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 andrew’s medication and court order functions etc etc is not so much that i care about the integrity of the books themselves. i’m 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 that’s fine! clown on exy all you want!)
but the reason i’m 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 who’s opinions differ from mine! i think you’re 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 don’t really exist/
because they do. people who don’t smile exist. they don’t make facial expressions. it’s especially common in autistic or otherwise neurodivergent people who will get told as children and young adults that they’re creepy and wrong bc they don’t naturally make facial expressions. often they will learn to ‘fake it’ for the gratification of others. this is a thing. this happens. it is real. and when you say ‘well everybody smiles! that’s what humans do!’ 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 isn’t 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!
when you say ‘i can’t imagine a scenario in which someone could love their partner and not want to get married! how silly nora is for saying that!’ it really feels. shitty. maybe you think you’re being cute, maybe you’re just having fun! saying ‘i like weddings so i want to write about andreil getting married bc that’s fun for me!’ is fine. saying ‘god nora saying andreil don’t get married? moronic. how could she’ 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!
and you can sit here and go ‘well you can headcanon what you want :)’ 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 go “well i didn’t say you /couldn’t/ do that” you’re really dodging the actual issue, which is that you are dismissing these views wholesale because you think if people don’t say i love you they haven’t really recovered enough. and nora doesn’t really interact with fandom anymore, probably for this exact reason but also probably because it’s been five years and she’s doing other things. but i’m still here, and i see your dismissals and it feels bad! stop saying nora is wrong! just do different things!! without saying she’s wrong or shitting on her or her point of view!! she doesn’t have to be wrong for you to disagree!! she’s not some evil author who just wants andrew to feel bad forever! she just doesn’t think he heals typically! and she doesn’t think it’s necessary for him to heal typically!! and that’s incredibly important for a lot of people!
turnnoffyourmind
gummygunk
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