blaine anderson + being autistic

Fan Fic Writer Asks ♡: 2, 17 & 18

2. Do you read/reread your own fics?

I do! I get nostalgic a lot and I don't mind going back to check some things out again. Sometimes it makes me see how far I've come. Sometimes it gets me re-interested in the AU again and sparks an idea for a related story.

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17. What’s something you’ve learned about while doing research for a fic?

You know how I love my research . . . While researching my RWRB Spy!AU Contrary to popular belief or what is seen in film and television series, US-born, professional employees trained to work as Intelligence Officers for the National Clandestine Service (CIA) are never referred to as "secret agents", "spies", "agents" or "special agents", they are known as 'Operations Officers' or 'Case Officers', or Officer for short. To highlight this point: within the intelligence community, the equivalent of an FBI Special Agent is a CIA Officer. Within the law enforcement community, the equivalent of a CIA "agent" is an FBI informant. There does not exist any working title or job position known as 'CIA Agent', agents or "assets" of the CIA are usually foreigners who pass along secret information to the government through CIA Case Officers, who are posted at US embassies worldwide.[49]

Also for If I Can Make Your Heart My Home (Klaine fic) the amount of recipes I've gone through has been astounding! 😂. It makes me so hungry! You can see many of them here:. (Still working on the list for chapters 22, 23 and 24.) Chapters 1, 2 and 3 Chapters 4, 5 and 6 Chapters 7, 8 and 9 Chapters 10, 11 and 12 Chapter 13, 14 and 15 Chapter 16, 17, and 18 Chapter 19, 20 and 21 ****

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

This is so hard . . . to pick one line. I've got a couple of exchanges I've enjoyed : From If I Can Make Your Heart My Home - a conversation between June and Blaine: “On the prowl as usual,” muttered June under her breath as they watched Preston flirt with another older woman who was giggling into her teacup under the senior Smythe’s attention. “I swear my grandfather had a hunting dog like him.  The mutt was always trying to sniff out willing bitches in heat.” Blaine coughed in his hand to cover his surprised laugh.  “June!”

From Under The Cover of Darkness - between superhero Kurt and his fanboy boyfriend, Blaine: “Kurt . .” “Yes, Blaine.  .”, Kurt opened one eye as he yawned. “Ever consider maybe having a side kick?” “Go to sleep Blaine . .”, Kurt chuckled. “No, seriously, when I was in high school I created this whole superhero persona called Nightbird. . .” Blaine began.  “Blaine . . ” “And there was a costume - it had this cape . .” “Good night, Blaine.” “But. .” “Good night, Blaine.”

Thanks for the ask, @datshitrandom! 💖💖

If you want to play . . . .

so true blaine, sam and britt are autistic!! but post about it i wanna know why u think that

I literally only needed one person to ask me this, so thank you for being that person, anon! Britt is very self-explanatory, and Sam is also pretty obvious imo (although I do have lots of notes on him too), but since I think Blaine needs a little bit more explaining, here is my evidence as to why I think he’s autistic.

First of all, let’s look at some of the common symptoms of autism in adults:

Difficulty interpreting what others are thinking or feeling

Trouble interpreting facial expressions, body language, or social cues

Difficulty regulating emotion

Trouble keeping up a conversation

Inflection that does not reflect feelings

Difficulty maintaining the natural give-and-take of a conversation; prone to monologues on a favorite subject

Tendency to engage in repetitive or routine behaviors

Only participates in a restricted range of activities

Strict consistency to daily routines; outbursts when changes occur

Exhibiting strong, special interests

I think Blaine exhibits all or almost all of these things throughout the show, so let’s go through the list, point by point (with examples):

First, difficulty interpreting what others are thinking or feeling. Blaine is very bad at this, especially romantic feelings. He doesn’t catch on to Kurt or Tina having crushes on him for way too long even though neither of them are subtle about it. He also doesn’t seem to pick up on most of Sebastian’s stuff. He seems to be aware that he’s hitting on him, but he doesn’t seem to be aware of his rivalry with Kurt or any of his malicious intent. Every time he and Kurt get into a fight he needs Kurt to explicitly tell him what’s wrong. 

Second, trouble interpreting facial expressions, body language, or social cues. Blaine is TERRIBLE at this. He doesn’t understand sarcasm, he can never tell when people are lying to him, he often doesn’t understand how to talk to his peers, and he has no idea when people are uncomfortable. I have so many examples for this and the first point, but here’s just a small sample: s2e12 (22:15) - not getting that Jeremiah was very uncomfortable with the song, s5e9 (37:20) - when he’s named valedictorian instead of Artie or Tina, he apologizes to them and says that he thinks that things get handed to him, they sarcastically say they haven’t noticed, and Blaine believes them, s5e14 (15:10) - when he asks Kurt if he’s smothering him, and Kurt lies and says no, he believes him even though Kurt is a terrible liar, and (my favorite example of this) in s6e5 (40:15) - saying that he should thank Sue for trapping them in that elevator because now he and Kurt are just friends, and she says, “So thank me” and he actually says thank you (followed by Kurt saying, “Don’t actually thank her!” - amazing).

Third, difficulty regulating emotion. Blaine is very bad at regulating his emotions, especially negative ones. Most notably, anger. Blaine has intense angry outbursts, which will tie in later. Examples of this: season 3 episode 8 (13:50) - getting into a fight with Sam, season 5 episode 14 (26:50 and 27:20) - yelling at Elliot, and season 3 episode 15 (22:35) - outburst at Cooper.

Fourth, trouble keeping up a conversation. Blaine frequently talks about how he’s bad at communication and talking to people, especially about feelings, outside of song. He often has to sing to say bad news or confess things. Examples of this: Singing to tell Kurt about him cheating (s4e4 - 14:30), singing to confess his feelings to Sam (s4e17 - 21:15), singing to tell Kurt he’s not in June’s showcase (s5e20 - 10:40). When he is confronted by a conversation that makes him uncomfortable or that he wasn’t prepared for, he often has to shut down to think about it. Examples of this are when Kurt confesses his crush in season 2 episode 12 (30:40), Sam telling him he knew about Blaine’s crush in season 4 episode 17 (37:10), and the Frat Boy Physicals incident in season 5 episode 16 (21:05).

Fifth, inflection that does not reflect feelings. Generally, Blaine seems to be pretty good at this, especially in comparison to Brittany, but when he gets upset, he does sometimes get weirdly monotoned or just puts on a strange tone of voice. The best example of this I have is in season six, episode four (9:40 and 10:10).

Sixth, difficulty maintaining the natural give-and-take of a conversation; prone to monologues on a favorite subject. This is definitely true, especially when he gets upset about things. Season 5 episode 7 has the best examples of this, he starts by trying to lead the glee club in Mr. Shue’s absence, but he ends up coming on too strong and speaking over his peers (00:40). Next, when Kurt implies that he’s being a puppet master, he gets very upset, and keeps focusing on and coming back to that, even when Kurt tries to change the subject (6:45), and finally, he starts ranting to Brad, and cuts him off when Brad tries to chime in with his problems (11:40). 

Seventh, tendency to engage in repetitive or routine behaviors. Blaine has the most consistent clothing and presentation out of anyone in the show, and as seen in season 3 episode 15 (17:15 and 38:10) and in season 5 episode 6 (28:15), Blaine has been dressing like this and doing his hair the same way since he was a kid. He even owns the same shirt in multiple colors (season 5 episode 6: 27:25). In season 4 episode 17, he talks to Sam about how his daily routine and how he walks the exact same way from class every day (00:45). This is also the first time Blaine mentions efficiency, he measures his routine down to the second, and it being efficient is really important to him. This comes back in season 5 episode 14 when he’s trying to make the loft more efficient (23:05). He also reveals in season 5 episode 20 that he needs to measure the stage before performing in order to improv (7:30).

Eighth, only participates in a restricted range of activities. Now you may be thinking, but Miriam, this doesn’t apply, wasn’t he president of like every club his senior year? Yes, he was, but this actually doesn’t disprove this one. He still really is focused on a few activities like glee club, student council, and school in general. He only signs up for the other clubs in a time of crisis, and he’s never seen doing anything outside of school in college or in seasons 2 or 3 (except for his special interests). And as these are all school clubs, that meet on school grounds, they’re still in his comfort zone. 

Ninth, strict consistency to daily routines, and outbursts when changes occur. So we’ve talked about his routines, what happens when they’re broken? In season 5 episode 14, Blaine attempts to set routines with Kurt, making him breakfast every day, scheduling their days rigorously, etc., which leads Kurt to feeling smothered, but Blaine tells Elliot that he feels like he doesn’t know how to communicate. He feels very uncomfortable with the change of living in New York and the shift in the power dynamic between them. This is reinforced a few episodes later in episode 16, when these issues come back. In addition, episode 16 has an example of Blaine having an outburst when a short-term plan is disrupted. He and Kurt had planned to walk to class together, and Kurt had bailed without telling him, and Blaine gets very upset (23:05). Another example of this is when he finds Tina and Sam making out in season 5 episode 10 (24:45, 29:30). Their plans were disrupted, and he has an outburst/meltdown. Another example of long-term routines being disrupted is in season 3 episode 8. Sam has just come back to McKinley, and immediately, Sam and Blaine dislike each other. They’re both trying to choreograph and don’t like each other’s ideas, and they get into a fight that gets physical. Both of them are having an outburst due to the other invading the other’s space and routines (13:50). This then becomes an example of point three, as Blaine is seen boxing (physical reaction) to regulate his emotions (effectively stimming), which he also does in season 3 episode 15 when he’s angry at Cooper (26:40).

Finally, exhibiting strong, special interests. This one is probably the easiest to prove. Blaine’s special interests include show choir (he knows everything about it, he even reads the show choir blogs - s5e11: 6:50), boxing (he started a fight club at Dalton - s3e8: 14:00), Broadway (when he coaches the Warblers, Karofsky mentions that it’s pulling teeth to get Blaine to use any music that’s not Broadway - s6e3: 00:25), piano, and even music in general. To give some specific examples, Blaine is also known for having some shorter-term interests that he gets just as invested in, the best examples of this are puppet making (I know, I know, but it applies, he gets so into it for that week) from season 5 episode 7, dressing up as a superhero (no neurotypical person could do Nightbird, please) from season 4 episode 7 and season 5 episode 10 (16:45), and star wars fanfiction (he and Sam have a whole conversation about how ewoks are obviously polygamists) from season 5 episode 15 (5:20 and 26:35).

Blaine also has some other general traits. If you’ve ever watched him sing, he is constantly bouncing on his toes. He’s prone to incredibly intense eye contact, and is very sensitive to criticism, rejection, and public embarrassment (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria - I have too many examples of this to name). Little things that could be interpreted as sensory overload: season 5 episode 7 - hating loud chaotic environments, and lashing out because of it (00:35 and 00:55) and season 6 episode 5 - where he’s the first to say that they should just kiss to get out of Sue’s elevator because he’s getting very hot (29:00). In season 6 episode 1 during the break up scene, Kurt says that Blaine initiated a 3 hour fight about Kurt getting toothpaste on a towel (21:30), which is not neurotypical behavior, and Blaine responds in a way that indicates that it really bothered him. He’s an actor seemingly a very talented one, something that would make sense if he’d been masking his whole life. Finally, he has a very deep connection with Sam, who is clearly neurodivergent. He and Britt are the only people who understand Sam, and there are multiple times where Blaine knows how to calm Sam down when no one else can.

Now there’s also a case to be made about him having a terrible childhood and having some trauma from that, (I strongly believe that he feels like he has to be doing things for people in order for them to love him because of Cooper) but I also think that this is pretty compelling evidence.

The episodes that I found the most evidence in if you want to look for yourself are season 2 episode 12, season 4 episode 11 (this one’s also good for Sam), season 5 episodes 7, 14, 16, and 20, and season 6 episodes 1 and 5.

Hey I don't know if you still write Glee meta but please do give your insight if you do. I am a late addition to this fandom I came across one of your posts about the characterisation of All the Other Ghost characters based on the early rendition of the characters in the show. I wanted to ask if you were to characterise and give powers to the Glee characters based on their depiction in all six seasons, how will your AtOG look? Disclaimer I love AtOG and hope this doesn't seem offensive to the OW

Hello! Thanks for this fun question. And no worries - I don’t think this question is offensive at all. Fandom and meta are like a continuing conversation, right? So I have thoughts that differ from others’, and that’s what makes it an ecosystem of fun instead of a factory line of content.

I’m not going to do the entire cast in this post, but if it’s interesting enough, I can add more characters later. Right now I’m going to do Rachel, Finn, Kurt, and Blaine, because I think they’re kind of the core four of the show in terms of storylines and emotional stakes in the longrunning story. This was written off the cuff but also is very long-winded because I have lots of Thoughts and little direction. Feel free to add your own thoughts as you’d like.

Rachel - Emotional and Physical Dazzler

Rachel is easy for me. Her voice would be her superpower, like a mixture of Dazzler and Black Canary. I rewatched Funeral and her cover of “My Man” just about killed me. Or when she sings “Get It Right,” you know that part in the bridge where she belts, “And finally / someone will see / how much I caaAAAARE” and we all turned into one big goose bump? Rachel’s voice is already a heavy-hitter. How cool would it be to see it accompanied by like a big burst of purple light and walloping a supervillain over the head, or Rachel like a siren, helping you realize your biggest dreams? 

Because that’s also what Rachel did in the show. Rachel wanted to be special by being part of something special. To be part of something special, you have to uplift others. Rachel wanted to go to NYADA with Kurt. She spent S3 helping Finn recognize he wanted more from his life than staying in Lima. If that was what he really wanted, she’d be happy with it, but she knew the tire shop wasn’t really where he found his joy. And she returned to the glee club season 6 because when her career was floundering, when her confidence was shot, she knew helping a new bunch of kids find their own joy would bring her mojo back.

Finn - Prince Charming, but for real

Finn was given to us by the show. Finn is the Almighty Treble Clef, the uniter of glee clubs and of friends. Finn isn’t the smartest guy in the room when it comes to facts and figures, but Finn has an emotional intelligence unparalleled by any other character. On his bad days, he uses it to manipulate Rachel out of the musical back to glee in S1, or to get Quinn to get back together with him in S2. But at his best, he uses it to get Jake and Ryder to be friends, he uses it to keep the glee club together after it was officially disbanded in S4, and even his death pulls the glee club members back to Lima for his memorial.

Consider this - when the New Directions and Dalton combined forces in S6, what logo did they use? The treble clef. Uniter of glee clubs and of friends. In superheroic terms, I can see it like a supernatural charisma or charm. People feel better when they’re around Finn, and he knows how to play that, for good. He’s not necessarily a flashy solo leader, but he could lead a team of supers or be the Phil Coulson kinda guy, the person who has to figure out how to wrangle all these superegos into a functioning team.

Blaine - Nightbird, the Nocturnal Avenger

Blaine was also given to us by the show, moving from Kitten Boy in the sidekick club to Nightbird, the nocturnal avenger, in the superhero club he led himself. If you look at Nightbird like a knockoff of Nightwing, and Kitten Boy as a knock off of Robin, you can see this agile, acrobatic, skilled team leader. And I think that’s where Blaine would thrive. He is the de facto leader of the New New Directions, and he leads through his talent and precision but also because of his need for group harmony. Watch him moving the Dalton Warblers in their numbers, especially in “My Dark Side.” Hunter giving him the Dalton blazer is like Slade tempting Robin to his team. Moving from Robin-knockoff to Night Wing-knockoff also reflects Blaine’s status as character. He shifts from being a sidekick in Kurt’s story to being a superhero in his own right.

I think this fits because of Blaine’s agility, his ability to keep up with Mike and Brittany’s dancing in the disco episode, his jack-of-all-trades skills. Blaine’s pretty good at anything he puts his mind to, but he’s not just naturally talented; he has to grind for it. Robin/Nightwing is basically a normie levelled up in badass through rigorous training and practice and high self-standards. Blaine counts the paces on a stage to measure out his room for improvisation. He’s got that shared measure of superplanning and adaptability.

Here’s my sticking point. I think Blaine needs to have some kind of magic power to go with the Nightbird theme. Because Blaine has dream sequences. Blaine can hear Brittany’s voice overs. Blaine kicks off the Michael Jackson costume change. Blaine sings “You’re My Best Friend” with a bunch of puppets. 

I really want to give Blaine like some extra superfluous power that has nothing to do with the Nightwing shtick to account for that. Because also, Blaine is a goofball. And so many birds have sneakily iridescent feathers. Kurt said Blaine helps him move away anything that’s blocking the sun. You know how glittery Blaine’s eyes get when he has lovey conversations with Kurt? You know how often Blaine wears these bright garish yellows and crazy colors? You know that beautiful shot in the MJ ep where Blaine kicks off the group dance in front of that big glittering marquee? You know how Blaine and Sam were bathed in beams of golden light in “Heroes”? I really want to make Blaine like, fly on beams of light or something. Maybe he can make light beams like Starfire, who also has these magical mood-based powers, who is also associated with Robin/Nightwing.

Kurt - is not Batman, but he’s like. Basically Batman.

The episode where Blaine’s reeling over Kurt is Dynamic Duos. Blaine is essentially Nightwing, Robin gone solo. Who does Robin leave? Batman.

All right, Kurt is not Batman, but I think Miggy got it right when she made Kurt basically a fighting-type superhero, who is good at wielding any weapon put in his hands. I’d just shift her idea from Kurt being super bendy and flexible (because, again, Kurt is quite clumsy, and we’re going for very direct relationships between characterization and powers here) and maybe give him super endurance to go with the sword flinging. Maybe give him a Darwin-like survival skill, where it emerges in small ways, like gills popping out if he’s underwater or his lungs processing oxygen more efficiently if they’re at high altitudes.

Batman is not a 1:1 comparison, but Kurt shifts from his sheer self-confidence getting him through the schoolyard bullies to being physically aggro. Instead of just telling bullies not to be late for their appointments at supercuts, Kurt chases down people in alleys to stop hate crimes. I don’t think Kurt ever kicked off a dream sequence. His character is associated with magic symbols, as anything deathlike does, but Kurt himself is very much grounded in the physical world. Even his more outrageous stunts, like the Single Ladies dance, are real, grounded techniques from his physical actions. Kurt trains himself up to be really buff. Kurt knows how to use sai swords, climbs scaffolding, fences with Blaine in the “Love Is a Battlefield” number. His character is associated with death, but if we’re looking at later-show characterization, his solos are also very much about life and survival, “I’m Still Here” and “Being Alive.”

Just, hear me out - Kurt is fixed on justice. He runs for school president first as a way to help his college applications, but then it turns into a platform for him to stand up against bullying. Kurt refuses to out Karofsky, even if it would help lend his own claims of death threats credibility, because it wouldn’t be right. Kurt gets so caught up in the way the world should be that sometimes he forgets that he still has to play by its rules - see his frustrated talks with Burt in Duets, or his more affirmed talk in the hospital room in Bash. See Kurt getting crowned prom queen and then going right back in that room to accept his title. I see Kurt less as a ghostly waif, less like this airbender phasing around danger, and more like someone who attacks fear head-on. Batman’s villains are all about fear and the ugliness that comes from that. Batman has to come up with creative solutions to keep Gotham safe from them. Maybe we can give Kurt an extra power here too - Kurt helps Karofsky visualize a brighter future. Kurt stopped his and Rachel’s pity party and made Rachel look at her reflection to imagine the two of them thriving at NYADA. Kurt as a metacharacter helped this friendly young bb Midwexican visualize a brighter future for myself. Maybe the survival and life that Kurt exudes is less Darwin-like or endurance-like and more about finding ways to beam that optimism to other people, to exchange visions, or to imagine a future that should exist and will it into existence, like Domino’s luck-based powers but manifest with intention.

Bonus - Brittany

Brittany has chaos powers and magic and yes I will elaborate but that’s going to be another post for another time.