The #1 Star Trek Autistic Character poll bracket starts now! Vote for your favorite autistic-coded character in each poll!
You may notice that several brackets remain empty. This is due to a lack of enough characters, but it leaves an opening for surprise challengers to hop in, so if you missed your chance to submit your favorite character and they aren’t on here, send an ask and they might show up as a surprise!
This blog will contain all the polls under the tag “#star trek top autistic character poll,” so please view that tag to see them all.
Okay so in the first game (curious village) she’s locked in a tower, cut off from civalisation because her dad died and he wants her to find a worthy suitor. Not a suitor her age, a suitor who’s nice just a suitor who can solve lots of puzzles. Flora is so ill equipped for the real world because of her father. AND her dad definately set up this marrage trap when she was under 10. I mean it’s a woman who’s left in a tower for a worthy suitor. She’s not even trusted to go into town alone! The town is full of clockwork people! No one is even real!
Then in the next game she’s left behind because mystery solving is just to much for her dainty self! So she sneaks on after them, claiming she doesnt, “want to be left all alone again”. In the same game she’s kidnapped, has her identity stolen and no one notices because her only characterisation is she likes pretty things and then when they finally do notice and find out she was abandoned in a barn no one cares! SHE’S IMMEDIATELY LEFT ALL ALONE AGAIN. :(
In the third game Professor Layton lies to her to give her the slip. He has never lied in the entire series but he lies to her because she couldnt take going on this latest adventure. She’s the only character to faint during time travel (which doesnt even make sense) and KEEPS GETTING LEFT ALONE. She’s even left in a cage with her kidnapper who’s apparently only helping them for Flora. I mean she’s deeply uncomfortable when she’s caged with him, no one gave her a heads up that she would be caged with him.
She’s the only female character with the professor in the main trillogy who isnt a housekeep or secutary and her only characterisation ever is she likes pretty things and cant cook.
Thw writers then go on to make Katrielle’s game. A game about the Professor’s daughter. Not Flora the person he took into his care this entirely new character. My argument on why she’s a victim of mysogony there is they wrote her in outdated form and upon reciving critisism decided to sweep her under the rug and replace her with other characters. >:(
2.) Shafted SO hard because the writer’s immediately didn’t have any more ideas about what to do with her. She was set up as a mysterious character in her first appearance, and actually had plot relevance and a lot of potential moving forward. (Light PL spoilers)
However! In the next game, the main character just immediately leaves her at home to ‘keep her safe’, despite bringing a boy younger than her with him. She follows them, gets to join their investigation for all of about maybe an hour of gameplay, and then is promptly kidnapped unceremoniously, and literally locked in a barn for the rest og the game. When the other characters realise she is missing, they do literally nothing and don’t go to collect her until the next day DURING THE GAME’S CREDITS.
In the next game, and the final one of the trilogy she appears in, the main character and his apprentice (once again, a boy younger than her) literally run away from her whilst she’s making them sandwiches. Just so they don’t have to bring her along. She’s also kidnapped AGAIN, and does absolutely nothing about it (doesn’t even attempt to struggle) so that the main character can come in and save her. :|
Additionally, she’s never put in any side material set in the right time frame for her to be there, including not even being MENTIONED in the spin-off sequel (although that game is weird about what references it makes anyway), except for the movie, where she’s in it to once again be told to stay behind, and she gets a single word long line.
A lot of people come out of these games complaining that Flora has no personality, because the writer’s were apparently so determined to keep her off-screen that it was easy for people to question what kind of a character she even is. (She has one, they just don’t show it often enough.)
3.) She is constantly left behind and treated like a little girl even though she’s older than Luke, while he is respected as Layton’s apprentice. They don’t even eat her sandwiches :( They also have a running joke of her being really bad at cooking, but that’s literally the only thing they let her do! She also gets kidnapped TWICE (that is, every game she’s in but the first one) and the first time she gets impersonated by the bad guy and NO ONE NOTICES for most of the game.
Also in the Japanese version she’s “of marriageable age” and apparently really wants to marry Layton when she’s older… and that’s one of her key character traits in that version. She has a really cool backstory but after the first game she’s reduced to “girl whining about how they leave her behind all the time”. It’s like they wanted to fridge her but realized they couldn’t do that to a little girl.
DEANNA TROI (STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION)
1.) Apparently, Deanna was originally intended to be TNG’s Spock replacement, a highly intelligent and rational character. Unfortunately, because she was a pretty woman, the decision was made to put her in a skin tight jumpsuit, at which point all that went out the window. Her actress has complained about this and is the source for her being originally intended to be similar to Spock but being written differently after the costume decision. She’s constantly being put through godawful plots where she’s victimized in ways that male characters - and even the other women who aren’t treated as sexy props - are not, she’s constantly being badgered to get married, she’s constantly being given love interests who there’s no reason whatsoever for her to be interested in.There was one scene where she had to eat ice cream and she kept having to spit it out off screen because the outfit they put her in was so tight she couldn’t eat. She’s an interesting character who is frequently relegated to sexy lamp status even though when she IS written well she is very competent and has skills no one else on the crew has. She literally gets teleported out of her clothes in one episode. Justice for Deanna
2.) She is an underused and underdeveloped character compared to her male counterparts. She is the only character who wears a deep-cleavage suit instead of a standard Starfleet uniform (thankfuly she does wear an uniform in latest seasons). Whenever she gets more screentime it’s only to have her body or mind violated. She is a psychologist with empathy powers, but it feels like writers didn’t really know what a counselor is for in a futuristic spaceship full of men who don’t go to therapy, so she barely has anything to do except having her powers conveniently blocked, weakened or taken away by alien of the week.
I love her because she was such a sweet, caring and intelligent character, but the writers clearly wanted her to be a hot babe of the show.
Saving grace: she really does improve in the laters seasons.
3.) She is mostly relegated to being a potted plant or a sexy lamp. She is supposed to be an empath, but mostly she gets to go “captain, i think he might be lying” about characters who everyone can see are definitely lying. AND everyone else in the show gets to wear a uniform and she doesnt for NO REASON untill the second to last season of the show (and even then it isnt Her Choice, but a man makes her do it) (and the female uniform is a catsuit for no reason, the male uniform is. a shirt and pants at this point). OH and maybe 75% or her plotlines are either men assaulting her in some way or another
1.) Apparently, Deanna was originally intended to be TNG's Spock replacement, a highly intelligent and rational character. Unfortunately, because she was a pretty woman, the decision was made to put her in a skin tight jumpsuit, at which point all that went out the window. Her actress has complained about this and is the source for her being originally intended to be similar to Spock but being written differently after the costume decision. She's constantly being put through godawful plots where she's victimized in ways that male characters - and even the other women who aren't treated as sexy props - are not, she's constantly being badgered to get married, she's constantly being given love interests who there's no reason whatsoever for her to be interested in.There was one scene where she had to eat ice cream and she kept having to spit it out off screen because the outfit they put her in was so tight she couldn't eat. She's an interesting character who is frequently relegated to sexy lamp status even though when she IS written well she is very competent and has skills no one else on the crew has. She literally gets teleported out of her clothes in one episode. Justice for Deanna
2.) She is an underused and underdeveloped character compared to her male counterparts. She is the only character who wears a deep-cleavage suit instead of a standard Starfleet uniform (thankfuly she does wear an uniform in latest seasons). Whenever she gets more screentime it's only to have her body or mind violated. She is a psychologist with empathy powers, but it feels like writers didn't really know what a counselor is for in a futuristic spaceship full of men who don't go to therapy, so she barely has anything to do except having her powers conveniently blocked, weakened or taken away by alien of the week.
I love her because she was such a sweet, caring and intelligent character, but the writers clearly wanted her to be a hot babe of the show.
Saving grace: she really does improve in the laters seasons.
3.) She is mostly relegated to being a potted plant or a sexy lamp. She is supposed to be an empath, but mostly she gets to go "captain, i think he might be lying" about characters who everyone can see are definitely lying. AND everyone else in the show gets to wear a uniform and she doesnt for NO REASON untill the second to last season of the show (and even then it isnt Her Choice, but a man makes her do it) (and the female uniform is a catsuit for no reason, the male uniform is. a shirt and pants at this point). OH and maybe 75% or her plotlines are either men assaulting her in some way or another
NEMU KUROTSUCHI (BLEACH) (CW: Child Abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual Assault)
1.) Oh god. Okay. So Nemu's a pretty minor character, she gets barely any sort of screentime, and her entire character acts as an extension of her abusive father- and that's like, a thing you can do in writing intentionally, but the author plays it completely straight. Like she only exists as an extension of her dad. She gets one (1) scene of character growth related to disobeying her father and she fucking dies because of it. Disobeying her abusive dad by trying to save his life during a fight literally gets her killed. Nemu gets one singular moment of agency in the entire series and the author kills her for it.
She is also hypersexualized even by female manga/anime character standards. I would argue that if her entire character wasn't based around acting as an extension to a man/man's character growth, it would be fanservice/sex appeal. Like. Her breasts get bigger with every arc with no explanation (from a normal size to like, the size of her head each by the end). She has so much gross sexual stuff happen to her (showing off her ass/tits in literally any shot possible, she holds a guy down by shoving her tits in his face) and a lot of it has like. REALLY rape-y tones to it that never get taken all that seriously (one of her fights literally ends with the enemy forcibly impregnating her with himself and then eating his way out of her as a means to revive himself, and she is later brought back to life/consciousness by her abusive dad literally fingering her. That happens. The latter scene is played for LAUGHS).
She's also like, a man-made soul. So her entire body has some sort of utility (her dad puts poisons inside of her to use against his enemies, he gave her a drill arm- arm that spins and works like a drill. She can literally cut off part of her soul to attack enemies with). I have less of an argument for that one but like. Something something objectification of women's bodies she's literally used as an object/weapon/tool.
And AGAIN. All of this could work if the author had a SHRED of self-awareness and didn't play all of this completely straight. There's nothing subversive here. Nemu Kurotsuchi exists in the narrative of Bleach to suffer at the hands of men and die for showing bodily autonomy.
2.) CW, TW: Abuse (sexual, emotional, physical)
So glad Nemu made it here. Considering popularity, when I heard a second Bleach character made it, I thought she might be Yoruichi (who gets treated so badly in the Thousand Year Blood War arc). Nemu is far less popular and you always have to be careful when meeting someone who is a fan of her because a lot of the times they’re being gross. Ok
Soul Society arc:
Nemu is introduced as the lieutenant (the second-in command to the captain) of captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi. It’s impossible to talk about her without talking about him.
Mayuri is a mad scientist archetype. We’re introduced to Nemu with him threatening subordinates and when Nemu merely says his name, he replies “Do you want to be broken into pieces again.” He tries to kill/injure the subordinate, but is only stopped by the arrival of another captain.
A lot of Mayuri’s involvement in his introduction arc is tracking and eventually intercepting Orihime and Uryu. He does this by exploding bombs he planted inside people in his squad, which Orihime blocks for herself, Uryu, and one other person. Mayuri’s reaction to this is to ask Orihime to be his research subject, say he’s “kind to women”, and will be kind by restricting the drug regime, giving her clothing while she sleeps, won’t perform modifications that will kill her, and will feed her food.
Uryu is the one who fights him.
Over the course of the battle, it’s revealed that Mayuri has a. Experimented on Uryu’s ethnic group (the Quincies) specifically and b. both very specifically experimented on Uryu’s grandfather and for some reason took a picture of that grandfather’s decapitated head.
Nemu’s role during this fight includes grabbing onto Uryu. Mayuri then slices through her. When in the aftermath, she requests medicine, he stomps on her wound multiple times. It is then revealed that she is Nemu Kurotsuchi, his daughter created through science.
In the aftermath of the battle, where it looks, at least to the readers, that Mayuri is dead, Nemu offers Uryu an antidote she has for Mayuri’s poisons. And then thanks Uryu for not killing him. The situation is written as if it’s meant to reflect the odd feelings children may have toward abusive parents. I wrote out this section in more detail because it’s both Nemu acting explicitly against Mayuri (by offering the antidote), something she won’t ever do in such a large way after, and it seems to approach this from the side of Nemu’s feelings.
Things get worse.
Hueco Mundo arc:
The first thing that happens to Nemu is she is taken hostage by the person Mayuri is fighting. Mayuri, of course, doesn’t care that she’s a hostage. She is turned into a withered body by this antagonist.
Mayuri restores her afterward in what is written as a joke scene and interpreted by onlookers as a sexual scene. Regardless of if that’s what happened, Kubo (the author and artist), apparently thought it would be funny to have people misinterpret it as that.
Thousand Year Blood War arc:
TYBW is a doozy of a lot of misogyny toward a lot of characters in the choices Kubo makes. But we’re here about Nemu.
Nemu and Mayuri act as a tag team against one of the stronger Quincies in this arc. Though, of course, like with all tag teams involving female characters in this arc, Nemu is the weaker and less effective one.
We get a flashback from Nemu, from when Mayuri started calling her that. It’s short for what basically translates as “sleep number 7”. The first 3 were not even viable. Number 4 finally had a brain. Number 5 developed to a fetus and that Nemu’s technology was used to modify Mayuri’s zanpakuto (basically a magic sword that depends on the personality and other factors of a person to develop into a unique weapon) and is how Mayuri became captain. Number 6 grew to be two years old. The third-in-command stats that Mayuri was incredibly happy when Nemu outgrew 2-years old and did not die. In the flashback, this person implies humanizing aspects of Mayuri and calls Nemu his masterpiece.
Nemu activates an ability to increases the power of her body at the cost of increasing its time of decomposition. She says this is because her mission is to protect him. Mayuri gets angry, saying that her mission is growth. She then sacrifices herself for a powerful attack against the Quincy. The aftermath involves Mayuri imagining being berated by the scientist he was fighting against in the Hueco Mundo arc, who mocks Mayuri for “beginning to believe that failure of a meat puppet was perfect.” He then notes how far Mayuri has fallen. The scene is a bit ambiguous, but it’s implied that Mayuri took some of the messaging from this hallucination and rejected others.
The Quincy starts to absorb Nemu’s flesh, while Mayuri saves part of her brain, ultimately causing that Quincy to partially self-destruct from excessive growth as a result of the modifications Nemu had. Mayuri celebrates that he creates a being that evolves on its own, while looking onto Nemu’s brain. The scene ends with a symbolic scene that has Mayuri slipping into darkness underwater, with a naked Nemu approaching him from above.
The epilogue of a series shows a new Nemu, a young child who is very loud.
As a Whole
Nemu is introduced as a character utterly subservient to Mayuri. She does so because he is her father, and an abusive one at that. She has complicated feelings about him, obviously.
While you can argue that she makes her own choices in the TYBW arc, unlike in her very first arc, they are choices that always “benefit” Mayuri. Even the examination of growth of feelings and complication of feelings past that first arc are from Mayuri’s point of view.
Nemu is often overtly sexualized. In omakes (basically outtakes/joke scenes/extra scenes not in the narrative proper), she is often shown as both apathetic and defaults to sexual ideas.
We also cannot disconnect Mayuri’s writing in general. Even in the arc that centers Quincies, the fact that Mayuri inhumanely experimented on those people is not addressed. Mayuri is also one of Kubo’s favorite characters. Writers can have evil people as favorites, of course, but the lack of reflection on what the character means for the society he is in and his influence on others past his introductory arc is… telling.
Also, Bleach as a manga is a series that really enjoys sexual assault jokes. Like, a lot of them were typical of the time it started, but it REALLY likes sexual assault jokes. Egregious enough that the new continuing anime removed a lot of them. And that's always how Nemu's sexual trauma is addressed. Jokes.
[ID: A page from Bleach. First panel: two male characters with the sound effect "SHLUP" above them for something off screen. Second panel: the same male characters sweating, with the sound effects "GLUP BLUMP PLOP" for something off screen and speech bubbles of "Ah. Uh. Ah." followed by a heart said by a character off screen, presumably Nemu. Third panel: Closer shot of the two male characters who are sweating more, with the sound effect "SPLASH" for something off screen and speech bubbles of "Ah... AHHHHHHH..." followed by a heart from a character off screen, presumably Nemu. Fourth panel: Nemu is sitting up, flushed, with the faces of the two male characters looking shocked in the foreground; there is a sound effect of "SHE-EN" and a speech bubble of "She's healed!"
[ID: Nemu reaching down toward Mayuri. They both seem to be floating in some substance, and Nemu is naked.]
the tuvix problem could’ve been solved by making a transporter clone. we have the technology. why would you kill him when he’s begging for his life and you can save all 3 of them. yes it would be awkward on the ship forever afterwards but that’s a small price to pay
the tuvix problem could’ve been solved by making a transporter clone. we have the technology. why would you kill him when he’s begging for his life and you can save all 3 of them. yes it would be awkward on the ship forever afterwards but that’s a small price to pay
Chakotay pulls Janeway aside to discuss Bajoran crewmembers’ right to religious expression despite uniform regulations regarding earrings. When she still won’t allow the earrings, Tom and others protest by finding increasingly absurd ways to barely-not-violate the uniform code.
do you ever think about julian “i’m different, don’t you see, jules bashir died” bashir having to listen to garak talk about how he killed elim and then finding out that elim is his first name. like. both of these guys believe on some level that they killed a version of themselves that existed in the past. and theyre Both like that
NEW DEANNA TROI AUTISM MOMENT : season 7 episode 2 she goes to a fancy dinner for ambassadors and refuses to eat anything except for dessert even when one of the ambassadors point blank asks why she won’t eat anything
Only your vote can determine which of these autistic girlies will move on to the next round.
DEANNA TROI MASTERPOST
WOLF MASTERPOST
Deanna Troi 'VS' Wolfatha Christie The Fourth
Deanna Troi (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Wolf (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts)
Voting ended onMay 27, 2023
[Image ID. Image with a purple to pink gradient background that is split down the middle by a jagged white line. There is a purple 'VS' symbol in the centre. On the left of the image is Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation. On the right of the image is Wolf from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. End ID.]
What makes Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation the autistic girlie ever of all time? Here's what the people have to say:
Deanna-related asks/reblogs: x
This post will be updated after each round!
Image ID in alt text and under the readmore.
[Image ID. White slide with a screenshot of Deanna Troi, portrayed by Marina Sirtis, in her blue dress on the left. On the right are text boxes which read,
"Has kind of blunted emotional reactions to things like her boyfriend being tortured in front of her or the ship being about to explode but has a total meltdown and almost literally dies from stress and has to be put in a medically induced coma when she hears some mildly annoying music. Literally an empath AND a licensed psychologist but still everything she says is super awkward and scripted, and when she loses her psychic powers in one episode she is like. Flat out incapable of handling any social interactions at all. So it’s clear she was leaning heavily on the powers to figure out how to talk to people. If someone has too much of an emotion in front of her she sometimes collapses to the ground and starts crying. Sensitive enough to taste and/or texture that she doesn’t like chocolate from the replicator because she can tell the difference between it and real chocolate. Super rigid moral stances on things absolutely no one else in the show gives a shit about. Refuses to comply with uniform regulations. Although not by human standards, she apparently is super uptight by the standards of her own culture (she’s half Betazoid and grew up on Betazed). She’s always making the tbh face. I love her so much. I don’t know what was going on with like 75% of the cast of this show being heavily autistic coded because I doubt it was intentional but it’s so blatant all the time"
"Hyperempathy, atypical speech patterns," End ID.]
It is a sad truth that autism barely sees representation in media. Even if it does, the character presented on-screen is usually a young boy DESPITE the fact that your gender does not effect your likelihood to have been born autistic.
Which is why this bracket strives to highlight all the canon autistic and autistic-coded girlies out there in media!! And then pit them against each other to prove who is the girlie of all time <3
Another bracket by the host of @adhdvsautismbracket
Inspired by my fellow awesome Tumblr pollers including (but not limited to): @weirdgirlshowdown @insanepoll @artificialkids-2k23-official @sapphiccharacterstournament @beefy-babe-showdown @disabilityshowdown @adhdswagcompetition @pruechaosbracket @goldenretrieverguybracket
Submissions are currently OPEN!
Please nominate your girlies via this form.
Rules:
Do not submit real people/actors/YouTubers/ect. (this includes VTubers and MCYT roleplay)
You can submit multiple characters, but no not submit the same character multiple times.
Please use the form to submit one character at a time (for the sake of organisation and my sanity). Characters submitted via the ask box will not be counted.
Characters do not need to be 'canon' to submit them. This competition will mostly be about autistic-coded characters because canon rep is so rare.
Characters do need to be a girl/woman/girl-aligned to submit them. I probably won't be too strict with this rule and if you're unsure please feel free to send me an ask.
One character per piece of media will be allowed into the competition.
Don't be ableist.
Any questions, feel free to direct these to my inbox!
Under the cut are some characters that are automatically accepted into the initial bracket because I think they deserve to be there, but feel free to give these girlies extra nominations anyway:
Webby Vanderquack from Ducktales 2017
Norma Khan from Dead End Paranormal Park
Delmin from Show by Rock!! Mashumairesh
Wolf from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
Percival "Percy" King from Epithet Erased
Lunella Lafayette from Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
