#< i can use this tag i have autism

[enderman-holding-things]

can you do an enderman holding the autistic infinity symbol ?

#distilled autism #enderman #minecraft #enderman holds #autism #infinity symbol #actuallyautistic #< i can use this tag i have autism

[spaciebabie]

love loses

based on this post

#fnaf #five night's at freddy's #moon fnaf #fnaf moon #moon x y/n #moondrop #have very shitty. doodles #*slaps moon* this bad boy can fit so much autism inem #i saw the post and was like 'yeah this is moon energy right here' #i fell like i needta put more tags here but i dunnae remember what i usually used #ahhh well thats how it goes lads #spacie scribbles #personal headcanons for moon include: bad at social ques and also dense on purpose #hes just trying his best ta be as offhandish and Unaware as possible #y/n will never tap that!! (lies‚ You Know.) #i still. #the original post makes me laugh a lot #gnfnjfjnfjf

[docdalas]

anyone with adhd and/or autism have part of their brain that constantly tries gaslighting itself into thinking that you aren’t actually autistic, that you don’t have adhd? i’m so tired

#not using gaslighting as a buzzword believe me #every day of my life i ponder if i really have adhd and my girlfriend is just like #literally everyone can tell you are #it’s very consoling #personal #actually adhd #actually autism #do ppl still use those tags

[rexscanonwife]

Not me making a s/i for a game that I'm probably not even gonna play myself 😭🙏 here it is folks some simple ref of my bg3 tav!

She's a half-elf Paladin and a follower of Oghma, the God of Knowledge, with a sage background ♡ she's got an insatiable and somewhat macabre curiosity that leads her to explore things that are sometimes considered a bit disturbing but she finds fascinating! She has a bit of a manic edge that can make her seem a bit inconsiderate at times because she talks faster than she can think, but she means well and is very sweet! And of course she's catching feelings for a certain someone 😊

♡taglist♡: @me-myself-and-my-fos @tiny-cloud-of-flowers @sunstar-of-the-north @dearly-beeloved @changeling-selfship @crushes-georg @squips-ship @drjohndisco @adoredbyalatus

#artfarts #self insert #self ship #bg3 tav #bg3 self insert #bg3 #crush: 🗡 #OUGGH I NEED A SHIP TAG 😭😭 #thats the only thing i need to make wyll an official f/o...👉👈 #GOD IDK HOW I FELL FOR HIM LIKE THIS #i cant help it he's so fucking sweet and romantic and he's so so so devoted to u when u romance him 🥺💖💖💖💖 #maybe thats it devotion is a huge thing for me ajfjfk #if ur character will love with everything they have then im gone. and if the character is good with kids ajfjfk #WHICH WYLL IS BOTH #and idc if i dont have the game thats not gonna stop me uwu #i gotta draw us soon but alas...the call of dinner and needing to make it #but yeah her belt buckle has the symbol of oghma and her outfit is pretty simple but thats ok #between her studies she'll bash ur head in btw 😂 shes got no tolerance for nonsense #can u tell shes imbued with autism? specifically my autistic fixation on dark things #all my s/is have autism but the specific FLAVOR varies between them #and oughghh she'd be so enchanted by wyll 🥺🥺 #and shed be so interested in karlach and astarion bcs she does a lot of reading about vampires and tieflings #she's just never met them before #thats what i mean abt MAYBEEE being a lil insensitive bcs she might not be the most soft about what she knows #but once they all get to know one another she'd be a very good friend to them and she'd throw down for them without hesitation 😤😤😤 #speaking of karlach. uh 😳 uhm 😳😳 uhhhh #might want her too ngl 💘💖💘💖💘💖

[tatsumi-rin]

Moral Orel doesn't seem 100% like a show I'd feel seen in if you don't know me but then I remember the episode with the special ed kids and underneath the usual satire on extremist bible belt religion it reminds me WAY too much of how actual special ed departments treated me and other kids growing up.

Like the writers must HAVE BEEN THERE IN LIFE, man. I'd kill to sit down with Dino Stamatopoulos and find out what the fuck inspired him and the other writing staff that day.

#husbandothings #moral orel #bonus fun tag rant? bonus fun tag rant...apparently #in those departments you are immediately written off as a tragic forever toddler by at least 50% of the staff regardless of your disability #there's good ones but the bad ones bring the fun spicy trauma #it doesn't matter how smart you actually are you gotta draw the sad face on that boy on the comic sans worksheet at the age of 15 #in your free lesson spaces that you got because of reasons #if someone tells me they're a teaching assistant or have “qualifications” in autism and special needs development i immediately distrust #because I have never met a neurotypical person with those qualifications who knows how to treat kids like humans especially autistic kids #funniest part? I was mostly in the special ed department because of my hearing and not totally my undiagnosed autism #and a little because of wonky emotional development from get this...a freaking religious school #like i see adults in the show and i see the headteacher who tried to tell my parents i should forgive the bullies because jesus would #even though the truth is way more nuanced but he just wanted to wash his hands of it #it's funnier than it should be because that teacher would fit right in to this show for that and additional reasons I won't state here #my family were atheists but thought the school would be good #the weird thing is at that time as a little kid I liked the idea of believing in god but nothing that happened proved Him to me #and moral orel hits because it resonates with the fact i genuinely believe religion can do good and it's all about the people #the ones who want to use that faith for good in the world and surviving rough crap and not to do things that would make jesus flip tables #that has stuck with me for over a decade as has the people who felt the show reinforced their christianity #but anyway

[hoffmansbignaturals]

excited for saw xi so i can go see it cosplaying adam and then sob obnoxiously outside the theatre when he doesn’t make an appearance

#im a scrawny australian white boy with brown hair and autism i’m basically leigh whannel himself #sawposting #adam stanheight #i have a blonde friend who uses a cane and also likes saw… maybe we can go together 👉👈 #what if we were in the saw bathroom… and we were both guys ahaha #an important part of this outfit is a “hello my name is” name tag. you all know what it will say. #VERY FUCKING CONfUSED #saw xi

[cristalviper]

Made a sim for @squea's Corn! A friend, a lover, an enemy, who knows! I would like to apologize in advance for all the sliders included in his download, making fat sims is borderline impossible without them! Cries!

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Insert witty bio here! I promise I'll come up with something after some food and a nap ;__; For now I offer you this:

Grant "GiGi" Guillaume - adult, gay, he/him

World-Famous Celebrity Aspiration - squeamish, outgoing, lavish

He only has his everyday outfit since I didn't want there to be an overwhelming amount of CC, but I copied his makeup and accessories to the other outfits to hopefully save you some time when editing him. You can change whatever you'd like, btw; be it gender identity/expression, pronouns, sexuality, whatever!

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Included in the download is all the CC used for him, including a trait mod. Again, I used a LOT of sliders for him, so please keep in mind that if you don't use them all, he may not look as intended. Maybe one day double chins will be base game, right? For sure. Slams face on desk.

[DOWNLOAD] If anything doesn't work or is amiss, please let me know!

#in case it wasnt obvious anyone can dl and use him!! #weird phrasing. anyway #tag me if u do i want to see him. please. i would die #also i didnt have game audio on so idk what he sounds like lmfao soz #sims #sims 4 #sim download #can u tell i dont make tumblr posts often #rereading this a bunch of times to make sure i got everything right n im like damn i sure love exclamation marks #autism is overusing punctuation bc u dont know how to convey friendliness thru text haha oopsie

[decompose1]

im sorry i think people are weirder about tone tags than they need to be it does not take rocket science to figure them out most people will tell you if asked i literally JUST googled a few and the meaning was right there easily google-able. IDK LIKE you're welcome to not like them but i feel like the million posts about them not making sense is disingenuous and this ALWAYS HAPPENS when people try to make accessibility things. just say u dont like them and move on!!!! there is no need to be weird to autistic people who work differently from you!!

#IDK maybe im frustrated cause like! #tone tags wouldve been rly helpful if they existed that time i was treated awfully and kicked out of a server #because people kept misreading my tone in conversation and would like #randomly accuse me of being cold/condescending when i JUST spoke clinically bc of my autism #or would misunderstand social cues and get confused by what people meant #and everyone told me ''well you can just be more clear''/''just stop talking like that'' #which is PRETTY ABLEIST. #BUT I WAS SEEN AS THE CRAZY ONE FOR- AT THE TIME- ASKING IF THEY COULD JUST ASK ME WHAT I MEANT #OR WHAT MY TONE WAS #BC I DIDNT HAVE A WAY TO COMMUNICATE THATT #and now ive been like #cringed out of using tone tags. which r for people with this exact problem #because a few people on the internet think theyre dumb #man whatever #meow.txt

[weafurry]

YAYY YIPPEE HII/silly

(Sorry I didn't get to this till now it was late when I saw the ask and I didn't wanna answer it while I was half asleep. Also apparently tumblr doesn't let you edit asks anymore?? )

Leaving this under a cut tho cuz I know this shit will get LONG

ANYWAYS. The. Big one related to that™ post came from a combination of me wondering how the FUCK Cedric got the yellow phosphor needed to rebuild proto + consequences of the revival of characters my beloved

And uh. Yea any yellow phosphor he does end up getting his hands on I. DOUBT WOULD BE ENOUGH.

So uh. Proto being rebuilt with less yellow phosphor then is probably even remotely adviseable and that causing a whole ton of issues™ . And Cedric not even knowing cuz of the whole just. Scanning the blueprints in.

Also this is proto we're talking about here. There's no fucking way he'd tell anyone until shit got BAD.

LEMME JUST. Screenshots from when I was brainrotting over this in my first OneShot fixation

And yea. The author probably would have had yellow phosphor stored in the lab somewhere just incase. (Esp with the head canon that. Proto predicted his own death a long time ago cuz. Prophet moment. And. Told the author and the prophet but never cedric and rue cuz everytime he went to he would get another vision of them trying to intervene and things only going worse)

BUT. since I want my angst goddammit. That part of the lab collapsed first and while Cedric was abled to salvage some yellow phosphor it ends up not being enough.

BUT LIKE. YEA. the way I always imagined Cedric and Rue actually finding out is. One of those moments where a bunch of errors and shit happens . Happens when him Cedric and Rue are walking in the refuge. And this one's bad enough that he can't just metaphorically grit his teeth through it like the other times this has happened in public. Once it's over Cedric and Rue are reasonably extremely concerned and. Fuckin rush him to the lab to try and see if there something they can do to fix this.

AND UH. That segways into another little detail of this headcanon. BECAUSE. he let this go on for so long with the damage all the errors and malfunctions overtime have caused. It probably would just be better to rebuild him and reuse the yellow phosphor they already have. BUT UH. since the situation around him being rebuilt made it so stressful the first time around, he. REALLY doesn't wanna do that again. I have. Such a vivid idea of a scene in my head for that. They're like. Talking with kip. And shes like halfway through saying the word rebuild and. She doesn't even get to finish he just cuts her off.

So what they end up doing is, in the meantime, using red phosphor to prevent any further damage until they can go to the barrens to get blue phosphor so said phosphor won't have to be replaced as often.

I ACTUALLY. made a dumb little chart of how. I imagined them looking different a few days ago

I imagine that. Actually having a normal level of phosphor would. Definitely HELP. But. There would still be some issues partially because it's not one uniform type of phosphor and partially because of the damage the issues caused. And you couldnt pry this headcanon out of my cold dead hands. Consequences of the revival of characters go brrrrrrr

AND THEN UH. Don't get me started on the night terrors as a result of the whole squares thing headcanons.

that whole thing. Came from me going. "do robots still need sleep?" and ultimately deciding yes when i came up with the other headcanon that. only tamed robots dream.

When I made this headcanon I actually hadnt played solstice in a while, and for some reason I always remembered it as, him handing Niko the disk while the lower half of his body was already in the squares. which. no he actually hands it to them while the squares are directly behind him BUT. I still choose to remember it that way HSHSH. anyways uh. Important and related to this headcanon. He remembers what that feels likeeee. and hes probably the only oneee because in the solstice ending everyone only sayss they remember the squares surrounding themm not actually touching themmm and even robots who have gotten caught in them and liveed probably dont rememberrr especially since most of them arent tameddd and uhh even if he only remembers the beginning of ittt hes probably really good at filling in the gapss with the whole prophet thingg (thanks @malwarechips for that last idea/silly)

ANYWAYS UHm. so the whole. tamed robots dreaming thing right. HIM. having night terrors about the fucking squares.

I always imagined it as like. about a week after solstice, once things are starting to calm down and return to normal, one night cedric and rue wake up to proto just fuckin screaming at the top of his (metaphorical) lungs. And. they fuckin burst into his room to him tossing and turning in his sleep and then fucking jolting awake. and like.this keeps happening like. practically every other night. he's losing sleep over this shit. Which probably isn't helping all the other issues from the whole phosphor ordeal which he still hasn't told Cedric or Rue about at this point. And I mean. I doubt the nightmares would be restricted to just. in the mines. cuz dreams are weird like that esp when traumas involved AND UH. With the whole prophet thing. That. PROBABLY WOULDNT MIX WELL. (once again thanks eve for that last part/silly)

(On a lighter note I did have the thought of Cedric and Rue sleeping in his room one night and him actually finally getting a good nights sleep and thus that just. Becoming routine for them. The thing about my angsty headcanons is 99% of the time there's hurt/comfort potential in there)

I DO HAVE. some more lighthearted not angsty headcanons, but i wanna save most of those for their own posts cuz theyre small enough that i can actually draw them and finish them.

I will say one more though. this one is 100% projection but *points at proto* chronic migraines

#90% of my proto headcanons are just me torturing my son and making things 10x worse for him. this is the cost of being a blorbo #i mean it's not like i made him *that* much worse #i mean look at him. look at him and tell me he's ok. look at him and tell me that he has decent mental health. #its so fucking hard to take myself seriously writing some of this when theyre called the SQUARES. like #OOOoooOoo scaryyyy he failed geometry oooooo #autism blast /silly #all of these are so fucking self indulgent and i will not be apologizing #can you tell im writing these tags as im writing the actual post #ok im normal now (this is a lie) #prototype #prototype oneshot #proto oneshot #oneshot #oneshot game #I still dont have a tag system for this fandom besides using oneshot/just character names for personal tagging #wyrm.txt #Wea's Art

[tmae3114]

the example people always go for with 'taking things literally' is 'not understanding idioms and metaphors' or 'not understanding sarcasm' and that's frustrating for Me, Specifically, Personally because I am a person who has a lot of social struggles with Taking Things Literally but, crucially, not in that sense. I understand idioms & metaphors just fine and, as someone who's primary special interest is the written word & storytelling, actually am pretty good at them and thrive with them. I miss sarcasm occasionally but catch it most of the time and am often sarcastic myself.

No, my Taking Things Literally is that if you say something to me or give me an instruction, I will Understand It Literally. I will get what you said and not at all what you meant. There are exceptions to this in cases where I've learned the script and even use it myself (e.g. the other day I asked my mum "Is this Not Butter" about a thing, and she replied "Yes but it has buttermilk", because we both understood the real question was "is this the lactose-free spread?" because I was making food for my sister) but in the vast majority of cases, I just. will miss implications and unspoken assumptions. I will just completely miss them, they will not register, I Did Not Know They Were There.

Implications in a narrative? I am on it immediately, this is my bread and butter, I can pull a story apart to get to five layers of subtext & implication & theme like breathing

Reliably understanding that the request "Can you empty the dishwasher?" includes emptying the drying rack which is not physically part of the dishwasher because the real request is "Can you put the clean dishes away?"? Not a chance

#me #fortunately I know a lot of Techy Computer People #so I can go ''you know how if you input a command your computer will do Exactly What You Told It To? my brain works like that' #and then they get it #and that last one is one we've been working on #the request is now usually phrased as ''Can you get the dishes?'' which is mutually understood to be either #''can you put the clean dishes (in both dishwasher & drying rack) away'' #or ''can you load the dishwasher & do the handwashing?'' #depending on the time of day & which of those tasks needs done #however sometimes my mum & dad do forget and use ''can you empty the dishwasher'' and then later they go ''you didn't get the drying rack'' #and I go ''you said dishwasher!! you didn't mention the drying rack!!'' and they go ''okay fair'' #ANYWAYS. I AM HAVING SOME. COMMUNICATION DIFFICULTIES THOUGHTS ATM #[squints at this post] [sighs] okay I'm going to add the relevant tag but if this break containment I WILL be turning off reblogs posthaste #bc my activity STILL gets influxes from my last autism post to break containment #actuallyautistic

[crimeronan]

warning this is an "i've lost my temper" post

people leaving comments on my vaccine post about how they """""can't""""" get vaccines because of needle phobias like what kind of ridiculous backwards-ass mental-gymnastics dumb fucking able-bodied nonsense are you on. you shortsighted twat. you circlejerking fucking asshole. you know what'll make you have to contend with needles???? getting an IV in the hospital because you came down with COVID. and now every single time you move you feel the straw wiggle uncomfortably inside your veins and you can't get it out ever you're trapped helpless on your back forever getting stuck by needles CONSTANTLY.

so. unless you're ready to lay at home and die while refusing all medical care, which would be good because at least you'd be putting your money where your fucking mouth is, i think you Do In Fact want to take the shot. you Fucking Moron??

#i too have a needle phobia and my autoimmune disease doesn't actually fucking care that i do #i still need to get stuck for blood draws and IVs and vaccines like errybody else #so i can promise you. YOU'LL LIKE THE VACCINE A WHOLE LOT FUCKING MORE THAN HAVING A CHRONIC ILLNESS THAT PUTS U IN THE HOSPITAL ALL THE #TIME!!! JAZZ HANDS LOVE AND LIGHT YAAAAY #had an even more vitriolic version of this post but this one's fine. #i'm through with sympathy for able-bodied people using autism as an excuse for why they can't do anything. #like yeah i'm being a judgmental cunt. but also you're the one who chose to say some dumb fucking shit on my damn post #YOU CAN GET THE VACCINE. you just dont want to. dont EVER fucking say you 'cant' get a vaccine unless you're actually too sick to do so #NUMBER ONE WAY TO PISS OFF SOMEONE WITH AN IMMUNOCOMPROMISING DANGEROUS DISEASE. JESUS CHRIIIIST #autoimmune tag #negative #coronavirus

[trans-androgyne]

It feels like the nature of existing as an autistic transmasc is being constantly misunderstood to an extreme :/ It feels as though people all my life have been telling me how I’m feeling, what I really meant when I said that, how I should have reacted; am I sure I’m not making it up? To get attention? To feel special?

It’s a fun mix of misogyny & ableism, both of which tend to tie in with transandrophobia (transmascphobia? isomisogyny? anti-transmasculinity? whatever words we’re allowed to use today. “Did you hear how many times you said ‘like’ in that sentence?”). But just overall I feel like everyone looks through me all the time & tries to tell me about my own life. And it used to work.

#transandrophobia #transmasc #autism tag #mine #it’s part of why I still can’t help but overexplain myself all the time #I feel like I can never be believed about a single experience unless I have the receipts #even if the experience is like. an emotion. or a belief. ugh #people used to make fun of me for texting in paragraphs. but if I didn’t I would be in trouble for whatever they read in between the lines #(of a statement that literally did not have any lines to read between) #also my parents more impactfully but that’s obv LOL #ableism #vent

[brittlebutch]

finally found a place to read With the Light online and i'm thrilled; if you haven't read this manga i do Legitimately recommend it

#N posts stuff #like don't get it wrong it Is Not a series about being autistic it Is a series about raising an autistic kid #but also don't be put off by that because it's legitimately a series that I feel Loves autistic people with its whole being #it's kind of a teaching manga so it showcases a lot of different opinions/characters/conflicts/etc. but the Framing is very consistent #in that the manga is Extremely of the opinion that autistic people are People who deserve to be Valued and Accepted As They Are #the onus for change is never put on autistic individuals the framing is basically Universal in the 'the World needs to change #to be more accepting' -- it's a very Social Model depiction of autism that ALSO never veers too far into the #'autism isn't even Really a disability' fallacy; it's very much a 'A lot of autistic people will need constant support in a variety of ways #throughout their lives but that isn't the roadblock preventing them from having their own lives; ableism in society is the roadblock' #the first two chapters are the hardest to get through bc they take place before Sachiko has any real understanding of autism and #so she's isolated and stressed out and the ignorance makes it difficult for her to care for Hikaru properly (there's also a lot of #other characters Blaming her for what's going on which goes unchallenged at this point though that changes later); but after she #understands what autism is she's Firmly in Hikaru's corner for the rest of the series - you can skip right to ch 3 without a problem #if you're not interested in reading about that initial conflict #there's still a Lot of conflict ofc but by then the chapters have some of my favorite moments so i don't want to advocate skipping #them; like Hikaru's daycare teacher explaining how Hikaru's difficulty speaking is the same as other kids' troubles with #things like jump-roping/etc.; and then a mother who has An Issue with Hikaru's presence in her daughter's class realizing the #depth of the problematic opinion bc Her mother (who had a stroke) faces similar ableism from her peers #i'm cutting this post off b4 the tags get Too long but if you're curious but still hesitant man. send me an ask and i will Happily #write an insanely long essay about how much i love this series; i have all the books i'm not excited about the online availability #for Me i'm excited bc i've been wanting to rec this manga for like almost a full decade and i can finally give you a link instead of #saying 'well. you can find used copies sometimes' lol

[dysfunctionaldogdude]

I feel like actually shit like the entirety of last week getting to me. I wish I could have a moment of actual relaxation and not just me forgetting I have shit to do.

(Tag warning-> depressing talk, dark topics)

Might delete this idk..

#vent post #tag rambles #I have over 60 different things to fill out that I need to do by tomorrow and I forgot to do them. I feel so stupid #I actually hate having adhd #people try to make it out to be just a quirky thing that its not that big of a deal or anything #but it's not #it impairs on relationships #I struggle to remember important things that I need to do and even WANT to do. I struggle so bad #I even have fights with people about me being a “liar” even though I'm not #I just have a shit ass memory I feel useless 90% of the time and shit #gods and I doubt it's just me having adhd. Im pretty sure its my possibility of having bpd and autism #i show all symptoms of bpd and I relate far too much with autism videos #like this is stuff active in my daily life #people don't see it often due to have carefully Ive crafted.. this is going to sound a bit fannibal of me but literally a person suit #i swear a person suit #it's not even funny #gods i just wish I could function without getting all up and arms about how much of a pos I feel #if I don't get attention from.. basically.. my fp I get all sad and melancholy. i spiral #I'm pretty sure I have at least three fps #if I even have bpd #but gods #just so stupid how I can barely fucking function without all of these crutches #I'm not in a certian program anymore for a thing and now I can't fuction and work how I use to since it was a slower environment #I'm failing #like I won't be able to make it I feel like #not suicide or anything #just in things I wanted to do #feels like my future is doomed cause life keeps throwing curve balls at me #someone with at least two mental disabilities #i definitely have more

[alchemiclee]

every time someone dislikes a character I consider autistic because they seem highly autistic coded, especially if it's "for no reason/just a feeling" I get so incredibly sad and offended because I just know it's because they have autistic traits. I know these people would do the same to me and other irl autistic people. and that's always such a shitty reason to dislike/hate someone.

I just know they would hate us autistic for "no reason" and it would be because people for some reason dislike autistic people based on some obscure random feeling and they can't even tell you why. they often see us as "broken neurotypicals" or we give them that "uncanny valley robot" feeling (especially for high masking autistic people) or whatever it is. they often think we appear "normal" in every way, except something is "off" to them, they they dislike and bully us for it. it's not our fault we were born with these traits/disability so it's not fair to hate us for it!

at least that's how it always seems to go for me and everyone autistic person i've personally know. especially ones better at masking. (I personally was never good at masking and was seen as a "weird freak" who deserves bullying no matter what I did, especially since i was unable to talk 95% of the time as a kid) the mask still never truly hides that "off feeling" people get. i'm sure other autistic people experience this too, but people always dislike me or even hate me and usually can't ever seem to give me a reason. friends will suddenly turn on me and not give me a reason. (especially if we always had text based communication online and then we meet irl the first time. they suddenly turn on or abandon me after that). if I can get a reason out of someone, it's always because *insert random autistic trait here* so I assume it's the same with every case

if this happens irl, it has to be the same for fictional characters, right? it's the only explanation I can think of. I see stuff like this all the time. the autistic coded characters are always getting hate for seemingly no reason like this:

meanwhile, the autistic coded characters always become my favorites because I understand them better and relate

#autism #autistic #actually autistic #neurodivergent #people probably do this with other neurodivergencies too tbh #hsr #dan heng #ill tag that too in case other autistic dan heng enjoyers are out there and feel the same 😔🤝😔 #i have seen almost the same exact post about albedo before too. hes also very autistic coded #probably wouldn't be hard to find one about lynette since shes very autistic. and others too. sighs. its so sad. let us live #i don't care if someone dislikes me or a character. its when that reason is from being autistic #whether they conciously know or not that makes me upset. disliking someone for a trait/disability they cant help just sucks #even if its just me projecting onto a foctional character who i can relate to a lot because they feel so similar to me #when irl people are all so different and weird to me and treat ME like the weird alien they dislike “for no reason” sighsssss #again i dont care if someone dislikes a character (or me) i just hate when its for autistic characteristics even if they k ow why #they dont know why* #that may not even be it for the screenshoted people. but its SO GODDAMN COMMON for people to dislike autistic people #“FOR NO REASON” or some obscure feeling they cant explain. so that is the logical explanation #i hardly ever see people dislike a character (or me / other irl autistic people) for any other legitimate reason that's not autistic traits #its always things like “theyre annoying/too awkward and quit/too weird/do and say weird stuff/give me a weird feeling/lack personality/ #quiet* not quit #/too obsessed with *special interest*/bad at communicating/etc“ and not legitimate reasons like they're not a good person or something #where was i going with this ramble....got distracted and forgot #lee rambles #lee is confused and upset about these things!!!!

[skrunksthatwunk]

ok so. kiwami 2. rooftop scene. the ending. it's a bit of a clusterfuck but i wanna talk about one detail, a problem they bring to your attention by Fucking. Talking About Her.

haruka is watching all of this unfold.

[this post is like 4.5k words long + pretty critical + has spoilers for kiwami and kiwami 2, and really minor/vague ones for a couple others. they're not that bad though, trust me (and i added a warning in the one place it is major)]

ALSO CONTENT WARNING i'm gonna talk about kiryu's passive suicidality a good amount in this one, so stay away from this if you think that might affect you negatively/you'd be better off skipping it. i'll also make a tl;dr (which i will highlight in red) at the very end if you really wanna know what my point is that will exclude those elements <3. i am also going to use a lot of choice-based language in regards to kiryu's contemplation of suicide because i think it's the lens through which the games treat the topic, but i personally don't find it a productive or realistic way to look at suicide or suicidal ideation at all. someone dying by suicide absolutely does not mean they don't care about their loved ones enough to fight on or whatever. i love you, and proceed with caution on this one.

(also i'm using the kiwamis as my point of reference because i uh. don't have a ps2? those are the games that i played, and though the differences are likely slight, i wanna be clear about that. also,, ignore the watermark on these screenshots,, i didn't notice them and i'm not retaking them. we're all gonna have to settle for youtube cutscene comps for now xoxo)

first, we have to talk about the ending of the first game.

[note: i am Really Really Confident kiryu has a conversation earlier in the game about his going to jail in nishiki's stead being him running away and choosing not to resist his two options (go to jail or let nishiki go to jail) and define his own path, fighting his way against fate to make it happen. part of why i'm so confident it exists is because it made such an impression on me at the time. it's pretty important to my interpretation of things but i also can't find it for the life of me, so uh. sorry ✌️ i really tried. this post's takes/analysis will be dependent on this scene existing, so keep that in mind. if anyone knows where to find the scene/screenshots of it, lmk and i'll add a follow-up with it]

kiwami stuff

so as she's dying, yumi tells haruka this:

that she may be dying (painfully, and right as she's getting everything she wanted), but she doesn't regret it, because at least she did something rather than running away from it all. that you shouldn't run away, ever.

shortly thereafter, when the police find kiryu and haruka, this exchange happens between him and date. here's the play by play:

date tells kiryu he can get him out of trouble with this, and that if he doesn't, he'll get life in prison; kiryu declines his help:

kiryu is so devastated (understandably) by the back to back losses of the three people closest to him that he resigns himself to life in prison, and the death-in-effect that would be. he would prefer to waste away rather than struggle through a life without them. prison was monotonous and isolating, but coming back after a decade was overwhelming, and coming back to everything being so warped and twisted, and then losing the corrupted scraps he had anyway, well. he wants to go back to sleep. he doesn't want to be in a world where everything's the same except he's on his own. better to return to safety, to die slowly in a hell he knows well than weather a new one where he has control and agency, and thus one where he has the ability to fail and to lose anything at any time. he explains to date that that loss is why he can accept his death:

date shakes him and asks him if there's really nothing left for him, no reason to keep living at all:

then echoes yumi's advice to haruka:

which makes an impression on kiryu:

date gives him a reason to live in the form of haruka, saying she'll be on her own again if he goes to jail. he hijacks kiryu's tragic protector complex to keep him alive, because she needs him, and because she's someone precious to him:

after the dust has cleared,

kiryu and date also have this exchange, where date tells him to stay away from the cops (and presumably arrest and a return to prison, the aforementioned fate akin to death), and kiryu cites haruka as his reason to stay away, one he holds to with no uncertainty (showing again that he's accepted date's logic, that his reason to keep living even when it's incredibly difficult is to care for the more vulnerable haruka). given the weight of the consequences, to me, it feels like date's telling him not to be alone with his thoughts or something. it's almost frightening:

so, what's our takeaway from kiwami?

kiryu lost everything and hit rock bottom, but he chose to fight, and to live life on his own terms, even when it got difficult. that's the narrative life lesson he had to learn to avoid repeating the events of 1995. he made that choice for haruka's sake. it's seen as growth.

and without him, haruka would've just returned to the orphanage (assuming she could make it back to sunflower at all) with no one who knew or understood what she had been through, no one to mourn with her, and no one to give her the attention, care, and protection she needs. kiryu knows what it's like to be an orphan with a limited parental figure who only checks in every so often (kazama, "aunt" yumi), and what someone will do for attention/affection from that person (via both himself and nishiki swearing up, climbing the ranks, etc. arguably haruka coming to kamurocho by herself to find "mizuki" is similar), and what it's like to lose them anyway (again, kazama, yumi). their situations parallel each others' somewhat, and that binds them further. and after losing everyone (which he blames himself for to some extent, as one can probably assume from this and 2, and something key to his arc in later games), he chooses to protect her. and this time, he won't fail. at least partially because failing would hurt him, too. he'd have nothing left again.

okay. now we get to kiwami 2.

if you forgot, the context is basically:

everybody's fighting on the roof of a building which i'm sure will not be a running theme or anything as the series goes on

there's a bomb that's about to go off and they don't know how to/can't defuse it

ryuji shot the twist villain to death, but took fatal hits to do so

sayama's like hey!! let's get out of here!!! and kiryu and ryuji are like nooo we have to settle this oughh it's punchin time and they stick her on an elevator and send her down so she doesn't have to watch

ryuji loses. sayama returns, they have a cute sibling heart to heart, and ryuji dies in her arms. sad

kiryu is in rough shape as well, and there's like 2 minutes left on the bomb's timer

here's the scene itself:

sayama tells kiryu they have to run, and kiryu says he can't. the gist is "let's run!" "you go without me" "i'm not leaving you!" "i'm in no condition to run" "i'll carry you then!!" sayama: *sees how fucked up kiryu is, realizes he's Going To Die Anyway* "ok, then i'm staying with you!" and then further bickering about that, before they give up and make out (as one does i guess)

date (he's here now) yells this at them from a helicopter:

before someone else in the helicopter tells date this:

we get this shot of haruka calling out to kiryu as the helicopter swerves away:

and kiryu and sayama have this exchange about haruka where they say they let her down, but that she'll understand:

then they hug and the bomb ticks to zero right when the credits hit. in post credits it's revealed that the twist villain defused the bomb when they weren't looking, betraying his co-villain for reasons i truthfully do not remember and am unwilling to look up. it's not about that right now.

so, how does this scene interact with the ending of the previous game?

the short answer is "badly <3" but here's the long answer:

it's about choices.

the thing about fiction is that anything you want to have happen, as a writer, can happen. it may not be effective, internally consistent, or logical, but you can write it regardless. audiences suspend their disbelief for the sake of engaging fully with your fiction, but everyone has a threshold past which they will stop being engaged in a story and either become uninvested or annoyed. writers usually have lines they're unwilling to cross as well. but in almost every story, there's at least a couple of places where they stretch reality a little to make the narrative they want happen. this is not a bad thing at all. that's how stories get told.

now, i'm gonna be real with you. i don't care about how feasible plots are like 95% of the time. it's not something i think about much, nor is it something i prioritize. i am a very character-centric media consumer, so if world building and/or plot are a bit stale or contrived, that doesn't really bother me much so long as i'm invested in the characters involved. some people can't stand plot holes or the ways musicals burst into song or whatever, and that's fine for them. but it's not something i tend to find that all that important.

this is all to say that i have a sorta affection for rgg's flavor of bullshit pulling. and it is a powerful flavor, maybe even an acquired taste, but i can and do rock with it so long as it doesn't damage the characters too much. this is why i'm not making a lengthy post howling into the void about joji kazama or the second joon-gi han or how many secret relatives there are. those things are silly and endearing and a clumsy yet heartfelt part of a series i care about very deeply. i'll joke about it, but i don't consider it much of a flaw. it's more like personality. flaws are texture, and they help a piece's identity. point is i am very, very willing and able to suspend my disbelief for these games in exchange for a good time, particularly via good characters.

(if you want another example of where i draw the line from within rgg, the answer's the YAKUZA 4 SPOILERS INCOMING rubber bullets twist, because i think 1) it's actively horrifically stupid (especially retconning a scene we SAW HAPPEN. WE SAW BLOOD ON EACH IMPACT, AND RUBBER BULLETS DON'T OFTEN BREAK SKIN THAT DEEPLY (THEIR DAMAGE IS MORE PERCUSSIVE THAN PENETRATIVE). THESE EVENTS HAPPEN IN THE SAME GAME YOU DON'T HAVE TO RETCON IT JUST REWRITE IT. OR DON'T SHOW THE HIT AT ALL SO THERE'S MORE PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY. DON'T DO THIS JUST TO HYPE UP YOUR SHITTY VILLAIN NO ONE CARES ABOUT. and 2) (a bit more importantly) i think it actively removes saejima's primary internal conflict for that game, that being his intense guilt over the 18 murders he thinks he committed, one i was invested and interested in. but this isn't a rubber bullets post.)

characters in this series walk off a lot of life threatening injuries. they survive miraculously, they escape in the nick of time, and they pull through in the end. kiryu still somehow hasn't killed anyone. almost every game in his saga ends with an "is kiryu gonna make it out this time?!?" shortly followed by a "yeah lol. lmao" postcredits reveal. kiryu fucking punches a marble statue into dust in the first game. having a story that asks you to suspend your disbelief so much and so often means that when a decision is made, it's not the writers saying, "well, this would have to happen so we are obligated/forced to write it happening" so much as "we wanted this to happen for some reason(s)," because you already know that they're not guided solely by logic. again, this is true of all writers, it's just amplified in stories like these because they've already given you so many hard mode suspension of disbelief moments (they've broken you in like leather, yeah? or like how obvious internet scams allow for self selection by being so obvious that only the most vulnerable people would fall for them. they curate an audience willing to play along with their bullshit flavor so they can tell a story that's more likely to satisfy that audience. in a good way, in a fun way! mass appeal is overrated). there is not much limit to what this series is willing to try and sell you.

so when ryuji takes lethal damage taking out the big bad, that's a choice. when he doesn't die immediately, that's a choice. when ryuji and kiryu send sayama away in the soon-to-be-forgotten elevator so they can settle this like men or whatever despite the literal actual bomb about to go off, that's a choice. when sayama comes back, that's a choice. when ryuji does die, that's a choice. when kiryu determines that he can't escape in time, that's a choice. when sayama is unwilling to leave him, that's a choice. when she says she'll carry him out and there's an elevator right fucking there and then she's like never mind i guess i won't anymore we're dying together right now kiryu like they're not gonna even try?? wouldn't distancing themselves from the blast give themselves a better shot, something that's super possible given the 2 minutes they have with that elevator??? sayama you met him like a week and a half ago why are you ready to die with him that's not a plot hole i just think that's kinda strange whatever anyway, that's a choice. when kiryu stops arguing with her so they can kiss (next to her brother's corpse), that's a choice. when date shows up, that's a choice. when the helicopter can't save them because the bomb was going to go off too soon, that's a choice. when they put haruka in that helicopter and take her away, let her only impact be reminding kiryu and sayama that they can't help her, that's a choice. when they spend their last moments talking as if they're already dead, then simply waiting, that's a choice.

they're all choices that the writers made for the characters, and we are asked to believe them for the sake of achieving the writers' vision, as with any story. the only problem is that the writers' vision here fucking blows.

i'm not saying it would be realistic for kiryu and sayama (and even ryuji) to make it out alive, but it wouldn't be out of character for the series in the slightest. kiryu is suddenly unable to power through here, and that's a choice. so, what is their vision?

put simply, i think they wanted a romantic last stand for kiryu and sayama, a tragic scene of doomed, devoted lovers. and i think they wanted an edge-of-your-seat fake out death. they wanted spectacle.

here's how some specific choices they made undermine all that shit we talked about earlier from the first game.

once again, kiryu is called by date to live, to pick himself up and keep going, no matter how impossible the odds are. he's even reminded by haruka's presence, his one anchor in keeping himself going. the growth he had in the parallel scene in the previous game is challenged, and he fails.

it's not enough this time. and that's a choice.

it's also one i can't think of a good reason for, and that's the real kicker.

characters can have developmental backslide just like people do, and if they're given good reason for it, it can be just as, if not far more compelling that purely linear growth (i am a chimera ant arc enjoyer, and that's all i'll say. sorry if you haven't seen hunter x hunter. uhh. i am also a zuko avatar enjoyer if that helps). but i can't think of anything that happened in that game that would cause this from a character perspective. if anything, kiryu should be less likely to do this intentionally. he's spent around a year raising haruka, and a year has passed since he lost his loved ones. at the very least, the pain should be more dull, though it is established through an early nightmare sequence that his ass is (justifiably) not over it yet. given that their deaths were the initial motivation for his willingness to rot forever, theoretically, he should be more motivated to stay alive than before now that he's got more investment and stability in his life outside of them, particularly when it comes to haruka, his reason for surviving. and if the ongoing nature of the trauma was the motivator for this, then they should've had it affect him more past that nightmare scene (it really serves more as a recap of the last game than anything else) so it didn't come out of nowhere. so the reminder of the lesson that saved his life and then guided it for at least a year afterwards, one that the whole resolution of the previous game relied on heavily falls flat for... some reason.

i think this is a good time to mention that, generally speaking, you don't write arbitrary choices into characters. sure, people in real life are often sporadic, but when analyzing fictional characters, every choice is filed into a portfolio of characterization that can and should be analyzed. going for pure realism can obfuscate their development, motivations, themes, etc. their choices and reactions may be unorthodox, but they must be internally consistent. this is very related to how i view plot contrivance as well. characters drive the plot, not the other way around. stories are about the ways characters affect their worlds/lives and vice versa, and they're the human face to the themes and ideas the writers are trying to explore and express. maybe my stance on this seems hypocritical. i don't know if it is. but to me, plot issues are usually a matter of engagement and investment, while character issues are a matter of substance.

i hope this doesn't feel patronizing explaining all of this, but i want you guys to know where i'm coming from in my analysis. starting at my base philosophy on writing is the easiest way to do that, i feel. defining the terms of the debate, and all that. anyway

and i mean, look. they survive because "it was defused the whole time we just didn't see it happen", so it's not like narrative tension or realism or whatever was THAT big of a priority overall. if it was gonna be a cop-out anyway, they should'nt have ruined kiryu's development too, yeah?. and sayama fucks off to america after this game anyway, so it's not like the doomed lovers thing had much payoff or meaning after this one (though you could argue that's more an issue with yakuza 3 than yk2, which has some merit to it). which means that they chose to sacrifice kiryu's prior development and internal logic for the sake of cheap tension for their finale that was both kinda illogical in and of itself (the elevator!! the elevator!!!) and a romantic climax that neither required nor really benefitted from this staging. (like. you coulda had them make out and then get saved by date, or kiss on the elevator in a "it's moving, but will we make it in time??" way or whatever. look i'm not saying those are great options either but they're SOMETHING okay. it would remove/reduce the amount of time wasted on characters sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for no reason in this finale).

instead the message of this finale is that, actually, sometimes it is impossible to change your circumstances and fight for your own way out of an awful situation. and what should you do about this unfortunate truth? uh. die! i guess. it's the exact opposite of the encouraging, optimistic message of the last game. zetsubou chou pride my ass.

note: i feel i should mention that when suicidality is brought up within the series (particularly in substories), it is always something someone has to overcome themselves through wanting it badly enough. they simply need the inspiration and the motivation to keep going. it's arguably treated as a moral obligation. frankly, the series is broadly very meritocratic (<- bad) when it comes to this topic (and others, but that's a Whole Other Thing. see akiyama's weird loan shark tests as well). sheer will and resolve is enough to conquer any problem, be it physical or mental/emotional, and it's irresponsible to act/feel otherwise. this is the logic the games operating under, and kiryu is often the mouthpiece for this bootstrap-pulling "tough love" sentiment. so when kiryu "chooses" to die, yet faces no emotional fallout from date, haruka, or anyone else, it feels very out of place. it's not just an odd choice; it's specifically, once again, an odd choice to make in context of the game/series/character it appears in.

kiryu's just like eh, haruka'll watch her only family die right as she gets some sense of tentative stability and lets her guard down after a devastating month the year prior (and a relatively dismal upbringing before that) that we trauma bonded over. sure, she likely came to view me as the one who would stay no matter what, who was too strong to be taken out, who she could always rely on, and so i know that dying would hurt her immensely, but she's smart enough to know it'd happen eventually. her eventual recovery means it's okay for me to do this (somehow, in a way it wasn't in the first game). it's an excuse within the narrative's logic, and one it is uncritical of simply because it's kiryu. he gets a pass.

and i think with the previously mentioned passive suicidality and general series-long mental health issues kiryu displays (i mean. yakuza 5's literally his depression arc), this could be retroactively seen as an interesting choice, like a piece in that particular narrative. i don't even dislike that viewing, especially in terms of fan approach. but (assuming this went down the same in yakuza 2), they likely didn't have that in mind. all they had then was the first game and the movie. and they took the first game's Entire Message and contradicted it for nothing but a scene they wanted to have happen because it'd be suspenseful and/or emotional (without actually doing the work to earn it). and they're not fans trying to analyze his character, they're the ones making choices for him. and they chose to massacre my boy. and if the subject of kiryu's mental health was a priority of theirs, why didn't they explore that? haruka and date's feelings on him not resisting and their words not being enough (whether that blame is justified by the narrative or not (it shouldn't be btw)), the uncomfortable drifting that resigning yourself to death and living afterwards anyway often brings, literally any conversation about it besides the minimal shit we get post credits of date being like "did you know about the bomb not having a fuse?" which like. bad answer either way (which is why they weren't straightforward about it, the cowards). you can't just be like "oh uh. idk he just gave up this time. yeah he was gonna die on purpose for some reason. good thing the bomb was fake lol" and then pack up and go home!! that's stupid!! any merit the idea of kiryu dying by suicide in this scene and in this way could have had from a character-based perspective loses its weight because 1. it didn't happen (for kinda stupid reasons), which makes it fall flat and 2. no one is really affected by the fact that it almost did, including him. they sacrificed his ass and replaced it with nothing, even when there could have been interesting outcomes to it.

so the narrative effectively chose to kill him by making the situation impossible, and this impossibility is ultimately arbitrary, given the series' usual approach to miraculous, illogical escapes. that, or the choice to stay was up to kiryu and sayama, one that 1. doesn't make sense and is actively regressive in context of kiryu's arc in the only other game in the series (as well as his whole saga in retrospect) and 2. one that contradicts how the series sees/treats resignation to death/death by suicide in all other contexts without being addressed, challenged, or condemned in ways it would in all other contexts. because they don't want you to think about it like that. they want you to think he (and the narrative) had no choice, that it made sense to do that. but it didn't. it doesn't.

and look, honestly? if i was bleeding out and had like 2 minutes to live, there's a non zero chance i'd say fuck it and kiss a girl too. i get it. but i am (and this is crucial) not a fucking yakuza character. and i'm certainly not kiryu kazuma.

tl;dr (basically just rephrasing the second to last main paragraph)

there are not sufficient character reasons for kiryu and sayama not trying to escape. additionally, because the narrative regularly facilitates even less likely escapes, it's not so constrained to logic and reality that it couldn't pull this one off. the choice to let their situation be impossible this one time was a cheap and arbitrary way of forcing a scene they thought would be cool and dramatic, and in doing so they chose to cannibalize a key emotional note of the previous finale (namely kiryu's mission to dedicate his life to protecting haruka) for hollow last minute stakes-upping in this one. it is then completely disregarded anyway. god damn.

#got so into this post that i used tumblr on my laptop for the first time to surpass mobile's image limit #i also added transcriptions in the alt text (which i should do more often) #actually thinking about it in the movie kiryu teaches haruka that lesson about stumbling on.. and she's the one to ask to follow him... hm. #just interesting given that the movie came out before 2. i don't think it makes much of a difference to the post it's just neat to me #one of my favorite parts of writing this was skimming through a bunch of yk1/yk2 cutscenes and noticing how often kiryu pats haruka's head #it happens a lot more than i remembered and it's very sweet to me. get bonked little one <3 #another good thing was realizing you can edit tags when you're not on mobile.... fucking life changing. i have lost hours to mobile tag #editing and i'm not even kidding about that #speaking of editing this one took like 6 hours.. my brother used “yakuza autism” (verb) for me earlier and it's so true. source: this post #i did have a short break to get food bc i hadn't eaten all day but that's mostly because i woke up at 3pm. anyway #also if you like kiwami 2's ending you're not even remotely alone. i looked at the comment sections of the scene comps and ppl love it #and more power to you!! i like it when people enjoy things. and tbh i DO have feelings that i'm supposed to about that ending #i just also have feelings you're not supposed to. like. anger. i guess. #rgg #ryu ga gotoku #skrunk meta #aww yeah it's a new tag babeyy #yakuza kiwami 2 #kiwami 2 #yakuza #like a dragon #yk2 #kiryu kazuma #sawamura haruka #sayama kaoru #maybe my thoughts'll change after replaying the games...? it's been like a year and a half since i beat yk2 so i am a bit fuzzy on it #yakuza kiwami spoilers #yakuza kiwami 2 spoilers