Okay Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (I watched the show yesterday and i havnt read the books in like a fuckin WHILE) but out of all the things they've done w the show, I FUCKING LOVE TO THE ENDS OF THE COSMOS, that Luke was like yeah neurodivergency (help that's spelt so wrong) is pretty common at camp Percy ur good. Bc I'm pretty sure in the books they said some shit about demigods just were "made to be more hyperactive to escape monsters" or some shit

Besties please correct me if I'm wrong I'm just excited and love this change? (Question mark bc I might have this wrong someone fact check me please I am tired and cannot rn)

Retelings cliches that piss me the fuck off

♡Alice in Wonderland is about drugs - it could be about society, it could be about neurodivergency but no, white girl doing LSD is cooler, I guess.

♡ what if Superman was evil - then it wouldn't be Superman dumbass, like the main point of Superman is that he is a good person like it's the whole deal hyperpowerful but really good

♡actually any what if the heroes had no morals- then you are just doing Greek myths with extra steps

♡Romeo and Juliet, but one is an oppressor and the other the oppressed - Litterally, both families were in equal standing in society. Why you need to make it abusive for no reason.

♡Beauty and the beast, any reteling of beauty and the beast - no, it's not Stockholm syndrome, no a shapeshifter elf with abs doesn't count as a Beast, and Belle was a nice person In the original why everyone remakes her as a cunt.

♡my book it's just like the hunger games but...-Shut it I need you to please tell me if you understand that no, hunger games isnt just about reality television and a battle royale, I swear to God...

♡Pinocchio but it's about a robot- flower print for spring groundbreaking

♡it's inspired by the works of tolkien- no, it's a transcript of you and your group of only male friends playing dungeons and dragons while high on cheap weed at 03:00 am on the suburbs while listening to pop punk on MTV in 2003, we get it you want to bang a hot elven maiden and slain a dragon

♡is inspired by Harry potter- For the last fucking time Rowling doesn't own the concept of magic schools let go of those fucking chains and let this woman go it's a magic school book just call it that goddamn it

♡it's inspired by fairy tales - Disney version or the cultural ones because one way or the other, your childhood crush on an animated villain shouldn't be the only thing fueling your writing career.

♡it's about Greek gods...-*sigh* I don't even know where to start with those just read something other than Percy Jackson(I love percy Jackson by the way) Lore Olympus and the first page of Wikipedia on Greek mythology and then maybe spend a long time thinking if whatever you are planning to write isn't somehow more misogynistic than whatever the fuck an old Greek scholar wrote thousands of years ago okay.

♡what if (real life bigotry) was reverse - just don't for a first time writing, for someone in a privileged place in society, it's just a bad idea altogether, Dont

Hi, I'm just wondering what characters you headcanon as neurodivergent? I know Huan's autistic, and I'm fairly positive you mentioned Mako and Ikki were neurodivergent (please correct me if I am wrong on that!), but are there any others?

Yes!

Huan’s very clearly autistic. I also headcanon that Mako, Baatar Sr, Baatar Jr,  and Zhu Li all lie somewhere on the spectrum as well. Varrick and Ikki are lying in the ADHD camp for me. Bolin’s got something going on as well…learning disabilities, I think, maybe an odd flavor of the spectrum.

When it comes to my OCs, Nuo is most certainly on the spectrum, as are Iris and Rose. Ikki’s future kids will all be on the spectrum, and Sayuri has the inattentive type of ADHD for damn sure.

Mako for me is easy - his issues with socialization, his humor that is either forced - those terrible jokes/puns that he actually tries to work out ahead of time in order to fit in - or doesn’t exist because he’s not in on the joke. THE LOGBOOKS. How rigid and unbending he can be, especially when he is in a new situation he isn’t sure of. The fact that he loves Bolin is very very clear; that being said, while he protects Bolin physically he doesn’t really do much for him emotionally. That’s because he doesn’t really get what Bolin needs, emotion-wise, not because he doesn’t care. The way he had no fucking clue what to do emotionally in either of his relationships with Korra or Asami. Played for laughs, sure, but that horribly awkward moment where he salutes them and calls them “Ladies” is just… oh god, Mako. He sleeps under his desk rather than try and figure out how to deal with the crash and burn of both of those things not because he’s a jerk but because he has zero fucking clue as to what he is supposed to do and everyone’s pissed at him and he has no idea why. 

One of my favorite Autistic Mako scenes is the one where he and Wu have been moved into the Junior Suite at the Four Elements Hotel and he’s…repacking his suitcase. Why would he do that? The Hotel moved them without their permission or knowledge, so they would have moved their personal belongings for them, of course. Mako isn’t packing his suits to move to a smaller room; they are already in the smaller room. Which means that one of the hotel employees had also already packed up his suits and moved them there, right? Hooooooooooooo boy. Someone else touched and moved his things for him? Nope. Nopity nope nope. So what does he do? He repacks them himself into the suitcase, presumably to be unpacked by him later. Oh my god, Mako. I’m feeling you, that’s all I have to say.

Let me also just state here for the record that I think a lot of the issues that fans had with Mako and his behavior are things that Autistic people are very very familiar with in our own lives. As in, they are all the reasons that people give for not liking us. I’ve read plenty of meta about Mako that boils down to I don’t like this guy and he’s a jerk while pointing out all of his especially Autistic qualities. Yeah, that’s right. I’M LOOKING AT YOU, TLOK FANDOM.

Baatar Jr’s also rigid and humorless with a good heaping of sarcasm thrown in there to boot. Of course in his case it’s played off by Bryke that he’s just an asshole, but the fact that he doesn’t get the wolfbat nest joke that Varrick throws at him and takes it literally? Yep. His Book 4 default mood is anger, and while some of that could just be his Beifong heritage (ahem) I think a lot of it is stress, anxiety and fear - he is not in control of anything at all, and this is a man that clearly needs to be in control of his environment, we see this again and again. (I also think he’s afraid of Kuvira - not just because he doesn’t want to disappoint his fiance but because he knows damn well what happens to people who do, but that’s another discussion for another time.)  Note the difference between when he’s speaking to his mother and when he’s speaking to anyone else. His mother is a safe person for him - he’s pissy with her, yes, but he’s clearly not afraid of her. He’s not uncomfortable with her, nor with Opal, not at all. These are people he knows and loves, trusts. Other people, though? Back comes the sarcasm and the nastiness. The man loses his shit all over anyone he thinks is going to put him in Kuvira’s line of fire because of their incompetence. He is clearly uncomfortable with most people. Also, the dude is not at all social in Book 3, not even close. He never speaks! He makes it to one meal where he’s sitting next to Huan and he’s there to see Opal off but where the fuck is he the rest of the time? 

His brilliance goes without saying; Varrick mocks him and his parents don’t take him seriously but he was able to harness that spirit vine energy despite all of Varrick’s (failed) research getting destroyed and build that Colossus, which was clearly miles and miles ahead of any technology in that time and place. Sarcasm and nastiness being his default mode in order to mask confusion due to autism is another one of those Autistic things you don’t see portrayed in the media since they think we’re all Rainman but it’s a thing. As I was explaining to someone not that long ago, Autistics run the gamut of intelligence just like anyone else; our brains are neurodivergent, yes, but we don’t have a set IQ. Some Autistics are smarter than others, for sure. The same goes with EQ - emotional quotient (or emotional intelligence). The media - and a truly horrifying amount of mental health professionals who deal with Autistics and who should really know fucking better - assume that because most Autistics have a very low emotional quotient that they therefore are devoid of emotion. That is so fucking untrue, and I think Baatar Junior is a fine example of that. He has lots of emotion. He just doesn’t know how to deal with it, so it all gets funneled into that dangerous rage.

Anyhow, Anon, you didn’t ask for me to really go on with why I think all of these characters are on the spectrum!  And I could go on, but my kid is having a school bakesale this morning and I have two dozen cupcakes to package up (because even Autistics sometimes bake for their kid’s bake sale) and I need to get on that. If you - or anyone else - wants to know about a character in particular, send me an ask!