nicky

janka is like my roman empire of ships cause damn non-conforming blasian queer relationship between two mentally ill ass dudes. with a side of bdsm? thats fucking awesome. thats huge for people like me. then I go on tiktok and get blasted with 239189492 INSANE microaggressions on jabber and the usual orientalist twinkification on zanka. im not drunk enough for this rant

Oh boy where do I even start. For one, I see many wrote Jabber as being very touchy and clingy, and while I can see why people think that because of his forward nature but Jabber has literally never casually touched any character like at all. Even when Zanka was hallucinating, he laid side by side but made no contact. He only ever touches people when he’s fighting or to carry them. Some have HC’d him as being touch averse or having some sensory issues (autistic Jabber for the win) or smth with PTSD for this, but it could also just be that he’s just not a touchy guy. Plenty of ppl like that. I also don’t get people that make Jabber seem suave and socially adept because Jabber canonically annoys/pesters his teammates and opens up conversations with his whole thing for strong givers and good fights and whatnot, so I can only assume he has never cared or paid any mind for social cues or interaction and therefore is just unapologetically himself and thinks others are weird for not getting him when he talks. I also notice that people seem to have the Janka dynamic wrong, seeing Jabber as the chaser and the obsessive one when it is clearly Zanka at the end of fight 2. Jabber was literally ready to throw Zanka to the trash beast and never see the guy again and was happy about it because he thought he got all he could out of Zanka and was gonna be rewarded from the boss, so why would he care about Zanka? It’s Zanka who’s always thinking of him and is the one who needs to win their fight for his ego, not Jabber. Jabber was interested in him for sure after the first fight, but ultimately that’s all Zanka is to him, a fight, and a friend (“Zanka, buddy, old pal”). But looping back to the autism he seems to have very low empathy, seeing as both Rudo and Zanka where someone he considered a “friend” and people who earned that title but he is fine putting them in dangerous situations/killing them with little worry. Shows a lack of regard for consequences too, not caring about anything except his wants and needs and not being good at thinking about the future. I doubt he even thought he’d live so long with his passively suicidal tendencies. We don’t know if he actually wants or plans to die as an ultimate goal, but I don’t personally think so. I think he wants a companion/partner that can beat him consistently so he can keep coming to them for his needing of a beat down to fulfill his desires. I think that’s what he’s searching for, which is what makes him so vulnerable and easy to manipulate when someone (Zodyl) who can give them that also has him doing other things with the promise of getting his needs met adequately by his high standards. He is a thrill seeker, adrenaline-starved, overstimulated and under stimulated, strange relationship with sexuality and power, and yet seems completely aware of himself and doesn’t care. He’s blissfully ignorant to how other people see him because he doesn’t care for other people. Of course he’s not dumb, and if he cared enough he’d know exactly what people thought and expected him to act like and emulate, but he doesn’t care. Why would he? Having low empathy to no empathy can lead to this, living for yourself and for your own goals and doing whatever it takes to get there, and for Jabber his behavior doesn’t need changing when what he wants is a fight, and it’s so easy to get fights when he can be gross/sexual/aggressive and get people riled up/upset with him enough to beat him up. Jabber is a textbook autistic kid that became an adult with no idea of boundaries or coping mechanisms and it taking his life in a dark way with him finding an outlet for his needs and wants, and who can blame him when he’s so young? Someone failed him as a child, and so he coped. I see his cope with him turning off his emotions (could be cptsd or ASPD behavior) or having very little to begin with (autism) and living only for what makes him feel good to be a perfect combination for his actions as a character. I see him likely being sexually abused as a child by an authoritarian figure who made him feel weak and vulnerable

and disgusting and worthless, and gave him so much pain that his brain rewired to crave it as he got older. To need to feel that dehumanization from another person in the form of words or contact in order to feel normal, to feel comfortable, to feel safe, to feel good. It happened to him so much and so young that it’s the only thing that feels right to him. The only thing his body and mind screams in unison for to cancel out any other internal noise and buzzing beneath the skin. I also think people should bank more on how he cares for his person, as he see no visible scarring on his body despite his love for pain, so no canon evidence of self harm (well not the typical kind anyway. Maybe) so he probably needs pain caused upon him to feel good, and of course his jewelry and hair. I don’t think pain and fighting are the only things he likes or is interested in because of this, otherwise why would he put such care into his appearance? He has beautiful long wicks that must be managed consistently to remain so healthy and thick, and they’re lovingly adorned with symmetrical jewelry. He has bracelets and of course his Mankira is a jewelry piece, so I think we can deduce he likes shiny things and looking cool. If he doesn’t like boring people, maybe he also doesn’t like looking or feeling boring himself. Maybe he also likes a shiny and cool looking Zanka appearance-wise. Jabber is also very honest and he has not told a single lie in any appearance he has. In fact, he’s often drawing truths out of other people. He’s canonically very observant and his judgement is trusted by Zodyl of all people, so he puts his analyzation to good use. Probably for his own uses as he uses it to decide if people will make good opponents or not, but still. He’s honest even when it wouldn’t help him, as he explains exactly how Mankira works any chance he gets (oh he loves his Mankira) which helps his enemy in a fight, but that’s obviously what he wants. Any other jabberling wanna throw in some thoughts? I’d love having points emphasized or clashed with, feel free to add on!