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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 4 years

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Disability and Loren

@zarohk asked for my thoughts on a Disability Studies/Media Studies perspective on the disability depictions in Animorphs. Which was foolish, because I’m teaching an entire dang class on the subject of superheroes and mental health, so I have Many Thoughts. [PLEASE NOTE: I am nondisabled, so if I err, please tell me so.]

Loren’s role in #49: The Diversion does a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong. She incurs a traumatic brain injury that results in memory loss and blindness a couple of years after Tobias is born, and lives with said injury for about ten years before Tobias finds her and gives her the ability to morph, which restores her sight but not her memory.

A few places where I commend the depiction of Loren:

It gets into the massive underemployment of disabled Americans. Loren is smart, canny, athletic, compassionate... and working a call center job in exchange for state benefits. Said state benefits do not afford her a decent standard of living; Tobias notes that she has few possessions and almost no time for leisure activities. Americans with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without, and those who do have jobs are ten times more likely to be paid less than minimum wage, e.g. in sheltered workshops.

It shows how inaccessible a lot of systems are in the U.S. Tobias notes that Loren accidentally grabs an expired quart of milk — because nothing on the label is printed in Braille. Putting raised text and/or Braille on food packaging is a health and safety issue, one that the U.S. ignores even though it violates its own laws (e.g. the ADA) because companies tend to do what they want and “what they want” is usually not to spend more money on packaging. The call center and bus system are both marginally more accessible, especially when Loren has Champ to help, but they’re still clearly spaces set up for sighted people that don’t take blind users into account very well.

It shows some of the workarounds that help deal with accessibility problems. Loren’s house is set up so that there are clear paths to and from all of the relevant spaces. She’s doing that to allow herself to move around comfortably in that space, because she’s made it accessible for herself. She memorizes the layout of the local store, and uses that to get around as well. All of those details help show that she’s adjusted, and actively interacting with her own circumstances.

It drives home the difference between service dogs and pets. This distinction is extremely important, and it gets ignored all the time by entitled ableists who want to bring their pets into stores. Tobias and Marco both assume from the outside that it can’t be that hard to become a service animal — just do what Loren says to do, right? — but it takes Tobias 0.02 seconds to realize that it’s not that simple and that he cannot imitate Champ’s lifetime of training on the fly. He says that he manages to get his mom home in one piece, and that that’s about all that can be said for his sad performance as a guide. Champ has skills like ignoring interesting smells and applying exactly the right amount of pressure to the harness that most pets don’t have and also most pets can’t learn. Champ is not a pet, at least not while he’s in that harness; he’s a gainfully employed expert assistant.

It rounds Loren out as a character, and definitely does not just make her into a lesson or problem for Tobias. Loren is gently humorous, tolerating her coworkers’ teasing and Ax’s attempted juvenile delinquency with an eye-roll. She’s compassionate, listening to other people’s problems on the phone with genuine concern and not swatting flies if she doesn’t have to. She’s tough-minded and stupidly brave, chucking rocks at Visser Three’s head and flying at attack helicopters as a three-pound bird. She’s fallible, unable to support Tobias emotionally even when he asks her to do so and unwilling to check in on him after leaving him with her sister. She’s a fully rounded person, one whose personality is informed but not defined by her disability.

It talks about some of the unromatic aspects of a Traumatic Brain Injury. Too often in other works of fiction, we see a person get bonked over the head and wake up with no episodic memory but all other brain functions intact (*cough* Rachel in MM1 *cough*). Loren actually gets into the fact that she forgot huge chunks of language, forgot how to brush her teeth, forgot how to walk across a room. She obviously lost her sight as well, and she mentions lifelong balance and coordination problems. Even her amnesia isn’t absolute — she has some traces of recall, but can’t make anything coherent of her impressions. Her injury isn’t 100% realistic, but it’s more so than many TBIs we see in fiction.

It focuses on the intersection of disability and social class. Tobias notes that Loren is under a compounded threat because of her inability to move to a more secure neighborhood and her obvious vulnerability. He feels a lot of disgust with himself when he and Marco and Ax are harassing Loren, because it’s so clear that this isn’t the first time she’s been harassed. Tobias understands that his experience with poverty as a nondisabled male minor is different from Loren’s for those reasons.

A few places where Loren falls into the common traps of implied ableism creeping into fiction, as written about in Narrative Prosthesis:

She gets “cured.” Loren falls into the “kill or cure” dichotomy, like most of the other disabled characters in Animorphs. In her case, it’s that she gains the power to morph and in the process regains the ability to see. It isn’t a complete cure, true — she still has no memory — but it means that she’s no longer blind for the rest of the series. Having the occasional character no longer be disabled sometimes isn’t automatically problematic; having every disabled character get either “fixed” or killed off inherently treats the disabled body as a problem that needs to be solved, through sci fi nonsense if no other way is available.

She implies that she’d rather die than continue to be disabled. When injured by dracon burns, Loren initially refuses to morph out even though Tobias tells her she’ll die if she remains a bird, because (they both assume) to morph out is to return to her blind human body. This moment buys into the stereotype that it’s better to be dead than disabled, again inherently devaluing the lives of actual blind individuals.

There’s a certain amount of mystery around how she became disabled. It’s interesting that we never actually get a definitive answer on that one — Loren says she was told it was a car crash, but there’s also an implication that she was attacked by controllers, and we don’t know for sure. However, the fact of her disability is treated as an aberrant state that needs to be explained, the book inherently asking “why are you like this?” By contrast (for instance) she doesn’t ask Tobias “why are you in the body of a hawk?”

She views herself as a burden, and the narration doesn’t do enough to contradict her. Loren says that she couldn’t possibly be expected to raise a child while also blind and coping with a TBI. Real blind people raise kids all the time, however, including blind single parents, and it’d be nice to see some evidence in the story that Loren’s assumption is wrong. Loren also apparently assumes that she can’t begin to play a role in Tobias’s life even now that Tobias is more self-sufficient, again because she views herself as relatively helpless and non-contributing due to her disability. There are some hints that she’s wrong, but we don’t really see her either begin to contribute to the resistance or build a relationship with Tobias until after she’s become un-blind.

Tobias’s view of Loren is often pitying. As much as Loren doesn’t initially view herself as a potential maternal figure to Tobias, he doesn’t view her as a potential mentor either. He repeatedly expresses horror or sadness at her life circumstances, and assumes that her life must be barren due to the spartan nature of her home. (Of course, that begs the question of why the hell a blind woman living alone would ever bother hanging pictures on her walls or putting doilies on her coffee tables, but Tobias doesn’t consider that angle.) Again, Tobias is allowed to assume that her life must be meaningless if she’s disabled, but it’d be nice to see some contradictory evidence in the form of her having close friends or inane hobbies or some other proof that to lead a disabled life is not to automatically lead a lonely one.

Loren expresses bitterness and desperate desire to be nondisabled. Again, it’s fine for any character to say “I wish my life was different,” and it’s a common consensus among blind writers/bloggers that being blind is often a pain in the butt. However, views as extreme as “you need vision to have a fulfilling existence” or “vision is part of what makes us human” are ableist crocks of shit. Loren doesn’t go so far as to espouse those extreme views, but she also doesn’t seem to view herself as having a well-rounded life in spite of her disability. It’d be nice to see Loren talking about sight as handy or enjoyable or a thing that the designers of 99% U.S. environments assume everyone must have, rather than a necessary precondition for a minimum standard of life.

Loren’s disability is somewhat medicalized. Same caveat as above: disabilities are by definition medical things that some bodies do or have that other bodies do not. However, discussing disability primarily through “this is how your body is different from Implied Normal of Nondisabled Body” and focusing on doctor’s notes, diagnoses, physical differences, etc. can serve to disconnect the lived experience of the individual from their body. It also tends to focus on the ways that the body is “the problem” rather than focusing on the ways that environments and attitudes are problematic, which then prevents anyone from asking hard questions about the environments and attitudes. Loren’s doctor’s note, discussion of scarring and loss, and repeated physical descriptions are somewhat more medical than social. It’d be nice to see a little more emphasis on the social factors that make blindness a disability (e.g. improperly labeled milk), and less on “your eyes are different from those of Implied Normal Nondisabled Person.”

#animorphs #animorphs meta #long post #loren fangor #ableism #disability studies #disability representation #accessibility #social model of disability #animorphs criticism #blindness representation #49 #the diversion

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paladinwife · 4 years

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ya didnt have to call me out like that man- GSHSGSJKJGJ but uh all 50 for goober :> (beatrice-santello)

@beatrice-santello @of-saints-and-demons oh god here comes Goober

1. Does your F/O have a birthmark? (or any type of freckles or beauty marks?)

None that are visible! She might have some on her body under the clothes, but none that we know about in canon. I headcanon that she has a couple of moles on her torso.

2. Is your F/O the type to volunteer to their community?

Judging by her past, which she spent fighting to protect her community, she does in her own way. She’d probably keep doing it as well, were she not trapped as an AI in the Corporation.

3. Does your F/O the type to be giving or to take?

Ignoring what I thought this question meant as first she’s more selfless than you’d think. There’s a reason she’s kind of a hero figure in the Back Streets. Even now, her anger is over the dangerousness of the anomalies and her inability to protect people. I’d say she’s more of a giving person.

4. Does your F/O have any battle scars?

There’s a couple very visible on her face. Most likely there’s some on her body as well that you just can’t see because of the bodysuit.

5. Does your F/O wear make up? (Do you think they would be open to wearing makeup if they don’t wear it daily?)

I don’t think she does, mostly because she sees it as a waste of time. The fact that she’d look great is beside the point.

6. Has your F/O ever dye their hair or worn a wig?

She hasn’t. She probably sees that as a waste of time too, but her natural hair is gorgeous either way.

7. What is your F/O fashion taste?

Sleek and maybe a bit edgy, with lots of black and red. Especially considering her signature longcoat.

8. How tall is your F/O?

Taaaall. She’s taller than every other sephirah in the game. If she’s not six feet tall, she’s pretty close.

9. What is your F/O’s blood type?

In her present form, she doesn’t have blood. Which is a really ominous statement out of context. Even when she did, I have no idea what her blood type would be.

10. When is your F/O birthday?

She doesn’t have a canon birthday, but I think sometime in late October to early November. She’s probably a Scorpio.

11. Does your F/O know how to cook? If so are they good at it?

She’s an okay cook, I think. She’s not amazing at it, but she can get by.

12. What is your F/O favorite flavor? (sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami (savory))

It isn’t listed here, but she probably prefers spicy food over anything else, and I mean very spicy. If she’s not in actual pain, it’s not enough.

13. If your F/O could be a fan of any video game what do you think it would be?

For some reason I like the idea of her just being unfairly good at Smash. She can and will crush you. Her main is probably Ganon or something similar, heavy on offense.

14. What type of aesthetic does you F/O have?

Reeeeed. She has a clear theming color, and I feel like her aesthetic involves it a lot. Red and slightly edgy.

15. What color is your F/O eyes?

They’re a golden color. Sometimes in fanart she’s portrayed as heterochromatic because of her damaged eye.

16. Does your F/O have any tattoos? If not do they like or hate the concept of tattoos?

She doesn’t have any in canon, but I feel like she could get behind the idea. She’d probably get something in memory of her fallen comrades, as a reminder of what she’s here for and what’s at stake.

17. If you could matching tattoos what would it be?

Hmm, some kind of matching symbol to remind of us everything we’ve been through. Potentially one another’s weapons?

18. Does your F/O have any piercings?

I don’t think she does. She doesn’t hate the aesthetic, but depending on where they are they might be risky in battle, so she might not get any.

19. Is your F/O a cake or pie person?

Oooh, hard. I don’t think she’s crazy about sweets, but she’d prefer pie.

20. Is your F/O a morning or night person?

More of a night owl, I’d say. She’s just used to getting most of her work done at night, and it’s a hard habit to break.

21. Is your F/O a coffee or tea person?

Definitely a coffee person. It’s more readily available at the Corporation, and she prefers the taste. She takes hers black.

22. Is your F/O half empty or half full type of person?

She’s more of a pessimist and can maybe be a bit bitter at times. Hard to blame her, considering everything she’s gone through.

23. Does your F/O have a pet? If not in canon what do you think they would have if given the chance?

I don’t think she has one in canon, due to the peculiarities of working for the Corporation. In a AU I could see her going for a big dog, or maybe a cat.

24. Is your F/O the type to want to live in the city or live out in the country?

She’s lived in the city all her life and is used to it, but I don’t think she’d mind the space when it comes to living in the country.

25. Does your F/O like to swim?

I’m not sure she ever has, but (assuming she’s not in robot form) I could see her enjoying it. Helps keep her strong and all.

26. What harry potter house would your F/O be in? (Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin)

She’s a pretty clear shoe in for Gryffindor, especially considering her past.

27. If your F/O was in “avatar: the last air bender” what type of bender would they be? (air, water, earth, and fire)

Honestly if her design didn’t already scream firebender, the fiery personality sure does.

28. Is your F/O LGBT+?

It seems to be a pretty popular idea in the fandom that she’s some kind of wlw. I personally like to see her as bi like me.

29. Does your F/O have any artistic hobbies? (Knitting, drawing, painting, etc)

I don’t think she’s ever tried any, and she’d probably say something about just not being meant for that. Still, I wonder if she’d enjoy it if she ever did get the chance to try. Maybe just as stress relief.

30. What’s a piece of clothing your F/O is never seen without? (glasses, a necklace, hat, etc)

Her design changed as a sephirah, but that long coat she wore before was so iconic. When it comes to accessories though, she tends to keep things light.

31. What type of scent does your F/O remind you of?

Maybe some kind of warm, smokey scent. I mean I know she’s portrayed smoking a lot but maybe some kind of nice bonfire smell?

32. What’s something you see often that has little to no relation to your F/O but always reminds you of them?

She’s never used one in canon, but I could see her appreciating a good knife. Just like swords, which I absolutely do associate with her.

33. Do you have any silly nicknames or pet names for your F/O?

Goober. She probably hates that one. I’m also pretty generous with pet names, which embarrass her if they’re done in front of others, but she kinda likes them when it’s just us.

34. What does your F/O house/apartment look like? (or what do you think it looks like)

I think she’s just fine with a smaller space, just a small apartment is fine. She keeps it pretty organized, not minimalist by any means but she keeps it nice and clean.

35. What season reminds you of your F/O? (winter, spring, summer, fall)

Honestly, fall. Not just because of the colors, but I could see her liking it best.

36. Have you ever had a dream with your F/O in it?

Recently she has started appearing in my dreams. Confusingly Binah (who I’m not considering at all) was also there?

37. Does your F/O play any musical instruments?

I honestly doubt she’s ever had the chance to try, so she has no idea how. Her learning to play a saxophone though, hmm...

38. What’s a song that reminds you of your F/O when you hear?

For her as a character and not in a romantic way, Firestarter by the Prodigy. It definitely has the right heavy feel, and the fire imagery is always good for her.

Also, low key, Together Again by Janet Jackson came on earlier today, and it had me thinking about my ship with her.

39. What is your relationship like with your F/O?

Actually, really close. I’m one of the few people she feels like she can trust, and really she needs me around. I’m the only one she can lean on, and while she knows sometimes she doesn’t know how to handle emotional things, she’ll repay the debt by doing everything she can to protect me.

40. How long have you been with your F/O? (or at least been interested in them?)

I only just added her to the list in the past few days, but I’ve been thinking about her for slightly longer. Still, it hasn’t been very long.

41. Where is your F/O from? (as in born)

She’s from the Back Streets, which is a slum kind of area which is apparently pretty dangerous to live in. I’m also not sure what the city from Lobotomy Corporation is called, but it’s some kind of metropolitan area.

42. Is your F/O the type to read reviews, or just go with their gut

She definitely goes with her gut, just as a general rule. After all, her gut is all she has.

43. What does your F/O’s Saturdays usually look like?

God, a much needed break. Get some coffee, maybe get a workout in, not have to deal with the bullshit from the Corporation. Maybe have some time with me. (This is, of course, unless she just has to work on Saturdays anyway, but god I want her to have a break.)

44. What is your F/O’s most valuable possession?

It’s probably a memento from her time in the Back Streets. Something small, but she’s still pretty fiercely protective of it. In some ways, it’s a reminder of what she’s lost.

45. What’s a fad you can see your F/O taking part of?

Honestly the thought of her taking part in any fad is really funny. The closest thing I can think of is her trying crossfit or something along those lines (and even then, something tells me she wouldn’t be impressed).

46. does your F/O prefer to work alone or with a team?

You know, I feel like it’s really easy to assume she prefers to work alone, especially with how she acts in game, but I think she misses having a team of people she could really trust. I feel like she likes to work with a team, but it has to be the right team.

47. How well does your F/O know tech? (such as computers, smart phones)

She has some exposure to tech, but mostly in a Corporation setting. So some things she’s pretty used to handling, but others she has no idea what to do with.

48. What’s some advice your F/O would tell you?

My first thought was she would tell me to hold on to what I believe in. I think in many ways she’s ashamed of not being able to protect others and the situation she’s currently in, so that’s what she wants to say the most.

49. What animal reminds you of your F/O?

I know she’s been compared to various kinds of big cats before, but maybe a bear? Like for both the vicious reputation and the protectiveness.

50. What color reminds you of your F/O?

Well, considering how strong the color theming is, it feels wrong to say anything but red.

51. What’s the most interesting fact you know about your F/O?

So we’re limited in how much we know about her in canon, so my fact might be kind of lame. But while she’s usually depicted wielding Mimicry (Nothing There’s weapon), she uses many more than that in her Sephirah Meltdown. They include, from what I remember, weapons from Spider Bud, Burrowing Heaven, Silent Orchestra, Apocalypse Bird, One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds, Mountain of Smiling Bodies, King of Greed, and Judgment Bird. In fact, I’m pretty sure she touches on most of the aleph-class weapons. Of those, my favorite one that she wields is Twilight (from Apocalypse Bird).

#gebura tag tbd #hoo boy #Anonymous

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fairydust-stuff · 4 years

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Top Ten reasons to like Claude

Ok, here's the thing I dislike Claude as a person he's slimy, manipulative, emotionally abusive, acts like a perverted creep and he killed Alois then stomped on his poor little heart. That being said he's a great antagonist he's so good in fact it seems the writers had to make him Ciel’s stupid stalker later on in the season and make him too easily defeated by Sebastian dispite the fact, Claude nearly killed him in their first fight. Also i now I've said this before but i hate when people hate on Claude but then praise Sebastian. They both manipulated and planned the death of children. Claude smashed Alois's head open, but Sebastian stabbed Ciel once he realized serving him isn't beneficial to him anymore. If you prefer Sebastian fine, but stop acting like Sebastian is a pure selfless saint who never does anything wrong. So let's take a look at Claude's less badly written attributes

1 Hobbies Come how many demons can do origami, tap dance and sew. Claude has actual hobbies besides being a butler and their kind of interesting and cool. Honestly i wish we knew how he learned to make origami or how he learned how to do a Spanish Flamengo and who else thinks get getting Alois and Claude as dance partners would of been epic!

2. Goofball For all his stiff upper lip, extreme formality and annoyance and disgust at Alois's immaturity and antics. Claude can be a real goofball he does that weird thing with his glasses to entertain Alois in the OVA. He starts a food fight with Sebastian while they're preparing food for the masters. Then he even dancing around taunting Sebastian going " He saw you! He saw you!" I may dislike Claude x Alois as a romantic pairing, but i have to admit whenever I see flashes of this slightly more silly side of Claude, i can see how Alois might of fallen for him.

3. Patience I've got to admire how easily Claude puts up with everything in comparison to Sebastian. No matter what weird antics or shenanigans Alois gets up to. Claude just goes about his business as usual, even when Alois literary stretches his face into a smile. He continues to not only put up with it but to keep talking. He makes Alois try hard to even get the slightest reaction from him and honestly props to him for that, because as much as I love Alois it must be trying to actually live with someone who goes through constant mood swings, and you have to fight just so you can dress them every morning.

4 Rivalry with Sebastian These two are so petty toward each other two demons got into a food fight, i repeat a food fight! When they're not trying to out demon each other, they're trying to out butler each other. Its hysterical to watch! Claude’s always the one to throw the first taunt and piss the usually arrogant Sebastian off. Anyone who gets that kind of reaction out of Sebastian i can't help but like. Also Claude nearly sliced off Sebastian's head and trapped him in his web in the first half of the season. For the first time in a fight in Black Butler there's actually a stake. Sebastian is matched by an equally powerful and cunning opponent this should of been a bigger plot point then it was. In fact, I wanted to see more of their fights just because they were so childish and Sebastian wasn't guaranteed a win without working for it for once.

5. Manipulative In a antagonist this is key and up until the end when he gets over confident. Claude skillfully played everyone on the chess board. He had Alois snared in his web codependent on him and cut off from everyone else both in the house and in London. According to an old writer roleplay Claude treated Alois like he mattered slowly reeling him in. He also tricked Sebastion by pretending to make a deal with him, that Alois would be sacrificed and they'd fight over ciel. When he wanted to eat them both the whole time. The smirk of smug triumph on Claude's face when he says " I'm afraid my rose decayed." implying he made the deal with a dying rose to make their demon pact not stick. He made Ciel think Alois's memories were his by shoving Alois's soul into his body and using a metal asylum to mess up Ciel's brain. Turned the kid against Sebastian and got him to order Sebastian to never see him again. Honestly he would of won if it wasn't for Hannah. So i have to admire his plan it was actually good as far as evil plans go.

6. Claude is a screw up This may be a weird thing to like but i honestly find Sebastian too good at everything sometimes. Claude who leaves sauce on the plate, doesn't know how to comfort Alois without being creepy, who gets over confident and tells Alois the truth in the maze, when a lie would have helped him more, underestimates Hannah even though she threatened him over Alois's safety is just less perfect and i like that because perfect characters are boring and it's not interesting to see them go up against anyone.

7. Relationship with Alois This twisted dynamic kind of draws me in in fact i don't think we got enough interactions between these two or explored their obsessive relationship. Yana describes Alois feelings for Claude as "addiction" implying a toxic inability to quite Claude. The interesting thing is Claude seems just as addicted to him. At the end of the show Sebastian points out the smell that intoxicated Claude was Alois soul not Ciel’s. That and the OVA Spider's Intention and season 2 flashback suggest Claude finds Alois facinateing " The soul who dances in fire” Claude describes him as. And furthermore Claude is drawn not to Alois’s cruelty like you’d expect from a demon grooming a sinner but his passion. Even when Alois’s is shown crying over the butterfly he acidently killed Claude is fixated on him like he’s something, Claude can't quite figure out. At one point when Alois uses the truth of Luka death to deceive the priest and Alaster. Claude looks visibly surprised and when Alois decides to take Ciel from Sebastian to make the other demon suffer. Claude calls him “ magnificent” and there is a subtext of the two them scheming together rather than Claude just taking orders. There seems to be a kind of twisted intimacy there between predator and prey with these two and their roles constantly swap.

8. His catchphrase People claim he stole it but that's ridiculous Sebastian says " I'm one hell of a Butler." Claude says "that's what makes a Trancy Butler." there's a huge difference. Actually I prefer Claude's catchphrase because it's never exactly the same. " Sugar into salt one moment" and Red into Blue the next." at least Claude keeps it interesting and it's never straightforward its almost a riddle that the viewer has to figure out his meaning.

9. Loyal in the end I'm still mad at him and annoyed all can give Alois is he was a worthy meal after all. I don't think it makes up for him screwing with Alois's head for all those years. However I can't help but notice even when he seemed to hate Alois, Claude never denied being a Trancy Butler it was part of his catchphrase. Actually as much as some fans swoon over how close Sebastian and Ciel are, Sebastion has never once defined himself as the Phantomhive Butler. His catchphrase puts the emphasis on how awesome he is while Claudes is a bit braggy as well, its implies to serve Alois to be a Trancy Butler is an honor. In fact Claude even dies saying " A stray dog into an Earl. " he even with his last breath still remains and is proud to call himself Alois's Butler.

10. Hints of discontentment . Claude mentions that he wanted excitement, something to ease the humdrum of a very long empty life with no purpose but devouring souls. This makes since as it hints Claude’s pursuit of Ciel had less to do with the boy himself and more to do with the fact he wanted danger, flash and a challenge even if it ended in his demise. In the end Claude acknowledges Alois brought excitement into his long boring life which was something he did not expect. This line implies Claude was as bored and apathetic as Hannah used to be and was looking to feel something as a demon through devouring and the thrill of the hunt because it never occured to Claude to try any other way. He's basically a demon haveing a mid life crisis, how can i not enjoy that?

#Black butler #claude faustus #claude appreciation #Claude is basically haveing a midlife crisis and latch's onto abused kids to give his life meaning #This guy is way more interesting then Sebastian in my opinion

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playmakiing · 5 years

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It is heavily implied in the show that Yuusaku suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I also believe that he is autistic as well. In this post, I will be outlining and explaining these two disorders in perspective of my interpretation of our favorite hacker. Sidenote, while I do not have PTSD, I have and continue to do research on the disorder in order to have an accurate portrayal in my muse. However, each person's experiences with PTSD are not universal, so just because this is how I choose to portray this headcanon does not mean it is going to similar to anyone else's personal experiences. Also, while I am actually autistic, autism is also displayed in a wide variety of ways. Parts of my autistic interpretation stem from my own symptoms, other parts are from further research. I will take any inquiries and constructive criticism about these headcanons, but I will not bother with baseless hate.

So with that out of the way, let's get to it! I'm keeping this under a read more since it will be a long post.

PTSD

Due to the horrific nature of the Hanoi Project, Yuusaku developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder even though he was only six years old. Once a happy child, Yuusaku returned with severe symptoms of self-isolation, emotional detachment, and sleepless nights haunted by memories. Even though he was put into therapy, the sessions could only help so much before proving to be ineffective. In the end, Yuusaku was left with nothing but the loss of his innocence and a couple of coping methods designed by his own, young mind. For many years Yuusaku was unable to sleep alone without waking up with screams of terror, and the orphanage caretakers soon learned that he was only able to sleep a dreamless sleep during the day when around the other children. This caused for them to rearrange things to were Yuusaku was rooming with other young boys at night; they also hoped that perhaps he would be able to socialize more if he's constantly around others in this manner. Sadly, their plan only worked with giving Yuusaku more nights of sleep. He still refused to talk to others, existing as a lifeless doll for several years. However, there was one force that kept Yuusaku awake, and that was the existence of his "special person"--aka, the voice that gave him three reasons to survive.

Skip forward to ten years later, and Yuusaku has yet to move on from his past demons. It's only at the end of season one when he is able to begin a better healing process, but he will never be "over" his PTSD.

The main symptoms that Yuusaku current exhibits are as followed:

-Hypervigilance: he always has his guard up, whether in the real world or LINK VRAINS. It is very difficult to sneak up on Yuusaku when he is awake, and he is easy to wake up at any moment. -Social isolation: for the most part, Yuusaku keeps a steady distance from his peers and other people in his life. While the distance has lessened in regards to specific individuals, he still doesn't have complete trust in them and tries to keep his walls up. -Flashbacks: these don't occur much when he's awake, but his dreams at night are usually plagued by them. Most flashbacks center around the times when he lost a duel and was painfully electrocuted as a result. -Lack of interest: aside from his goals, Yuusaku finds it difficult to see a future for himself, and thus he finds it difficult to partake in hobbies or activities that don't help advance his goals. Dueling is a task that he has yet to regain any pleasure from, and despite excelling at hacking and computers, doesn't find the activity to be enjoyable. To him, these are all tools to help accomplish his goals. -Insomnia and general issues with sleep: these two go hand-in-hand since Yuusaku's insomnia was greatly developed due to the frequent amount of nightmares he dreamt of as a child, which continues on as he ages. The nightmares' intensity fluctuates depending on the amount of stress Yuusaku is dealing with. -Emotional detachment: as Yuusaku would describe it, his heart and mind are trapped in an abyss with no means of escape. He sees no future and time is frozen still for him. These deep feelings of isolation and fear have caused him to distance himself emotionally from everyone, and he greatly struggles with forming an emotional attachment to anything or anyone. There are a very select few things that he has an attachment to, one of those being his "special person."

ASD

ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder, has a wide variety of symptoms and behaviors that range from person to person. While many of these symptoms do overlap with ones for PTSD, I believe there are enough signs in Yuusaku for this headcanon to be distinctive. Some of these symptoms, however, do not appear directly in canon ( yet ) but are shown through my writing. Most of those are ones that I find very plausible for Yuusaku's character, and some are ones that I just want to write, and fuck what anyone else says about it. The symptoms and experiences listed below are ones that I either interpret from Yusaku's character, integrate into my writing of him, or both.

-Inappropriate social interaction & lack of understanding social cues: while this isn't heavily noticeable in the show, Yuusaku has been shown either "not get" what others are saying, or exhibits behavior that is deemed "socially inappropriate." Examples of this are early on in the show when Shoichi and Ai make fun of Yuusaku's inability to talk to girls, and he's later shown to be following Aoi around in a rather stalker-ish manner. -Lack of eye contact: Yuusaku is not one to maintain eye contact. Not only does the action cause for him to become extremely uncomfortable, but prolonged exposure to forced eye contact will cause a mental strain. -Compulsive behavior: Yuusaku is one for routine, and rarely likes to break his schedule. Only events or situations that are dire or insanely important will prevent him from keeping to a schedule. The older he gets, however, the less strict he is with his daily routines. -Repetitive movements & words: In regards to words, Yuusaku has a fixation on listing things in threes, and this is usually to calm himself or clear his mind when clouded. While this technique was given to him by his "special person," Yuusaku was at a young and impressionable age to where this method stuck and he uses it often. As for movements, Yuusaku's main stims are taps, rubbing against his skin, and pressure. -Intense interest in extreme specific things: . . .This is so evident in his fixation with the Knights of Hanoi in season one. Like, literally nothing else mattered to Yuusaku aside from his quest against the Knights of Hanoi. If that isn't a hyper-fixation, I don't know what is. While he does lose this interest in season two, with the reveal of his "special person," Yuusaku has a similar fixation on him--it's not quite intense, but it's there. -Heightened sensitivity: Yuusaku's five senses are more pronounced in comparison to other people. Sights and sounds are more intense, smells and taste more noticeable, and touch is a pain usually. Human contact is another sensation that Yuusaku despises.

Misc. Stuff Related to the Above Things

-A lot of the autism symptoms are helpful in elevating the flashbacks and nightmares Yuusaku gets from his PTSD. Examples of this are weighted blankets to pressure stim, having a "post nightmare routine" when he wakes up in the middle of the night and repeating relative lists of threes to himself. -Yuusaku was never one to like foods with overwhelming flavors, and thus prefers milder foods when eating. He tends to choke on food that is overstimulating. The only exception to this is coffee, and that was a strongly acquired taste. -Soft blankets ( as well as heavy blankets ) are a secret pleasure to Yuusaku's touch, and he will collect blankets with favored textures; he has over a dozen at this point, and will often make a blanket nest out of them to relieve stress ( this habit almost dies when Ai appears, because Yuusaku would rather die than be caught in such a situation by someone like Ai ). -After a while of meeting Takeru, Yuusaku finds it soothing to be touching or to be held by his friend, and he is one of the very few people whose touch doesn't cause Yusaku to recoil. -Yuusaku is rather touch-starved but hates touch at the same time. Rest in fucking pieces.

And that's about it for this headcanon post. I may come back and edit this post with more information, or simply make add-on posts when new information settles in my brain.

#❖ headcanons ❖#// i couldn't find this post anywhere on my blog for me to link to my page so i reposted it xd

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clickclackadinfinitum-blog · 6 years

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Gregor-ton

Twenty years of indignant stares and stilted, non-verbal correspondence made short work of any goodwill Karmen held toward her neighbors. Her home wasn’t the most presentable, certainly; but she at least had the decency to clean up the corpses when things got hairy. The brutes across the street never bothered to trim the grass, let alone aid in the composting of the roaming beasts that would fall victim to their security systems and flop over like a well-baked slab of meat right onto their lawn. It was barbaric to leave one’s home surrounded by such grisly corpses, no matter how exciting it was to watch the foul things die.

It certainly didn’t help that events in the more rural districts of Morlin City were starting to get out of hand. What once was a brief crossing generally involving one herd of long-haired Dripbones became an absolute horde of various beasts that required strong buildings or smart planning to ride out. Karmen had lived in the city for more than forty years, yet all she felt was contempt for time’s passing. It hadn’t been long since the cities surrounding her country’s capital, Vilnaril, began to modernize their buildings and services to match the increasing pressures of survival in the face of booming beast populations. While these enhancements were necessary, the changes brought with them an unsettling monotony to life.

Clean the security systems, remove any and all beast corpses, go to work, maintain composure during the rolling blackouts, ensure generators for security systems are secure in both the workplace and the home, return home before 7:45 PM unless your work takes you to the ‘Bestial Beachhead,’ then activate your security systems when the automated alarm blares from whatever device is connected to your government provided cable box.

Karmen had grown tired of it. She was used to enjoying the ocean waves crashing against rocky crags as she camped outside of town with her friends; fires being snuffed out and bodies being drenched by large waves generated by the movements of the local Gregor-ton on the horizon, forcing them to move to higher ground as they chortled over their luck. The towering, all-seeing Gregor-ton brought an element of excitement and uncertainty wherever it went, even if it could sometimes be inconvenient to those it protected. That all ended twenty-one years ago. It was hard to forget the sight of a Gregor-ton doing its best to work up a lumbering sprint as it made its way to protect Morlin City directly. Its debilitatingly large, seven-hundred meter tall vessel prevented it from properly moving through the deepest sections of the ocean fast enough, even with decently humanoid proportions. While the Gregor-ton was an excellent mass-defense automaton for ages gone by, it simply could not do its job fast enough to destroy every one of beast nests that had fallen from the stars. She could still hear the Gregor-ton attempting to shout its last words to the city as it finally jumped out of the water and dove to grab at one of the rocky, blood-soaked nests. “The body will rust, do not attempt to aid-” Even as it sacrificed its structural integrity so carelessly by purposefully falling over, it tried to assure the populace that attempting to save it was frivolous. The body would rust, certainly, but what of the essence of the proud warriors who had given their lives to protect their homes as one? What of the other Gregor-tons? Would they too ruin themselves in futile attempts to delay the inevitable? The most pressing question was one that only Karmen had ever thought to ask, at least in Morlin City. “How much do the Gregor-tons feel? Do they have the capacity to be angry at themselves, or was the Morlin Gregor-ton just barking an order?” Karmen was having the conversation of the century with her Petite-breed Dripbone. “What do you think, Whorl?” A raspy bark confirmed Karmen’s suspicions-- It was rather hard to have an existential conversation with a domesticated beast. The wisps of water vapor emanating from Whorl’s diminutive eye sockets were beginning to condense against the chilled window of Karmen’s bedroom, making her usually perfect view of the ‘Bestial Beachhead’ somewhat obscured. When the diverse range of nests had first landed just outside of Morlin’s sand strewn shores, the flood of truly nightmarish creatures made the once quiet city almost uninhabitable. Those in power across the nation of Vilnis did their best to send warriors to drive back the innumerable horde of beasts until a more permanent solution could be found, but the inactive Gregor-ton broke the spirits of many just as effectively as the beasts themselves.

Since the day that Morlin’s Gregor-ton fell, its body has laid atop the massive forest next to the city center; oxidation claiming it over the years until it finally began to lose parts of itself to the elements. A more recent restoration effort turned the Gregor-ton’s vessel into a habitat itself, Its remaining pieces being joined together with glass and heating installations in order to create a massive greenhouse to house the sort of tropical flora and fauna the unlucky people of Morlin almost never got to see. For a time, even Karmen took great pride in the turn around of morale this installation brought, but as the warriors of Vilnis were thinned in number to slowly introduce the ‘modern security,’ she could feel the city’s soul dying.

Why must I contemplate these things at a time like this?

Karmen was merely distracting herself. Trying to search through the past to justify the state of the future, pinpointing the exact moment it became okay for these laser-based, tag-reading defense systems to practically flame-broil every passing animal; the day it became acceptable to leave the dead on your lawn in the hopes that a passerby may take interest in their carcass for valuables or food. The day she bought Whorl she had to race down to the local vet, hugging the beast to her chest as she ran through sensor grids, just to get her tagged for safety’s sake. Even if the defense system was unable to hurt humans by their very design, it still made her feel trapped; not because she feared the system, but because she feared she had become unable to live without it.

The point these lamentations drew Karmen to were always vague. Or, in her own words: “I keep thinking of this bullshit, but I can’t bring to mind the bull.” In the forty-four years she’s seen, from her raucous birth to her quiet rumination of the past in the present, the only thing that she was unable to figure out that truly frustrated her was the inability to decide what action she figured ought to be taken. As she eyed the slightly fogged window of her room, she could see the beast’s nests wriggling with activity, their grey, flared tops poking drably just above the water’s surface. But just to the right… laid the Gregor-ton. Teeming with life just behind the glass. The beasts from the stars never seemed interested in the more tropical creatures so plainly inhabiting the soulless vessel, it seemed so pleasant inside. Perhaps tomorrow Karmen would visit the Gregor-ton Habitat, just for a little while…

Karmen shrugged off the faint chill running through her body, noting that the air seemed to be getting cooler. Whorl didn’t help things one bit, clacking her frigid skeletal head against Karmen’s chin for warmth. Maybe Whorl might like to come, too. Now that she thought about it, Karmen had no idea how well a Dripbones could handle truly warmer climes.

So hey, if you read this whole fuckin’ thing, thanks! This is among my oldest pieces, yet I’ve come back to it time after time, and I have a feeling it might be easy to pinpoint where I’ve come back to add in or change things. Or maybe not, who knows? Either way, this was the first time I tried really putting my heart into writing a new world, and I’m honestly still interested in trying to expand it. Maybe if this hobby of mine expands out, it might just end up being something I try to publish! Those are big dreams for later though. For now, hope you liked it!

Also, sorry about the abrupt ending. I tried to think for a while how to continue it (this being about five months ago) and work got in the way, so I’ve just kinda let it sit.

#my writing #new writers #writing #short story #short stories #non-fandom

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symbianosgames · 7 years

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Writing Indie Games Is Like Being a Musician. In the Bad Way.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

"Our game is called Mystik Spiral. It is an indie interactive aggression about the evils of conformist corporate culture. Coming on Steam for Windows and Mac and as an XBox One console exclusive."

Over the last couple years, I've gotten a fair amount of attention for my articles about the Indie Bubble and the Indie Glut. (And even a GDC talk.)

Quick version of indie gaming history: In 2010 or so, due to a combination of factors (AAA creative stagnation, better development tools, better online stores to sell on), indie games caught on in a big way and made a ton of money. For a short time, getting the Golden Ticket and landing a game on Steam was guaranteed big cash. This was the "Indie Bubble" phase.

People who wanted to write a video game (i.e. everyone) saw this and went, "Hey, I wanna get rich following my dreams too!" There was a big pile-on. MANY indie games became available, more than anyone actually wanted. This was the "Indie Glut" phase.

At last, I can complete the trilogy of articles. Now we can look around and see where we've ended up, a phase which I suspect will be permanent. (At least until the Earth gets hit by a large solar flare and we get to start over.)

You can't deal with this business without grasping its fundamental reality. So it's worth wallowing in this topic one more time. A proper understanding of reality will help us process a lot of otherwise perplexing issues (like Apple or Steam charging devs to have games on their store, or the ever-present "discoverability problem).

To see where we are, let's talk about a long-standing rite of passage for young creative types: Starting a band.

I think this would be really funny if I knew anything at all about music. Can someone translate it into a Guitar Hero chart for me? I think it means I have to learn how to play the orange notes.

The Story of Being a Musician

For decades, many young, enthusiastic, creative people have worked through their dreams, energy, and youthful ambition by forming bands.

Why not? It's takes a fair amount of technical and artistic aptitude to learn an instrument, write songs, get gigs, press a CD, etc., so it's a good sponge to soak up excess ambition and energy. But it's not a prohibitive amount of energy, so just about anyone can start a band.

Usually, this band is a reaction against corporate pop culture. "Screw your plastic, AAA, mass-produced, soulless Katy Perry crap! We're going to create real art." This is an entirely worthwhile goal, even if it fails 99.999% of the time.

Of course, most bands die. After all, most bands are terrible. Even if they aren't, people grow older. They lose their energy. Their dreams die. Life intervenes. They get jobs as insurance adjusters or whatever. Their demo CDs get stuck in the attic, forgotten, and then they have kids. Who start their own bands.

Not everyone gives up, though. A tiny handful of bands, through a combination of skill, connections, and luck, become actual successes and make careers out of it. Other musicians make a living as freelancers or working in a business environment (studio musicians, corporate gigs, etc). Others, the damned souls, trapped between a lack of talent and an inability to quit, live long (looooong) lives as failed musicians.

Most quit (or do art as a hobby). This is ok. The world needs plumbers far more than it needs musicians.

But the hard inexorable math of the thing is this: There are far more people who want to make a living as a musician (actor, writer, dancer) then there are paying jobs they can occupy.

There comes a time when you have to face this. Disney movies and La La Land lied to you. There is a point where refusing to give up makes you stop being an admirable young spitfire and start being a cautionary tale.

Anyway, this is the basic cycle of the thing. For the last few decades, younger people with a certain amount of talent, energy, and time could soak all that into starting a band. A few prospered. The rest went on to other things.

The current location on Steam of the New Releases chart. (Artist's conception.)

You Probably Figured Out Where This Is Going

Getting together with some friends and writing a game is the new Starting a Band. I'm not saying this is going to happen. It already has.

Plenty has been written about the flood of games appearing on Steam. As I write this, 125 in the last week alone. More games than anyone wants, that's for sure. That's why Steam has made it very difficult to see all new releases. Let's be honest. Almost nobody cares to drink from this firehose.

Don't believe me? Check it out yourself!

It is very instructive to look at these new releases, which is why the site What's On Steam, which just shows all new releases, is useful. Take a look. New titles appear FAST. Most of them will bomb, and their creators will vanish from the public view forever.

Here’s a fun trick. Write down the most recent 10 Steam games released. Wait a month. Check their sales on SteamSpy. (Bear in mind you need a few sales to appear on SteamSpy at all.) You will see very few games that get any traction. Each of their creators is just another kid who started a band (and there's nothing wrong with that).

There's no need anymore to predict the endgame for the video game glut. It's happened. We're living it. Bands haven't gone away. There's still a billion of them. People making lots of video games won't go away. There'll always be a billion of them, offering their hot take of the procedurally generated Roguelike 2-D platformer (now in VR!!!!!).

This is why "Indiepocalypse" is such a useless term. Other fields have exactly the same situation, but nobody talks about the Musicianpocalypse or the Actorpocalypse or the Writerpocalypse. It's just part of life.

This is the new normal. So, if you are one of the doomed souls who is determined to make a living in this business, you must figure out how to deal with it.

Fun business tip! When you start seeing articles like this, you've already missed the boat.

Curation Won't Make a Difference

Here's what gets me about the situation. Often, when people talk about the flood of games on Steam, they act like it's mostly trash and Steam should just curate most of it away.

I wrote a whole article’s worth of stuff in this section, but this post is already stupid long, so I chopped it out to post on its own. I’ll bullet point it for you:

1. Steam doesn’t want to curate. They hate it. 2. Even if they did curate, at least half of the stuff would remain, because it’s good enough. It’d still be a flood. 3. A fee to get on Steam won’t change anything any more than the fee to get on iTunes did. In other words, not at all. 4. Steam and iTunes don’t have a discoverability problem. They and their customers are doing great. Developers are the ones who have the problem. Nyeah.

College Degrees In Game Development

Colleges are, for all practical purposes, businesses. They charge a fee and provide a product (your degree). Like good, practical businessmen, when they saw video games get hot, they jumped forward and generously offered to give you, in return for over $100K USD of post-tax money, a piece of paper that claims you know how to make them.

I've written about college video game degrees before. I don't have much more to add to that, except to say you shouldn't get one without being realistic about your chances.

You might have a lifelong career in video games. Hey, anything's possible. But video games are an artistic field. Writing a successful video game is HARD (like becoming a full-time musician), and a huge portion of the field burns out of it before they hit middle age.

Want a degree in video games? Fine. But you may want to approach it like getting a college degree in, say, playing the trombone. You might be one of the ones who makes it, but you'd damned well better have a solid Plan B.

Steam tried to get me to pay full price for an indie game. My face when.

Global Competition!

The competition in the vidya gaems biz is going to get even more gruesome. Development is starting to become far more of a global activity. This will mean not only more titles to fight, but more downward price pressure.

The Law of Supply and Demand already tells us that when there is a glut of supply (games) and roughly constant demand, prices will be pushed inexorably downward. (Which explains deep discount Steam sales and Humble Bundle.) I've sadly watched indie devs plaintively asking their fellows to join them in trying to keep prices high, only to see those efforts get ground to dust by the inexorable gears of Economics 101.

(Though I would note that if your business model requires Price Fixing to survive, it may be a bit flawed.)

But prices will get even lower, because you will increasingly compete against developers in the third world. Having a hard time competing now? Wait until you’re fighting someone in a country with 1/10 the cost of living of yours. Someone who can charge $1 USD a copy and still make out great.

Yeah. However pessimistic you were feeling about your game's chances before, it's even worse than that.

So What Does It Take To Succeed?

A really good game that feels fresh and new and is solid and also manages to, through going viral or really good PR work, get attention. Sometimes bands still get rich. So can you.

You just need to watch for those rare opportunities to make a game that says, "It's Like [Popular Thing], but [Some Small Change]." in a new way. "It's like Harvest Moon, but 16-bit." "It's like Minecraft, but 2-D." "It's like a JRPG, but with bullet hell shooter combat." “It’s like Huniepop, but more Huniepop.”

There will always be ways to get rich. All you have to do is be brilliant, spot the right opportunity at the right time, have at least a little luck, and then make an amazing product.

This is all getting depressing, so, to cheer you up, I added a picture of an adorable doggo.

My Grim Future

When the Indie Bubble happened, I made a bunch of money. More than I deserved. And then I saved it. I'd been around long enough to see both booms and busts, and I knew you had to save during the former to prepare for the latter.

But the games business for small developers (and if you are an indie developer who didn't write Minecraft, you are a small developer) is in a bust phase that won't end. So now I'm asking myself, "How am I, between new games and remastering old ones, going to stretch Spiderweb Software for 20 years and reach retirement."

It's scary. I don't know if I can do it. Our newest game, Avadon 3, didn't do that well. I think it's a really good game, and the people who bought it seem to like it. But there are new RPGs coming out on Steam every single workday, some of them are good, and you can only hold off so much competition before being overwhelmed.

Next year, I am going to write an all new game engine and series. I think it's going to be really neat and different from what I've done before, and I'm excited about it. But I'll tell you this: Its development is going to be LEAN AND MEAN.

I'm using as little custom art and music as I can. (Working title is "Unity Asset Store: The Game.") Any way I can cut costs and still maintain a constant art style and game quality, I will take it, and I won't apologize. This market doesn't allow for blowing money unnecessarily anymore, at least not for me.

If you criticize me for that, feel free. It's your right. I'll just think of the developers who, during the Indie Bubble, flush with easy Steam money, made fun of my development style TO MY FACE. Developers who are sadly no longer in business. While I keep plugging along in my humble little bottom feeder way.

My goal is to prove you can live an entire fulfilling career writing indie games. From college to old age, all the way through. I'm over halfway there. But man, the next two decades are looking like a long road.

I'm Done Writing About This

This blog has been focused on the indie business for the last few years, and I'm mostly done with that topic. I believe we are in a stable phase now, so there isn't much else to say. I think that most gamers don't actually care. They don't care about business stuff. They just want to talk about games and how awesome they are.

I write this blog to get attention for myself, because it's really hard for a small developer to get attention. From here on, I want to write outrageous funny things about games in the hope that I get a little attention and something goes viral and I pick up a handful of customers along the way.

Good luck to everyone in this business. Unless you're directly competing with me, in which case I wish you luck in some other business.

And if you want to make a living in games and need some advice, here it is: Write a VR game. It's TOTALLY going to be the NEXT BIG THING and not a faddish washout AT ALL.

---

All of our delightful retro RPGS are out on Steam. I occasionally mutter on Twitter. My many blog posts are here.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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playmakiing · 5 years

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Headcanon: Mental Disorders

It is heavily implied in the show that Yusaku suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I also believe that he is autistic as well. In this post, I will be outlining and explaining these two disorders in perspective of my interpretation of our favorite hacker. Side note, while I do not have PTSD, I have and continue to do research on the disorder in order to have an accurate portrayal in my muse. However, each person's experiences with PTSD are not universal, so just because this is how I choose to portray this headcanon does not mean it is going to similar to anyone else's personal experiences. Also, while I am actually autistic, autism is also displayed in a wide variety of ways. Parts of my autistic interpretation stem from my own symptoms, other parts is from further research. I will take any inquiries and constructive criticism about these headcanons, but I will not bother with baseless critic or downright hate.

So with that out of the way, let's get to it! I'm keeping this under a read-more since it will be a long post.

PTSD

Due to the horrific nature of the Hanoi Project, Yusaku developed Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder even though he was only six years old. Once a happy child, Yusaku returned with severe symptoms of self-isolation, emotional detachment, and sleepless nights haunted by memories. Even though he was put into therapy, the sessions could only help so much before proving to be ineffective. In the end, Yusaku was left with nothing but the loss of his innocence and a couple of coping methods designed by his own, young mind. For many years Yusaku was unable to sleep alone without waking up with screams of terror, and the orphanage caretakers soon learned that he was only able to sleep a dreamless sleep during the day when around the other children. This caused for them to rearrange things to were Yusaku was rooming with other young boys at night; they also hoped that perhaps he would be able to socialize more if he's constantly around others in this manner. Sadly, their plan only worked with giving Yusaku more nights of sleep. He still refused to talk to others, existing as a lifeless doll for several years. However, there was one force that kept Yusaku awake, and that was the existence of his "special person"--aka, the voice that gave him three reasons to survive.

Skip forward to ten years later, and Yusaku has yet to move on from his past demons. It's only at the end of season one when he is able to begin a better healing process, but he will never be "over" his PTSD.

The main symptoms that Yusaku current exhibits are as followed:

❀ Hyper-vigilance: he always has his guard up, whether in the real world or LINK VRAINS. It is very difficult to sneak up on Yusaku when he is awake, and he is easy to wake up at any moment. ❀ Social isolation: for the most part, Yusaku keeps a steady distance from his peers and other people in his life. While the distance has lessened in regards to specific individuals, he still doesn't have complete trust in them, and tries to keep his walls up. ❀ Flashbacks: these don't occur much when he's awake, but his dreams at night are usually plagued by them. Most flashbacks center around the times when he lost a duel and was painfully electrocuted as a result. ❀ Lack of interest: aside from his goals, Yusaku finds it difficult to see a future for himself, and thus he finds it difficult to partake in hobbies or activities that don't help advance his goals. Dueling is a task that he has yet to regain any pleasure from, and despite excelling at hacking and computers, doesn't find the activity to be enjoyable. To him, these are all tools to help accomplish his goals. ❀ Insomnia and general issues with sleep: these two go hand-in-hand since Yusaku's insomnia was greatly developed due to the frequent amount of nightmares he dreamt of as a child, which continues on as he ages. The nightmares' intensity fluctuates depending on the amount of stress Yusaku is dealing with. ❀ Emotional detachment: as Yusaku would describe it, his heart and mind are trapped in an abyss with no means of escape. He sees no future and time is frozen still for him. These deep feelings of isolation and fear have caused for him to distance himself emotionally from everyone, and he greatly struggles with forming an emotional attachment to anything or anyone. There are a very select few things that he has an attachment to, one of those being his "special person."

ASD

ASD, or Autism Spectrum Disorder, has a wide variety of symptoms and behaviors that range from person to person. While many of these symptoms do overlap with ones for PTSD, I believe there are enough signs in Yusaku for this headcanon to be distinctive. Some of these symptoms, however, do not appear directly in canon ( yet ) but are shown through my writing. Most of those are ones that I find very plausible for Yusaku's character, and some are ones that I just want to write, and fuck what anyone else says about it.

The symptoms and experiences listed below are ones that I either interpret from Yusaku's character, integrate into my writing of him, or both.

❀ Inappropriate social interaction & lack of understanding social cues: while this isn't heavily noticeable in the show, Yusaku has been shown either "not get" what others are saying, or exhibits behavior that is deemed "socially inappropriate." Examples of this is early on in the show when Shoichi and Ai make fun of Yusaku's inability to talk to girls, and he's later shown to be following Aoi around in a rather stalker-ish manner. ❀ Lack of eye contact: Yusaku is not one to maintain eye contact. Not only does the action cause for him to become extremely uncomfortable, but prolonged exposure to forced eye contact will cause a mental strain. ❀ Compulsive behavior: Yusaku is one for routine, and rarely likes to break his schedule. Only events or situations that are dire or insanely important will prevent him from keeping to a schedule. The older he gets, however, the less strict he is with his daily routines. ❀ Repetitive movements & words: In regards to words, Yusaku has a fixation on listing things in threes, and this is usually to calm himself or clear his mind when clouded. While this technique was given to him by his "special person," Yusaku was at a young and impressionable age to where this method stuck and he uses it often. As for movements, Yusaku's main stims are taps, rubbing against his skin, and pressure. ❀ Intense interest in extreme specific things: . . .This is so evident in his fixation with the Knights of Hanoi in season one. Like, literally nothing else mattered to Yusaku aside from his quest against the Knights of Hanoi. If that isn't a hyperfixation, I don't know what is. While he does lose this interest in season two, with the reveal of his "special person," Yusaku has a similar fixation on him--it's not quite intense, but it's there. ❀ Heightened sensitivity: Yusaku's five senses are more pronounced in comparison to other people. Sights and sounds are more intense, smells and taste more noticeable, and touch is a pain usually. Human contact is another sensation that Yusaku despises.

Misc. Stuff Related to the Above Things

❀ A lot of the autism symptoms are helpful in elevating the flashbacks and nightmares Yusaku gets from his PTSD. Examples of this are weighted blankets to pressure stim, having a "post nightmare routine" when he wakes up in the middle of the night, and repeating relative lists of threes to himself. ❀ Yusaku was never one to like foods with overwhelming flavors, and thus prefers milder foods when eating. He tends to choke on food that is overstimulating. The only exception to this is coffee, and that was a strongly acquired taste. ❀ Soft blankets ( as well as heavy blankets ) are a secret pleasure to Yusaku's touch, and he will collect blankets with favored textures; he has over a dozen at this point, and will often make a blanket nest out of them to relieve stress ( this habit almost dies when Ai appears, because Yusaku would rather die than be caught in such a situation by someone like Ai ). ❀ After a while of meeting Takeru, Yusaku finds it soothing to be touching or to be held by his friend, and he is one of the very few people whose touch doesn't cause Yusaku to recoil. ❀ Yusaku is rather touch-starved, but hates touch at the same time. Rest in fucking pieces. ❀ Things that can trigger a PTSD-induced panic attack are having something wrapped around his head while covering his eyes ( like how a VR headset is ), or any amount of electrocution. The latter one would trigger a stronger reaction.

And that's about it for this headcanon post. I may come back and edit this post with more information, or simply make add-on posts when new information settles in my brain.

#❖ headcanons ❖

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