#i have a lot of thoughts abt him n neurodivergence n trauma responses etc etc

[myersesque]

CHUCKY AUTISM???? thats such a great concept i love it pls indulge me

OK OK SO SO SO! obligatory disclaimer that this is all based on my experience as an autistic person and therefore won't resonate with everyone, but still! here's just... off the top of my head, based on my autism-fuelled chucky character analyses:

special interests/fixations: was at least semi-fixated on peter pan from ages 8 to 14, if not longer. his childhood bedroom had peter pan stuff in it, his parents shared names w certain characters, he read it to the younger kids in the orphanage, he played games w the other kids based on it (w himself as peter n the younger kids as the lost boys), and he themed his second ever murder after it (turning an adult whom he hated/felt antagonised by into captain hook). sure you could maybe argue that this is just a Regular Interest, but i'm including it anyway. he also later insists that his interest in magic is "just a hobby", but fast forward a few years and he has the spells memorised, carries the book around with him everywhere, etc etc.

hyperexpressive: this is absolutely a side effect of being played by brad dourif (and fiona dourif emulating him), but as a human, chucky has THE most cartoonish and obvious facial expressions. he would suck at poker, his face is just too expressive. he's also pretty emotive in his mannerisms, which luckily carries over to his doll forms (e.g. the way he physically jolts forwards and throws his arms down when he's angry)

emotional dysregulation: ...do i need to elaborate on this one?

parroting/echolalia: definitely a little bit of me projecting with this one, but still. even when he's using his own voice, he sometimes recites lines of the doll's dialogue ("hi! i'm chucky, wanna play?" "hi-de-fuckin'-ho, ha ha ha" etc) - and sure, sometimes it's to freak people out, but i have that dialogue as a vocal stim and therefore relate just a tad. he also is rlly uncannily good at mimicking people (most notably nica) and whilst anyone can have that ability, i do find it's easier to pick up people's accents if you tend to mimic people by default.

caroline parallels: one of the characters chucky is paralleled against is caroline, who is openly autistic and has chucky as her special interest. she, like how jake is used to parallel teen chucky, is used as a direct parallel for child chucky. they also get along pretty well in the present day - chucky seems genuinely fond of her, plays video games with her, openly discusses his plans with her, etc. and seems to understand her in a way other characters don't.

self harm: gonna be as vague as possible here to avoid potential triggers. over 50% of autistic people are recorded as having self harmed for one reason or another. chucky has canonically done this since he was 8 (it's not discussed or shown whether he continued throughout the rest of his life, but given his therapist was actively attempting to make his issues worse, it wouldn't surprise me). again, obviously allistic children will do this as well, but i figure it's worth mentioning as it's atypical behaviour.

stims: kicking his legs around. that wiggly arm-wavey dance thingy he does when he's excited. that scene in the 80s of tiff stabbing that girl, and he's physically jolting back and forth and doing stabbing motions next to her.

eye contact: too much of it! he barely blinks, even as a human, and he stares people directly in the eyes. sure, this might be an intimidation thing, but i doubt he's self-aware enough for that. (he also wears sunglasses indoors, which you could spin as either an eye contact thing or a light sensitivity thing, depending.)

empathy: could go to either extreme with this one, tbh! depends on the chucky (and yes, this is where the soul-splitting complicates things).

morality: autistic people tend to be very moral, yes, but we don't always adhere to traditional moral codes. a lot of autistic people view intentional and accidental harm as the same level of severity, and therefore view harmful acts as less morally reprehensible than the average person might. chucky talks about murder as if it's something everybody does, and as if other people are no better than him for much less immoral acts. he still has morals (no killing kids, no homophobia, sexual abusers deserve the most painful deaths, etc), just different ones.

code switching: ok, full disclosure, i'm fully aware that this is a continuity error/a character choice being made later in the series - but still! chucky's accent throughout the franchise switches. between new jersey (assumedly his natural voice, since that's where he's from) and chicago (where he and tiff lived, and where he ended up dying). autistic people will commonly mimic the accents or speech patterns of people around them as a form of masking - it makes sense that when he's in chicago, surrounded by chicagoans, he drops his accent, whereas when he's with tiff, whom he met back in new jersey, he switches back. (again, the irl meta reason for this change is that chucky's new jersey accent was added later on to poke fun at don mancini, but if i had to argue an in-universe explanation for it, then this is what i'd go with.)

ok i probably have more to add later but i'm gonna stop there for now! again, this is all just headcanon and speculation, and obviously not everyone will agree, but yk.

#i could psychoanalyse chucky for HOURS if you let me #i have a lot of thoughts abt him n neurodivergence n trauma responses etc etc #he was just some fucked up autistic kid who became an even more fucked up autistic adult. and i love him for it #ask #horror tag #chucky

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

I love demo so fuckin much but i wish there was more both canon and fanon content for him that isnt just "haha funni alcoholism " like. Idk it super fucking bothers me as a kid of an alcoholic (now recovering and about 2 years sober!!!) like. I would love to rec the game to my dad bc i know he would loce the style and humor but hes also really proud of being scottish and i khow that the main characterization pf demo would probably bother him.

Anyway demo beating alcoholism arc when.

I actually have a ton of posts abt this (u can probably dig thru "#demoman tf2" asks to find them lol) but yeah I rlly think abt this a lot. I'm also the kid of an alcoholic (actually a pretty long line of them, I'm actually pretty predisposed to it myself because I also inherited all the same anxiety/neurodivergency/etc. problems) and I'm also aware of a lot of politics surrounding addiction and am invested in harm reduction n stuff like that, so my feelings abt it are actually kinda complicated. I don't like the idea that Demo being an alcoholic is, like, a "mistake" made on Valve's end that needs to be "fixed" in fan content - it's not inherently wrong to have a character who is an alcoholic or even really a comedic character who is one. I think there's a big trend in fans (especially white people lol) totally overstepping and "fixing him" by just, never mentioning it even in places it would actually be appropriate and just pretending he was never written to have an addiction. I think that's just another way of showing that you think someone can't be a Good Person(tm) and an addict. The other side of the coin, of course, is the INSANE prevalence of people who make it his one defining personality trait and often completely mischaracterize him by giving him traits they associate with alcoholism but that he doesn't have (laziness, aggression, stupidity etc.). I actually find the way he's written in canon to be. pretty okay? There's definitely times where it's Bad but most of the time I think it's alright. Even the "short, violent temper" thing (a trait he's apparently supposed to have? But tbh he doesn't really have in any of the supplemental material lmao) feels less like a stereotype of alcoholism (as fans will make it) and more like an ethnic/nationality-based stereotype (which everyone in tf2 is, so it doesn't feel specifically targeted) (although you can also argue that him being an alcoholic is also a nationality stereotype which like. yeah). Smth I think a lot of people forget but is actually pretty present in most iterations of his lore and also in a lot of his game/intro video dialogue is that he has some kinda trauma and his self-esteem is completely in the toilet. This, in my opinion, adds another layer to his addiction that while maybe not really explored in canon (because it's not that kind of media, no one really gets their serious backstories explored they're just established and then dropped for more jokes) can definitely be expanded upon in fan stuff. I know yall like angst! Stop fucking writing "angst" where you conflate alcoholism with domestic violence and stupidity and start treating him like a human being lol. Write about Demo dealing with or beating alcoholism, but don't write it like it's his entire personality or pretend it doesn't exist. It's a part of him, but not all there is to him. Sorry for the SUPER long response anon omg I love talking and this is a topic I specifically have a ton of thoughts on. Sorry if this isn't rlly coherent, like I said I have a lot of posts abt this topic. I might go rb some now just to clarify my opinions

#alcoholism exists in this weird spot where it's both intensely normalized and extremely stigmatized #so it's seen as okay to joke about but also people on here still have the idea that like it's being drunk that makes you violently angry #and not that like. someone is violently angry regardless and it's not the fault of a substance that they hurt people #it's so common to hear and it bothers me so much bc like i really love my dad (although he's full straightedge now !! no substances baby) #ask #anon #tf2 #demo #demoman tf2