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cat-downthestreet · 3 months

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hey, listen! this is a rant post about neurodivergent characters in Genshin and my frustration with the fandom's reading comprehension skills. if you're in a bad place or just don't like angry rants, please don't force yourself and go read something else instead. <3

Okay, so, I watched this video recently, and let's just say, I have some thoughts.

https://youtu.be/tYK3297p4rk?si=eMaf8NF57HFlUhfd

This isn't just a Xiao problem- the entire fandom is terrible at characterization. The example that makes me the most angry is the mischaracterization of neurodivergent characters.

Take Alhaitham for example. He's often seen as rude and narcissistic by the fandom- which is especially apparent in Haikaveh content, where people portray him as straight up abusive.

You wanna know why this makes me so mad? The supposedly narcissistic and rude traits Alhaitham has are actually just exaggerated symptoms of autism.

Like, come ON, people. Don't skip dialogue. Better yet, go read through his story quest again. He straight up tells someone who sees him as narcissistic that he doesn't see others as less than himself. Also, his voicelines basically confirm this- he's extremely socially inept and he doesn't care. He has difficulty showing emotions as readily as his peers- that doesn't mean he doesn't have them, just that he expresses them differently. He comes across as rude because he doesn't get that people don't like to hear what they're doing wrong, and he probably doesn't care because that's not his problem. If people don't like how blunt he is, that's their problem. At least, that's how I think he views the world.

And like, there are SO many hints that he's autistic. He wears sound-blocking earpieces, for crying out loud. Hell, the ENTIRE REASON why he helped out during the Archon quest was because he didn't want his life to change too much. Preferring routine is an autistic trait.

And the worst part is, when I talk about this outside of neurodivergent groups, people tell me I'm wrong and that he couldn't be autistic DESPITE THOSE PEOPLE NOT BEING AUTISTIC THEMSELVES.

And I'm not saying that every autistic person relates to Alhaitham, but I certainly do. And I'm actually quite friendly because I'm anxious about being rejected. Alhaitham isn't, and I'm so jealous of him for that. He's living his best life.

Finally, back to the Haikaveh thing... Alhaitham isn't abusive. He doesn't say horrible things to Kaveh, and the one example of him doing that I could find, he immediately backtracked and subtly tried to make Kaveh feel better. Hell, Alhaitham doesn't even actually care about making sure Kaveh pays rent. He says it as a joke, but because he's autistic and his tone of voice doesn't give that away as well, he's portrayed as abusive and misunderstood as narcissistic. Y'all just don't like neurodivergent people and it shows.

Yes, neurodivergent includes Xiao. PTSD is often viewed as a form of neurodivergency, and there are many MANY characters in Genshin that have PTSD or some other form of neurodivergence. Yet people refuse to see them as such and mischaracterize them as "edgy," "narcissistic," "unapproachable," "weird," and the like. Yet none of these characters are any of those things.

You wanna know the true narcissists? The true edgelords? The actually rude people? Might I direct your attention to Scaramouche, Childe, and Dottore, whom everyone makes out to be as misunderstood pathetic little meow meows that need love.

Reminder that only two of those three are actually redeemable, and one is STILL an edgelord who is more rude than Alhaitham could ever be, while the other is a certified insane person with a weird set of morals.

(Side note: I love Scaramouche and Childe as characters. I'm just tired of people acting like they aren't worse than the autistic characters. Scaramouche is extremely rude, but he's trying to be better as Wanderer thanks to Nahida's help. He has severe PTSD, and Childe does, too. But both of them are actually messed up and have done horrible things, yet people portray them as better and more in need of love than the characters with unlikable (read: neurodivergent) traits.)

Don't even get me started on how people portray Kokomi, Sucrose, Fischl, Diluc, Zhongli, Cyno, Furina, Neuvillette, and Albedo. Especially that last one- I WILL get mad if one more person tries to tell me he's just emotionless and rude.

Also, if anyone is wondering where I've seen people misunderstanding these characters, it's mostly on Hoyolab site discussions. There's one too many posts talking about how "rude" and "annoying" these characters are.

With Alhaitham especially, I see many people writing him as abusive in Haikaveh content. I see people arguing about the ship being toxic because Alhaitham is "abusive," "unfeeling," and "cruel." Even people who like the ship portray him as such. And I've seen too many people comparing him to Dr. Ratio, who is literally just a narcissist who views others as beneath him. Don't get me wrong, I understand the comparison. It's just... very obvious that people skipped dialogue during Genshin's Archon and story quests.

And it's frustrating because I've been misunderstood in the exact same way. I've been called "rude," "annoying," and "unfeeling" in the past and it's screwed me up. Seeing people do the same thing to a character I so deeply relate to makes me lose confidence in both myself and people around me.

If that's how you view a fictional character with autistic traits, how do you treat real people with the same traits?

Thanks for reading this far. My previous post seemed to get a lot of attention, so I felt more confident about posting my full perspective on this subject. Can any of you think of other characters that have been constantly misunderstood in the fandom? I'd love to hear about it.

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spop-romanticizes-abuse · 7 months

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I really don't want to seem like a terrible person and I'm still trying to better understand the topic, but I want to talk about my situation with Entrapta. When I was watching She-ra, I didn't know that she was autistic. I didn't know much about autism at all. And I was genuinely annoyed that Entrapta was behaving quite childishly, that she had so easily switched to the side of evil, and so on. I had no idea why she was doing this. Only after understanding the issue a little, I was able to justify for myself many of her actions, and I felt uncomfortable with the actions of the princesses, although initially I understood their irritation very well. And I think it would be better to She-Ra to show the problem of ignorance about autism by making it so that the princesses did not know about Entrapta's autism, did not know how it affects her, like it was with me. Initially, they would have seen Entrapta as a person who just doesn't care about them, so they also didn't really want to get close to her. But having learned from her that she sincerely wants to be useful to them because she just wants to be friends, but because is difficult for her to understand other people she cannot express the way princesses are used to, they would sincerely apologize and start looking for ways to get closer to Entrapta, realizing that she is different from them, but does not wish harm. And it would definitely be worth removing many of the disgusting moments from the show (such as the moment with the leash) too. Yes, it would probably be quite naive and childish, but the whole She-ra is not mature in general.

Maybe I forgot some moments because I have no desire to rewatch this mess. And I'm sure that ideally it would be better to show an initially normal and adequate attitude to Entrapta, but I just wanted to tell about the situation from a slightly different angle.

And I'm very sorry if I made any mistakes in understanding autism and said something wrong, I just recently started to understand this topic and still may not fully understand

don't worry, you're not a terrible person! it's already a good thing that you're willing to learn more about autism and correct yourself if necessary, not many people do that! and i get your point, i think it's natural for a lot of allistic people to get irritated at autistic people, because they don't know much about autism.

if the princesses were just kinda rude to entrapta, i wouldn't think much of it. but putting someone on a leash and dragging them around is a horrible thing to do to anyone, regardless of how annoying they are. there were a lot of other annoying characters in the show (like seahawk) who wasn't treated the same way entrapta was. it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

and yes, it would have definitely been a better choice to let the princesses realize their mistakes and try to be better friends to entrapta. but then again, spop sucks at writing good character development and healthy relationships. sure, mermista is kinda nice to entrapta in the end but that's only because entrapta proved to be useful, not because they like her for who she is.

this show is really not as progressive as it claims, and you'll start to see the cracks once you watch it with a more critical eye.

#spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop discourse #spop criticism #she ra #she ra criticism #she ra critical #she ra discourse

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engagemythrusters · 1 year

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Okay. Watching The Bad Batch for the first time and I’ve only gotten 2/3rds of the way thru the first season thus far, but I feel I now understand the characters well enough to start making conjectures.

So here’s what I’ve got so far:

Due to the inherent Muchness of heightened senses, I wouldn’t doubt a sensory processing disorder for Hunter. It’s clear that he’s gotten a handle on it (aka learned to adapt to, compensate for, and understand it) by the time TBB appears in The Clone Wars, but I bet it was hard to deal with when he was younger.

Wrecker appears to have a developmental/learning/intellectual disability of some sort, compounded by a TBI. He struggles with bigger words and is impulsive, along with other notable markers. This could have stemmed from the accident that left the facial scar and blinded his eye, but it seems that, based on how the other three original bad batch clones act around him, that this has always been a thing. A TBI likely added to this, because he seriously just keeps getting smacked in the head, the poor guy. He’s just a walking headache.

That being said, he likely gets lots of migraines. Seriously, that much head-smacking can’t result in a fun, happy time up in his head, pain-wise. I suspect the other four get them, too. Hunter has to process a lot of information from all senses, and Crosshair from his sight. That’s a lot to deal with, and I know I get headaches from a lot less. Tech… he’s staring at screens all day. Blue-light headaches much? And Echo… he’s literally got so much going on up there, technology wise, that it’s undoubtedly the cause of many a migraine. He’s one bad interface connection from a seizure, practically.

Crosshair has some attachment issues, I think. Like I believe all the clones would, had they not been programmed otherwise. They never got held by a caring individual, for gods sake. Maybe later generations had older brothers to hold them every so often, but that’s not enough. They never got one-on-one care. And, since his programming never kicked in correctly, Crosshair has all of that just shoved into his twig body. So, RAD, due to his obviously avoidant nature.

Tech is autistic and I don’t think that’s debatable, really. Like that textbook autism (which leads to a discussion about his savant nature being paired with a highly autistic-coded character and the harmful impact that could create for us autistic people in real life. The same harm of Wrecker’s disability vs how he’s treated as an ‘it’ in the show (said explicitly by Cid) and how Crosshair, with evident attachment issues, is demonised as the villain. BUT THATS ITS OWN ESSAY TO WRITE.)

Omega has ADHD and that one’s not heavily coded like the rest, but I think it fits!

None of them have true favourite siblings, but each are easier to go to for different things. Hunter, for leadership and emotional advice. Crosshair, for silent understanding (pre-chip activation). Wrecker, for emotional understanding and grounding. Tech, for intellectual advice and rationality. Echo, for interpersonal advice. Omega, for intrapersonal advice and a fresh, new perspective on everything.

I truly believe, in my heart of hearts, that Hunter would have the highest, shrillest scream. It doesn’t make sense, but it just seems right (to me personally).

Tech and Echo spend a lot of time on Echo’s implants and prostheses. Echo clearly isn’t using them for their original intent—some not even used at all—so they have to be updated, modified, or taken out. (As evidenced by the—I’m assuming what is a—neural interface he now wears and the lack of other implants he used to have in TCW.)

Echo has chronic pain, due to phantom limbs. That, and it must take a lot out of him for those prostheses. They're melded to him in a way that seems... not user-friendly. Techno Union wasn't doing it because they wanted him to live a fulfilling life. They did it because they needed him. They wouldn't care about his pain. It's unlikely that he doesn't feel constant pain. I'm guessing his everyday average pain level it's equivalent to what normal people (i.e.: people who aren't me or other chronic pain-havers) would consider a 4 out of 10.

I have a feeling that most of them know the basics of swimming, but likely aren’t good at it—Wrecker especially. And, with all that armour, it probably wouldn’t matter if they could swim or not. That shit will absolutely sink them. Omega, once taught, would LOVE IT, though.

Crosshair would let a tooka adopt him. As in, he would let the cat follow him around. Whether or not he’d do anything for or about the tooka… I don’t know. But he’d allow it. (Wrecker would dote on the thing if it followed him. Lula and said tooka would be his best buds. He may like explosions, but he’s a sweet guy at heart!)

Echo and Crosshair have absolutely held staring contests. Asserting dominance. (Somehow, despite not having been involved in the first place, Wrecker has won at least two of them.)

Hunter has a taste for meilooruns. Tech does not.

All of them snore. Echo’s even has an electronic buzzing to it. Tech is absolutely the loudest. Omega has wished to smother them all in their sleep.

#and they’re all Māori xoxo I’m not taking the fucking whitewashing #anyway that and also I really need to do a LONG WINDED ANALYSIS on the affects of handling disability in this show #it’s got a few good things #but mostly bad #(side note: please do not feel the need to agree with all these things! these are personal. if yku reblog you can say which—#—are the ones you do agree with and ignore the rest!)#(and another side note: maybe things like the swimming one will be proved wrong—that’s okay! this is based on the data I currently have #which isn’t much bc we currently only have one full season and two eps of the next as of this point)#(so overall: take with a small grain of salt! these are my headcanons based on current information!)#star wars: the bad batch #the bad batch #tbb #tbb omega #tbb crosshair #tbb wrecker #tbb hunter #tbb echo #tbb tech #god I have to tag a bunch of shit don’t I cause I don’t know What Is The Right Tags To Use #the bad batch omega #the bad batch hunter #the bad batch wrecker #the bad batch tech #the bad batch crosshair #the bad batch echo #clone trooper hunter #clone trooper crosshair #clone trooper wrecker #clone trooper tech #arc trooper echo

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quetzalpapalotl · 1 year

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Is Arcee canon autistic or is that fanon?

Mmmmm, canon as in "she gets called autistic in the text itself": no. But to me that doesn't really matter.

Arcee is a character that explicitly struggles understanding and connecting with other people, her ways of displaying affection are not typical, she lacks empathy, she's very straightforward, she struggles understanding her own emotions, characters often dimiss her and treat her as somewhat less of a person because they don't think her capable of experiencing certain things. These are all experiences common to autistic people than me and others relate to.

Now, being autistic is a human label. Cybertronians don't even have human brains, so it makes sense than in the text she's not called that. But in the text she's also never called trans, but she does explicitly state "I was forged male, which did not match my spark". Which in human terms is just being trans, and Arcee is still a character made by humans. However, the author's intention to depict a trans experience with that example are very clear, so we can safely say Arcee is canonically trans, while afaik Barber has never said a word on whether he deliberately coded his Arcee as autistc.

It is possible that he did. Mtmt!Nightbeat is another character that displays a lot of autistic symptoms who I'm sure is deliberately coded as autistic because in his Marvel G1 fanfiction Eugenesis, James Roberts has Nightbeat state that when he was made something happened when programming him so his brain is configured differently and he feels and thinks in ways different from the norm. So JRo was thinking of Nightbeat as neurodivergent way before he set to write Mtmte, it's unlikely his personality in the comic is a coincidence.

The way Barber writes Arcee in places like this to me reads as so painfully autistic that's hard to imagine it was not deliberate

But even so, I still don't know. Maybe Barber thought Arcee is like this as a result of her trauma and prolongued isolation. But again, to me it really doesn't matter. What matters is that Arcee has these experiences, they are part of her and speak to the reality of many people. I call her autistic because it's my way to talk about her on human terms, but there are other types of neurodivergences that have similar symptoms, or even allistic people with no inherent mental conditions can still struggle with these same things if they didn't experience proper socialization in their formative years. If someone wanted to call Arcee something else to reflect her struggles relating to people, I wouldn't tell them they're wrong.

Ultimately, what's important to me are her experiences rather than one specific word. Calling her autistic is just my way of talking about it, I think it's congruent with the text, and it makes me happy.

#quetzal rambles tf

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hello-nichya-here · 2 years

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As an autistic person and a Zuko fan, what do you feel about the people who headcanon Zuko as autistic to infantilize him?

YOU OPENED THE FLOOD GATES, MY FRIEND!

I hate it more than words could possibly describe, especially because I know that if Zuko were a real person, they'd be annoyed that he didn't magically stop being traumatized/disabled/mentally ill after getting a hug from all of them. And hate it even more that I just know that ten years ago (or less) those same people would armchair-diagnose Azula as autistic and deliberately misinterpret the "Lack of empathy" thing as proof that she is "broken beyond repair."

And the worst part is that I do see quite a few autistc traits in both of them (which would make even more sense since they're siblings and autism is genetic), so it's not even "the fandom making shit up to coddle Zuko and demoniza Azula yet again", but rather "More neurotypicals telling me that anyone who is like me should either be treated like a toddler or as a serial killer in the making."

"Autistic" isn't the only label these fuckers use to infantilize Zuko though. They do the same by claiming he has depression and PTSD - or rather, that he has the hollywood version of it, in which he is a poor, sad little boy, but that never shows any of the ugly/unpleasant symptoms of mental illness/trauma because that wouldn't allow them to sanitize and romanticize those conditions. They go as far as acting like Zuko wasn't constantly struggling with his temper, that he didn't unfairly lash out a people, and that the condition that would EASILY fit him the most is not anger issues - because that still has a much bigger stigma around it. That's the "wife-beater desease" or "abusive father desease." Surely their innocent, awkward little turtleduck would never be one of those people who are "monsters from the moment they're born" *rolls eyes*

Meanwhile, Azula gets labeled as a "psychopath" and narcisist (two diagnosis that could also be easily applied to Zuko if we use the same hyper vague criteria most people use when diagnosing Azula) because these are the disorders that make you "evil." She is also labeled as having schzophrenia because "scary crazy girl", and the fact that she shows signs of trauma and severe anxiety can never be acknowledged because that would mean she's human, and we can't have that. We also can't have Azula finding love with anyone. Zuko can be shipped with everyone and their mothers (literally) and have all of his trauma and mental illeness magically healed by his partner, but Azula can only be "shipped" with therapy.

But the thing that is just depressing is that this kind of deeply ableist reading of the characters isn't solely a fandom problem - Bryke and Yang validated that in the comics. Zuko, the guy who nearly froze to death because he just had to act immediately and go capture the Avatar in the middle of a snow storm, is now incapable of making any decision and is always hesitating and paralyzed with fear. Azula is sent to an asylum to be abused so badly that she develops a split personality (aka the desease hollywood says make you a serial killer that isn't aware they are a serial killer because it was their other personality that commited all the attrocities) and her family even gets a "normal" and "perfect" little girl to compensate them for the "burden" they had to deal with for so long.

And remember: those comics that comepletely negate Zuko's agency and helped fuel the gross belief that Azula is "too dangerous to be rehabilitated/keep her bending/be left alive" are meant to be an extension of the universe of AVATAR, THE LAST AIRBENDER - a show that has it's main conflict start because Sozin wanted to help the other nations, and did so by treating them like completely incapable of knowing what was best for them, and then when they rejected his "help" he decided that maybe they didn't deserve to be treated with any kind of decensy, or to even be allowed to live after all. HOW did Bryke miss the point of their own story so badly?

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meanautisticenbian · 3 years

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Fuck it, I'm gonna dissect all the bullshit in that one Lilith post bit by bit

TW// Lilith hate, victim blaming, abuse, cult mention, ableism towards Autistic people, sexualization of minors (briefly mentioned)

I'll be putting my text in bold just in case it's hard to distinguish between the pictures and my commentary

Here's the post I'm referring to in case you're curious

Moving on and starting with this bit

People pay attention to Eda all the damn time, she's literally one of the main characters. Funny how you only mention tik tok and nothing else. Is that the only other social media you have? Because fans on different social media platforms act much differently; on IG and Reddit stuff like the sexualization of minors and fucking ODALIA AND ALADOR STANS are normalized, where everywhere else it's pretty much universally agreed that that stuff is bad. I don't know a lot about what toh Tik Tok is like just because I don't usually go on tik tok, but even if it is like this, it's not the same for the rest of the fandom. A lot of the fandom still hates Lilith and blames her for her abuse and not being able to leave

You say that like she's a bad person, she's really not. The curse she placed on Eda wasn't intended to be permanent and probably wasn't even supposed to take the effects that it did. She was most likely scammed. I mean look at how she reacts when Eda transforms for the first time. She also feels guilty enough about it to throw herself into an abusive situation and spend almost her whole life trying to make up for it. Lastly, yes she hurt Luz, but let's not forget that Belos threatened her life upon Eda's capture and Lilith was running out of time and had no other option. Obviously what she did was wrong but she's not the real monster here.

"I do like Lilith" this entire essay says otherwise.

Literally none of us ignore any of the bad shit she's done, stop lying about us.

Yes, Lilith did mock her for her curse, which was messed up, but we don't actually know for sure if the curse is basically canonically a disability in that world, so if that's the case then for now it's technically not ableism until we get confirmation otherwise.

"it was an accident and I forgive Lilith" no you fucking don't. First of all this entire essay is you talking about how evil you think she is and secondly, if it really was as bad as you view it, you wouldn't be that forgiving.

Ah yes the victim blaming, the one thing that almost everyone does to Lilith and barely anyone talks about.

There is literally not a single Lilith stan out there who blames Eda for getting cursed. You're just mad that your victim blaming towards Lilith got called out so you silence us by lying about how we do the same thing to Eda.

No one is making Eda out to be the villain either, the only example I can find of this is a few fanfics where she treats Lilith a lot more harshly than she should, and even then, scenes like that are written in a positive light as if you're supposed to be on Eda's side, so with that in mind, the writers of these fics are clearly not even Lilith stans. In terms of how actual stans treat Eda, the worst they do is make her slightly ignorant of Lilith's trauma, kinda like the fandom, minus the "slightly", until she grows as a character and learns to see the red flags. If that's the problem you're talking about, then breaking news: Eda's not perfect either. She has flaws too just like literally everyone else in the show and people are allowed to write about them

Tell me the truth: are people making playlists for Lilith that include a lot of sad and angry songs because she's not a happy person anyway so there wouldn't be a point in having any happy songs, or are they making "trauma" playlists? There's a difference

I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that people recognizing Lilith's trauma is victim blaming Eda? That's not how it works sweetycakes

There is far more Eda angst out there than there is for Lilith, where are you finding so much Lilith angst? LILITH is the one who's traumas are being ignored while Eda's gets all the attention. You're acting like one of those white cis gays on twitter who see black people talking about the anti blackness they experience daily and accuse them of being homophobic because "there is so much homophobia in the world and they still manage to make it all about race".

No one is saying that Lilith has worse trauma, we're only saying that her's is also severe and that it definitely exists. Also funny how you're allowed to be mad at us for comparing Lilith and Eda's trauma (once again lying about us), then you go on to do the exact same thing and say that EDA'S trauma is worse. Even if, hypothetically speaking, Eda did have it worse, that doesn't mean Lilith doesn't have the right to be traumatized. Both of them have trauma, both should be recognized. Also, Lilith had far more going on in her life than just the guilt of her actions, she was was implied to have been psychologically and maybe physically abused, and was probably even tortured. Stop ignoring all the red flags and condemn the actual abuser (Belos) before you criticize anything the abused (Lilith) has done.

We're not making everything about Lilith, like shut up.

Please don't say that autistic people "have autism", it implies that it's something that can be removed from us. For example: you don't say "a person with blackness" when referring to black people or "a woman with homosexuality" when referring to Lesbians.

Oh yeah I'm also autistic so here are MY thoughts

Amity and Lilith are not antagonists anymore, hcing them as Autistic is not villainizing autism.

The autistic Lilith headcanon was made by autistic fans, allistics only latched onto it because they either wanted to be supportive or they saw that she actually had a lot of autistic traits

You're not the only autistic person alive, just because you're not like Lilith or Amity doesn't mean none of us are or they're not autistic. I mean, I know I am

You're not fun or funny

"not all Autistic people are like this" remember that line, dear readers

Actually, I prefer the autistic villain trope MUCH more than the grown ass autistic adult that acts like a five year old trope. At least we'd have less stereotypes associated with us.

Autism is not supposed to be portrayed in only fun and happy characters, that is literally the epitome of stereotyping and infantilizing. You literally just said that not all autistic people are the same, doesn't this count as being all the same? Does this mean I don't exist anymore? Am I just not autistic? Are you even aware that a flat affect or monotone voice is literally a very common autistic trait? You can't just say that we're stereotyping autistics and then just go on to stereotype us, like what the fuck are you even on? Is it only ok when you do it?

Amity is not edgy for fuck's sake

Literally no one is headcanoning Lilith or Amity as autistic because they're mean, we headcanon them as autistic because they actually show traits of it

Oh, our harmless headcanons are making you feel uncomfortable because they don't fit into the stereotypes you made up about us? Good to know our plan is working I guess

Last thing I wanna say regarding this post as a whole: why are you acting like liking Lilith and feeling sympathy for her is a bad thing? If you find this then don't say "I don't think that's a bad thing", answer HONESTLY

Well that's all I have for now, thank you for reading, I need to go to bed soon

#im posting this late but i didn't get to be online as much as i wanted #lilith clawthorne #toh #toh lilith #lilith #the owl house #eda clawthorne #edalyn clawthorne #toh eda #toh amity #toh luz

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