I was thinking the same, the way he's portrayed it seems like the author just took the traits from someone they know. In many cultures they assure everyone autism doesnt exist but they all know a relative who's "particularly quirky"
Anyway here's my fav autistic coded character who tops
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/motomete_yamanai/
you left me thinking. Like i deff have read autistic coded tops but cant remember rn
what first comes to mind is the ML from "cat choice" he could be autistic coded
ayyy tysm
isnt it a little rude to assume that the author did no research for this? unless they publicly denied having the intention to represent ND, autism, ((and aro)) with this series, then i think we can put some faith that they did do their diligence to put this story out there with as much care as they could!
i just cant imagine everything shown here to be accidental representation personally, since everything feels very purposeful and intentional ^^
Thank you. I was looking for this. The only thing I remembered in the story was that they got permission to date because ML can open any tight container.
I didn’t mean it to be rude at all - I always just assume the neurodivergent representation is accidental unless publicly stated because as of now people’s awareness and understanding of the neurodevelopmental disorder is very limited, especially in Asian countries. Autistic-coded characters are actually pretty common in media and they’re usually not intentionally created to be neurodivergent representation - and even if the author actually did do research on ASD and were aware that their character was neurodivergent, it doesn’t disregard the fact that this manga still lacks the autism label that so many autistic-coded characters lack today (and this does have negative consequences)
I guess I just found it a little sad that it originally came off as having so little faith in an author's intention but I get what you mean now, thanks for explaining! I hope this story gets greenlit for a second volume that could include them exploring his autism explicitly, but if it doesn't get the chance then I hope someone out there still felt validated by this story and Ritsu's character.
I enjoy these delicate, poignant, and ["actions rather than words"] type of works a lot so it's probably not my place to talk on labels [i love a good QPR BL] but my assumption with the lack of it in the Japanese BL industry, whether it's the characters' specific sexuality or ASD or mental illness, is it's probably because of publishers who want things to be unlabeled to keep the reader's suspension of disbelief, since most of them still look at BL as fictional fantasy and not as "queer/ lgbt media". So my brain just kind of copes by default lol and just accepts fanon labels as the canon at some point naturally. My bad for moving the goalposts just then (to be about sexuality rather than ASD), but in general I do hope we get more works and writers that subverts this system so we don't always have to navigate the grey area. :]
Exactly! Likewise. Thanks for your thoughts on this topic
the new chapters provide even more evidence for Asuhi’s “potential” autism from his sensory sensitivities to his need for the completion of a promise - not sure how the author made him so relatable without doing research, my guess is that they know/knew someone with autism and they didn’t know they had it or the author has it and doesn’t know.. anyway I wonder if there’s any autistic-coded BL character who isn’t a bottom?