I’ve heard a lot of people citing Hunter from the Owl House as Autistic, and while I have no intention of ruining anyone’s enjoyment of this character and this particular head-canon, I always thought this take was odd. Having interacted with many Autistic individuals during my life, my brother and Uncle included, as well as a few of my close friends, I never really saw it in Hunter. Sure, he’s a bit socially awkward and doesn’t always understand the other kids his age, but that’s about as far as the symptoms go before the argument sort of stops making sense. Maybe Hunter is Autistic, but I think it’s criminal that everyone talks about him being Autistic without mentioning another character in the Owl House that exhibits far more symptoms of the disorder than he ever has in the show. Any guesses? I’ll give you a hint—her name is Luz.

              You heard me right. Luz Noceda is autistic—or at least I think she is. I know Luz has already been confirmed to have ADHD, and those symptoms are definitely present, but just because she’s already neuro-divergent in one way doesn’t mean she can’t be in another. Luz has always been known to be quirky. She hyper fixates on her witch obsession without ever losing interest, is constantly missing important social cues from others, misreading the mood in a room or other people’s intentions, and most importantly has never once seemed bothered by anyone else’s unusual behavior. Luz sees people for people and nothing else. She doesn’t attribute labels to others and never seems to be bothered when others call her weird—in fact, Luz seems to take it as a compliment.  The autistic individuals that I know are extremely interested in other people and have no problem thinking highly of others for characteristics that many neurotypical individuals would never notice about another person. They get completely absorbed in their hobbies and interests, eager to share them with anyone and everyone they bump into without seeming bothered that others don’t share their passion. Luz loves the Azura books, and when others insult them to her face it never seems to bother her. However, when someone does finally share her passion, that person being Amity, Luz is over the moon about it. And speaking of Amity, Luz doesn’t ever really seem to pick up on Amity’s feelings towards her until they’re stated directly to her in the Hooty episode. (We all know the one.) Despite Amity constantly showing clear interest in Luz, Luz doesn’t seem to realize this prior to the episode where the two of them become a couple, and completely misreads Amity’s mood when the two of them are on the ride Hooty made for them in the basement, not realizing how happy she is at all and jumping to rip everything down.

              Any one of these things on its own isn’t really enough to say Luz is autistic but put together they create a character who seriously reminds me of many of the autistic friends I’ve had. Maybe I’m wrong, but I have a good feeling about this. And compared to Hunter, who while being somewhat socially behind others of his own age is extremely adept at communicating with individuals who are older than him, Luz interacts with pretty much everyone the same, needing to check in constantly with others to know where they’re at. She’s very understanding, but so are most autistic people I’ve met. Just because she’s something of a social butterfly and gets along with others easily doesn’t mean she’s always completely on the same page, and she usually needs to be caught up on what others around her are feeling to get there. Anyways, that’s just my take on her. I’ll stick to it for now, but feel free to share your thoughts with me and let me know if I’ve missed anything important about her character.

Spiderverse x MLB

also featuring Spidey -Rena's own 'canon event'

Two sides of the same coin

Thanks for all of your guys interest in my au! It means a lot to me- so yeah thank you!!

Adrien Has Bipolar

Everyone knows Adrien Agreste to be Miraculous Ladybug’s resident sad-boy: aka, he’s depressed. However, while Adrien clearly exhibits common symptoms of major depressive disorder on multiple occasions, there are also numerous occasions where he seems completely fine, and others where he acts downright energetic and perky. His behavior is kind of erratic sometimes, and some might chalk it up to bad character writing, but there is actually a real-world diagnosis for his behavior, and I don’t see nearly enough people discussing this, so I’m going to write you all an essay explaining exactly why I think Adrien has bipolar disorder.

            Okay, so for any of you out there who are unsure what bipolar is, it’s essentially a mood disorder that causes an individual to experience abnormal emotional highs and lows, usually spanning over long periods of time and causing shifts in the individual’s energy levels. These shifts in moods are generally described as either manic/hypomanic or depressive episodes. During a manic or hypomanic episode, a bipolar individual will experience a low-level increase of energy, often having trouble sitting still or thoroughly thinking things through. Hypomania can cause someone to be irrational, irritable, impulsive, and impatient as some of its negative downsides, while on the more positive end they will experience heightened levels of productivity and self-esteem. Mania is similar, but on a MUCH larger scale, causing all listed downsides and positives to be dialed up to a ten. For example, a hypomanic individual might think they can handle taking ten more credits in college when they’re already taking twelve credits, while a manic individual might think they could adopt five kids while still taking college classes and adding ten extra credits. Being hypomanic makes an individual feel hyper-competent, while mania makes them think they have superpowers. The depressive episodes for a bipolar individual are pretty much the same as depression might be for a normally depressed individual, having the effect of decreasing someone’s productivity levels, energy, and their motivation. These episodes are the opposite of mania, resulting in heightened levels of sensitivity and sluggishness, as well as a higher-level requirement and desire for sleep and solitude and generally low self-esteem. Using the prior example with college credits, a bipolar individual going through a depressive episode might suddenly decide that 12 credits is actually too much, and they should drop at least two of their classes, or they may even go to the extreme of thinking that they should just drop out altogether. So yeah, typical depressed behavior. The key difference here is that these depressive episodes are usually somewhat out of nowhere, and don’t tend to last as long as a typical depression would.

            Alright, that was a long explanation, but now we can get into the meat and potatoes of this thing, that being a deep dive into why I think Adrien has bipolar. And why it was probably written into his character completely by accident.

            So, first things first, let’s look at instances of Adrien being depressed, since that’s what started off this whole thing in the first place. There are some more obvious ones like in Glaciator 2 or Kuro Neko, (we’ll touch more on Glaciator 2 later,) where Adrien demonstrates clear depressive symptoms, wallowing in his room, refusing offers from others for help and generally shutting down, but there are other instances such as in Siren, Senti-Bubbler or Hack-San where he demonstrates Irritability and behaves higher levels of sensitivity than he normally does. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a very sensitive individual in general, but it felt a little more pronounced in these episodes. I’d almost go as far as to say that Adrien seems depressive at the beginning of Dark Cupid as well, but that was such a short scene that I don’t feel like it can really be used to support my argument. Anyways, he’s clearly had a few depressive episodes, but they aren’t all that frequent. Some might say he’s just good at masking, but honestly, I don’t think he is. Every time he’s been sad, either as Adrien or as Chat Noir, it’s been pretty apparent. He seems genuinely fine in most scenes, sometimes being almost downright giddy.

            Which leads me to the evidence of him being manic. The most prominent instances of this are pretty early on, manifesting in stone-heart, Copycat and Kung food. In all three of these episodes, Adrien appears to have more energy than usual, taking impulsive risks and bearing a very inflated opinion of himself compared to usual. Another instance where his behavior screams manic is in Gamer 2.0, when Chat is kind of just screwing around during the whole fight, refusing to listen to ladybug and acting a bit stupider than normal, especially since this is in season 3, and Chat Noir largely mellows out in this season compared to season 1. There’s of course also the episode Glaciator 2, and this is the episode I think is probably worth further discussion. So, let’s do that now. Yay! In the episode, Adrien starts off as manic, interacting with Ladybug in a way that shows a great lack of awareness on his part, generally seeming to say whatever pops into his head without much consideration and irrationally thinking that he has a chance with her in the moment despite being rejected multiple times. Once Ladybug tells him off, it doesn’t take long for all the energy to go away, and he transitions into full depressive mode. He stays pretty depressive for most of the episode, transitioning into irritability and then trying to act normal when Marinette calls him over but only coming off as something close to an impression of what he’s usually like as Chat Noir. At the end though, he goes back into manic mode, thinking again that he has a chance with Ladybug if he just acts like his true self, which, like… what does that even mean? I’m sorry, I just can’t with this boy sometimes.

Also… I guess I should bring up Chat Blanc too. This is one of the most distinct moments in the series were Adrien exhibits mania. Normally I would have thought he’d be mostly despondent as Chat Blanc—that or scared. Instead, he’s full of energy, moving in circles around Ladybug and talking her ear off, saying that everything will be fixed if Marinette just gives him her miraculous, acting out impulsively, irrationally, and almost most significantly, completely out of control. I realize that he was akumatized at the time, but it should be noted that one of the most universal things you’ll hear from individuals who experience mania is that while it offers a heightened sense of Euphoria and capability, it is during manic episodes that they are the most unstable. When mania hits, it’s hard to stay in control, and a part of the brain is aware of that fact. So much energy is buzzing through someone, and if they’re in a state of emotional fragility when the episode hits, it isn’t unusual for them to start self-destructing. The energy needs somewhere to go, so it often comes out in destructive ways.

See, that’s the thing. I really don’t think that Adrien’s character was supposed to be Bipolar. His entire character is about that concept of destructive energy, being that he, you know, has the power to destroy things. There’s an inherent bipolarity to the way that Adrien acts when he’s in costume as opposed to when he’s not. He starts out suppressing his emotions as Adrien, then over stresses them when he’s Chat Noir. When he’s Adrien, he’s the perfect person who thinks he’s not all that cool, and when he’s Chat Noir, he’s a flawed teenaged boy who thinks he’s a lot cooler than he really is. His entire character is like one gigantic Allegory for living with Bipolar. Regardless though, I do think that Adrien is bipolar, whether he was meant to be or not, and as someone with bipolar myself, I can’t help but relate to him.

So yeah. Thanks for reading. I know this was super long and stuff, so if you made it all the way to the end then you’re a real champion. Anyways, let me know what your thoughts are on this. Does Adrien seem bipolar to any of you, or is it just me grasping at straws because I finally found some vague representation of my disorder that isn’t entirely inaccurate? (Honestly, it’s sad how bad the media depiction of bipolar is in general.) If nothing else, I hope you at least come away from this with a decent understanding of bipolar disorder.

The Water type starter, Hissyfit! Part of my Great Lakes region Fakemon dex!

Aaaaand here we go! Starting off my Great Lakes region fakemon project with the Grass type starter, Perenimole!

The Fire type starter, Kindlamb! Part of my Great Lakes region Fakemon dex!

Kindlamb and Cattlecorn

I saw @billfrancois Fire starter Pokémon and I just couldn’t help drawing it with my own Fire Starter because… look at them—they’re both lambs! They’re so cute together, I can’t.

I know anything that isn’t related to fandom tends to tank on tumblr, but I haven’t posted in a while so here’s something I’ve been working on for anyone who’s interested.

Spirited Away (Part 1) - Fan art by Julia Tveritina

Nekoi

I figured that since it’s May now—and the first day of the MerMay challenge—I should celebrate by posting a design for a mermaid Pokémon I’ve been planning to draw for a while. This Pokémon is said to bring good luck to anyone who catches it, and It’s my first Mythical Pokémon for the Xinlao Region. Tada!

Lantern-Fish Pokémon Idea

This guy doesn’t have a name, but he does have lore: this Pokémon can only be found in the darkest depths of the ocean. It is able to produce its own light from within its belly, which it uses to attract food and communicate with others of its kind. It is quite friendly, and an easy Pokémon to train, but few have ever been able to catch it.

Ah yes, there’s always construction work going on downtown… Meet the Psuedo-legendary Pokémon of the Norre region! 

Part of my Great Lakes region Fakemon dex!

These are so cool!

Two great owl Pokémon were tasked with guiding those who lost their way in the wilds of the Norre region. One guided the souls of the deceased, and the other guided those that still lived. However, the two of them have not been seen in some time… 

 Meet the box legends of Norre! Part of my Great Lakes region Fakemon Dex! 

Alrighty! With all of them finished, here is a size comparison chart of all 80 Fakemon from my Great Lakes inspired Pokémon region! 

So, which Pokémon of the Norre region would end up on your team?

Fish-Kite/Windsock Pokémon Concept

So I woke up one day, and I was like: “OH! OOOOH!! What if WINDSOCK FISH Pokémon?!” So… that’s where this came from, if you must know.

I don’t have good names for these guys yet, so if anyone can think of any good ones please let me know.

say what you want about the impact of tightly-packed plot-heavy shows where every episode shakes up the narrative, but sometimes it's also nice to look back at the episode list of a tv show, say "oh yeah, i remember that episode. it made me laugh and was a lot of fun! I don't quite remember exactly where it takes place story-wise, but I could have a lot of fun rewatching this episode out of context anyway, because the episode stood on its own completely well!"

again, serialized stories that focus primarily on long-arching storylines and not mini-arcs are great! but there's nothing inherently bad about the episodic format? you know. sometimes i feel like a protein-rich meal, and sometimes i just want some ice cream