okay so the reason i am so adamant about defending a lot of the choices nora makes in the books and the extra content re: what healing and recovery looks like, and even things like how andrewβs medication and court order functions etc etc is not so much that i care about the integrity of the books themselves. iβm willing to suspend my disbelief for all sorts of stupid shit and admit its unrealistic and over the top (listen exy? makes no sense. absolutely none. all ridiculous. and you know what thatβs fine! clown on exy all you want!)
but the reason iβm so defensive of the choices nora makes, and so annoyed by the people who dismiss or counteract her, is not because i have a problem with people whoβs opinions differ from mine! i think youβre free to headcanon things however you would like and if you have fun doing that good for you! but what really bothers me is the implication that /you/ are right and i am /wrong/ or that /nora/ is wrong, because she chooses to interpret the characters that way, especially what it comes with the heavy implication that /people like that donβt really exist/Β
because they do. people who donβt smile exist. they donβt make facial expressions. itβs especially common in autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people who will get told as children and young adults that theyβre creepy and wrong bc they donβt naturally make facial expressions. often they will learn toΒ βfake itβ for the gratification of others. this is a thing. this happens. it is real. and when you sayΒ βwell everybody smiles! thatβs what humans do!β you are contributing to the idea that neurodivergent people with flat affects or limited emotional responses to things need to be /fixed/ or healed out of their weird unhuman patterns. this agrees with the common psychiatric consensus that pathologizes autism and autistic traits, but guess what, a lot of autistic people have openly talked about the ways that kind of pathologization hurt them! whether or not you make facial expressions to make other people comfortable isnβt like. relevant to your value and worth, and often trying to fake emotions like that puts a heavier mental load on people that can be an active detriment to their mental health!Β
when you sayΒ βi canβt imagine a scenario in which someone could love their partner and not want to get married! how silly nora is for saying that!β it really feels. shitty. maybe you think youβre being cute, maybe youβre just having fun! sayingΒ βi like weddings so i want to write about andreil getting married bc thatβs fun for me!β is fine. sayingΒ βgod nora saying andreil donβt get married? moronic. how could sheβ when nora is an aroace person who probably has a complicated relationship with societal expectations for romance and marriage, is incredibly dismissive and shitty, especially as another aroace person who as a complicated relationship with societal expectations for romance and marriage!Β
and you can sit here and goΒ βwell you can headcanon what you want :)β but when you make these initial statements with the disdain for anyone who chooses not to subscribe to them, and when called out for it goΒ βwell i didnβt say you /couldnβt/ do thatβ youβre really dodging the actual issue, which is that you are dismissing these views wholesale because you think if people donβt say i love you they havenβt really recovered enough. and nora doesnβt really interact with fandom anymore, probably for this exact reason but also probably because itβs been five years and sheβs doing other things. but iβm still here, and i see your dismissals and it feels bad! stop saying nora is wrong! just do different things!! without saying sheβs wrong or shitting on her or her point of view!! she doesnβt have to be wrong for you to disagree!! sheβs not some evil author who just wants andrew to feel bad forever! she just doesnβt think he heals typically! and she doesnβt think itβs necessary for him to heal typically!! and thatβs incredibly important for a lot of people!
annaxmalina
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andulkaphoto
ellievsbear
areudirty
2087
tangentwithtanner
romaincrisis
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