#lbr one look at my worldbuilding tag probably should have clued me in to the ''maybe my neuros are less typical than first thought'' train

[lilflowerpot]

🎶🍯: Hi there! I’m not sure if this has been asked about before, but how does Galra society regard neurodivergence? Do you plan on having any of the characters in Little Blade be neurodivergent?

I've not spoken about neurodivergence in particular but I have spoken about mental health in the broader sense, and I think what I said then is still somewhat applicable.

So in imperial circles, mental health—and, in this case, neurodivergence—is almost entirely destigmatised. As with everything, there are always exceptions to the rule, but broadly speaking the galra don’t think of neurodivergence as a bad thing, it's just indicative of a different way of perceiving and interacting with the world; ultimately, as a collectivist culture, supporting fellow members of the community (irrespective of whether they're neurotypical or not) is a time-honoured duty that no true galra would so much as //consider// shirking, as by virtue of being galra, any given individual would be considered a beloved child of Sa, and there is an inherent and entirely unmatched value in that.

I'm not going to lie and claim that I specifically set out to write any of LB's characters as neurodivergent, because I didn't, just as I never specifically set out to write any of them as neurotypical—honestly, I was mostly focused on keeping their personalities true to canon, while still painting them with the depth and complexity that I felt said canon deprived them of. That being said, some years ago now I received an ask from someone who is autistic, and was very complimentary with regard to how I was going about exploring galra body language. At the time, I spoke about an autistic family member of mine, and how their manner of interacting with the world had probably bled into my understanding and interpretation of Keith’s character; now, in the near-four years since, it's quite funny to look back at that knowing,,, that I am, myself, almost certainly also autistic lmao ¯\_(ツ)_/¯