#tho i mean to be fair shuro is also kind of racist

[slut-lord]

sorry to add this as a reblog it's too long for a reply

as an autistic japanese american: i think the issue is more complicated than "laios is just racist" or "shuro is just ableist" we're dealing with two autistic men who are from completely different cultures. laios felt like shuro was unfair because he culturally expects bluntness-- from what we see of his upbringing and history, people have always been very blunt and forthcoming with how they feel about laios, so he misinterprets politeness as friendship, because he assumes that if shuro disliked him he would just bluntly say so.

but shuro is japanese, and not even from a modern setting. he has a noble upbringing. for him, politeness is kind of a baseline, and culturally he's accustomed to people taking his quiet avoidance as a sign to fuck-off. and because the kind of boundaries that would be clear and recognisable to laios are things that would be unthinkably rude to him culturally (and he makes it clear he knew laios wasn't trying to be malicious, so he likely felt crossing that line was an overreaction), shuro probably made the conscious choice to just endure it for the sake of the party (maizuro even mentions he has difficulty making "selfish requests", so he may have felt that pushing the issue would've been "selfish", particularly considering how falin might feel about the conflict). i also feel shuro is likely also autistic, but because he masks and laios doesn't, he may feel frustrated at the feeling laios isn't making the same "effort" he is (not an uncommon interpersonal conflict between autistic adults).

they both kind of acted like dicks, but they were also both acting "in the right" according to their own cultural contexts, and the problem here wasn't that either of them was a menace to the other so much as that both of them have severe issues communicating, and their individual needs + cultural contexts ended up clashing. i think that's why they end up friends by the end of the series-- because they talked (and punched) it out, and gained an understanding of each other. i think post canon shuro would probably be a lot more forthcoming with laios, particularly given the conversation he has with fallin where he resolves to be "a more active participant in his own life". laios knows he's awkward, he's visibly mortified to find out he'd been on shuro's nerves the entire time, and he shows that he's willing to work at that. shuro acknowledges that he has a problem with passivity and avoidance, and he resolves to work on that.

both of them are just regular flawed dudes and i don't think any of them need to be excused or vilified. the story is frankly better for showing these two exactly as it did. because in real life these interpersonal conflicts are never a black and white AITA post.

The way some White Autistic People talk about Laios makes me very uncomfortable, especially in relation to Shuro. The way they jump to defend Laios’s microaggressions towards Shuro makes me think they are trying to excuse themselves of the weird shit they’ve done/said to people of color in their own lives.

yeah i've talked about this a bit but people are SHOCKINGLY unsympathetic to Shuro when if you actually read the manga you see he's basically literally Just A Guy and his biggest crimes are "falling in love with a woman who doesn't feel the same way" and "daring to get kind of bitchy upon learning (while running on several days of no sleep and food) that the woman he fell in love with was transmogrified into a sin against god"