#if to an outside perspective. the irony/hyperbole looks the exact same as bigotry

[qoldenskies]

ive seen a mix of responses to this post and tbh ive observed a lot of autistic people characterize donnie this way and i hesitate to accuse it of being outright explicit ableism. obviously we are not free of our biases but i think the real genuine reason is just that people have certain molds/archetypes that they like and donnie is the closest thing they have there to the "aggressive blunt a-hole with a secret heart of gold" trope because its a really popular observable fandom archetype and they want to write him protective of leo, mostly, who they defang/absolve of a lot of his canon issues for similar reasons (although i see it a bit with mikey too, less so only because he doesnt get the same kind of focus)

the incorrect quote-ification of fandoms is the real enemy to me here.... the whole sunshine and grumpy dynamic is NOT a ship exclusive thing and i see it given to platonic/familial dynamics in fanonization too, and donnie always gets the short end of the stick here with his other brothers ive noticed. its why they always make him a super overprotective possessive(??? WHY. its kind of creepy????? um) brother to drive like. leoichi drama in fics ive noticed

idk its pretty pervasive (i notice it even in fandom things i like, sometimes) and a lot of the people who do it are young so im not gonna judge too harshly but ive noticed it creep up a lot when people write disaster twins, especially hurt leo, and i think its kind of sad that donnie being so high-strung and dramatic is frequently blunted so he fits into this genre of whump caretaker better. donnie is treated like he's a lot more fierce than he actually is which i find hilarious, considering he is the MOST cowardly of the four there, and arguably of the entire primary cast, but oh well

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases