  he earned medals, like his father did - my father has a purple heart from both physical and psychological wounds, he has a gold star and a silver star from saving his brothers in arms from dying at the hands of the enemy. and he came back from the war to be treated not as a hero, but to be branded as a murderer in an unjust conflict, a living symbol of national shame.  that shit sticks with you. i know it has for him for fifty long years.  

upon getting home, he immediately grew his hair and beard out (not unlike how my brother does when on leave, but granted, for both it happens within a couple days of not shaving) and went straight back into commercial art, pinstriping, sign-painting and cartoonery back in the ‘70s, which is when he met my mother (who was 11 years younger than him but still technically his boss, and told him she was a lesbian when he first flirted with her, but then they ended up together 20 years) and the rest is history.   i’ve inherited from him an addictive personality - my grandmother (who herself died of a heart attack just before i was born, only in her 60s), my father, my brother and i have alcoholism. and sometimes, really, i feel like i’ve inherited his trauma too, his trauma from the always-there presence of his father’s death, his abusive childhood trauma, his war trauma.  i feel like maybe my brother, who’s way more chill than me but also joined the military at a young age and now classes himself as a binge alcoholic, inherited at least some of the trauma too.  and yeah, my brother’s never killed anybody, but he fixes the planes that drop the strikes and has for a decade, and it weighs on him.  he and i don’t talk often for a pair of siblings that were once as close as twins, but we’ve occasionally had long, very late night inter-continental skype talks where we talk about this stuff. talk about how our mom found healing in our stepdad, who was also in the military but never killed anybody, and was maybe gruff and rough with us growing up but never abusive like our dad had the potential to be when he was drinking, or like his own father, who served under patton, was to him.  talk about how we respect that he refused as much as he could to continue the pattern of abuse. talk about how my dad and i are too similar in our core nature to ever really get along, even though our traumas are different, but there all the same.

the part of me that’s from my mom’s upbringing (and she’s alluded to having quite a few alcoholics in her family too) wants to spit at this man, get the fuck over it! it’s in the past! but that part of me lead to me not getting proper treatment for my mental health until i was 25.  so maybe, for once, my mom’s not right about everything. for once. 

if this was a proper thought-out treatise, this would be a great final pragraph to sum up everything above in a beautiful way.  but it’s not.  it’s me working things out as much to myself as for anyone else.  quite a few things in this i hadn’t even realized were so obvious until my brain typed them out as i thought about them. it almost makes me want to talk to my dad again.  yeah, my dad’s alive, he’s in his mid-70s bc he was in his late 40s when i was born, and he’s been an old man since his 40s but he’s also probably gonna live well into his 90s.  but he’s also like.  such an asshole, you guys. (again, mental maturity of a 15 year old).  i’m also an asshole.  we’re too similar in the exact same way we’re assholes. since i was 16 years old, talking to him on the phone bc i really did want to talk to my dad, pacing around my old room and getting increasingly agitated, he always goads me into a fight.  it’s not enough for him to be happy, it’s not enough for him to be friendly, he can’t be sweet unless it’s for a passive aggressive bit.  and i won’t put up with his shit the way my very sweet (and god knows where he got it) brother does. generational trauma! lachaim!

[moiraineswife]

Autistic Philippa Eilhart Headcanons

As promised, the Phil Thoughts. Geralt and Regis to follow (I’ll link them here when they’re done!!) This isn’t really in any order...And isn’t very coherent...But I don’t much care. 

Philippa Eilhart is pretty fascinating, complex, and rich as a character even before you add this spice on top. I could write screeds and screeds of meta about her sexuality, and her morality, and the place/role she plays in the narrative but...I will focus myself on this.

We need more unapologetic ladies in fiction; and we need even more unapologetic autistic ladies in fiction. I think, way too often, autistic ladies get overlooked, because they get good at hiding their traits/covering them up because it’s expected for them to be nice, and quiet, and polite, and good at all things social. And I’m so beyond here for lady autistic characters being ‘fuck that’ and being exactly themselves, and really, there’s no female character I can easily think of capable of doing that better than Philippa Eilhart.

Especially when Philippa is already utterly unapologetic and unashamed of the way she is, and especially since a lot of that really lines up with autism. It doesn’t really take much of a stretch with this. Wait, I’ll make a list, I like lists, and it breaks this up a little, but okay let’s see:

-She’s...Not the best with Social Skills. She’s definitely intelligent, definitely capable of scheming, and plotting, and manipulating people for the sake of her own ends but she’s also...Quite blunt. Quite to the point. I’m also fairly sure I remember (though maybe I don’t) the way that she watches people, studies them, that and the fact she’s had 300 years to perfect her observings of people helps her make up a little, and learn their body language....But she’s not perfect. And she’s just...never quiet been able to perfect the expected social niceties (and, frankly, at the age she is, she’s probably too fucking tired to bother with them tbh. She doesn’t see the point in them, she never gets them right, why bother?) 

And there’s actually...Sometimes not a lot of subtlety with her? At least, not in her interactions with other people. She is, if memory serves, rather lacking in delicacy. She says what she thinks, she doesn’t mince her words, she simply...Is?

Philippa is so honest about her dishonesty that she almost comes full circle and becomes honest again.

‘"Decent and honorable?" "You must be joking." ‘

Which I’m associating here with autism both as a social skills thing, and a black and white thinking thing. It’s this...Delightful little contradiction within her? Because she is duplicitous, and she lies, and she manipulates...But she’s so...Upfront about it? And utterly apologetic about it, too. This is just...The way Phil’s world works. This is just who and what she is. No point trying to pretend otherwise, what’s the point in that?

-Again with the black and white thinking is her commitment and determination. Philippa is utterly relentless, and single-minded in her pursuit of her goals. Not only in terms of ruthlessness, and the willingness to do whatever she deems necessary, but just her dedication to her goal is pretty admirable. I’m pretty sure the world could end, and leave her the sole survivor, and she’d just keep battling on in her defence of magic, it’s interesting.  

-And speaking of interesting, magic can definitely be a special interest for Phil. Her dedication to it, the depth of her knowledge, how skilled she is (the fact that she’s one of few to have mastered polymorphy, for example) are all indicative of an obsessive interest.

-I think Phil gets characterised as a character without morals quite a lot. Which I understand, I do. But I also think that she...very strictly follows Rules. They’re just....her rules. Her own personal, internal rules. The rest of the world can go fuck itself, but certain things have to work a certain way. She struggle to see the merit in/accept worldviews that don’t line up with hers. I also think that she has very strict morals within herself. I think she has things that she believes are right, and things that she believes are wrong, and I think that’s something that she will never compromise. It’s that adherence to rules, as well as rigid thinking, which is quite interesting.

-Phil’s intensity is pretty indicative of autism as well, I think. Philippa, I think, is a character that feels things very deeply. She has, as I’ve said, very strong feelings concerning magic, and her idea of how the world should work. But on an emotional level, too. More than one of the characters, and Phil herself, I believe, have commented on her restlessness, her desires, the intensity of her feelings, and the things it can drive her to do.  And also, that...Itch that she gets, the desire to get out and Do something, just reminds me of overstimulation tbh. So there’s that.

-But on the surface, she comes off as cold, and indifferent. And I can make a case for her being low-empathy as a part of this based on the way she reacts to other people (which is nuanced, and complex, and is something I could write an entire other piece of meta on itself, but...we’ll not go there rn) But I think that Phil...Doesn’t show that care for other people, and she doesn’t really let her emotions show all that much, either. She comes off as this ice queen, but beneath the surface we know that it’s a different story (which is a really interesting little contradiction to consider, even outside oft his headcanon), but, yeah.

-And on the subject of emotions and cold indifference, I think her decision making process is interesting too. Because it almost always revolves around logic. Whatever her emotions dictate, she typically makes judgements based on practical reasons, rather than emotional ones. Her emotions are strong, and are intense, but when it comes down to it, she’s ruled by her head. Almost too much.

I think a good example of this is the conversation she has with Yennefer about redeeming her in Geralt’s eyes. Yennefer’s plea is one that comes purely from a place of sentiment, and emotion. Philippa’s answer is one that comes purely from logic, and a careful, thought-through examination of the practical consequences of her action.

Philippa comes across as cold, and cruel in that moment, because Yennefer is so desperate, and her request seems so easy to grant, but that is 100% not Phil’s motivation there. She is not doing this to be cruel, she’s not doing this to hurt Yen, or Geralt, or anyone. She’s doing this because it doesn’t make sense.

(And it would also have been easy here to lie to Yennefer, especially with Triss watching, and promise her that she’d do what she’s asking, to make sure they part on good terms, that’s the calculating, manipulative thing to do here. But Phil doesn’t do it. It’s again that strange, unapologetic honesty that she has, and I think it’s interesting too, because it would have been easy to lie, would have been ‘smarter’ to lie, might even have suited her purposes better to just lie, and tell Yennefer what she wants to hear. But she doesn’t. And that’s...really fucking interesting, from my pov anyway)

But yes, Phil’s entire decision making process there is based on logic. She is practical. She is pragmatic, above all.

-Her planning, too. There’s always something ticking away in the back of her mind. She’s always thinking about things, always picking at the details, always tugging at threads, always plotting, and planning every little thing. Which I can quite easily see being a habit. I think she probably orchestrates her breakfast in the same way she’d orchestrate an assassination. It’s just the way that her mind works.

-Okay, lighter/less canon related/’ur just making things up u like now, lauren, aren’t u?’ ‘yep’  

-Phil hating flying when it’s raining because the feeling of her wet feathers is Sensory Hell.  

-but equally, Phil loving flying more than just about anything else, especially when she’s stressed, because it’s such a nice, calming stim.

-Phil chilling in owl form quite a lot when she gets overstimulated because it’s so much easier to deal with (esp if she’s non-verbal, bc no-one demands that an owl start talking to them, and that is a blessing)

-Phil having a deep guilty pleasure of having her feathers stroked because it is The Best (all who know this are sworn to secrecy about it)

-Phil being hypersensitive to touch, and exceedingly picky about who she allows touch her, when, and where. People 100% respecting Phil’s boundaries on this bc they’re not Dicks.  

-Phil being hypersensitive to certain sounds as well, and getting extremely short-tempered, irritable, and snappish when overstimulated. Anyone who spends any amount of time around her starts recognising this, and doing their best to minimise the noises that are bothering her so much.

-Phil definitely likes deep pressure, and is just kind of like ‘lay on me’ @ all of her partners at any given moment. Especially when she’s stressed (which is...almost always tbh, even if she doesn’t show it)

-okay this one is my fav, Indulge Me: most of the sorceresses were sent to Aretuza, if I remember, bc they had some kind of physical deformity which the sorceresses ‘corrected’ when they took them in (I am not going to discuss the wisdom of this, bc it’s not really my place, but lays the groundwork for this, so I’ll mention it briefly)

We don’t really know what Phil was sent off for but I kind of like the idea of it being bc of her autism. HEAR ME OUT.

So her family take her to Aretuza and are just....She’s weird, okay, there’s something wrong with her, have her if you want, fix her if you can, kind of thing. And smol!Phil is not oblivious to this. Smol!Phil knows she is different. Smol!Phil knows she is ‘weird’ to use her mother’s favourite phrase. Smol!Phil understands she’s being sent to this place so she can be made normal and ‘fixed’.

Smol!Phil trains at the academy with the others, and never feels any different. No-one ever uses spells, or potions, or anything to try and fix her. One day, she decides to talk to Rita about it. She pulls her aside, and asks her in that way of hers (I can see Phil being such a serious child. So intense and intense, like she’s got the wisdom she has at 300 at the age of 11) and just straight up asks Rita why she doesn’t feel any different. Her family sent her here so they could fix her, make her normal, stop her being the way she is, but she doesn’t feel any different at all. Why isn’t it working?

Rita gets very indignant, and angry, that smol!Phil has been led to think these things, and very firmly informs her that they cannot fix her. There is nothing to fix, there is nothing wrong with her. This is just who she is. 

And that’s the end of that.

Autistic Philippa Eilhart.