#such a good character I like that he’s autistic like me

[thousandyearphantombunker]

https://dailycollegian.com/2023/12/there-is-no-bad-person-disease/#:~:text=There's%20no%20health%20condition%20that,do%20with%20your%20overall%20morality (not sure the links I've given are functional but y'all can copy them into your search bar anyway)

People with NPD are capable of apologizing for past behavior, admitting to weakness, sacrificing themselves, showing others respect and decency, they can have morals and some of them (not all) are capable of empathy which btw is not required in order to do something heroic- also it's possible to act heroic for selfish reasons. they have fragile egos and often can have complexes (like ya know a guilt complex that makes them an overly self sacrificing martyrs) I'm sorry tony being a good person/attempting to be better doesn't negate him from having the 'evil' cluster B personality disorder. Tony's self importance doesn't manifest as being cruel or outwardly selfish it manifests in his guilt complex and playing hero. His belief that he is special fuels his guilt further. He's a perfectionist.

"I expect more of myself than everyone else. I have to be perfect or I'm useless." - a diagnosed narcissist

He is cold and dismissive and he can brag a lot. He's a functional narcissist so he's not gonna freak out when criticized. It's almost like narcissistic people are people and are complex and aren't so solely just a bunch of negative symptoms and traits of their disorder. He's also got several disorders that are comorbid with NPD such as substance abuse disorder and he has an avoidant attachment style- perhaps to protect his own ego and cope with childhood trauma. He used to exploit others heavily and is kind of a toxic boss. He was rejected, and neglected by his father and praised for intelligence so much as a child and had to deal with a lot trauma before getting kidnapped by terrorists. All of the traumas he faced are common in people with npd

tony displays: arrogance, haughty behaviors, and attitudes. a grandiose sense of self-importance. a lack of empathy or an unwillingness to identify with the needs of others and behavior that is exploitative and takes advantage of others to achieve their own ends. It doesn't manifest as outright cruelty like I said his grandiose sense of importance actually motivates him as a hero and makes his ego weaker though he's functioning so he can still take a blow

I am mainly going based off the comics and I'm aware that the MCU tones him down quite a bit but he still displays some of these traits.

I remember back then when autism was also just a lost of negative traits/symptoms a school counselor would point to 'an autistic person have no empathy and are completely rigid and black and white in their worldview, they will break down over dumb things are violent etc' being autistic when I was kid didn't mean you were a kid with a disability it meant you were a brat and a burnout. It meant you were unhygienic and aggressive and RIGID- which according to way too many people meant robot control freak rather than seeking comfort in things like routine and lacking the skills/intellectual capacity needed to function outside of them or they have panic attacks when taken out their routine and ya know aren't being manipulative and are having involuntary emotional responses- and I would hear autism parents complain about their kids and i would hear adults raised by autistic people talk about the scars they had been left with and they deserved to vent because yeah it can be traumatic and stressful and they are victims but it became something ugly toward me. People with cluster B personality disorders have it way worse than I ever did (dear god they get criminalized) but I relate for a reason. I like characters like Tony because they have traits associated with stigmatized disorders and shows those traits in action vs how we envision them when hear about the disorder- when you hear self important you automatically assume it means selfish and don't realize how complex and different that trait can look across the board and we get to see that they are complex and capable and even good people. I know not everyone has to agree with the headcanon and I understand why many of Tony's fans get mad at this headcanon but you don't have the best knowledge of NPD I'm guessing. People hear traits like entitled and interested in success and power and automatically think of the worst case scenario- megalomania and taking whatever they want no matter the cost and don't see how those traits can manifest in a variety of ways and not all them are destructive. Your statement apply to some not all narcissists. I don't know if you have trauma and if you do I'm sorry if this reads as cold or mean but I really hate when people talk about personality disorders like this. Npd can manifest in a variety of ways

"everyone is different" yeah including freaking narcissists that wasn't a gotcha. Your statement was legitimately ableist

everyone who says that tony is a narcissist has probably never met a narcissist but as someone who lived with one for Fifteen Fucking Years I can tell u that he isn't even close to one

[drawnship]

hunter owled house !

Hunter makes me feel many things and all of my emotions make me want to explode

[1800-lemon-boy]

I’ve seen a few headcanons (especially in fics) that Will solace actually is naturally brunette but when he was claimed by Apollo his hair turned blonde (weither it’s over time due to sun bleaching or straight away).

And I just wanted to say I love this so much purely because of how heartbreaking some of the implications can be. 🤗

It’s never happened to any Apollo campers before, Will doesn’t know why it had to happen to him, his one sense of normalcy taken away so quickly, his one connection to his previous life- gone.

Will starts to pick up quite quickly he’s not like his other siblings, he’s can’t write and is average at archery. But he can heal, better than anyone else can.

He was different from the start, he was claimed differently, and his gift was different too.

And while still struggling with what to do, at the ripe age of 12 he’s now in charge of a cabin full of kids younger than him, because he was the oldest to survive.

Just imagine how the plague powers would also affect him. Apollo himself said that it seemed Will had gained all of his good qualities and none of his bad.

How would this 15 year old feel that the same hands that can heal can cause harm?

<33

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[yardsards]

i needed to express a sentiment in the creative stylings of @dunmeshiminimumwage

[transk0vsky]

Can you tell this game has taken over all my thoughts?

[angelmachines]

teru & socialization

i've posted about this before but something ive been thinking about a LOT is mp100's themes of loneliness (and eventual connections). i think this is an aspect of teru's character (in particular) that gets left out because it's not as explicit but i've been wanting to do a deep dive on it for a while and i finally sat down to do it. just a warning, this post is gonna be LONG.

these two panels are from chapter 16 of the manga (which i'm using for my evidence because i. dont want to scrub through the anime LOL). initial sentiment: teru uses his powers to cheat having friends/a good social life and wouldn't have that if he tried earnestly. this is a fair interpretation of the scene. with what we know, at this point of time (as in within the teru-mob fight) teru would not be able to connect with other people earnestly, due to his mindset. which i think is a fair interpretation, HOWEVER:

(from chapter 17 ^^) the first panel shows teru's expression to be strained and the second is visibly unhappy. this puts the first set of panels into a different context, that maybe underneath all of this, teru doesn't WANT any of this life that he's built. keep in mind that i'm analyzing this with teru's possible autistic tendencies in mind & you dont have to believe he's autistic, im not your dad, but i do find this a pretty meaningful indication of masking if he were

(note: yes, the strain can definitely be read as comp-het, and i would agree but that's not relevant so go read this post on that instead)

even if the rest of these panels show teru content with his life, i think these expressions are pretty vital to how we read his life especially because we know so little of it. think about it, if you were a kid desperate for affection because you couldn't get it anywhere else, especially not in a way that would come off as "mature" or "unaffected", wouldn't you also look for validation in your popularity? even if it aligned you with people who you consider fundamentally different to you? my point here is that teru can't not stand out-- it's in his nature-- and we are shown how he tries to blend in & receive attention in the only way possible to him; which is to say that he molds himself into something that is palatable, likeable, and superior to other people. if he's nothing, like mob, he has spent his entire life covering up for it. if he fails socially, like mob, he has to be good at everything (even if he cheats to do so) so that everyone else can look past it.

(side note for my teru angst enjoyers: this is a panel of his mom. the mom who he hasn't seen in years. doesn't it make sense that, if he hasn't heard his mom say he's proud of him for literal years, that he would overachieve in response? not related to the autism thing i just have the teru bug. also don't be misogynistic in my notes both his parents suck we just get a singular mention of his mom)

so if teru couldn't meaningfully have friends before mob, that could very easily be because of his past mindset, right?

...except, we don't.. really... see him make other friends afterwards.

but, the awakening lab, right?

(ok i lied to you sorry there is one anime screenshot and thats because it stood out to me while i rewatched it earlier this month. sorry.) id like to bring attention to this screenshot during the cultural festival because the awakening lab can definitely be seen as a direct contradiction of this and i'd like to point out a couple things:

1) in this scene the shiratori brothers are in another room 2) them and the other three are friends with ritsu (or at least close enough acquaintances to want to see him).

considering this is one of the only times they appear together for Fun i am more inclined to believe this is an encounter where they went together because they all would've gone separately anyway. this isn't to discount the possible bond that these characters might have, but thats the thing. we... aren't really shown that they're friends and enjoy spending time together outside of this screenshot, where two out of six of the members are not even present. not to mention that teru is still placing himself in a role separate from his peers. despite stripping the superiority away, teru is still the awakening lab's mentor, not friend. teru still views himself as fundamentally different in a context where his psychic powers don't make him that way.

...except with mob. i bring this placement of power up because where he is the awakening lab's mentor, teru declares mob to be his rival, or, in other words, teru is just like him. he is accepting that mob and him are the same. (and if we view mob from an autistic lens... so on and so forth)

as if to hammer in that point even further-- in the summer vacation omake, teru explicitly states that "summer break is just a super long, super boring stretch of alone time." i'm not sure of the timeline here, but guessing from the hair, we're at least post season 1. which gives us explicit confirmation here that teru is spending the break alone despite his relationship to the awakening lab. his connection to mob is a lifeline here because mob is one of the only people who can intuitively understand teru's isolation without judgment

(also, on that point of teru's autistic tendencies: teru does and says a LOT of things that would raise other peoples eyebrows and doesn't seem to notice.

here we get teru actively admitting to his home life, right in front of reigen, WHO COULD CALL CHILD SERVICES ON HIM? this genuinely made me rethink this character entirely. teru's filter is... minimal. he isn't constantly volunteering information and generally minds his own business, but if you ask? Well.

teru is a social person, but to say he is proficient in understanding social situations seems... wrong. teru views his loneliness as boring because, despite being fairly open, does not actually allow himself to think about his own feelings and how they affect him. this loneliness is boring because he doesn't have enough of a reference to realize its not

if we are taking pre-mob teru to be a version of himself who is masking, or at the very least someone who is faking a lot of stuff in a less autistic sense, the fight with mob changes teru to the point where he no longer hides himself. in the same way that mob was able to shake teru's fragile superiority complex i think the change in appearance marks the end of the self teru had built up. from this point on we see him become a lot more... Him. his appearance and his fashion choices are, presumably, completely normal to him and we get no indication that he believes otherwise despite the reactions it gets-- which is... well, i wouldn't be writing this post if i thought it was one of his most neurotypical traits.

in fact, he seems... pretty oblivious to what other people think of him. which is an interesting distinction to make considering the intelligence we Know he possesses (which is not to say that you are unintelligent if you don't pick up on social cues, just that its common for media to depict it that way.) these traits are made pointedly, even if unintentionally, separate, ESPECIALLY when you note the amount of characters who Do ruminate on or stare at teru's appearance.

some examples. i don't even think this is all of it-- case in point.)

[hyperrealisticblood]

i love that wally darling is an autistic character written by an autistic person. he starts turning into an eldritch creature whenever hes about to have a meltdown. not many neurotypical people know about that

[imaybe5tupid]

if you see absolutely anything that has kabru in it. And are unable to stop yourself from making it about L/abru (even when Laios doesn’t even appear or is irrelevant to the content in question!) and reduce kabrus entire deuteragonist-level character into wanting to fuck laios. I’m stealing something out of your house!!!!!

disclaimer: If you ship l/abru and gaf about kabru and don’t do this then this post isn’t about you ��

[pnfc]

i haint watched the dang chibisode and idk if ill actually watch it with sound on sdfjk but i have a hurt feeling about them casually imbuing perry with speech for a one off gag because the idea that he needs to talk to communicate is fake. we had 4 seasons of wacky magic hijinks cartoon where perry never needed verbal speech to communicate. they couldve done this gag at any point in the show but they didn't, and the fact that they didn't felt significant. perry's muteness is such a core part of his character, to me, to the way i conceive of him/write him. i don't wanna overreact to a goofy little side cartoon (even tho i'm doing it anyway) but it's still the characters, and it still upsets me! ok that's it i've said my piece

[wheatormeat]

Rereading old haikyuu chapters, here's a bunch of silly Akaashis

[howtodisappearcompletelyand]

20/10 stars little guy

[thefrogdalorian]

I think on this fine Saturday afternoon it's a good opportunity to take a breather and remember that there are really no ethical paparazzi pictures. Every single one is inherently exploitative.

Just because photos were taken on a movie set, when someone is 'working,' does not make the practice any less invasive and creepy. Imagine just going about your day, doing your job and having some weirdo snapping pictures of you to sell without your consent for others to endlessly repost online.

There are thousands of pictures of your favourite actor online already. Plenty taken with his knowledge and consent. I'd really like to see more of them on my dash, rather than the creeper shots.

And don't get me started how disseminating these pictures directly leads to people going to said sets. What starts off as admiring how good someone looks has real world implications.

No, hanging around a movie set and disrupting people doing their jobs is not harmless fun or a way to show your appreciation.

If you hang around a movie set, you are a stalker.

Don't tell me that it's okay to take your online admiration for someone offline. You may admire him but he does not, and will never, personally know you. He will never be your friend/boyfriend/daddy. He is a stranger.

The only way meeting your favourite actor is going to happen is at a convention or maaaaaybe a movie premiere if you're incredibly fortunate. You know, places they appear specifically to meet fans (or not in the case of premieres, where the purpose is to promote a movie. Which is also completely understandable if actors don't stop. You are not owed an interaction).

Of course, you cannot help it if you randomly run into someone you admire in the wild. Even then, consider that they probably won't be all too thrilled to be approached in public by a complete stranger. It's up to you to gauge the situation, but remember there is a person at the heart of all of this.

Boundaries and respect are a kindness which deserves to be extended to each and every human being regardless of their looks/talent/fame/wealth.

Fandoms blur those lines a little too often for my liking and I think just scrutinising what you're interacting with, or what behaviour you could be possibly falling down that slippery slope towards is nice to do every once in a while.

I mean no malice with this post and it is not directed at anyone in particular. It's something I cannot help but feel strongly about because I've seen this destructive cycle time and again in fandoms over the years. It's not healthy and it makes us all a little bit more disconnected from our humanity for it...

[saturnniidae]

"I should've seen the signs" I feel like Stoick was basically reliving the way he lost Valka.

To him, after a lifetime of wanting nothing but to kill a dragon, Hiccup's suddenly and inexplicably changed his mind. To him, Hiccup saying he can't kill them is just like when Valka refused to and tried convincing others as well, then as a result was 'killed' by one herself.

To him, way Hiccup tossed his weapon and shield to the side then approached Hookfang while speaking about how dragons aren't what people think they are probably bares an uncomfortable resemblance to the way Valka put down her weapon and stared a dragon in the eyes and as a result was taken.

To him, attempting to do anything but preemptively defend yourself against a dragon will only end in tragedy, so he has to do anything he can to stop Hiccup before it's too late.

(And just like with Valka, he unintentionally escalated the situation by trying to protect Hiccup but only agitated the dragon, causing it to panic and react, inadvertently putting someone he loves in danger. again)

Stoick of course, wasn't acting rationally, but it makes sense when you think about how traumatizing Valka's 'death' must've been for him (and how much Hiccup reminss him of her); he watched her get taken, presumably killed, and couldn't do anything about it.

[vaguely-concerned]

spite plays with the whetstones when lucanis cleans his knives oh my god... 🥺🥺🥺

(also the thing they're doing here with 'trauma will create a tantruming toddler in your head that refuses to settle for anything but total truth and authenticity and won't be bought off with bullshit or banished by abuse or neglect, you have to actually listen and care for it even when it's being ugly'......... they are cooking with this metaphor and it's also consistently so hilarious in action I can't fucking believe they laid off mary kirby for so many reasons but this is one of them. I also like the complexity of the relationship here -- even right at the beginning of the arc lucanis has some tenderness for and understanding of spite's fundamental innocence in having been put in this situation too, for all the resentment and fear and frustration that's also there. and if spite didn't actively force him to every step of the way I don't think lucanis would ever have actually faced up to and acknowledged the fact that he has y'know. the actual needs of a human being and can't persist on coffee and workaholism alone. it fucking sucks that all of this happened. but also. there's a crack in everything that's how the light gets in etc. like. god. okay then I guess)

[selfindulgentraptor]

No but actually I've been headcanoning this since the dawn of time, this con was 2 months ago how am I only learning about it now

(OG source https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iMiAK5i9T0)

Like this is most likely just Tom Kenny being a G and inspiring the individual he spoke to, but I'LL TAKE IT AUTISTIC SPONGEBOB CANON WE WIN TODAY