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rarsneezeswell, what it says on the tin
covers sexuality headcanons (DEMISEXUAL KRATOS IS IMPORTANT TO ME) as well as a very long discussion re: how he handles communication (not well), autistic spectrum musings, and why he does all the shit he does the way he does that devolves into me briefly losing it about how i'm so mad about how even canon will portray kratos as an asshole Too Cool For Feelings when that couldn't be further from the truth
anyway enjoy my musings about this awkward man and why he's so awkward
~kratos feelings~
this is just a dump of various thoughts re: how i portray kratos, lmao
- usually when i Attach to a character i will eventually slam them onto the aroace scale somewhere, so: kratos is demisexual (and, demiromantic as well, t b h) and this is vastly important to me and i will never be over that one drama cd validating me with fucking (kratos voice) "anna was the only woman i ever loved"
so: kratos, useless demisexual, who only experiences sexual attraction to people he's got some kind of emotional connection with but given that the relationship between him and the other kharlan heroes leaned towards siblings most of the time, deadass went four thousand years without even getting the slightest bit horny over anyone and was like "yeah idk i guess i'm just not interested in sex" but then he met anna and after they got to know each other he was like "oh, holy shit, now i understand what yuan was talking about" ((yuan finds out and laughs for a couple centuries at kratos' expense))
- (also so it's on the table, kratos is bi, and would experience no trouble being attracted to another guy provided he could get close enough to one first)
- (also also all this to say he saw anna shirtless once and immediately 404 errored becuase for the first time in his entire life he was actually experiencing sexual attraction and didn't fucking know what to do with it)
- i........... will not go off about kratos' kinks on main but i will admit i have spent a nonzero amount of time thinking about them. short version he's the bottomest bottom to ever bottom, but i think we're all in agreement there
- kratos? neurotypical? haha no. first of all none of hte kharlan heroes are after the fucking four thousand years of ptsd, (nevermind the regular ptsd just from growing up in wartime), second of all kratos definitely wasn't before the ptsd either. autism spectrum somewhere, i don't know where exactly bc i haven't researched i've just quietly been stealing patterns of my own habits and pasting them on him. that or becoming hyperaware of my own habits becuase kratos always does the same
mostly re: communication, actually. kratos "has a thought formulated but can't get it out of his mouth fast enough for it to be relevant to the converastion" aurion. somewhere between thinking and speaking the process breaks down and he just doesn't say anything. believe me, there has been many a time where i've *wanted* to say something, where i'd had several things in mind to say, but just straight up couldn't get my mouth to say them.
kratos'll also just choose not to say anything at all, especially if speaking would trigger some kind of awkward social situation, becuase he'd rather die than be forced to deal with one of those. situations like "someone called me by the wrong name and they keep doing it but i can't bring myself to correct them." "undoing my own work would be easier than talking to my coworker about thing."-- nevermind the ordeal of having an unscripted conversation and how horrid that is on his nerves. shutting down and ducking out of converastions when they get uncomfortable isn't a valid tactic in all situations (though tbh it is in some), but i never said kratos' coping mechanisms were fully healthy. we all know they ain't.
this is where my headcanon comes in that the kharlan heroes are all fluent in sign language, which started because mithos refused to be verbal up until about six or seven, meaning he and martel learned, and then eventually passed it on to yuan and kratos. kratos gets the most use out of it because he's struck with lengthy nonverbal periods more than the rest of them imo (this is especially true in ywkon, thanks trauma) and also there are just occasions where signing it is easier than saying it, for reasons he can never quite pin down
subsequently i hold to the idea that in modern aus he's infinitely more chatty thru text than he is in person and makes anna handle phonecalls for him. he's almost two different people depending on whether or not you are having the converastion in person or over text, because text is just easier for him (he has absolutely jsut texted yuan when they are sitting right next to each other, before)
- even outside of Communicating Is Hard, kratos will also just always every time choose the easy way out of a hard situation, the easy way out being "Removing himself from the situation entirely". it's easier to not say anything. it's easier to suffer in silence than to make waves. it's easier to walk away than try and muddle through something difficult, or conversely, easier to stay exactly where you are than try and talk back, raise a complaint, break away. this..... as we all know, lands him in a lot of fucking horrible situations
but the point is like: he doesn't just do this for the big things. he does this for the little things too, Like Conversations. he has no confidence - minus like, knowing he knows his way around a sword - so he very rarely will do anything that isn't just kind of immediately be cowed when someone says somethign to him
- thhhhough, i'll admit he also gets really stubborn sometimes and will dig in his heels and refuse to back down from certain ideals / decisions he holds close to his chest. lmao. it's just usually the things he's stubbonr about are the Big Ones. he's much more likely to not complain about tomatoes in his food even though he hates them because it's not worth offending the cook or forcing them to make him another plate, but if you try and question him on a Big Thing he's decided on he'll just dig in his heels which is one part stubbornness one part refusing to acknowledge you talking to him at all about not doing the thing, because that too is easier
- also it's a wierd push and pull because he's a coward but he will also throw down if something is importnat to him and has preformed Textbook Bravery absolutely perfectly. but i suppose it would be wrong to call him a coward re: idk, battle, becuase he's not. he's a coward re: relationships, though
- spoilery, canon examples: spends four thousand years at mithos' side because getting stuck and staying put is easier than at any point saying "hm, actually this is fucked". which like. he does at some point but it takes him. nearly all of those four thousand years to work up the courage to do so!!! lmao!!!!!!!! like yes also "betraying my brother??? i can't do that???" is a factor at play here but let me tell you getting stuck in a job, career path, relationship, etc that's not quite Ideal for you becuase the effort required to leave is more than you can make yourself do (on top of "that is my brother i would be betraying and it's not easy throwing relationships away even when you're neurotypical") absolutely smacks of neurodivergent bs, i say, from experience
- example two is kratos is the man who decides that living on the planet with his son and undergoing the emotional socially awkward ordeal of figuring out how their relationship can work now / facing the consequences of his mistakes is so unbearable to him that he decides he's going to leave on fucking derris kharlan instead. and then he gets stuck in that decision, too :')
- AN ASIDE: despite everything ever, including canon material (EXTRANEOUS CANON MATERIAL IS SO BAD ABOUT THIS AND IT MAKES ME WANNA TEAR MY EYES OUT), wanting to portray him as this cool aloof dude who's Too Cool and Too Serious for Emotions, let alone Being Nice, this is false. a blatant lie. he is not cool he is the most awkward man you will ever meet he just comes off as ~cool and aloof~ becuase he never fucking talks and that's ~mysterious and alluring~. and it's not that he's Too Serious for emotions, it's not that he's cold, it's that trauma has made him really bad at doing the emotion things, especially on the intrapersonal level (WHICH HE WAS ALREADY BAD AT TO BEGIN WITH) so it's not that he's cold, it's just that he's coping with an assload of trauma and is wildly out of his element besides. so if you ever write him being mean to lloyd / refusing to be kind or open for a reason that isn't An Assload Of Trauma And Generally Just Being An Awkward Person, you're wrong. kratos isn't an asshole. he's just bad at this.
- similarly he's actually really kind and warm imo??? he gets so soft re: people he loves (provided he's not emotionally stunted bc, again, trauma) and he cares so deeply and so genuinely and will do his best to show it, if he can
- it's just that tos itself is probably the worst of kratos we ever see becuase it's after anna died, and isn't happening at a point where he's known (let himself know) lloyd long enough to even start healing / warming / opening up. he's not incapable he's just. tos isn't the time where he's good at it?? believe me the moment you put him in an AU he opens right up
- otherwise, or at least in tos, he is "i keep all my emotions right here in my chest and i bottle them up until i die", o o p s!
- also also tos is complicated becuase he has a million and one secrets to keep considering the double agent business, which doesnt help relationship building at all
- but he genuinely cares so deeply about the people he considers family and friends!!!!!!!! he would follow them to the ends of hte earth!!!!! he would move mountains for them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOS IS JUST A REALLY BAD EXAMPLE OF THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCEPT NOT REALLY BECUASE HE STILL OBVIOUSLY DOES LOL IT'S JUST HE'S NOT LOUD ABOUT IT AND IT DOESN'T COME WITH SPOKEN "I LOVE YOUS" BUT HE'S DOING HIS BEST BUT HIS BEST RIGHT NOW ISN'T THAT GREAT
- all this to say emotionally cold kratoses are OUT, "too awkward to emotions properly" kratoses are IN
covers sexuality headcanons (DEMISEXUAL KRATOS IS IMPORTANT TO ME) as well as a very long discussion re: how he handles communication (not well), autistic spectrum musings, and why he does all the shit he does the way he does that devolves into me briefly losing it about how i'm so mad about how even canon will portray kratos as an asshole Too Cool For Feelings when that couldn't be further from the truth
anyway enjoy my musings about this awkward man and why he's so awkward
~kratos feelings~
this is just a dump of various thoughts re: how i portray kratos, lmao
- usually when i Attach to a character i will eventually slam them onto the aroace scale somewhere, so: kratos is demisexual (and, demiromantic as well, t b h) and this is vastly important to me and i will never be over that one drama cd validating me with fucking (kratos voice) "anna was the only woman i ever loved"
so: kratos, useless demisexual, who only experiences sexual attraction to people he's got some kind of emotional connection with but given that the relationship between him and the other kharlan heroes leaned towards siblings most of the time, deadass went four thousand years without even getting the slightest bit horny over anyone and was like "yeah idk i guess i'm just not interested in sex" but then he met anna and after they got to know each other he was like "oh, holy shit, now i understand what yuan was talking about" ((yuan finds out and laughs for a couple centuries at kratos' expense))
- (also so it's on the table, kratos is bi, and would experience no trouble being attracted to another guy provided he could get close enough to one first)
- (also also all this to say he saw anna shirtless once and immediately 404 errored becuase for the first time in his entire life he was actually experiencing sexual attraction and didn't fucking know what to do with it)
- i........... will not go off about kratos' kinks on main but i will admit i have spent a nonzero amount of time thinking about them. short version he's the bottomest bottom to ever bottom, but i think we're all in agreement there
- kratos? neurotypical? haha no. first of all none of hte kharlan heroes are after the fucking four thousand years of ptsd, (nevermind the regular ptsd just from growing up in wartime), second of all kratos definitely wasn't before the ptsd either. autism spectrum somewhere, i don't know where exactly bc i haven't researched i've just quietly been stealing patterns of my own habits and pasting them on him. that or becoming hyperaware of my own habits becuase kratos always does the same
mostly re: communication, actually. kratos "has a thought formulated but can't get it out of his mouth fast enough for it to be relevant to the converastion" aurion. somewhere between thinking and speaking the process breaks down and he just doesn't say anything. believe me, there has been many a time where i've *wanted* to say something, where i'd had several things in mind to say, but just straight up couldn't get my mouth to say them.
kratos'll also just choose not to say anything at all, especially if speaking would trigger some kind of awkward social situation, becuase he'd rather die than be forced to deal with one of those. situations like "someone called me by the wrong name and they keep doing it but i can't bring myself to correct them." "undoing my own work would be easier than talking to my coworker about thing."-- nevermind the ordeal of having an unscripted conversation and how horrid that is on his nerves. shutting down and ducking out of converastions when they get uncomfortable isn't a valid tactic in all situations (though tbh it is in some), but i never said kratos' coping mechanisms were fully healthy. we all know they ain't.
this is where my headcanon comes in that the kharlan heroes are all fluent in sign language, which started because mithos refused to be verbal up until about six or seven, meaning he and martel learned, and then eventually passed it on to yuan and kratos. kratos gets the most use out of it because he's struck with lengthy nonverbal periods more than the rest of them imo (this is especially true in ywkon, thanks trauma) and also there are just occasions where signing it is easier than saying it, for reasons he can never quite pin down
subsequently i hold to the idea that in modern aus he's infinitely more chatty thru text than he is in person and makes anna handle phonecalls for him. he's almost two different people depending on whether or not you are having the converastion in person or over text, because text is just easier for him (he has absolutely jsut texted yuan when they are sitting right next to each other, before)
- even outside of Communicating Is Hard, kratos will also just always every time choose the easy way out of a hard situation, the easy way out being "Removing himself from the situation entirely". it's easier to not say anything. it's easier to suffer in silence than to make waves. it's easier to walk away than try and muddle through something difficult, or conversely, easier to stay exactly where you are than try and talk back, raise a complaint, break away. this..... as we all know, lands him in a lot of fucking horrible situations
but the point is like: he doesn't just do this for the big things. he does this for the little things too, Like Conversations. he has no confidence - minus like, knowing he knows his way around a sword - so he very rarely will do anything that isn't just kind of immediately be cowed when someone says somethign to him
- thhhhough, i'll admit he also gets really stubborn sometimes and will dig in his heels and refuse to back down from certain ideals / decisions he holds close to his chest. lmao. it's just usually the things he's stubbonr about are the Big Ones. he's much more likely to not complain about tomatoes in his food even though he hates them because it's not worth offending the cook or forcing them to make him another plate, but if you try and question him on a Big Thing he's decided on he'll just dig in his heels which is one part stubbornness one part refusing to acknowledge you talking to him at all about not doing the thing, because that too is easier
- also it's a wierd push and pull because he's a coward but he will also throw down if something is importnat to him and has preformed Textbook Bravery absolutely perfectly. but i suppose it would be wrong to call him a coward re: idk, battle, becuase he's not. he's a coward re: relationships, though
- spoilery, canon examples: spends four thousand years at mithos' side because getting stuck and staying put is easier than at any point saying "hm, actually this is fucked". which like. he does at some point but it takes him. nearly all of those four thousand years to work up the courage to do so!!! lmao!!!!!!!! like yes also "betraying my brother??? i can't do that???" is a factor at play here but let me tell you getting stuck in a job, career path, relationship, etc that's not quite Ideal for you becuase the effort required to leave is more than you can make yourself do (on top of "that is my brother i would be betraying and it's not easy throwing relationships away even when you're neurotypical") absolutely smacks of neurodivergent bs, i say, from experience
- example two is kratos is the man who decides that living on the planet with his son and undergoing the emotional socially awkward ordeal of figuring out how their relationship can work now / facing the consequences of his mistakes is so unbearable to him that he decides he's going to leave on fucking derris kharlan instead. and then he gets stuck in that decision, too :')
- AN ASIDE: despite everything ever, including canon material (EXTRANEOUS CANON MATERIAL IS SO BAD ABOUT THIS AND IT MAKES ME WANNA TEAR MY EYES OUT), wanting to portray him as this cool aloof dude who's Too Cool and Too Serious for Emotions, let alone Being Nice, this is false. a blatant lie. he is not cool he is the most awkward man you will ever meet he just comes off as ~cool and aloof~ becuase he never fucking talks and that's ~mysterious and alluring~. and it's not that he's Too Serious for emotions, it's not that he's cold, it's that trauma has made him really bad at doing the emotion things, especially on the intrapersonal level (WHICH HE WAS ALREADY BAD AT TO BEGIN WITH) so it's not that he's cold, it's just that he's coping with an assload of trauma and is wildly out of his element besides. so if you ever write him being mean to lloyd / refusing to be kind or open for a reason that isn't An Assload Of Trauma And Generally Just Being An Awkward Person, you're wrong. kratos isn't an asshole. he's just bad at this.
- similarly he's actually really kind and warm imo??? he gets so soft re: people he loves (provided he's not emotionally stunted bc, again, trauma) and he cares so deeply and so genuinely and will do his best to show it, if he can
- it's just that tos itself is probably the worst of kratos we ever see becuase it's after anna died, and isn't happening at a point where he's known (let himself know) lloyd long enough to even start healing / warming / opening up. he's not incapable he's just. tos isn't the time where he's good at it?? believe me the moment you put him in an AU he opens right up
- otherwise, or at least in tos, he is "i keep all my emotions right here in my chest and i bottle them up until i die", o o p s!
- also also tos is complicated becuase he has a million and one secrets to keep considering the double agent business, which doesnt help relationship building at all
- but he genuinely cares so deeply about the people he considers family and friends!!!!!!!! he would follow them to the ends of hte earth!!!!! he would move mountains for them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TOS IS JUST A REALLY BAD EXAMPLE OF THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EXCEPT NOT REALLY BECUASE HE STILL OBVIOUSLY DOES LOL IT'S JUST HE'S NOT LOUD ABOUT IT AND IT DOESN'T COME WITH SPOKEN "I LOVE YOUS" BUT HE'S DOING HIS BEST BUT HIS BEST RIGHT NOW ISN'T THAT GREAT
- all this to say emotionally cold kratoses are OUT, "too awkward to emotions properly" kratoses are IN
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