#the neurodivergence hit HARD with him like I have so many thoughts and feelings about him all the time

[10piecechickenmcnugget]

I miss c!purpled

[taelophone]

Oblivion ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝˚.⋆⋆˙⟡ — Luigi Mangione x Oblivious!Reader ʚɞ ⁺˖ ⸝⸝ CWs: Reader is violently oblivious like so clueless . Corny Flirting . Neurodivergence in Luigi . Slight angst ? ── ⟢ ・⸝⸝ I played w the fourth wall a bit lol

What is she doing to me, man?

I mean, wait wait wait—! Before you switch, just listen to me for a second, okay? I’ve been trying to get with this girl I love for the past three years, and she hasn’t even acknowledged any of my attempts!

If she weren’t into me, I'd expect her to at least bring it up later, right? Ask me to clarify, say she doesn’t see me like that, or god forbid say it makes her feel uncomfortable.

But you haven’t! Every time I make a flirty comment, you just giggle and say I’m too kind! I’ve never once thought I was bad at flirting, but are my lines just not hitting like they used to?

Even now, as I’m walking you home, you’ve got your arm wrapped around mine while I talk about a robotics competition I did when I was fifteen that ultimately changed the course of my life and sparked a permanent interest in computer science. But all that seemed to travel through Luigi’s mind was whether or not you liked him back!

You nodded, hanging onto his every word as the hard rubber soles of your pink Jordan dunks step-step-stepped on the thick and heavy slabs of concrete. He seemed to really like telling you about his interests and achievements— not that you didn’t want to hear about them— but you just wondered why he seemed to love talking about academics so much around you.

But anyway, that’s beside the point. You and Luigi have been great friends for around four years now, and things were just amazing!

He bought you little candles, cute room decor, candy, new shoes, pretty rings, necklaces with your initials, and your favorite flowers all wrapped up in pink parchment! He was the best guy friend a girl could ask for, really, but that was a part of the problem.

He was so amazing in ways that other men in your life had never even come close to being before. From remembering little things about your interests to all the many dollars he had spent on spools of plastic for his 3D printer, gifting you elaborate custom-made plastic trinkets and “forever flowers,” as he liked to call them.

He was smart, funny, witty, and left your mind melting in his wake every time he graced your mornings with a random Starbucks order for you to try. Now perfect is high praise, because everyone has their flaws, but if you had to use the word for anybody it’d be him.

There was no way in the world Luigi had his eyes set on you when there were thousands, hell, millions of women out there that could perfectly complete his complex puzzle of a mind. You weren’t dumb or dull by any means, but there were just better options for your best friend.

It’s fine, really. Not sentimental at all, no no really.

“What are you doing this weekend, by the way?” Luigi asked, his voice cutting through the amalgamation of crazed screams in your mind.

You thought, your lips pursed together in a lopsided pout as you flipped through the mental pages of your planner, each page containing some sort of mental note or red ink until you reached this weekend. Free on Saturday, but only after ten in the morning.

“I’m free this Saturday, but I have to drop a friend from college off at the airport. She’s moving to Kansas, so I should be free any time after, like, ten to ten-thirty. Why?” You asked, your attention suddenly being grabbed by a community garden just up ahead full of pretty pink peonies and daffodils.

He watched as your eyes locked onto the garden and its floral inhabitants. He smiled his usual boyish grin, letting go of your arm momentarily to jog over to the garden before you got a chance to even process what he was doing.

“Luigi—? Luigi, what are you doing!?” You called, standing up on your tip-toes and calling out to him right in the middle of Twenty-fifth Street.

You saw him duck down, his cocoa brown curls disappearing amongst the plant life and greenery. You crossed your arms, waiting for him on the sidewalk like a puppy owner would wait for their eager little Maltese or Pomeranian to return from their burst of energy.

When that familiar face emerged again, he advanced towards you with a handful of freshly plucked flowers. He placed them in your hand with a particularly girly giggle, gently brushing his fingers across the general petals like he wanted to get a feel for their genetic material.

When he was done fluffing up each bloom, he gently placed a hand at the small of your back in a silent urge for you to keep walking.

“I’m not sure if that was illegal or not, we should probably start walking,” he beamed, a light pink dusting the apples of his cheeks as he felt you lace your arm around his firm one again. “But yeah, uh…what was I saying…Oh, right, I wanted to ask if you wanted to spend the day with me at my house. We’d have to go grocery shopping but it sounds fun…in theory.”

You nodded, an amused chuckle leaving your lips as you scurried down the street with Luigi. By now you neared your humble little home, sandwiched in between two other townhouses composed of bricks of vermilion.

“Yeah, sure! Why not. I’m not paying for groceries though,” you joked, reaching in your sweater pocket for your keys.

“You don’t pay for anything, girl…” he chuckled, his brows furrowing together with amusement.

“Well, you don’t let me!” You giggled, patting yourself down from head to toe before you sighed from the depths of your lungs. You left your keys on the kitchen counter.

“I done left my damn keys in the house,” you huffed, shaking your head as if you were disappointed with your laggy mind.

“That’s fine, I have mine,” Luigi added, reaching in his back pocket and pulling out a set of keys attached to a matte-black key fob, a LittleBigPlanet charm, a little heart charm you gave him two years back, and a Ben & Jerry’s discount pendant.

He plucked the only silver key from the jingly set, gently twisting your front door open with a flick of his wrist and a click of the bottom lock.

“Lock your top lock,” he reminded with no real bite in his tone. He raised his brow slightly, a look of feigned disapproval as you giggled back up at him.

“My hero!” You chirped, throwing your arms around his broad shoulders and pretending to swoon over his large muscles. “What would I ever do without you!”

“Stop it,” he chuckled, his sharp canines glimmering in the early afternoon sunlight as your feet hit the ground again. “Get in your house, go.”

You laughed, squishing his muscles one more time before he manually removed your hand from his bicep and turned you around, giving you a playful smack on the behind that sent you yelping into giggles in the doorframe.

“Bye, Luigi,” you mused, leaning against the white archway of your home with a satisfied and impish smile. He chuckled along with you, clipping his keys on his jeans belt loop as he leaned on the opposite side of the door frame.

“Goodbye, culona,” he chuckled, gently pulling your front door closed. “Lock your top lock!”

You smiled, locking both your top and bottom locks following Luigi’s gentle reminder to make sure you’re completely safe when home alone. Once you were sure your door was properly locked, you kicked off your shoes and raced upstairs to your warm and inviting bed.

You stared at the many Polaroids on your white walls; some of them from college or high school, most of them stemming from your solo trips or memories with Luigi. From jumping off of cliffs in Thailand to stuffing each other inside ridiculously small spaces to see how far the other's bones could bend before giving clear warnings of discomfort.

He was the best friend you’ve ever had in a long long time, and you didn’t want to be stupid and jeopardize that. So rather than perusing any sort of connection with Luigi— as tantalizing and coveted as he was.

You sighed, the air rushing in through your nostrils and drying up your mouth as you exhaled. As the tasteless carbon left your lungs, the bitter flavor of unrequited love bit your tongue, the iron taste of heartbreak bringing you back to your sad little senses.

But it’s fine…he’s still around, and after a while, the feelings will gradually fade into sparkles of humor that you’ll be able to sprinkle into daily conversations. A mere powder amongst the storm of dust you would ultimately face later in life— something to laugh about later, and nothing more.

But for now, that wasn’t the main concern. Your goal of the hour was to get your outside clothes off your bed, take a shower, and catch up on some new shows you had been meaning to watch for a while now.

You slipped out of your jeans and top, unclasping the sharp and satanic teeth of your bra and flinging it somewhere around your room before donning a nice soft sweater and shorts. The gentle fleece kissed your skin, bathing you in endless amounts of comfort compared to the cheap polyester-printed textile of some SHEIN shirt you had put on earlier.

You spent the rest of your afternoon through the late evening doing house chores. Folding laundry, doing dishes, sweeping the living room, cleaning yours, and finally getting around to organizing your dresser.

When the house radiated Pine Sol and the scent of Yankee Candle’s Soft Blanket, you took a deep sigh before deciding to take a scalding everything shower that would leave your vision impaired for the next hour. Shave, exfoliate, wash, deep condition, rinse, wash, rinse.

And just like you assumed you would, you stumbled out of the shower lightheaded and dehydrated after battling the demons of self-care. Your baby hairs clung to your forehead, a hot and humid reminder of the war you had won as you wobbled out of the bathroom to slather on some warm vanilla lotion.

You lathered the silky oils across your limbs and soft stomach, sliding on a matching set of blue and white pajamas before settling down at your vanity to do your skincare. No sooner than you sat down, your phone began to ring and chime with your set ringtone for Luigi.

You propped your phone up against the mirror, answering his slightly untimely call as you dabbed gentle amounts of your Curology on your face. “Hey, Lui!”

“Hi pretty,” he sighed, drowsiness evident in his tone. 

His face was partially buried in his plush-looking pillow, a singular eye fought to stay open so he could see you on FaceTime. He watched as you slathered your skin shiny with products, serums, eye patches, and deep-moisturizing creams as you smiled at his little comment.

“I literally look like raggedy-Ann and you’re still calling me pretty. You’re too kind,” you chuckled, placing two green brightening eye patches under your eyes. “What’s up?”

“You do…not look raggedy, trust me,” he murmured, a sound that bridged between a scoff and a short chuckle from the front of his tongue. “But I didn’t want anything, I just missed you.”

“Luigi, you just saw me like…five hours ago!” you giggled, checking the time on your metallic alarm clock. “You’re literally gonna see me again in, like, twelve hours.”

“Yeah but I miss you” he frowned, sitting up so his back rested against the black wooden frame of his headboard. “You’ve been gone way too long.”

“Luigi you’re being a baby” you chuckled, placing all your cosmetics, cleansers, and containers in their respective places before grabbing your phone off the vanity and crossing the short distance to your bed.

“See, why are you being mean to me? I call you to say how much I love and miss you and you kick me to the streets?” He joked, his words enunciated by a quirk of his bushy brow.

“I’m not kicking you to the streets, I’m pointing out that you’re being a clingy little pissrat,” you teased, widening your eyes at the camera in faux shock.

“Pissrat is crazy…” he chuckled, a low sigh that drawled from the back of his throat and left his mouth a little drier than before.

You chattered back and forth on FaceTime until about four in the morning, and soon, the daunting revelation that you’d have to be up and out of bed to drive over thirty minutes to the airport and back washed over your brain like cold rainfall. You groaned, throwing your head back in near-violent regret before you exhaled from your nose.

“Are you okay? Hello?” Luigi asked, his brows furrowing together as an expression of slight fear and confusion donned his face. In an effort to placate you, he waved a single hand up and down at the camera in a little “calm down” motion.

“I’m fine, I just didn’t realize it was like…four in the morning. I have to be up in like two hours,” you whined, your eyes screwing shut as you accepted the somnolent fate that awaited you in just a few hours.

“Then get some sleep! Cuz then I have to deal with you in the morning, and you’re gonna be all cranky and irritated, then I’m gonna have to leave you outside…” he sighed, running a hand over his face to mimic genuine distress.

“So charming,” you huffed, flipping him off as your face buried itself into your pillows.

“I charm you every day, you just don’t know it,” he smiled, rolling his eyes in the most disgustingly flamboyant way his muscles could muster. It almost made you gag, both literally and metaphorically.

“Ew, sassy sergeant…” you huffed, flipping him off before blowing air kisses at the camera. “Goodnight!! I’ll see you in like…a couple of hours”

“Goodnight, pretty” he yawned, waving at the camera as his head leaned back against his headboard, the tanned column of his neck on full display.

You chuckled, taking a very obvious FaceTime photo before hanging up and giggling into your pillow. His face was so gorgeous— deep dark cosmos and stardust swam through his eyes, swirling with adoration that could kill you if you got too close.

And when your eyes fluttered shut you dreamed about him and his gentle chivalry. If gallantry was dead, then Luigi would be the very spark of electricity that rose from the ashes.

Sculpted by the clay-sodden hands of a helpless god, desperate to create one last reminder of courtliness in the dawn of decadency. Luigi, the ever-iridescent emerald buried deep in the sediment that aged and preserved his quality, birthing the emerald of Venus— a manifestation of her saintly love.

The slow pattern of your gentle breathing filled the room and slumber soothed the lingering anxiety that sneered and taunted your conscious. In the land of dreams and painless drift, there was nothing that could disturb your mind.

Except for an alarm clock.

The noise was loud, piercing, and obnoxious as your eyes just barely rose, a slow and undead hand reached out for your phone to press the big orange stop button on your phone. With a heavy and half-dead sigh, you arose from your cozy little coffin of a bed and stalked your way to your bathroom to get ready for the morning.

Hot shower, toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, edge brush, and a little bit of warm vanilla perfume were all it took to jumpstart your morning. You grabbed your keys and tossed on some pretty pale blue jeans and a brown zip-up hoodie over a white crop top before you wiggled out the door and headed to your car.

In just a couple of hours, your best friend would be pushing you around a cold supermarket while your limbs dangled out of a near-filthy shopping trolley as you mindlessly knocked things off the shelf that would come crashing on top of you.

The casual intimacy of it was almost domestic— it was like shopping with your life-long partner. The few times you had shopped with him before had usually ended up with you eating ingredients with him on his couch while he word vomited about the nutritional value of the different kinds of snacks you had bought.

But you focused on the now, helping your cousin load her bags into your trunk right after you pulled into her driveway. When you finished, you dusted your hands off on your thighs and shut the trunk with a heavy thud before checking your phone after ignoring it ever since you silenced your alarm.

mario💚

‘ Good morning <3 Have fun driving your cousin. Tell her I said hi! Btw I think we’re gonna go to Whole Foods. ‘

You giggled to yourself, hearting the message before shoving your phone into your back pocket to climb in the front seat. 

“Ooh, who got you smiling like that? Is it Luigi?” She asked, poking at your shoulder with a giddy grin.

“Chill, chill…Maybe,” you chuckled, pulling back out of the driveway a little messier than you would have liked to admit.

“Aw shit…we’re gonna crash and we ain’t even make it on the road yet. Lord take us, on her soul we ready,” She teased, throwing her hands halfway up in faux prayer.

“I should’ve left you in the house, on YOUR soul,” you fired back, a half-hidden smirk clawing its way to your face as you set your GPS.

“Didn’t you go to one of those fuck ass frat parties with him a couple years ago?” She asked, pulling out her mascara wand from her purse and touching up her lashes.

“Yeah, it was lowkey trash…like there was no personal space and music was shit. But I was really drunk so it got better,” you nodded, tossing on the radio to hopefully divert her attention from your best friend to something different.

“Man, if y'all don’t get married already,” she huffed, slamming the black mascara closed like the idea of your unattached state irritated her— skin-deep.

“He’s definitely not into me, but go off,” you chuckled, shaking your head at the childish fable she just proposed.

She stared at you, sharp from the corners of her eyes before a small scoff pushed past her lips. “A’ight, girl, whatever you say…”

The rest of the ride was spent jabbering about different topics before it was time to say your goodbyes, watching her disappear behind the glassy doors of the airport. After you confirmed that she had gotten situated inside, you took some time to text Luigi back.

“good morning ! :) omw rn just dropped her off. She says hey”

- Loved by Mario💚

You spent roughly forty-five minutes in your car, driving all the way from the airport over to Luigi’s with your music at a comfortable volume. You barely even had time to pull into a parking spot before the front door slowly came open to reveal your best friend twirling his keys around his pointer finger.

He waved, his sculpted arm flailing with excitement as you pulled up next to his house. You waved back, eagerly scrambling out of the car with a huge grin.

“Lu!” You beamed, jogging over to where he stood on his front porch and giving him a rather grand hug.

“Hi, pretty,” he squeaked, his strong arms wrapping around the small of your back and squeezing you into oblivion. Your sneakers dangled above the pavement, a shocked little chuckle rushing from your lips before he sat you back down on the ground.

“Alright, let’s go to Whole Foods, you can pick out some stuff too. I’ll pay” he smiled, making his way to his car with a very jolly pep in his step.

“I’ve never seen a man so excited about groceries,” you murmured, giggling at his little wiggly walk.

“No, I’m just really excited to see the most beautiful woman in the world,” he smiled, opening the passenger door for you with a boyish glint in his eye.

“Oh stop, I’m not paying for your groceries, Luigi,” you chuckled, giving him a shy smile before climbing into the passenger seat.

“No, that’s not what— oh you’re so…” he chuckled before closing your door oh so gently.

I mean, it wasn’t like his flirting was any type of concealed. He was trying everything! Italian nicknames, food, chivalry, casual compliments, everything!

But you just…didn’t notice. Sigh.

The ride to the grocery store was full of giggles, friendly flirting, and little side remarks about Luigi’s shitty driving skills— those for which he blamed your presence.

“I can’t help it! You keep laughing, and it’s making the car swerve. Siren song…all your fault,” he tutted, shaking his head in faux disapproval.

“I don’t know man…I think you just can’t drive. Might be because you’re Italian,” you joked.

“Okay racism, go off girl!” He beamed, snapping a very homosexual finger with a little face you could only categorize as flamboyant ferocity.

“Mamma Mia!” You sighed, shaking your head in feigned resignation.

“I will crash this car, don’t play with me,” he teased. 

“Shocked you haven’t already,” you sighed.

When you reached Whole Foods, you practically bolted out of the car as you charged to find a big shopping trolley that you’d make Luigi push you around in. You hopped over the thin metal bars, the cart clattering underneath you as you boarded it with near-lethal aggression.

“See, look. Crashing carts and all you did was sit down. Lord, take her, she’s ready,” he joked, his hands wrapping around the handle and pushing you into the store as you shifted your limbs to accommodate for the tiny space.

He pushed you through each aisle, letting you lean over and sweep things into the trolley with little regard for what you were even picking. Mango ice cream, tortilla chips, some fancy goat's cheese, pocky, and a bunch of cherry turnovers with golden brown puff pastry. 

The various snacks and ingredients began to pile on top of you, your midriff and bust while Luigi read off his little grocery list on his phone. He paused, looking down at you before giggling quietly, bonking your head with a blue box of fettuccine.

“Alright, that’s enough,” he giggled, pinching the bridge of your nose with his middle knuckles on his pointer and middle finger. “I think we got everything…I see you got yourself some snacks…” he mused, his eyes widening slightly.

“I had a moment,” you said, clutching a brown bag of lime tortilla chips that crinkled and crunched under the pressure from your arms.

“I see” he chuckled, pushing you over to check out and ringing everything up— freeing you from your crunchy cage of various kinds of sustenance.

He paid for your things, positioning the four reusable tote bags next to you in the cart as close as he could without squishing you to death. It was more of a task than it would seem, considering the cart was barely big enough to fit all of your being.

But for you, he made it work.

“Alright, let’s go do stupid shit at the house. I think we can try and make like…a vegan cake,” he murmured, rolling you out of the supermarket with an unserious smile.

“Vegan cake? Nah, you were right earlier. Lord, it’s my time, I’m ready,” you sighed, throwing your arms out in feigned disappointment.

“Stop it, vegan food is good for the body and brain,” he murmured, raising a brow at your innocent hatred for his idea of vegan baked goods.

“The only thing that goes into a cake that’s vegan is the flour…yeah nah. We can make vegan parfaits though. Or just eat carrots. Or just not eat?” You smiled.

“Actually, what did you eat today?” He asked, stopping the trolley in front of the car And unloading the bags into the trunk.

“Actually I didn’t eat anything yet,” you hummed, the realization just now setting in as you dangled your calves out of the little cart.

He paused, staring at you with a raised brow like you had just spewed a line of blasphemy. He closed the trunk with a heavy thunk and shook his head before scooping you out of the trolley.

“Yeah, no, that’s not an option…” he chuckled, placing you in front of the passenger seat and pulling open the door for you once again.

You giggled, getting as cozy as you wanted, even propping your heels up on the dashboard. When Luigi found his way to the driver's seat after shutting your door, he tossed a bag containing a cherry turnover at your head with one command.

“Eat. You’re hurting my goddess. You know what that’s called? Blasphemy. Shame on you, depriving a god like that…” he smirked, the engine of his lovely white Toyota Corolla. “How’s your cousin by the way?”

“Oh she’s doing great,” you said in between bites, being extra careful to not get crumbs in Luigi’s car— as eating was something he barely allowed inside of his precious vehicular baby.

“She was a little annoying today though. She said we should get married, but I thought that was weird because we obviously aren’t like that,” you chuckled. “I think she thinks you’re like…in love with me.”

He sighed, long and heavy from the depths of his lungs, his forehead resting on the black and slightly worn leather of the steering wheel as his hands gripped its top. You expected him to be annoyed for you, to pop his head back up and say something that would refute the claim with an uncomfortable chuckle.

“Alright, come on,” he groaned, his head now gently hitting against the steering wheel before he turned to look at you again with furrowed brows and a clenched jaw.

“Am I not your type? Am I too clingy? What is it, love,” he sighed. Wait what? Is he acting…? What is he talking about right now?

“Wait what…Luigi, what are you talking about?” You asked, slowly wrapping up your cherry-tasting pastry back in its plastic.

“Hi! Hello! Look at me, please,” he said, putting the car back in park and cupping your face in his hands. He looked like he was at his breaking point, the blows and slams you had taken to his fragile little heart unknowingly beginning to show on the map of his Sicilian features.

“I love you. So so much. Like, I’ve been trying to throw hints since like twenty-nineteen. I am VERY in love with you, stay with me, now,” he enunciated slowly, letting you mirror his body language as you nodded slowly.

“As we speak I’m letting you eat in my car, knowing it makes my skin crawl! I have a key to your house! You have a key to mine! My call log is literally just you…What is it, please just tell me. Are you not into me? Are you genuinely unaware…?” He whispered, his eyes dangerously close to crossing like he was in physical pain from saying this out loud.

“Oh my god, I had no idea…” You gasped, wrapping both of your hands over Luigi’s wrists, your thumbs flitting over his carpal bones with the gentleness of a newborn swan with their eyes freshly open to perceive the colors around them.

He sighed, a self-pitying chuckle tumbling from his lips before he began squishing and pinching your cheeks. You weren’t sure if it was to self-soothe, or if this was his alternative for shaking you senseless.

“Okay…This is me formally asking. May I have the honor of being your boyfriend?” He asked, a tired smile on his face as he gave you a half-nod.

“Of course, Lu,” you laughed, kissing the tip of his nose with a bright smile.

“Oh thank fuck, I was gonna cry,” he sighed, kissing your squished-up cheeks before settling back in the driver's seat.

And after he pulled out of the driveway of Whole Foods, his cheeks tinted cherry with a fine dusting at the tip of his nose, he could rest easy knowing that he was finally out of the friendzone.

Ignorance is bliss, and you were one blissful woman.

Taglist is coming <3

[dathen]

Then my friend's wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair. “You're not hurt, Watson? For God's sake, say that you are not hurt!” It was worth a wound—it was worth many wounds—to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

OOOOOOUUUUGHHHGH THERE IT IS THE LINES WE'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR

I have yet to see an aromantic analysis of this but now my brain and heart is overflowing with Many Thoughts brace yourselves

Look at the wording of this. This is not a character development moment for Holmes, but for Watson--a realization it took him far too long to come to, a glimpse that made him realize how deeply Holmes has cared for him all along. All his years alongside him culminating in a moment of revelation.

But to guage the significance of the revelation, we have to go back to the start--particularly, the start of this "Holmes is an unfeeling machine" viewpoint Watson has expressed so often.

In The Sign of Four, when Holmes admits to not noticing if Mary was attractive, Watson replies, "You really are an automaton-a calculating machine! There is something positively inhuman in you at times." Aromantic Holmes fans have talked about how deeply relatable this moment is--which of us haven't been compared to a machine for lack of the feelings we're supposed to have, or felt inhuman because of our alienation? It's painful to see Watson say this so bluntly, but their relationship doesn't stop there.

Over time, Watson understands that Holmes cares for and feels affection for him, but he seems to see himself as rather inconsequential to Holmes' life, no matter how many times Holmes insists he cherishes his company, no matter how many ways Holmes demonstrates how much he loves him. They're speaking different languages about what love means. This is also intensely relatable to aromantic people, especially neurodivergent ones like Holmes clearly is. (side note: It's been wonderful reading these stories alongside other nd fans who easily spot those demonstrations of love)

And then there's this moment is when Watson finally UNDERSTANDS. It takes Holmes trembling with fear over him being hurt, snarling with protective ferocity for it to hit how important he is to Holmes. We've been staring at what feels obvious the entire time, because he's like us, and then Watson says "For the one and only time I caught a glimpse" of it. Holmes isn't the one framed as needing to change--whether what his love is, or how he shows it. It's that Watson needs to understand and realize it's always been this way.

Swapping to Holmes' side: this line often comes up in conjunction with Holmes saying he's never loved in The Devil's Foot, as a way to disprove it or show that Holmes was lying for some reason. But I feel that Holmes' side of things is that he is not a murderous person. As this story shows, he had a gun to a man's head, his most beloved friend gets SHOT, and instead of pulling the trigger he just hits him with the gun instead. In Devil's Foot, Holmes is musing over this urge to kill out of revenge and concludes that his hesitation to kill is because of something he lacks: he's never been In Love, never been swept up in all the irrational impulsive floods of emotion he's observed stem from that. He's also never seen Watson shot and fear this deeply for his life.

For Holmes, the realization of this moment isn't being surprised at how much he loves Watson, but the realization that his own kind of love is capable of this murderous ferocity. It's not something inherently tied to the way Normal People (tm) fall in love--this is his Watson and his dearest friend and companion and confidant and life partner and he WILL tear someone limb from limb if they managed to kill him.

[aconstantmonologue]

I just saw Wild Robot in theaters and I am absolutely enamored by every aspect of it.

[YAP SESSION WITH SPOILERS AHEAD]

There were so many beautiful lessons and themes in the whole film that it’s hard to just pick out and label them because doing so would disservice the film in its entirety.

-Roz: From the very start I felt such a strong connection to her. She never really ‘fits in’ anywhere, and faces isolation from those she wants so desperately to form a connection with. It takes her awhile to adapt and understand things outside of her ‘program’, and even then it’s a learning curve for her, change is difficult to process and understand. But eventually she gets to a point where she’s stuck at a crossroads, she still isn’t quite synchronous with the community around her, but they’ve begun to understand and accept her, and she knows that she would be out of place if she returned to her maker. Her love and care for Brightbill and Fink are difficult for her to express verbally, but she expresses through her actions, eventually getting the vocabulary she needs and yearned for. She took her programming, and used it to create a life she truly wanted, not just a husk of a being.

-Brightbill: I saw this film with my dad and my stepmom. My stepmom raised me, she is just Mom for me, but there was a moment where I didn’t understand why I never really got to spend time with my biological mother, and I held a lot of animosity surrounding that for a long time. Eventually I grew to understand that she wasn’t to blame, the situation was out of her control, she simply adjusted her sails to save me, becoming my Mom without hesitation even if it was difficult as first. She was the Roz to my Brightbill, and sacrificed so much of her time to learn and adapt to raise me, and now she has to watch me grow up and live a life of my own.

-Fink: I wasn’t expecting to like him as much as I did, I feel like fox characters tend to fall into a very specific mold and seem flat and under developed. But seeing his growth through the film was lovely. They made it clear that it wasn’t an instantaneous change. He went through lapses where he would self isolate his honest thoughts again, not even sharing them with Roz. But as he spends more time with Roz and Brightbill, he starts to grasp the fact that there are people who WILL care about him with no strings attached. And that he is allowed to get close to others and love them without the fear of it being transactional.

Disability Representation: I was not expecting this at all, and it may not have even been entirely intentional, but elements of this story spoke a truth that rang into my bones as a disabled person. When Roz loses a foot she adapts her surroundings to suit her needs so she can still navigate while training Brightbill to fly. Paddler even makes her a prosthesis to replace the section of the leg she lost. The isolation all three face from their peers for being different and out of place hit so close to home. Being isolated from others because you were “too odd” is something my family and I, and so many other neurodivergent people have experienced, and sometimes you start to lose hope on finding a community that will accept you, until you find them in the most unexpected places.

Going off of that, Brightbill being significantly smaller than the other geese and the criticism he faces for something out of his control was written so well. There are people who will write you, and your capabilities, off without question once they realize that you are disabled and ‘not normal’. He has to do considerably more work and put in more effort to be seen in an equal standing as his able bodied peers. That’s why I think the lesson he learns (along the lines) of “you can do anything I can do, even if it has to look different to fit you” was so important. Disabled people CAN and SHOULD be given the same respect and consideration as able bodied people, and the end result should be the object of value- not the accommodation it took to get there.

I have so many more thoughts but I will contain myself, I do want to see it again sometime soon though :]

[staticofthetv]

Take two!

Favourite frames from the new B-Side chapter, featuring some analysis because I have coherent thoughts this time 'round :D

Beware, spoilers below for the B-Side as well as the manga

@veiled-bird that goes for you too, you're nowhere near meeting this guy yet

First up, I love this chapters art. It reminds me of when I was little and asking my dad to help my brother and I beat the last level of episode 3 in lego star wars tcs

Also the chapter title? I have so many thoughts, they'll be discussed more in depth further down but they will be discussed /pos

Numbers weapon 1 mention!! I'm very excited to (hopefully) get more lore about it. Although I am curious if it's like a contact lens or something, I thought it was closer to a surgical implant or maybe some weird side effect from using numbers weapon 1. Mostly because I don't think he's been drawn with normal eyes yet in the manga (at least from what I remember)

Either way very much hoping we get some more numbers weapon 1 lore in this :)

This whole scene but specifically "what good does a test proving I'm abnormal do" hits so hard, especially as someone diagnosed with ADHD in my late teens. Having that feeling of there's something wrong with me for so long and being brushed off every time because I didn't act like the stereotypical 10 year old boy with severe ADHD (a psychiatrist literally told me and my mum i probably had adhd but she wouldnt diagnose me,) I did start to kind of give up on ever figuring it out.

Narumi was incredibly relatable to me in the main manga (not because I'm a badass, I'm very lame lmao) because of the behaviours he exhibits, hyperfocusing on games, constant dopamine seeking (through videogames and online shopping,) needing to be fiddling with something to better process the information being given out, etc.

Narumi is also incredibly smart, its stated explicitly that he got top scores in the entrance exam and I can't imagine those tests are anywhere near easy. It gives neurodivergent kid being told they just need to apply themselves to do better in school/make friends/just function in a neurotypical way in general.

This also comes from his being kicked out of several orphanages, and then even after joining the defence force (especially after being told by Isao that they take anyone that can show skills and results) getting kicked out by the second division and every platoon in the first until he ends up under hasegawa. Considering the title too this is 100% supposed to read as the classic "troubled kid" (many of which are neurodivergent) that not many are willing to put effort into helping. Isao is giving him a way out of the life of having no home to go back to, only to be struck with the threat of getting kicked out once again a year later. Narumi is a very skilled and capable fighter and no one in their right mind would argue with that and it once again all comes down to being labelled as too difficult, hard to work with, never paying attention

This chapter just hits so close to home with me

Baby Mina!! I know there's a decent amount if it in the manga but it's still weird to see her with short hair. I love her so much

There are many more words of appreciation I have but all thought went into dissecting Narumi's character lol

And so being kicked around by hasegawa begins

I love his face here, top tier expression

And here we see Isao solidifying the thought of skill and results being all that matters, there's no way Isao was going to let Narumi get kicked out, especially not after showing aptitude for handling numbers weapon 1. I like to think at this point he does also care for Narumi, I think he sees a lot of Kikoru (or what she could be) in him and especially he sees himself in Narumi. And even though he's only ranked captain Isao would clearly fight to keep Narumi on the force (he probably already had to for Narumi to get transferred to the first division instead of just being dropped when he didn't mesh with the second)

This is also the beginning of Isao and Narumi's mentor/mentee relationship, Isao knows exactly how to handle Narumi and his child prodigy-ness and help him reach his potential as a defence force officer. I think that's part of why Isao shows little care for how Narumi handles himself when off duty, it may be that he knows he can't change Narumi in that way, it may be that he himself just doesn't care for all the professional decorum, either way Isao plays the very important role of being Narumi's main support while he's in the defence force (until Isao dies anyway, whoops.) Narumi needed a space where he could not only be himself but be accepted for it and have the trust of his peers and superiors that he would get the job done when he needs to, and whether it was on purpose or not Isao provided exactly that for him.

This also ties back into the earlier ramble about Narumi being the typical undiagnosed neurodivergent "troubled kid"

(Also the origin of what Narumi says to Kikoru ~9 years in the future :D)

Omg jaeger is canon? Kaiju no. 8 and pacific rim crossover when? /j

Another interesting tidbit about Narumi is his self confidence, he knows he's capable and isn't afraid to tell people that. He says playing support is annoying but what I see is someone that knows he can do better placed somewhere else and has decided to take that into his own hands. He won't get kicked out of the defense force but I wouldn't be surprised if he gets into a shit ton of trouble for taking Isao's words to heart and disregarding his orders, even though I do think he'll be an asset to the battle and perform better being closer to the front lines.

Poor hasegawa has his work cut out for him keeping Narumi in check (a captain and vice-captain match made in hell)

[elialys]

Hope you don't mind me info dumping my thoughts after watching newsreader and also reading some of your thoughts (I am so hyper focused on this show lol)

If Dale is neurodiverse, what sort of neurodiversity do you think he has? Is he a bit on the spectrum or ADHD? But then it would man that he would mask himself quite well, he's just a bit awkward.

Anna was very beautiful this season.

I never understood why Lindsay was so obsessed with Dale? It was very creepy

I know I shouldn't but I really want to diagnose Dale, like Helen is BPD, but I feel like Dale had mental health issues, but it could also be just him being repressive.

I am going to imagine that post s3 he gets therapy and gets together with Helen. He accepts he is bi too.

I have SO many thoughts when it comes to Dale being on the spectrum! A lot of it is my ‘neurospicy’ detector going off when I watch him, but joking aside, I think I see him as a neurodivergent character because he displays a lot of traits that are fairly common for people on the spectrum.

Disclaimer, I come from a family full of neurodivergent people, some with a diagnosis, some without, many with…‘characteristics’—myself included. I also study/work in a field that has me spending a lot of hours every day with people on various versions of this infamous spectrum, so while I am joking about having a neurospicy ‘detector,’ I am sensitive to neurodivergence, and often recognize it (and I’m usually right when I do).

Dale is socially awkward. Yes, I know, it sounds like a cliché, but it is an actual fact that social interactions are often hard when you’re neurodivergent. You’re just…slightly off, in a lot of situations. Dale takes things literally. He rehearses how he’s going to deliver lines, way beyond how he will be on camera, but with people too. The mirror thing he does? I’ve done it, and I know a lot of people on the spectrum do it, it’s a real thing.

Also, he hyperfixates. He’s got special interests—in this case, newsreading and journalism (since he was a very young child), to the point of it becoming his entire identity. He also likes rules, and following those rules, and fitting in boxes 🥲

You’ve mentioned masking, which is one of the main things neurodivergent people do, in an attempt to fit in with people and society. Very often, when you’re neurodivergent, the world around you makes you understand at a very young age that any odd behavior/responses you have are not acceptable; you’re often rejected/mocked for being awkward in social settings. So you learn to mask, without realizing you’re doing it. It’s a coping mechanism. Everyone does it to some extent, but autistic people do it on a whole different level—and it’s exhausting.  

(I’m continuing the rest of this TED Talk under a read more because I need to talk about season 3, so, SPOILERS!!)

Dale’s entire arc from season 1 to 3 is a form of masking. He says it himself in the finale “You would hate the real me, everybody did. So I changed him, and now, you hate him even more!”

He’s obsessed over his image, about how people view him, about needing to appear normal, may it be in his masculinity, in his sexuality, in everything that makes him HIM. So many of those horrible comments he listens to say something along the line of “he’s weird, he’s off-putting, there’s something stilted about him.” The harder he tries, the less “normal” he appears, and it makes him absolutely spiral.

Dale hitting himself in that heartbreaking scene in 3.06? To me it’s not just a physical representation of his self-loathing.

[article]

I’m no expert so I don’t want to extend too much on that and risk saying the wrong thing, but self-harm most definitely is a thing autistic people may do, especially when they experience meltdowns, which is when someone is so overwhelmed by a situation that they lose control of their behavior. To be honest, the whole first half of episode 3.06 is Dale’s inevitable meltdown from everything he’s put himself through this season—and everything that was done to him by ‘exterior forces’ (Lindsay on top of the list).

So to link back to another one of your point, Dale most definitely has mental health issues, too, due in part to his past traumas, the abuse he was suffering from at work, and the fact that he’s a neurodivergent (bisexual) human living in a neurotypical society. In a newsroom of all places! 💀

[imaginarylungfish]

AUDHD 👏 GOJO 👏

I’m right there with you so, in true AuDHD style, I’m zooming into your inbox to infodump because I’m ALWAYS desperate to scream about this (shout out to @ellionwrites for patiently and compassionately listening to my unpolished rambles about a lot of this stuff in private)!

I actually have a LOT of thoughts about 236 and how it’s Gojo’s “unmasking”. That chapter is really emotional for me because of how well it articulates my personal experience of navigating the world as an autistic person. This post (and especially its tags) from right after it came out says it in a much more concise way, but Gojo’s upset pout breaks my heart because, to me, that's evidence of “no matter how much you try, people will misunderstand you” and damn… that hits a little close to home 🥲

It’s why his death had such a strong impact on me, especially when it felt like half the internet was ignoring the actual words Gojo said to claim “he never cared about that stuff, he was arrogant from the start and you just misread him". In combination with “it was the best ending for a character like Gojo" — right after we find out how deeply lonely he’s been, never able to truly connect with anyone after Geto left? Well, it was mindblowingly meta and, therefore, pretty painful to read.

I wrote an analysis of Gojo’s character in 236 and, even though I wasn’t viewing him through an autistic lens for that particular post, I think my words under the cut still read that way — that’s how baked into his character I think this stuff is! I genuinely think the two pairs of sorcerers sitting with their backs to each other is a visual representation of the double empathy problem. I'm not sure autistic and allistic people can ever arrive at a place where we fully understand each other, but that doesn’t mean autistic people have to carry all the burden and remain isolated. That’s why it’s meaningful that Gege makes it clear that all the characters care about each other, even if they don’t see eye-to-eye.

Glad to see you shouting about this reading of his character, because I haven’t seen many people talking about it. Some people are very hostile to ND headcanons, especially for characters as popular as Gojo, which is why I haven’t really talked about it much myself. However, I feel like any fellow AuDHDers who read my fic must be side-eying me constantly because I don’t think I’m subtle about how I write Gojo’s character at ALL 🤪

Maybe it’s time to be brave and publicly share my 236 AuDHD!Gojo manifesto for the five of us who are standing in a circle screaming about this! Cheering you on and sending lots of love ♥️

Ahhhhh thank you so much for this infodump!!!! I was on a AuDHD!Gojo rampage last night as my brain worm hit right as I should have been going to sleep. But such are things....

Like idk why it didn't truly hit me until now, but I can't unseen Gojo as AuDHD. (It was probably because I re-watched "Everything's Gonna be Okay" with some AuDHD representation and then I started thinking of other AuDHD characters and immediately thought of Gojo.) I did play with the idea a few months back, but it hit me with full force yesterday.

Idk like I get a little annoyed with people who think I or others like Gojo just because "he's hot" because like okay fine yes (but also I think I just have gender envy but that's a whole other can of worms). But also, no no no that's not it! My love for Gojo is more than that! He speaks to me as a character. He's misunderstood. He's seen as something he isn't. In my eyes, he's neurodivergent (and queer). And Geto was the only other person who ever saw him for who he really was.

Gojo's death was really hard on me. I remember exactly where I was when I read that chapter. And then the airport. Fuck. EmOtIOns. At first, I tried understanding Nanami's words. I really did. But really, I just didn't if I'm honest. Those words were a shock to me. Like yeah okay he's selfish (but like aren't all humans?). He also helps though! Isn't that obvious? And at the end? He wanted to have an equal to go all out with in a fight. Again, why was that bad? He was also helping! What's the issue? He's a fallible human. Like you said in your analysis, he contains multitudes. What's wrong with that?

So, like many others, I thought maybe I misread Gojo. But no. Now I think the missing piece was that Gojo is AuDHD and Nanami didn't quite get that. He didn't understand Gojo's actions. (And ahh god that lil pout. Gojo was just living his life and people saw him but they never ~saw~ him.)

I think the visual of the sorcerers back-to-back is a great metaphor for the double empathy problem. I never saw it that way, but I see it now and like it! And I think you're so right with the fact that the characters still respect and support each other even if they don't understand each other fully. I think that's a theme woven throughout the story.

Blahhh I feel like there is so much textual support for AuDHD Gojo. Like him being blindsided by Geto's defection because he didn't see Geto's decline (and don't get me started about Autistic!Geto with his strict black-and-white thinking), him just blabbing about sweets when he meets up with Megumi before fighting one-finger Sukuna at the beginning, the fact he thought revealing Yuuji to his classmates at the exchange event would be funny (cause hey, I thought it would too until it happened and I saw oh hey, it wasn't), etc. Plus, his blindfold. His overall personality. Like, it's such a heavy mask. Now I see that.

I feel like people either love Gojo or they hate him. (I immediately gobbled up your analysis and 100% agree. And I think people's reactions to his death are pretty telling.)

So, thank you for the yummy AuDHD!Gojo content. Please feel free to send me more/link me to things. I feel like I have a million more things to say but my brain is jumping all over the place and I've already spent 40 minutes this morning on this when I should have been getting ready for work. Hehe, whoops.

Gojo is AuDHD. I will die on this hill. Let's keep staring and screaming at each other about this. Sending you good vibes and love as well 🤍

[freckliedan]

Hi!!! I just wanted to talk about how Dan and Phil as a brand is so relatable to neurodivergents in the way that they've been treated recently. So DnP built their careers off of being "weird" and "quirky" and socially awkward. That was Their Thing. Dan spoke for years about being violently bullied (quotes such as "being punched in the head by dickheads" stand out as a pre-BIG example of just how violent it got at times), Phil had the Why I Was a Weird Kid series, they both were frequently talked about as being "weird" and "awkward" by other YouTubers - they WERE the "weird" ones of the vlog group. The ones that awkward teens could relate to. Unfortunately, this got the attention of the #imsoquirky crowd who talks like they're experiencing all of these things while also being the same people who would mock me for my autism.

And that's the crowd now saying Dan is too old to be posting catboy photos or saying that the two of them "give the ick now, idk why." And I just can't help but notice how much I relate to that as an autistic and ADHD person. So many times over the years, I've made "friends" who were slightly into my interests, but then got weirded out by how hard I went into them. I think what we're seeing is the same thing happening to Dan and Phil. Drawing cat whiskers on your face to answer questions? Well that's "so cute and quirky"!! (/s). But actually playing as Catboys in JRPGs, dressing up in cat ears, making animal noises (which the two of them always did but ig this group overlooked), etc? Well that's "too far" and "so weird."

I think Dan especially got hit with this because he has more subscribers. When he talks about being bullied, most people can relate to that. But then when he goes and honks a horn in a game repeatedly (which tbh I've done before myself, very ADHD coded of him) or talks about hiding behind vending machines to avoid talking to people, that is suddenly "too annoying/weird" for some of the audience that got into him for his "relatably weird" content.

Sorry this is such a long ramble, but basically Dan and Phil have accidentally become the perfect examples of how kids with autism/ADHD/social pragmatic disorder/nvld/dyspraxia *insert other neurodivergencies that can cause atypical socialization* are treated. People might find your initial "quirkiness" relatable because everyone feels awkward or socially anxious at times, but it's when they see that you are Actually Just Like That and it's not to be #relatable that they turn on you and start saying that you're "too much" and "too weird."

Dan and Phil were the "weird" ones of the British vlog scene, and those of us who tuned into the younows or watched their older videos knew this, but someone who only subbed after watching a meme review or the two of them playing undertale might have assumed that they were the "right" kind of quirky/weird.

This is probably incoherent, but I hope you get what I mean.

this isn't incoherent! just such a well thought out ask i don't have anything to add. there's really specific ways i'm comfortable talking abour dnp + neurodivergence & neurodivergence in general so it's not something i've ever done super in depth posts abt!

i've actually gotten a few really lengthy asks like this over the last few weeks, so this is to you and to my other askers: i really appreciate that folks want to share their ideas with me but sometimes i genuinely don't have enough to contribute in response to add on to what's being said! and that makes it pretty impossible to answer asks like this.

so this is to everyone: feel free to @ me in the replies on your posts! (doing that leaves things cleaner than @ ing in the body of a post, which in my experience means folks are more likely to engage, if that's what you're looking for). especially loop me in about dnp + neurodivergene or dnp + gender!

this isn't a promise i'll rb or even see things, this website's functionality is shit, but like. it's actually way easier for me to see and support than if yall are sending me essay length anons, and this way i + others can find more people who share the same opinions as us! make ur own posts & ppl will follow u i prommy

[messydiabolical]

Just saw a poll about what in fanfics you dislike the most and it reminded me about a specific plot line I see in Thane fics a fair bit and, well I have a lot to say. I've thought about writing this before but I chickened out tbh, I hate getting into discourse generally. I feel the need to preface that this is personal opinion and feelings, no fic authors owe readers a damn thing, and you can write what you damn well want to! Just to make that abundantly clear. This is also not written with any one fic/author in mind, this aint some vague posting attack on any person in particular. It is a trope I have seen occur on multiple occasions with Thane in particular, and one that gives me a lot of feelings. I bloody LOVE a Thane lives AU. That's my jam, no doubt. It's a cathartic, soothing balm for me. And how you choose to get there can vary massively and I love that too. I would say that I prefer when his motivation to persue treatment is based in wanting to live for Kolyat and especially for himself, and not just because his love of Shepard. And while they break my heart, I also think stories that follow canon, or divert from canon but still have him die, are also super important and I applaud the writers who go there, because ouch. Disability and terminal illness are difficult, real subjects and having that representation is so important. I completely understand why there are people who dislike Thane lives. So to the thing I really dislike: nothing makes my stomach drop faster than the disregarding or removal of Thane's bodily autonomy/consent on his own health. They tend to go like this: Thane has decided not to persue any potential treatments, collapses/is rendered otherwise unable to have his say on the matter past his already stated wants, and while unconscious Shepard overrides his DNR wishes and has him given life saving or extending treatments. He wakes up and is upset at Shepard, but ultimately forgives or even thanks them for making that decision for him (basically saying that he was 'wrong' and Shepard was 'right'.) I do think this can be written in an interesting, character study way. There's also those grey area tangents: For example, what if the treatment suddenly becomes available after he's already unable to give consent, one that he was not aware of. Or what if the source of the treatment changes; before he was against a transplant because it would mean taking from another drell, but suddenly cloning or something else becomes available? etc. Perhaps such plot lines have been explored and I've missed them, because unfortunately after reading a handful of the type where he is just wholesale disregarded by Shepard if I get even a whiff of this kind of plotline I abandon the reading. As for why this does not sit well with me at all? It creates a situation where you have to basically make out that Thane was somehow in the wrong for ever feeling that way, that his acceptance of his terminal illness is bad, his motivations wrong. Again, something that can be explored- but not by just wholesale disregarding and overriding him then later teaching him why he was 'wrong'. We are getting into the very murky area of "if a person is depressed/mentally compromised by trauma/their past enough, they are no longer able to make decisions on their own health, this is for their own good'. And- yikes. Red alert. Because that is a story that needs to be handled with so much care, and it absolutely should not be used as a temporary source of angst to further a fucking romance plot. I think this hits hard for me especially as a disabled person who has had to deal with my fair share of medical fuckery. I'm also neurodivergent and have mental health issues. Advocating for myself is something I have had to battle many a time. Anyway hoo I had that one pent up hey? Again, I hope no one feels personally attacked by this. It's my own ick, one that might resonate with some, one that others might completely disagree with.

[yurisorcerer]

That was really good!

Gosh, I have many thoughts, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate them given that I'm kind of tired at the moment.

So, my main love here is for the characters. I think people tend to sell Dungeon Meshi on its worldbuilding and I do get that (it's very complex and is quite well thought-out), but the characters are what really grabbed me. I don't think there was a single member of the main cast I didn't love. Laios is such a delightfully weird monster manual fanboy and I 100% agree with the people who say he feels neurodivergent and that this feels intentional. Senshi is awesome and it's very funny how the manga is extremely horny for him. Chilchuk brings a profound Divorced Dad energy to the cast that I think is great for bouncing off of the other characters. Izutsumi is interesting by how she contrasts with the earlier party members, I want to think about her role in the story more. I think she was kind of meant to give us an "outcast's perspective" of sorts? I think she's good at being that, but I feel like having blown through most of the manga in a few days may have hampered my appreciation of some of the more subtle aspects of her character.

Marcille, though, is my favorite; as someone who is also a really fussy eater and just kind of tightly-wound in general I found her really relatable. She's also super, super, super pretty and cute but we don't need to get into that right now. I cannot be the first person to point out how, when she becomes the dungeon lord, her behavior starts feeling extremely manic, right? I suffer from delusional episodes that include very difficult to ignore intrusive thoughts, and I thought the whole bit she went into about how being the dungeon lord feels felt very familiar in that respect, and it really hit home for me.

(On the flip side, having your desires eaten by the demon seems similar to depression. I've been there, too.)

Other stuff! I like the whole overarching theme of eating both in the literal sense and as a general metaphor for going through one's life. In the very last chapter Marcille says something to the effect of, perhaps this journey was to teach us to accept death, and I don't think that's necessarily the entirety of what the series is going for, but that's part of it definitely. There's a whole circle of life thing going on here. The manga is very....sensory? Lots of focus on taste of course but also scent and feeling. Lots of really strong imagery along those lines throughout the entirety of it.

I set the worldbuilding aside earlier but it is super neat actually, also. I still don't love the general conceits of a western-style fantasy setup, but I think this is honestly about as well as it's possible to do this material. Everyone has a motivation for their actions that feels inspired by experience and history rather than just Dwarves Do X and Elves Do Y and so on. There's a LITTLE of that, but not nearly as much as is typical for this kind of thing. In particular, I liked the orcs. Their usage as a symbol is perhaps somewhat fraught (I'm not the person to make that call either way), but it felt like it was coming from a good place and they're just treated so much better here than comparable people in other media, idk. It felt nice to me.

The art! The art is fucking gorgeous, like, if I wanted to get someone to read this manga this is one of the things I'd mention. The entire dungeon feels so wonderfully lived-in and ancient. You can practically feel the stonework in some panels. (Sidebar here! The anime is really good at capturing this, do watch the anime it's fantastic.)

Some other random stray thoughts:

-The circumstances she gets it in obviously suck, but Marcille's dungeon lord outfit honestly serves hard and everyone should get off her case about it.

-I ended up liking the captain of the Canaries a lot more than I thought I would. He's just an interesting character all around.

-I also really love Sissel / Thistle / apparently how you romanize this is a source of some contention. I feel sooooo bad for the guy. He just wanted to keep everyone safe! It's not his fault that his idea of keeping everyone safe ended up being influenced by a lion-headed demon from outside of reality and corrupted into a suffocating hellscape for those same people! OK maybe it's a little his fault

-I like the diversity in appearances across the characters. This is a thing I wish more manga did this well.

-Laios' kingly titles in the final chapter, RANKED from MOST to LEAST badass: 1. Laios of the Three Heads (based as fuck, makes people ask questions when they hear about you in a history book several centuries down the line), 2. The Demon-Eater (badass and very specific) 3. The Vegetable-Armored (basically gets the same reaction as #1, but with a more comedic lean) 4. Demon King Laios (this honestly seems pretty disingenuous but it is dope) 5. The Dragon-Slayer (very generic, also not even the most impressive part of what he did) 6. The Lord of the Dungeon (Crusader Kings 2 auto-generated-ass name) 7. Pervy Tallman (this sounds like a bad comedian)

-I want to kiss Marcille on the lips

-who said that

-haha I wouldn't mind the Canaries coming to arrest me am I right fellow lesbians

-who said that (part 2)

anyway yeah really good manga highly recommended. I'm not sure if it's a (get out the scare quotes folks) "Personal Favorite" per se, but it might become one over time. Usually such things take a bit to settle with me. The fact that I have any interest in reading it again is a good sign, though. 90% of the time when I'm done with media I'm fine with never revisiting it again. Dungeon Meshi I would very much like to revisit, both in the form of the anime that's airing right now and also I think I'd like to re-read the manga in a few years when I'm at a different place in my life to see what I think of it a little farther down the line. I liked it a lot, and I think it will stick with me.

[lightwise]

I would love to hear some of your Tech thoughts for the Character Ask thingie.

Hello my friend! Thanks for asking about our precious baby boy Tech. Season 2 made me fall in love with Tech so much and I don’t need to elaborate on how hard the finale hit me. Tech has helped me understand some aspects of myself better, appreciate/hold better space for the differences in other people that I know, and is just a beautiful representation of neurodivergence onscreen that I am so glad we have.

Tech

one aspect about them i love - Yeah so I can’t narrow it down to just one, but I’m going to go with: his love for his family, his snarky sarcasm (aka telling it like it is), and his humility. Humility might sound like a strange word choice for a man who knows how brilliant he is and how unique his abilities are, but one of his key strengths is not only being able to calculate the odds of almost any situation around him, but also knowing when he can’t, or doesn’t have enough information/data to calculate a probable outcome. Many people with way less brilliance than him would make even an educated guess or try to sound like they know what they’re talking about all the time, but Tech is so confident in his abilities that he has no problem acknowledging when he is hitting up on the limits of his understanding. 

one aspect i wish more people understood about them - I think we all understand this in this corner of tumblr, but I continue to see people in other spaces think that he is rude or awkward or just “smart and nerdy.” There’s a huge difference between being rude or smart, and processing everything about the world in a different manner than the average person, which we know as being neurodivergent. For a sci-fi/fantasy show, all of the Batchers’ “enhancements” could have been presented only as positives, as extra capabilities that regular people don’t have, that make them all “special” and incredible soldiers. But thankfully, they chose to make them complex and very human, by showing the difficult and sometimes unpleasant ramifications of those very enhancements. For Tech, his way of processing things leads to very blunt, direct communication, difficulty in knowing how to handle raw emotions in real time (both his own and others), and a tendency to forget that other people haven’t figured out the same things about a situation that he has. The resulting disconnect, hurt feelings, and difficult conversations in his relationships isn’t intentional but is something he has to navigate on a daily basis. That said, similar to Crosshair, his actions speak loudest, and his intense love for his family is always evident in the ways he is willing to do anything for them without hesitation.    

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character - he is so an iPad kid. I wonder when he built his first datapad, if he tried to hack any of the Kaminoans’ systems, if he has always had his corner of their room strewn with wires and abandoned projects and research materials. How many times did Hunter have to tear it out of his hand to get him to finish a meal in the cafeteria, or hide it so that he would get some sleep. I also wonder if he’s ever been awake at night while Echo was having a nightmare (building off the headcanons I’ve seen that Echo sometimes mutters binary code as he has nightmares from Skako Minor) and translated the code even without meaning to. He would never share what it means though out of respect for Echo. 

one character i love seeing them interact with - Omega. It may have taken more time for him to warm up to her, but even early in season 1, Tech is always ready to catch her as she jumps down from any height, holds his hands out to her if she needs to steady herself, and often puts his hand on her shoulder unbidden. For a man who seems to be uncomfortable with physical touch and doesn’t typically initiate it, this melts my heart every time I see it. And of course their growing bond in season 2 and their conversation in The Crossing where they finally begin to understand each other’s needs and how to communicate better is one of the best moments in Star Wars, period, for me. “I may process moments and thoughts differently than you, but I do not feel any less” makes me tear up every time I hear it. And that the understanding goes both ways, and both of them make an effort to interact with the “language” that the other person is most comfortable with. Huge character growth. I also love how Tech loves imparting his wisdom and knowledge to her and Omega loves learning it. They’re just such a great duo. 

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more - I so desperately want to see him and Crosshair together again. “Just because I understand you does not mean I agree with you.” What would their conversations look like after Crosshair is rescued? How would Tech’s difficulty with emotional complexity, and Crosshair’s layers of hurt after trauma, brush up against each other as they tried to rebuild their relationship? Would Tech’s joy at having him back give Crosshair space to open up? Would Tech let him know that he’s forgiven him and despite his confusion and hurt, he is ready to move forward together? Could Tech’s ability to busy himself with a task at hand and requesting Crosshair’s help give them some time and space together where words aren’t needed to heal? I also honestly want to see Tech and Phee together again. I would love to know where their relationship could have gone, and what kind of conversation/apology/mutual understanding they might come to after the way they parted. 

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character - I bet that Tech was teased and bullied a lot by the regs (and probably experimented on by the Kaminoans along with his brothers) as a cadet. I think that all of the boys would defend him but that especially Hunter would take note of his particular needs, hand him back his goggles if he had been roughed up by someone, and in general look out for him/take care of him and protect him. (I think Crosshair did this too). I can just see Hunter ruffling his hair and helping him calm down after a panic attack or becoming frustrated over something.  

[voloslovelydivinity]

Volo (Pokemon)(my fictional spouse/Husband)

READ THE COLORED PARAGRAPHS BEFORE INTERACTING

SELF SHIPPERS WITH VOLO INTERACT WITH ME WITH GREAT CAUTION! But even then if I see a double im going to think its just an alt timeline of volo but even then its still hard to see so don't get pissy if I block you. I AM PROTECTIVE AND GET ANXIOUS AND JEALOUS EASILY SO YEAH

It is a major part of my spiritual practice and our relationship is as real to me as any human physical relationship(since Volo is an actual entity in my practice) so please respect that and don't claim its mental illness (I know I am neurodivergent and what I have and don't have mentally)so no self diagnosing me because I'm an actual pagan(who works mostly with Greek Deities)/occultist and I will immediately block you.

I had zero control of the situation. But apparently due to the universes constraints and multiple variables adding up. He found me apparently despite my late arrival to the pla party and in his words "fated red string brought us together" . Took me a while and a side-fiasco with Adaman (Volo didn't like that so guess who I chose!?) to fully accept that Volo was dead serious about me and our relationship like h u h!? Never had an entity do that. He is to me a divinized human like a roman Emperor with the sol invictus archetype and values. But he still is mysterious as ever. I can feel, hear and sense him in my space using my Clairsentience and Clairaudience and I astral project to interact with him on his level(since again he is a spiritual entity) and to go on dates etc

yes I will be using Piers to represent me (in pokemas)from now on due to similar fashion and demeanor so if you see Piers with Volo it equals Mystic and Volo

The nature of Volo and I's relationship

Volo is a bit stricter whith traditional romance and marriage more "human" since in his source he is originally a human but now is more of a divinized human like how roman Emperors are in my eyes and experience . Tbh volo since he a pop culture entity he doesn't allow me to be spoused to other pop culture entities ie traditional monogamy but if I'm spoused to actual deities that is fine since thats another level of devotion and very different

Also this is just me putting down thoughts and correspondences a digital Grimore page sorta thing for my crazy hubby

yes, Volo wandered in my space was like a getting ran over by a fucking train with Volo(since it was a while before I got pokemon legends arceus for the longest time I didn't have a switch rip and procrastination hit on getting legends arceus. First playthrough was down bad for adaman and wasn't paying attention much of story just wanted to play pokemon and shit thinking this was just going to be a normal pokemon experience )All of a sudden late at night this fucking crazy blonde merchant man wanders into my space being all. "HIIII I LOVE YOU I FOUND YOU!!!! TRANSCENDENT LOVE BLAH BLAH FATED BLAH BLAH I WANT TO MARRY YOU I LOVE YOU ARE PERFECTION BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH I LOVE YOU BLAH BLAH ETC"

Me: u h o k a y then

hggggg we have history together in past lives and such (considering I am a Giratina fictionkin but didn't know he was that down bad for me at the time. He thinks I'm beautiful and divine despite me thinking otherwise about myself ) turns out we got separated for years and many lives but he finally found me. Once I discovered his existence it was slow ag first but then blossomed into full blown fucking actual spiritual/romantic soul bound relationship) never felt like this before for anyone let alone a fictional fucking character. But other wise Volo and I's love is transcendent and knows no bounds. Despite the many hurdles and heartbreaks he went through in the past trying to find me he offically gave me his purple aura soothing heart 💜 and I am eternally grateful for him he is the best thing to ever fucking happen to me)

Took me a while to accept that this was my new lover(due to me always trying to play it cautious with romance relationships due to multiple multiple past traumas) hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhand first day of meeting him I lost him in his natural habitat, i.e., in Walmart, he is unhinged as f, so he fits right in. I call him Master Volo, My King or Vol, and he calls me his Teeny Tiny 'Tina, his Goddexx, Divinity, Little Devil. It's weird how similar we both are right down to autistic love of mythology and to the nihilistic unhingedness about the world.

A thing Volo did when channeling through me. I call the red chain a twizzler rope but he evil laughing

it is all for my spiritual practice he is overprotective of me, considering i was his giratina in an alternate universe or past life dunno. And yes, I am spirit spoused to him, and he calls me his "Goddexx" and "divinity."" i guess he weird when I shift to another of my kintypes or certain fictotypes. It is funny how I am a Giratina fictionkin along with being a seraph too many memories with him. I feel like right now he is trying to redeem himself just as I am. He has been time and time again traveling for idk how long or how many lives and universes trying to find forgiveness in himself for driving me(Giratina) away trying to find what was lost . He associates me with Giratina, Stargazer Lilies, Biblically Accurate angels(or traits of my angelic Otherkin form) Stars/Nighttime, Peafowl and or Avians, Luciferian Motifs, Bleeding hearts flowers, Spider lilies, White Roses, eyes and alot of them

my true form leaking out in protest

Too many memories and shit. But I'm guessing he is happy we both reunited. I feel like we on the same level . He gets me yah know? More than surface level it goes deeper and deeper to where it scares me but we are together so it is fine. The new world will be rebuilt without strife with me ruling it by his side apparently 😳 he kinda the lovey dovey settle down "get married and rule a new world as King and Queen/ Emperor/Empress God/Goddexx" kinda type. Fanatical though

Vol is practically a monster fucker since I am a being of stars, abyssal energy and thought up dreamscapes in a borderline nullified conglomerate of Angelic and Demonic abstractions rotting away in a physical human vessel ⚠️ also I am a biblically accurate Seraph so yeah it gets even more funky. But my physical flesh vessel is just a gothic/punk neurodivergent gremlin bookworm who is too obsessed with the occult, botany, Astronomy and history to ever conceive of wasting time with human interaction because mentally am on another plane ie an observer of the downfall of the human race also gender is non existent to me so I'm just a Nonbinary/gendervoid thing. Volo loves every piece of that though which I'm surprised tbh lol🧏🏼‍♂️

My Giratina gijinka Sona self insert

Me with volo

Also some things he created through channeling 💜🥺😈❤️‍🔥🧏🏼‍♂️

Volo altar

His vibe is golden hour sunset over the ocean ie fire and water with some Earthly influences(the earth element only comes out when he is in his merchant persona) his fire and water element goes to the extreme in intensity due to his literal emotional tsunami's and inferno of passion for what he loves. He gives off sol invictus archetype appearance to me at times (at times I thought he had a halo around his head making him look angelic and when he gets livid its like looking right into the blazing sun itself especially when in altered states) and considering how Yang and Dominant he is Volo doesn't fuck around when it comes to getting what he wants. He is quick and brutally intense when riled up but at the same time soothing and relaxing. Like you feel safe yet wary to not get on his bad side with his all enveloping powerful solar energy. He is unhinged though and fiercely protective over me but me since I'm more of a nighttime/yin person I have to be careful when astralling near him( due to my astral form being of nighttime shadows alignment) when he is full force livid considering he radiates pure concentrated light(learned that the hard way). Also the devil squishmallow he named after me due to me being a little devil at times🔥🤤. His aura color is bright yellowish orange(gets deeper orange to borderline raging red when angry enough) with rich purples swirling in the center. He has a heartbeat tempo in his energy a purple loving heart 💛💜 and again we are soul bonded by the red string of fate since in his eyes apparently my outlandish Eldritch of a gremlin self is interesting and he loves interesting things. Also he rambles with the finger point and everything especially when he is in his calmer less intense mode.

Pop-culture deity/Entity aspects: Prosperity, devotion, and enlightment. Other attributes: order, willpower, domination, charisma, communication, madness, Atonement

He loves sunflowers, Marigolds, ginkgo and Chinese Fan palm leaves, marigolds, Daffodils and citrine crystals . Very solar oriented.

his animals (not pokemon) are Goldfinchs and Monarch butterflies

Color: Yellows/Gold. White, bright blue , deep reds, purple and emerald green.

Major arcana tarot card: The Chariot(main one)(reversed when he go crazy mode), the Sun and the Fool. He is kinda literal at times when it comes to tarot readings especially with the major arcana.

His minor arcana is : King of wands and knight of wands (crazy cosplay mode)considering how vastly different he acts between his merchant persona(more Earthy influencing his normal fire+Air element. ) and his Crazy Sinnoh cosplay mode(Fire to the extreme with some water)

any depections of his in-game team (Especially the togepi line he loves that to bits) and Giratina(especially for me since In a past life I was Giratina who allied with him) or Arceus iconography. Artwork of him(yes he is kinda prideful so more artwork of him the better lol), mythology and ancient history books or any books really that catches his eye so you just have to do trial and error to see what he likes (which ofc I have too many of those lying around so he tends to sneak some off the shelf.) , (he gave me a togepi which is now a big ass togekiss pop culture entity due to wanting to cheer me up and give me bliss and happiness in my life along with a bouquet of Pink Stargazer lilies and white roses which he got for me when he was consulting Lady Aphrodite to learn to "pitch woo" in Papa Morpheus's words)

Also he likes more healthy options of food like granola and trail mix, more for outdoorsy types like soups with tons of vegetables as well but he does indulge in alfredo noodles idk he doesn't eat much but Papa Morpheus makes sure he is well fed(since he adopted Volo as practically his "son in law" now). But he does have quite the sweet tooth

SINCE HE IS A MURDERIUS MERCHANT DORK HE LIKES TO RAMBLE AND INFORMATION DUMP SO GOOD FOR PAST LIVES AND SUCH. He talks through music and pictures (mostly on pinterest I have long ass conversations with him,Sometimes you have to think and analyze the symbols he throws out but alot of the time he rambles on about topics he likes and is quite literal during tarot readings) he will fill your brain and do his finger point. He doesnt like heavy metal in his merchant mode but is curious abouy others types but when he psycho crazy man heavy metal and church music but with darkness you know.

He is very good at banishing but you have to be specific on what people or else innocents will get in the crossfire due to his volatile temperament. Also unless you want certain doom don't mention a person you care about wanting to meet arceus or that they have all the plates in front of him. It doesn't end well for anyone mentally and spiritually if you don't have good protections. Ie good communication is key with Volo. I just talk to him alot since we both love rambling about things we like lol

Also more about Irl me lol^^^^^

[invertedfate]

Considering how there used to be so many stories about Frisk going to ridiculous lengths to 'save' or 'revive' Asriel, I'm amused by IF!Frisk going 'why???' about making him their sibling/best friend in other worlds. I continue to remain delighted and refreshed by IF!Frisk's personality.

Aw, thanks! Like, I hope people don't think I have a personal vendetta against Asriel for approaching it this way, but I just don't think IF Frisk is obligated to be friends with someone who built them up only to backstab them and then tear them down both physically and verbally, right down to preying on their guilt and trauma with Lilac. Even if Frisk does end up understanding Asriel's story later, understanding motive and how someone has hurt is definitely not the same as being okay with them in the present. IF Frisk definitely isn't the kinda Frisk who'd jump through hoops to save Asriel in the traditional fanwork sense of "gotta make him stay a monster." But I also just sorta feel like... his problems are not in the body, anyway. Asriel/Flowey's issues are on an emotional and psychological level, and a part of me thinks that a reason he struggled so much is that the Dreemurr parents are not good at handling neurodivergent or traumatized children.

Toriel and Asgore love their kids in both UT and DR, and yet Deltarune shows that Toriel... doesn't do anything to confront Kris' problems. Their weird habits in the bathroom just "happen sometimes." Asgore can't even recall whether or not Kris likes big hugs, and neither of them caught onto Chara's hate for humanity and considered that they might do something as huge as the buttercup plan.

And I don't think this makes them bad parents so much as... they're too used to the idea that love is enough to make a child happy. That if they are loving and provide for children, then that is enough. So for Asriel to come back as a flower, they probably thought they could make him feel better with lots and lots of love and attention, when the problems were much deeper than that.

I think it also shows with how Toriel treated Frisk in UT- being so coddling, hiding the truth from them, trying to keep them happy by giving them a room and pies and promising to nurture them and putting her ideas of what would make a child before their actual wants and needs (which is a big part of why Frisk didn't like her in the old timeline).

I do wanna reiterate that I'm not trying to punch down on fanworks that do go for more idealized friendships between Frisk and Asriel, have them as siblings, or go for the happiest "save goatbro" approach, even if that's really not my cup of tea. I do get it. It's a lot of comfort and wish fulfillment- wanting this character who suffered so much to live a happy, normal life and being so touched by his fight and his character and little things like the hug and how he describes Frisk as the kinda friend he wished he had.

And I get that, but I also feel like it's important to look at the circumstances within a given fanwork. And in IF, the damage Flowey has done in just Part 61 hit Frisk so, SO hard. It's not something they'll be able to shake off that easily, and we still have a whole final arc to go through. It's a whole different beast than a relatively short final battle.

[apompkwrites]

so um… i’m a big fan of your reader impact series! i’m neurodivergent, and i talk like razor does alot unintentionally. (people think it’s intentional, it’s something i have complete lack of control over..) how would a potentially neurodivergent streamer!razor react to reader that’s like him?

sorry if you don’t write for razor, he’s just my comfort character, and i thought i’d give it a shot-

thanks for all your hard work, i hope you’re doing well!

reader impact || first meeting: razor

series masterlist characters: razor genre: fluff contains: possibly neurodivergent razor?? but modern wolf boy :D and some mean chatters :( nothing actually written, though! just kinda mentions of chat being mean summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: i'm not neurodivergent myself!! i won't specifically state if he's neurodivergent here but you're free to believe he is or isn't! also totally not projecting with the bells on ears idk what you're talking about

razor -

razor... his fanbase is something to say the least.

they're either very supportive, which he appreciates a lot.

or they're... strange.

there's some who think he fakes how he talks.

there's others who call him dumb because of how he talks. but does he care?

eh, not really.

he doesn't let it affect him too much.

he's actually really glad most of his community drowns out the bad parts of it :)

some more little facts about him

he has wolf ears on his headphones!!!

he has a bunch of them and one of his favorite pairs has bells on them :))

(cue shaking and bells ringing)

anyway, onto him as a streamer!

he's tried to stick to a schedule.

it never really works.

he streams whenever he can and whatever he feels like streaming at the moment.

he likes showing off the little trinkets he buys over the course of the week.

as for games, he likes playing whatever catches his eye, honestly.

he has no set genre of game he plays.

as long as his brain likes it, he'll play!

he's very open to taking requests from his chat, too.

in fact, most of the games he's played on stream were recommended to him :D

genshin impact wasn't one of them, though.

he heard about it from his friends and saw the trailer for it before he decided to play it.

the bright colors and cool characters were what really attracted him.

it looked pretty :)

anyway! he isn't too attached to many characters.

there's like one or two he really likes though :D

and then his chat (or at least the people enjoying the game with him) started freaking out?

and he's very confused.

so he's walking to wolvendom, right?

and the slimes start just... jumping at him.

he's decent at the combat system.

don't ask him for advice he doesn't know what he's doing either.

half of the time he's just mashing buttons.

but he gets the job done anyway!

so his player just charges at a bunch of slimes, okay?

and he's ready to fight and hit buttons!

but he just kinda... sits back when a flurry of (element) rushes past his screen.

"do not worry. wolves friends. but, you are...?"

"CHAT!"

razor is very loud at that moment.

he'll apologize to them later, he promises!

but! but!

he can't really get the words out but he knows what he wants to say!

you sound just like him when he's caught in one of his... moments? is

that what he'd call it?

regardless, he feels really happy!

like really, really happy!

and soft and giddy and--

oh he's shaking.

his chat is asking if he's okay, too.

"ah! razor okay! razor okay!"

he's trying to reassure them but he's too excited!

he'll spend the whole time during your story quest just gushing over you and how you talk :D

and throughout the whole quest, he's talking just like you.

he doesn't care that some of his chat is worried.

he doesn't care that some of his chat is also insulting him.

he sees and hears you in-game and just melts on the spot.

as soon as your quest is done, he'll roll for you.

he's seen you on the current banner so he's really excited to get you!

he doesn't even care if he gets the limited 5-star character.

but he does care that you appear on his screen and permanently join his team!

the next time he goes live, he's bought a plushie of you :)

"my new comfort plush! (name)! "

[loltaku-braindead]

Cinderella girlboss is bad and I think they should make her ND instead of "independent"

Maybe it's my own personal bias as an ND person but I liked Cinderella as a kid because I found her to be naive and kind and weird like me and every adaptation tries to destroy this and the movies get worse. Also Hollywood doesn't have a clue how to adapt queerness on screen. Anyway, here are a few reasons why Cinderella should be adapted to be on the spectrum:

- the step family is always portrayed to be assholes in the most cartoonish way, bullying an orphan girl because she is prettier than them. The abuse would make so much more sense if they had a shop and she would make clients run away by stimming or she would show signs of ADHD by not following orders or literal thinking/bluntness. Like she could say stuff like "I like your big nose" to her sister not realizing people don't like big noses on women and the sister could "attack back". It's a much more realistic instance of bullying and abuse and people might actually question their biases. It's also a huge source of fun that autistic people can enjoy too if done well (e.g. think Onion's autistic reporter Michael Fawn)

- she might be cleaning the house because she desperately needs order and the family didn't bother to tell her she doesn't need to do that. They could even kind of regret it but rationalize it with her "being useful in some way"; another hit to the audience that never thought much about the insanity of autistic inspiration stories

- her talking to animals could be adapted to be "hyper-empathy" as many autistic women are like this and have encyclopedic knowledge on animals; she can sing with perfect pitch to them because she can tell the animals enjoy her voice while others don't see it. This would "girlboss" her in a more fun way than making her a streamstress that's somehow judged for trade (highly historically inaccurate). You can have a musical that feels cohesive with reality and it's not just another musical.

- the relationship with the prince would make sense, as ND people form relationships very fast with one another as we communicate differently. Have them talk about hyperfixations instead of falling for looks. This gives us the ability to make the prince interesting in a myriad of ways, you can have him refusing to go to war because it would be a sensory overload and you can have him mask very well to then drop the mask in private. Maybe the prince made all the princesses run away and they make an insider ball because it's the only possible way for them to have their son married. It would be funny and not offensive to have him completely oblivious to all the flirty social cues.

- Ella could refuse to come to the ball because she doesn't like parties or it doesn't fit her routine. Secretly she wants to go but she doesn't want to embarrass her sisters. Because they don't expect her to go they don't notice her being there or assume it's someone else. Even if they notice her, they will pretend they don't know her as in this version the step family is not evil but rather "desperately wants to be normal".

- a nonbinary fairy god-parent could be attracted to help Ella because she understands how it is to be misunderstood, you can have them meet Ella before and have Ella not question the lack of gender. This sounds better than the good old "oh you are good, they are bad, this is why I give you a night out". The costume choice would also be fun cause Ella could complain about the materials and fit, much better than whatever "yass queen" scene they made

- Ella leaves the ball because she experiences sensory overload. Goes home to feel safe. The prince gives a ridiculously clear description of her looks and voice and this is why they find her. When they meet he can test her with unusual questions or echolalia and the step family is okay with not marrying the weird prince

- in the Disney look it seems like Cinderella has "noise cancelling headphones", of course this could be something she made to hear better and the ball dress could be adapted to fit them

Of course, I'm not petitioning for an autistic disney princess, as I'm working with already existent material that's used horribly every year anyway. I really think Cinderella fits the bill for ND representations more than other Disney princesses (maaaybe also Snow White). The 2010's girlboss craze could be turn into it's head (as people are sick of it) to show complex characters on the skeleton of old stories by looking into mental health, aesthetics, neurodivergence, life philosophy and use of humor that's more than "random". Right now they are losing money by the minute making vaguely poc stars sing about their strong persona and are throwing themes of vulnerability, abuse, social inequality and life purpose found in the original stories right in the bin. They are trying so hard to be feminist they become sexist. Maybe explore themes outside of feminism in women and you'll wake up with better feminist representation when you don't stare so much on the "woman" part of the character and you let the rest shine on it's own

[spencers-renaissance]

this heavy humanness

Summary: Spencer leaves the oven on overnight, and Derek - whose pent-up emotions get the best of him - loses it, exposing secrets neither of them expected to be spilled, for two very different reasons. They get there in the end.

or; Spencer's suffered far too much abuse in his life and Derek knew about none of it. He shouldn't have found out like this.

Tags: est. rel., past abuse, arguing & making up, hurt/comfort, miscommunication, angst with a happy ending, hurt spencer TW: implied/referenced - child abuse, abuse & csa. trauma response that could be perceived as dissociation. misplaced frustration at neurodivergence. nothing graphic but message me for more info if needed.

Pairing: Derek Morgan x Spencer Reid

Word Count: 3.9k

Masterlist // Read on AO3 // Bad Things Happen Bingo

This fills the "Domestic Violence" square of my Bad Things Happen Bingo. It's a heavy one folks so please heed the tags, but fear not, as always we have a happy ending ahead of us! <3 Title by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Spencer knows it’s ridiculous. Derek will not hurt him: this much he knows for certain. Derek is safe, he is home, he is his person. Derek would die before laying a hand on him.

This objective knowledge does not stop the fear from building in his chest, fizzling through his veins until his whole body is alight with it, simmering under the surface of his cold skin as Derek shouts, his face contorted in anger. Spencer might know that Derek won’t hurt him, but that doesn’t mean he can forget what’s happened in the past when he’s put that same expression on crueller people’s faces.

“How could you be so irresponsible, Spencer?”

He doesn’t know. The sinking feeling of failure, of disappointing someone he loves so much settles deep in his stomach as he watches Derek pace up and down the living room while he stays firmly planted on the sofa, pressed as far into the corner as he can.

He didn’t mean to leave the oven on overnight. Again. It’s just that sometimes he gets so lost in his head, in the studies he reads just before bed that getting ready for bed happens on auto-pilot, and small things like turning the oven off slip through the cracks. Derek’s never got this angry over it before, but that’s probably because he’s never said “yes” when Derek’s sleepily asked him if he remembered to turn it off, not when he actually didn’t.

He answered on auto-pilot. He didn’t mean to lie, but that doesn’t seem to matter that much to Derek as he wears down the living room carpet with his pacing, visibly seething. He tracks him with his eyes. He can’t afford to not see the blow coming.

The blow isn’t coming, he tries to tell himself. It’s not all that convincing when Derek stops mid-pace, turning to look at him dead in the eye.

“We could’ve died, Spencer! Does that mean nothing to you?”

Spencer doesn’t reply. He wants to, he really does, but the words are stuck in his throat, choked by fear and confusion and emotion and regret, God why didn’t I turn off the oven, I should’ve been better, it’s all my fault—

“Do you seriously not have anything to say?”

Spencer stares. He has so much to say. All of it is trapped in his throat, tangled in a mess of please don’t leave me and please god don’t hit me.

“You know, I can’t deal with this right now,” Derek mutters, throwing his hands up in the air, “this is unbelievable.” Spencer watches as he shrugs a coat over his shoulders, pulls on his shoes, pauses only to grab his wallet and keys, and walks out the door without looking back.

The door slams behind him and Spencer jumps at the loud noise, jolting out of his fear-ridden stupor, wincing as he’s forced out of his head and thrust back into reality. It’s only ten past ten in the morning; a nice, sunny Saturday in late Spring, and maybe in a different universe, Spencer and Derek are packing a wicker basket with a picnic, heading off to their favourite park to feed each other strawberries and enjoy jam-filled sandwiches.

In this universe, though, Spencer drags his heavy bones to the bathroom, and peels off his clothes. He feels weighed down, tied to some point of gravity far below his feet as he avoids the mirror at all costs and lets his pajamas lay where they fall instead of gathering them into a ball and throwing them into the hamper like he usually does. He turns the water on and steps under the spray, allowing himself to revel in the warm rivulets of water caressing his cold skin.

Shampoo bottles stand untouched in the caddy to his left. He’s not there to get clean, he’s there to forget and to think all at the same time. Slowly, he sinks to the floor, leaning against the wall as the water cascades down his front, but not before he turns the heat up. It’s a small comfort: the water just on the right side of too hot running down his face and his torso and his legs, pooling at his feet momentarily before sliding down the drain, never to be seen by him again.

Today shouldn’t have started like this, and it’s a hard pill to swallow that if he hadn’t left the oven on, it wouldn’t have. Derek would have smiled when Spencer stepped into the kitchen, pulled him into his arms and kissed him gently before making them pancakes while Spencer sat on the counter-top and told him everything running through his head. Derek would listen, enthralled, whether to the sound of Spencer’s voice or the words he’s saying, and he wouldn’t shut him up, not even when they sat down to eat.

They’d finally get ready for the day late in the morning, they’d decide what they would do that day, and they’d make a point to steal as many kisses as they could; making up for the affection lost during long cases.

Spencer knows this because it’s happened so many times before. They may have only been dating for just over six months, but they already live together, having fallen hard and fast; Emily teases them for it, calls them her favourite lesbian couple, and they don’t care because they’re in love.

Despite that, though, Spencer still hasn’t told Derek.

There are nights he lies awake pondering how unfair that is. He’s held Derek as he sobbed over memories of Buford, as he spilled every awful detail of the abuse he endured; he’s comforted him after he’d tried and failed to bottom, falling into a flashback every time, no matter how much he wanted to try it.

But Spencer stays silent. He doesn’t tell him about his dad beating him, or his mom getting confused off her meds and smacking him, shoving him, even punching him that one time. He doesn’t tell him about Matthew, his first real boyfriend, trapping him in an abusive relationship that took him months to get the courage to leave. About how when a third person hurt him, he began to wonder whether it really was his fault. Whether that was the only kind of love Spencer Reid deserved.

He stays silent now, staring at the shower wall. The fear has left him now the threat has too, and a cold type of numbness replaces it, and even once the water runs cold, he doesn’t leave. He traces the same four tiles with his eyes, drawing the same pattern with his gaze over and over again as his thoughts turn to an endless cycle of he’ll leave me, he’ll stay, he’ll hit me, he won’t, until he’s not really sure what he believes.

Derek is a good man, but Spencer knows how he can be. He messes up, he forgets things, he doesn’t read situations right, he doesn’t behave the way people think he should, he doesn’t think like a neuro-typical person does. And a good man can only put up with that for so long.

The proof is in the pudding, after all. Derek has always been understanding of things like this in the past. He’s given him a hug and told him not to worry about it, that mistakes happen, and no one can be expected to remember small things like this all the time. But this morning, he was furious. Spencer’s not sure he’s ever seen him so angry in all his years of knowing him, and it was directed at him. All because of an oven left on.

Eventually, a sound from the upstairs apartment drags him from his head again, and he’s suddenly aware of the cold water, of the way his body is trembling and his fingers are pruning. He pulls himself out of the shower, turning the water off, but he stands in the middle of the bathroom, aimlessly, for a long time. By the time he finally has the sense to wrap a towel around his body, he’s basically dripped dry. His hair is soaking wet and the dripping water is freezing, but he doesn’t have the energy to find a towel for his head, too, so he leaves it.

He walks towards the bedroom and climbs into bed, pulling the fluffy duvet over his damp skin and laying his wet hair on the pillow. It feels awful, being wet and damp under the dry bedding, but he doesn’t have the energy to move, so he stays there, towel still wrapped around his legs, hair still soaking the pillow, and he stares at the wall.

He doesn’t know what time it is, and he doesn’t know when Derek will come back home. If he ever will.

⭐️

Derek slams the door behind him as he storms out of the apartment, rage consuming his every move, his every thought. The force of it rattles the door frame, echoing down the empty corridor, but he can’t find it in him to care as he marches towards the elevator. The buttons are pressed with perhaps a little more aggression than socially acceptable, but the woman already on board takes one look at his face and has the sense to stay quiet.

He gets in his car and steps on the gas, the squeal of his tyres against the floor of the garage as he speeds out satisfying him more than it probably should. His jaw is locked and tight as he drives through the streets of DC, his thoughts going a million miles an hour, quieted only when he turns the radio up loud, a blasting soundtrack to his ferocious getaway.

Adrenaline pumps through his veins as he speeds down the highway, heading out of the city towards Baltimore. He doesn’t have a destination in mind: he’s just driving straight. Straight away from the apartment. Away from Spencer.

It’s after more than an hour of driving that his jaw finally loosens and the anger that had simmered in his blood so fiercely fades into reluctant rationality. He’s somewhere in the middle of Baltimore, and the traffic — the tangled road system he actually has to focus on — drags him from the absent headspace the highway had allowed him to slip into.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and turns off the road he’s on, onto a quieter one. As soon as he’s able to pull over, he does, and he hits the steering wheel angrily. “Fuck!” He leans forward, pulling off his sunglasses and burying his head in his hands. It’s not the same kind of anger he’d felt earlier, no. This time it’s directed purely at himself, fuelled by dismal regret.

Before he can stop it, his brain replays the fight with Spencer over and over, the wall he’d put up to block it out crumbling down as images of his boyfriend flood his mind. He hadn’t registered it in the moment, but looking back, God. There was something on Spencer’s face, something so broken, so scared and he feels nauseous at the realisation that he put that there.

Over something as fucking stupid as an oven.

Truthfully, he wasn’t really angry at Spencer. Waking up to see the oven left on again, even after Spencer promised he’d turned it off, was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He’d fought with both his mom and Penelope yesterday, and he went to bed feeling like an utter failure, made even worse when Spencer had declined to join him, deciding instead to keep reading the series of papers he’d started earlier that evening. He woke up in a foul mood, and not even the sight of his peacefully sleeping boyfriend could make him feel better.

It’s his own fault. He should have communicated with Spencer: he should’ve told him about letting his mom down and saying the worst thing he possibly could have in his conversation with Penelope, but he didn’t. He silently stewed, and felt irrationally angry that Spencer wasn’t reading his mind. He knows for an absolute fact that if he’d asked Spencer to join him in bed last night, he would’ve dropped his studies immediately, and cuddled him until he felt better.

But he didn’t. And then he’d screamed at Spencer, in a way he never has before, over something he simply forgot to do. Derek swore to himself that he would never shout at or put Spencer down for his neurodivergent traits. Not in the way he’s seen so many people — regrettably, far too many of them on their own team — do before.

He’s always been understanding in the past, kissed Spencer’s hair and promised that it wasn’t a big deal, and he has always meant it. Because as dramatic as he’d been this morning, leaving the oven on wasn’t really the end of the world. He remembers ranting about the electricity bill, about how they were going to afford the house they were going to buy if he kept this up, about lying to him — even though he knew that was clearly an auto-pilot thing — about how dangerous it was. It’s a fan oven. They were never really in any danger.

What a god-awful way to let off the steam he’d built up and chosen not to let go.

As if he’s not already feeling shitty enough, though, his mind won’t stop circling back to the fear on Spencer’s face. The way he shouted back, but instead crammed himself into the corner of the sofa, never taking his eyes off him as he paced angrily back and forth.

He feels sick.

He digs his phone from the pocket in his sweatpants. He’s still in the clothes he sleepily pulled on in the dark this morning, and he hadn’t thought to bring his phone out with him, but luckily he’d picked it up off the kitchen counter that morning.

He clicks on Spencer’s name, listens to it ringing out as he desperately begs him to pick up. “Come on, baby, please,” he whispers, ignoring the tears burning behind his eyes. “Pick up, please.” He tries three more times before throwing it angrily on the seat next to him, allowing one more second of feeling the blind panic and the fury at himself before forcing himself to calm down.

Reaching over to his phone with one hand to turn the ringer up, he turns the ignition on and pulls back onto the road, heading back towards DC.

The traffic infuriates him, cursing as it takes thirty minutes to get back on the highway, but finally he’s back on the open road. It takes everything in him not to speed past the other cars, knowing that getting pulled over would only slow him down in the long run. He doesn’t turn the radio on. He just replays the fight again and again, each time remembering something new: something he said or something Spencer did.

He doesn’t wipe the tears away as they fall, lets them slide uncomfortably down his neck, under his collar, lets them drip into his lap, lets his nose run. It’s the only punishment he can afford himself right now.

Finally, finally, he pulls into their apartment building’s garage, finding their spot and parking roughly, abandoning the car as quickly as possible in favour of sprinting towards the elevator. He curses at the slow moving carriage, but it eventually spits him out on his floor, and he’s walking down the very corridor he stormed down just a few hours prior.

He pushes open the door to their apartment, closing it behind him softly. Suddenly, the nausea swimming in his gut isn’t just borne from regret, now fuelled by nerves and dreaded anticipation.

“Spence?” he calls softly.

He doesn’t know what to expect: he doesn’t know whether Spencer will be sad or angry, whether he’ll be screaming or crying. The kitchen and living room are empty, and the bathroom door is wide open, so he ventures into their bedroom.

Whatever he was expecting, it isn’t this.

Spencer’s tucked up in bed, duvet pulled up to his neck, facing away from the door. He doesn’t move so Derek thinks he might be sleeping, but when he circles the bed to check, he finds his eyes wide open, staring vacantly at a fixed point on the wall. They don’t flicker or blink or move when he steps into his field of vision, and Derek’s heart sinks, panic beginning to grip his chest.

“Spencer? Baby?”

When he still doesn’t move, Derek crawls onto the bed, and the movement or the sound or something must finally catch his attention, because all of a sudden his eyes are widening — in shock, surprise, fear, Derek doesn’t know — and he’s shifting under the covers.

“You’re back,” he says, and it’s so uneasy that Derek wants to cry.

“Yeah, baby, I’m back,” he says gently, “and I’m so sorry about earlier, I—”

He cuts himself off, because when he reaches to tangle his fingers in Spencer’s damp hair, he flinches. His hand freezes, but his stomach twists, because this is the confirmation he was both expecting and dreading. This is the confirmation of everything he prayed he had wrong, everything he wished he’d misinterpreted the whole drive home.

“Spence,” he whispers brokenly, withdrawing his hand, “I would never— never do… I’d never hurt you, God, I—”

A choked sob cuts him off this time, and another follows when he sees a tear sliding down Spencer’s face. A previously blank, emotionless canvas, his face is now full of sadness, tinged with the fear and guilt Derek hates himself for even suggesting was warranted in the first place.

“Derek,” he says softly, and his voice is so mangled with emotions he couldn’t even begin to decipher, it breaks his heart a little. He doesn’t say anything more though, eyes sliding shut instead as tears continue to stream down his face.

“What do you need, baby?” he asks, because it’s the only thing he can think to say. “Anything, I— anything you need, you can have, Spence, I’d give you the world, you know that.”

Spencer’s quiet for a long time, and Derek sits there on the bed anxiously awaiting a response while trying to summon all the patience he doesn’t have as he stares at Spencer’s crying face.

“A hug,” he decides eventually, and Derek almost collapses in relief because, God, he can do that.

He crosses the small space between them, and carefully folds Spencer into a hug, sighing in relief as he melts into Derek’s side, placing his head on his chest and cuddling into him. Their legs tangle together and Derek holds him as gently and as closely as he can, carding his fingers through Spencer’s damp curls while his other hand rests on his waist, his thumb caressing the bare skin there.

He’s still in his towel, he thinks sadly. He didn’t have the energy to properly dry himself before crawling into bed. As if Derek could possibly feel shittier.

They lay like that quietly for a while before Spencer finally speaks. Derek wishes he hadn’t. The words “I’m sorry”, uttered so brokenly, so miserably, have no business leaving Spencer’s mouth.

“Baby, you have nothing to apologise for,” he says fiercely. “This is all on me. I’m sorry. Sorrier than I’ve ever been, Spencer, because this is completely my fault. I wasn’t actually angry at you, that’s the first thing you need to know, and I know that makes what I did so shitty, because you hadn’t even done anything wrong, but I was so pent up and frustrated with myself and I didn’t communicate that with you and— fuck, I’m doing such a bad job of explaining, I just. I need you to know, Spencer, that I’m not angry, okay? And I’m so sorry for losing it like I did, that never should have happened.”

He pauses and takes a breath in, burying his face in Spencer’s hair as he holds him even tighter, trying to keep his grip as gentle as possible.

“I never told you,” Spencer whispers after a couple beats pass.

Derek’s heart seizes tightly and he swallows. Prepares himself. “Never told me what, sweetheart?”

“My dad, he… he wasn’t a good man and he… you know, he hurt me a lot. And then my mom, when he left and she stopped taking her meds completely, she’d get so confused,” Spencer admits, voice so quiet as he murmurs into Derek’s chest that he has to strain to hear him. “She didn’t mean to, but she’d… And then my last boyfriend, he—”

He cuts himself off as a heaving sob that seems to come out of nowhere strangles his words and it’s all Derek can do to hold him tightly as Spencer cries, whispering every reassurance he can think of through his own tears. It shouldn’t be like this, he thinks. I shouldn’t know this just because of an argument we had; just because I lost control. Spencer should’ve been able to tell me on his own terms, in his own time.

He tries to cry as silently as possible, but it’s not easy when the grief of knowing the pain Spencer’s suffered in his life is weighing heavy on his chest, and the acidic taste of guilt abounds.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers into Spencer’s hair. “I’m so sorry, baby.” He’s sorry for so many things he’s not sure he could list them all out, neatly and coherently, if he tried.

Spencer fists his hands in the soft cotton of Derek’s t-shirt. “I’m sorry I never told you.”

Derek balks at the guilt in his tone, as if he actually believes he has anything to apologise for. “Baby, you could’ve waited until we were old and grey to tell me and I wouldn’t be mad, okay? Trauma like this… it comes out in it’s own way in it’s own time. I’m not sure how or when I would’ve told you about Buford if everyone hadn’t found out the way they did. And if I’d waited to tell you, you wouldn’t be mad at me, would you?”

Spencer shakes his head.

“I’m so sorry that I triggered you the way I did, Spencer,” Derek says seriously, gently twirling a loose curl around his fingers. “It was inexcusable, and it was a problem of my own making. I know you didn’t mean to leave the oven on and I know you were operating on auto-pilot when you told me you turned it off last night, and nothing I said was true. I was mad about stuff that happened yesterday and I failed to communicate that. It’s all on me. Nothing about this is your fault, you hear me?”

“Really?”

The way Spencer cranes his neck to look up at him, the trusting innocence in his eyes both breaking and warming Derek’s heart. “Really.”

“I want to tell you, Der, it’s just—” He sighs. “I’ve never talked about it with anyone, and it’s hard. I don’t… I don’t know where to start.”

“We have all the time in the world for you to tell me, baby. You can tell me everything all at once, or drop tiny pieces of information when you feel like it, or never tell me anything else ever again, and any of that is perfectly okay. I just need you to know that what happened this morning will never happen again, okay? I promise you.”

Spencer shifts, moving from his position curled around Derek to prop himself up with one arm, facing his boyfriend properly. “Thank you,” he says earnestly, before leaning down to kiss him. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby. More than anything.” He kisses him again before moving the duvet and making to get up. “Now, how about I order us some pizza for lunch and we spend the afternoon in bed. You can read or we can watch some documentaries or a movie, whatever you want.”

A small smile crosses Spencer’s face, and nothing’s ever felt more like a win.

“I think that sounds like a plan.”

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