#its also a joke about how because people think all autism is the same many people dont get diagnosed. never been an issue for me personally | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

faggot-greg-house · 3 months

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house is autistic i will accept no criticism

i have so many thoughts about house and autism. this might be the most unhinged post on my tumblr yet but here we go so house had the illusion of normalcy forced on him from a young age. i dont think thats like, full canon, but house talks about how his father abused him on more than one occassion and talked about how he was never satisfied or happy with house no matter what. so i truly dont think its a far reach to say that he would not have tolerated a "weird child." the thing that i think, though, is that all of his actions are a response to the fact that he's not particularly great at masking. he's afraid if he lets people close to him he won't be able to hide the fact that he's "weird" (aka bad). he intentionally pushes people away with his weird creepy comments and being an asshole and that's both him masking (if he's aggressively mean all the time no one will bother to look further) and a way of coping with the fact that he cant mask. the more he pushes people away the less likely it is that they'll see that he cares about things and that he's not "normal" like he's always been told. i also think that as the show went on, he got less and less concerned about masking. he constantly stims, he hyperfocuses and burns out, he panics about change, he treats his fellows a lot more like family. once he got to a point in his life where his "weirdness" is not something he can be ruined for (he's tenured and he has people who will fight for him) he found himself a lot more able to be aggressively autistic, even if he struggles with it due to trauma.

a huge Autism Moment in the show for me is when foreman quits and house fires chase. house has been afraid his whole life of showing who he actually is, as mentioned. his fellows, though, are his People, they knew all of his shit and they never ran awayy from it. they didnt question who he was and what he knew, only his methods, and they were willing to fight back against him (something he's shown he loves). but then foreman quits because he "doesnt want to be like house" and this is house's worst nightmare. this is exactly why he had normalcy beaten into him, because being weird only makes it that people will run away once they know you. he dared to let people see a bit of who he actually is and how he thinks and acts and foreman essentially said "i cant stand to be like you." on top of that fear, his team became Different. he doesnt know if chase or cameron thought the same things as foreman, if they were also judging him or hating him for being autistic. it sent him into fucking panic mode because how is he supposed to trust them when he doesnt know if they agree with foreman!!!!! and even if he could, the team is Different and its for a reason he cant control and he cant just go back to normal. his method of interviewing his new fellows also shows this - how is he supposed to be able to tell if someone will be okay with who he is and if they'll work well together based off a short intervew where he's almost certainly masking the whole time???? anyway. to end this absolutely unhinged post ive put together an inconclusive list of autistic traits and actions from house, and i want to say that so much of this is him being written off as an antisocial eccentric genius and, while he is an ass that cant be debated, it clearly runs deeper than that!!!!

he doesnt understand how ppl feel (he repeatedly talks about how small talk is like a guessing game for him and he doesnt know what to say)

he doesnt like to be touched (for a lot of the show people just do Not touch him, wilson excluded)

he stims constantly and he needs Sensations

he's blunt, rude, somewhat monotone, etc

he has a hard time making friends

he has a hard time saying what he feels (he'd rather joke or be mean than analyse his emotions)

he has a routine that he Sticks To (even thgh its not exactly the same because of patients etc, he goes to work late, he talks to the same people, he sits in his same office. he's shown coming to work sick at one point and he doesnt rly go on vacation. plus when cuddy took his bloodstained carpet it was such a fundamental change to his life that he couldnt deal)

he notices Everything (yes ik this is a sherlock holmes thing but consider sherlock holmes - also autistic)

he has a method and train of thought that works for him and he is unwilling to break from it (he's shown at least once stopping the fellows from writing on his whiteboard, and after he loses the og three he continues trying to hold ddx's because its how he Thinks)

#hate crimes md #house md #gregory house #james wilson #child abuse #wrote all of this first in a discord channel so if it looks absolutely unhinged that's why #also im autistic and if you disagree with me thats ableist #autistic greg house #my thoughts

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evelhak · 1 year

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Seen so many bad jokes about autistic people's literal black & white thinking that I wanted to talk about how it might actually look like. Yeah, sure, haha it's very funny if you say you have to turn the place upside down and someone thinks you literally want to turn the house on its roof, but who would actually think that? Sure, that image would pop in my head but I wouldn't think that's what you meant. Like, most people can understand the meaning of common sayings they've heard all their lives, even if they did misunderstand them for the first few times of hearing them. So if you're trying to write an autistic character and you're not autistic, here's some examples that could be helpful.

My mom asked me to empty the dishwasher while she was at the store. Once she came back and went to the kitchen, I wanted to ask her something, don't remember what anymore, but she replied that she was admiring my work in the kitchen. To which I just laughed and continued with my initial question. At this point my mom was suddenly enraged and I didn't understand why, until it became clear that she had wanted me to both empty and fill the dishwasher, which I had not understood, and "admiring my work" was sarcasm because she thought I was just being lazy and did know what she had meant. And her rage came from the fact that she also assumed I had understood her sarcasm and chose to ignore it.

What I want a writer to take away from this is 1) there's an internal logic to my thought process and actions that is just as logical as my mom's. It's not random and once I understood where my mom was coming from there was no longer confusion. 2) I also learned from this and didn't repeat the same mistake ever again.

Once at the doctor's office I was given a list of about a 100 things that one should avoid eating if they have IBS. I took the list and went home, immediately started to follow the list for a month. Next time at the doctor's office I was asked if I had been using the list and which things I had been avoiding. I blinked in confusion. All of them of course. The doctor's eyes widened. "All of them??" I was just like... Yeah. Apparently I should have understood that I could pick and choose.

What I think is important here is that 1) autistic people aren't necessarily "rigid" as if that's negative. We tend to process things very deeply so we assume instructions are to be taken seriously. 2) Again I learned from this and remember to ask specific instructions more these days.

This happened a LOT with my girlfriend: she would say something half heartedly, like, she wanted to go to a movie, and I immediately began to arrange when we could go and when I asked her if that day was good she didn't even remember she had wanted to go to a movie anymore. Because it hadn't been a serious statement, just a thought. But I could not tell the difference between serious and non-serious wishes because the words used for them would be literally the same, and I default to seriousness.

Here I'd like to highlight how 1) this example is more complicated because this dynamic can apply to so many different situations that it's harder to not make the "same" mistake again. 2) The default assumption for me is that all of people's words have the same weight. Sure, I have learned to tell pretty well if people are joking, but when they are not exactly joking it's hard to tell the degree of seriousness.

Obviously I'm giving myself as just an example.

All in all, my point is I want writers to consider the LOGIC, the subjective reasoning behind a character's actions just like they would for any other character. You can't just copy and paste together a bunch of autistic traits with no rhyme or reason because the traits are just the outcome of an internal process. They are just the visible part. And for any individual just being autistic isn't enough of a reason to give them a specific trait you have to figure out why their specific autistic presentation is the way it is. Autism is just the label. It's not the explanation. You have to understand how the individual traits your character has, relate to each other and work together from inside out, if you actually want to create good representation.

Obviously I know this is hard. It's almost like it's difficult to think with a different brain type to your own. But that's something autistic people who are high maskers attempt everyday, and can be quite successful at too. But there are still "leaks". These examples are some of mine.

#actually autistic #writing advice #autistic characters

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cairi-fruit · 8 months

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Nadine Ross is often characterized as butch/a stud, especially when compared to Chloe in their relationship… because she’s a black, muscular dark skinned woman. Am I gonna talk about this???

I guess I chose violence today, especially since I rarely text post on here, mostly jokes and ideas when I do, but this is has been on my mind for years tbh. I know people often talk about persons trying to fit queer relationships in a heteronormative lens, making one partner seem more masc and one seem more fem, when that may be the case sometimes, but sometimes partners are also equally fem, equally masc, equally stem etc. Its also the case that black/dark skinned characters are often painted with the masc brush more.

I’m a black dark skinned sapphic. Hi. Maybe I’m projecting? (I mean I project autism onto Nadine too as an autist myself, heyo.) Personally, I don’t see much of a reason in canon to assume Nadine is butch or a stud, she’s not dressed super fem whenever we see her, but we literally only see her when she’s working. It’s in her character to dress practically while Chloe is more chill about that sort of thing. Sure she wears a pantsuit instead of a dress in Italy (uncharted 4) but she was still working and expected worse than Rafe did. Pantsuit is still practical there. She still did her make up and wore cute rings tho. I just don’t see why some people characterize her as allergic to make up, or dresses, or feminine underwear or anything of a similar sort.

Don’t take this as me having an issue with studs or more masc presenting black women, I love them I’m friends with many irl. But as a black woman I can speak to the way black and dark skinned women are often kept from femininity, that femininity is more closely tied to pale skin, “neat” (ie long flowing straight) hair, daintier fames and Eurocentric facial features which Nadine has none of, neither do I. I don’t expect the people who this post will reach to be the ones who still to this day call Nadine trans slurs even because she dares to be muscular (something I have also dealt with irl and showing my face online in the past), but I can’t help but wonder how her race affects this when those people often use racialised language as well.

Think of how women are often slut shamed for what they wear, based on their unchangeable body more than the clothing itself. A thin white woman in a camisole and shorts is comfortable, and a curvy large chested, big booty black woman in the same outfit is a thot. It’s kinda similar in that way, that a small framed white (or lighter skinned, straight haired) woman in a simple shirt and pants is just wearing basic clothes, but a black woman in the same outfit is butch. The way black women who are anything other than HYPER fem with long acrylics, wigs/weaves/braids, complex pretty dresses (which are ALL lovely don’t get it twisted) are immediately coined a masc is just… weird to me. It’s like we have to put more effort into proving we are women and can be feminine too.

If you ask me Chloe and Nadine come across equally stem, I don’t see either of them more or less likely to engage in traditional femininity than the other. Even simple things like the fact that many people write/draw Nadine as taller than Chloe, when being taller is associated with masculinity when Chloe is canonically 5’8 and Nadine is only 5’5. So I begin to wonder why no one portrays Chloe as possibly being more masc in turn. Or even Elena, who we only see look pretty “fem” or whatever, opposed to practical, in her wedding photos.

TLDR: Ask yourself why you might picture Nadine as being more masc than Chloe. Is it just a fun headcanon? Is it seeing yourself in her character? Is there reason you believe that cause of things she actually says and does in Uncharted? Or if it was reversed, that Chloe, or he’ll even a white woman acted the same way as Nadine, dressed the same way as Nadine, would you still assume that she was butch? Or does her hair, build and skin tone add to why she comes across more masculine, because this is a thing many black women, especially sapphics, who don’t present as hyperfem have to deal with irl, myself included. We are often perceived as more masculine, trying/wanting to be men, being called trans slurs or being seen as too masculine in our bodies to be AFAB/being “transvestigated” (which people do do to Nadine), all these things that try to keep us at an arms length from womanhood and femininity. So keep those things in mind when you portray a character (particularly in transformative work, your own OC is a little different).

#why did I choose violence today idk #I don’t like talking about these things especially not on tumblr cause it stresses me out #but like I said it’s been burning in the back of my mind for years #I will say it seems to have mostly chilled out in the fandom so thanks #that might also be because it is dead tho #chloe frazer #nadine ross #uncharted #chlodine #uncharted the lost legacy #chloe x nadine #fandom and race #I guess #hopefully I don’t get eaten alive for this #also no terfism y’all are nazis #Pls don't eat me up for this yall I don't usually open my mouth am scurred

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billboard-hotties-tourney · 2 months

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I just wanted to reassure people about the stress around moral superiority around autism, cos it seemed like some people were feeling genuinely bad

the only propaganda that was submitted in the OP for that individual was literally the word autism so i think ppl prolly felt like they were playing into a joke that op made?

like, obvi the submission for the other person was more passionate and included more details - and this is out of your hands as the person who's taking submissions, putting them in a randomizer and doing hard work compiling, tracking and posting everything - but the contrast between the two becomes funny

referring to this individual as a funky autistic man is a pretty common meme in the autism and new wave communities (and the considerable ven diagram overlap therein), and it's likely the submission was made by an autistic person - but at the same time part of what makes that individual attractive is the way he's so unapologetically himself, and the way that manifests is in how he dances, moves, talks and sings - in a way that people call weird but in a way that a lot of autistic people have done in the privacy of our own spaces - even been shamed for if we do it publically. some of the ways he sings is really reminiscent of a lot of vocal stimming for a lot of folks, for example, and his more jittery movements are very relatable so the autism is both a bit of a meme, but also a way that we feel seen - and that individual being (almost certainly) autistic and mainsteam people knowing about it and valuing him and finding him attractive and talented is a source of pride/hope in a lot of ways. There's many musicians, especially in alternate scenes like postpunk/new wave who seem pretty autistic to a practiced eye, but this individual has actually discussed the way he relates to that experience. i understand how, without that context, one could be genuinely worried that people believed that if you didn't vote for him you're abelist - but i really think that it's more of a lack of communication/understanding about how this is joked about in the relevant community, if that makes sense like, no-ones genuinally tracking down who voted for what and taking u to task for it. it's fundamentally a contest about who's hotter, and for some people this particular individual being [likely] autistic is relevant and makes him hotter - in the same way one might find an individual hotter if you enjoy or relate to their music, even if the person they're versed up against is objectively more attractive (if attraction can even be measured objectively, free of social practices/norms!) - and the fact that the only piece of propaganda was the word autism means that if you don't vote for him it must be because you hate the only thing that was mentioned about him is funny because it's so ott, but also cathartic for autistic people to joke about because so many of us have experienced hatred due to having autism. it's nice for that to be something funny and relevant in a real but also absurdist sort of way its very liberating, honestly, for an autistic person to be considered hot (being so often infantilised), so its this sense of pride in it too i guess - it can be okay to move in the world in a way that doesnt hurt and isnt tiring and brings you joy, and not only okay and normal but even desirable i hope this makes sense, i just wanted to reassure people that no-ones actually making a moral judgement, it is a meme but there's also something serious there too and it just seems like a joke that's not translating between communities i appreciate all the work that you've put into this tourney!!!! it's been very fun and i'm excited to keep on voting!

I was so worried when I saw such a long ask, but honestly, very well-put. Glad you're excited to participate!

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whenthechickencry · 4 months

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Umineko EP4. Replay Part 1

Certainly not her genes, Kryie, also Rudolf sees through Kyrie in that even when she's talking friendly about Asumu she's burning with jealousy. Certainly was never a healthy dynamic in any case.

The talk of miracles here is so interesting and I will probably talk about it in more detail later. Rika's belief in a miracle is what allowed her to break through her dead-end fate. Ange's belief in a miracle is what is slowly destroying her life. I don't think either framing is entirely right or wrong, and unlike others, I don't see Umineko as a sort of response/rebuttal to Higurashi as much as something that expands on its themes, but still... it's really interesting to think about.

You can tell that R07 has been in kind of damage control mode for Beatrice since the end of ep3 lol. He really needs to hammer it isn't as black and white as you might think and she isn't just an evil monster who tricked Battler for fun.

This is a really funny scene too, by the way.

Battler's is, as Beato says, in a lot better state than last time shit like this happened. I think he got the general gist that Beato wasn't acting 100% and that there is more to what is going on than meets the eye.

Ange's right. Battler is starting to try and seriously understand Beatrice's heart but that's opposed to Ange's purposes, which are for him to completely trample on her heart as soon as possible so she can get Battler back.

You can tell Ane's view of others is really warped by now, it's basically a less over-the-top version of Erika. Sure if you never trust anyone you will never get tricked but you will never build genuine relations either...

This is in complete opposition to how Satoko entered the school in GouSotsu, so I guess the schools work differently across... universes or whatever it is you would call this.

Well... considering the events of this chapter where she continuously gets attempted to get murdered by her family I can't really blame her for strongarming Ange's family....

The game is pretty clear the abuse didn't take long to start.... it's easy to take a more sympathetic reading of Eva later but it is clear she bears responsibility for attempting to take care of a child she was in no way emotionally capable of doing at the time.

Ha.... the way Maria got mocked at her school but she didn't get it and saw it as genuine praise really makes me think she has autism... I remember at school laughing along at jokes I didn't get until I finally got that the joke was disparaging me. The game doesn't show this as an entirely negative thing, though... after all she is able to create 1s from 0s. Also, I am not disparaging Ange in any way but it shows the level of her isolation that the closest image to best friend she can conjure in her head is the girl she hung out with once a year on a family conference.

I have never heard of enchilada cheesecakes before and now I want to try them out.

....uh huh Rosa....

It's no surprise Ange latched on to the diary.... she does the same magic Maria does towards Rosa to Rudolf. "He sometimes came home at my birthday so he loved me a lot" aka he couldn't be bothered to even be at my birthday usually.

Haha.... this scene is so sad to read.... Rosa is constantly embarrassed of Maria even in his idealized version of the scene.

Huh... I wonder if this kind of bullying is common for autistic children? This is exactly word for word what was done to me in school.

This is also a common thing for abused people to think, I used to think I had to stay in abusive relationships because if I didn't someone else would get abused. I am sometimes kind of in awe about how R07 can accurately represent many kinds of situations.

It's not really sustainable in the long term for Maria, though. She can pretend she isn't sad and that she's fine all she wants but in the end, she chose the Golden Land over living. You can't exactly blame Maria for her thinking like this, though, she's just a 9-year-old making the best of an awful situation.

In other words, "I am glad I can neglect my daughter now that she has a stuffed toy I bought at a supermarket to keep her company instead of me"

Rosa, you set way too many fucking rules for someone that can't even be bothered to get home.

Maria knows perfectly that her mom considers her an embarrassment, huh.....

Man, Ange is so fucking depressed.... almost every line she says has a hint of extreme sadness behind it....

He uh.... didn't ask that Maria.... you can really tell she's extremely lonely.

Okonogi shows up and immediately wants Ange to do something that would kill her, lmfao.

Okonogi hits the mark right on the head but mixes up "Yasu" and "Eva" which is pretty interesting!

Of course, the one who actually had that ring was Yasu and not Kinzo at the time, so Okonogi's theory came from false assumptions.

I had.... completely forgotten that Okonogi of all people was the one to introduce the concept that without love, it can't be seen... haha I was very shocked here. Okonogi is also pretty much 100% right here, esp wrt Ange being unequipped to find the truth as she is.

An impressive resume would be a shame if you would get beaten and tortured by a nine-year-old girl.

Ange's already making hints about the fact it's really a suicide plan more than anything, Beatrice and Ange parallels are bigger later on but the fact they both had elaborate suicide plans with Rokkenjima is interesting to me...

#umineko #umiepisode4

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cadaverkeys · 2 years

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you getting the gay vampires response reminds me I too got a rant about it in my replies. I just blocked the person. My post was half joking (sort of) that 19th century vampire novels were pretty gay and in that therefore vampires in general are officially (more of the joke part but I stand by it because I will) not straigh. And then someone got mad asking if I read about any vampiric folklore, books, or anything about the history of vampires and that “most of us take it seriously”.

As I said I blocked them, but also anyways I did a shit ton of research and stuff into vampires and their folklore including before the modern concept and all over the world because they were my special interest (autism) since I was a kid. And I read the book already. Also Carmilla being a book that exists.

The Dracula Daily thing seems to now be getting some weird people coming out of the woodworks to get mad at people

Absolutely...I believe that vampires are culturally linked to many things. They are a vessel of villiany in that, by their nature, they must hurt people to survive. Vampires are also an ancient myth with many different faces. A vampire can be an animal with three tongues and one eye but it might also be a human with straight teeth and a pleasant disposition. The defining factor of the vampire is not its face or its character- it's the violent acts that it must do to survive, drinking blood especially.

In that way. If you are anyone with a deep interest in vampirism I feel that you must be acquainted with vampires as the depiction of bigotry. I feel the book by Bram Stoker is intentionally homophobic, anti-orientalist, and white supremacist. The plot is LITERALLY "the foreign other terrorises us because he is predisposed to hatred and conquest" and I feel that trying to go all "death of author" on this is...stupid. It's purposefully ignorant, even. Critical media analysis doesn't end when you get uncomfortable!

I originally responded thinking that the user was sincerely mislead on their interpretation of my post and I tried to be gentle in my redirection. But at the end of the day they're arguing apples when I'm arguing pears. The original post is ALL about author intent and their response is trying to invalidate that by arguing death of the author above all else. We just aren't arguing about the same things at the end of the day...

They made note to say about how I'm in a grump about this- that this prevents me from enjoying Dracula as a literary work. Fact is, I LOVE Dracula. I love vampires!! Part of my enjoyment of them is ALSO analysing their position in politics. Theres no way to separate the two, imo.

#ram asks #anon #long post #long reads #dracula #i understand that im preaching to the choir a bit here- im sure many of you can tell the flaws in that person's counter argument #regardless i do genuinely want to highlight my stance abt this...#vampires arent just homophobia... they're white supremacy and classism and antisemitism #in order to become a culturally iconic monster you normally are associated with bigotry of some degree #it doesnt stop these things from being cool or interesting- you should remain open to analysis as part of your interest! ^^

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empyreasheart · 5 months

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I RETURN WITH MORE QUESTIONS. and one topic on my mind. xion xion xion xion xion xion XION shes so interesting and your hcs are always so good do you have any about her or the sea salt trio in general. i miss them so much (also i know you have work to do sorry if this is a distraction from it!! feel free to leave this ask for later)

IM FREEE WHICH MEANSSS I CAN TALK ABOUT MY DEAR DEAR XION!!!! no joke i have been thinking about her all day.

first off i LOVEEE xion so much. whenever i see her get attention and love im so happy. when i see her i have a habit of going "XIONNNN" super loudly.

im putting this under a read more cuz its gotten super long oops

my xion headcanons... well first of all i love every reading of her character as a trans allegory & how people intepret her as either trans or nonbinary! i dont think it was done on purpose but shes been claimed by the commjnity and im so happy about it. transfem xion my beloved. second of all shes autistic TO ME but honestly everyone in soras heart hotel is so thats a given. third of all give me xion with big dark brown eyes or give me death!

what id like to see explored in future games / i fanwork: her identity! we see roxas's frustration and anger about being his own person plenty but we hardly see xion upset at her predicament. i think this is because she wants to do the right thing, not because shes okay with the situation. i really want to see xion's feelings about not having her own identity explored, given that everything about her is based on either sora or his memories of kairi and she was basically created in a lab as a tool for organization 13. she should feel weird about existing in the first place, especially next to roxas and naminé, who dont have the same history behind their creation

in addendum to that, i want to see xions character design change to something more unique. she already has a new outfit, but id love to see her have a new hairstyle (whether she grows it out or just puts it up) so she has something different than a mirror of kh1 kairi's hair. i think ive also mentioned that i think itd be interesting if xion had her own eye color after kh3 (side note its bullshit we never got to see her norted eyes in kh3. she shouldve played a bigger role in the story too but thats another rant) to symbolize that shes her own person now, not a puppet meant to copy sora. lastly she !!! deserves !!! her own keyblade!!! there's so many cool keyblades from days to choose from & theres the weapons from her boss fight - theres no reason for her to still be using the kingdom key and i really hope she gets her own soon.

i keep thinking about what you said about xion not being another "nice" girl character and im like... so true. i dont think xion would be mean i want to go about it in a way that doesnt completely rewrite her character but i think exploring how she copes with her past w/ both organizations & her identity & trauma would be interesting, especially with how it parallels to naminé's own way of coping and dealing with her own trauma. theyre like Shy vs introverted to me lmfao i think xion tries to be friendly but overall she prefers to stay close to the people she feels safe around. i want to see xion be rude but in the autism way where she doesnt mean it shes just not aware. and stuff like that i guess. this paragraph was just word vomit my bad

THE SEA SALT TRIO... theyre seriously the family of all time i love them so much. ill just focus on xion here because this is already super long. BUT AXEL LOVES XION SO MUCH IT MAKES ME SICK THEYRE NOT TALKED ABOUT ENOUGH.. the implication that lea subconsciously keeps his coat on in kh3 so xion (and roxas) can recognize him makes me so emotional. also the fact that lea just clicks with kairi because she also holds a part of xion inside her... AND WHEN HE BUYS HER AN ICE CREAM AND HE DOESNT EVEN REMEMBER WHY HES BUYING THREE. UGH. i love them so much. theyre definitely one of those duos found in the trios that dont get much attention which just draws me towards them more (like riku and kairi). i think lea is absolutely riddled with guilt about the events of days so he never lets xion forget that shes loved. i think xion is touch-averse *except* when it comes to roxas and lea because she feels safest around them.❤️

to end i will discuss roxas and xion . they are like a little orange cat and a little black cat to me. halloween colored. theyre so small i love them so much. i imagine when xion first meets the twilight town gang shes jealous bc roxas has other friends :( but roxas assures her shes super duper special to him and no one else can take her place in his life. they have such a unique bond that i dont know if any of the other characters have with each other. just something so special about those two. when it feels like no one else understands they have each other... and i think that makes for some angst when xion struggles with her own issues that even roxas cant relate to

#ask #THANK U FOR THIS IM SO GLAD TO INFODUMP . I TYPED SO MUCH IM SORRU I LOVE HER SO MUCH AND I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS

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raylex · 1 year

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💫 RAYMAN GO!!!

RAYMANRAYMANRAYMAN (DOES A LITTLE DANCE)

THANK Y'ALL FOR THE ASKS! hope both of your weekends are going good!!! NOW. RAYMAN. let me take you on a JOURNEY through the years, powered by my autism.

let's start off by asking ourselves a question like we're french philosophers. who is rayman?

rayman is the creation of a man named michel ancel. ancel had always loved videogames, and he had spent much of his life doodling little characters and coming up with ideas for them. around 1992, ancel created his favourite character: rayman!

rayman ended up being left with no arms or legs in order to be easier to animate due to, y'know, several technical limitations at the time. this ended up being a fantastic decision, because not only was it unique and creative, but it opened up for so many more possibilities than normal in regards to his moveset! ah, but i'm getting ahead of myself.

around that same time, development began on a game starring ancel's new character. at first it was planned to be released on the super nintendo, but this was scrapped and it got reworked into an atari jaguar game instead. and such, in 1995, the world was introduced to our platforming limbless wonder ❤

following the release of the first rayman game, it was quickly realized how much potential this series had for its future. tons of edutainment games were created, the game got ported to a whole bunch of different platforms, and eventually, a sequel was developed for the n64 and pc in 1999. i present to you, rayman 2: the great escape!

i would insert a joke here about "Rayman had a rough transition into 3d" but that couldn't be further from the truth. rayman's transition into 3d got nothing but praise! this game has been included in multiple lists for the greatest games of all time. suffice to say, this is a common favourite among rayman fans, and for good reason!

a fun fact about this game is that it has been ported to basically every console imaginable. it's like the doom of platforming. you could probably play rayman 2 on your calculator. rayman 2 microwave speedrun when?

anyways, during this time, a tv show was also in production! it unfortunately only got four episodes in before it was cancelled, but it's still great fun. billy west voices rayman, it's hilarious, i recommend giving it a watch. it sort of follows the scrapped plot that the original rayman 2 had.

before we get to my BELOVED rayman 3, i want to point out one port of rayman 2 in particular that's interesting: rayman revolution, released in 2000!

rayman revolution is the ps2 port of rayman 2, and let me tell you, it's got, like, hours worth of more content than the original game did. it SLAPS. in my opinion, it's my favourite version of rayman 2, but some people feel it's a bit over-bloated with all the new added content. i think it's awesome though. it's got an openworld hub world and everything!

anyways, moving on from rayman 2, we get to my FAVOURITE game in the entire franchise. i love this game so much, i could gush about it for HOURS. RAYMAN 3: HOODLUM HAVOC.

I LOVE RAYMAN 3 SO MUCH, Y'ALL. IT'S INSANE. i literally have practically the entire game memorized in my head.

so for this game, michel ancel actually wasn't directly involved with a lot of it. he did, however, help out with a new redesign of our titular main character! this was 2003, everything had to have that early 2000's edge, and rayman was no exception. so he donned a hoodie, got some sick new kicks, and got a fresh sharp new haircut. and he looks SO GOOD Y'ALL but i'm not going to go into how handsome i think he is because i'm gay enough already. BUT SERIOUSLY, COME ON, JUST LOOK AT HIM, HE'S SO BADASS.

MY LOVE ❤❤❤❤❤

although rayman 3 didn't do as well as rayman 2 did, it wasn't considered a BAD game or anything (i will fight anyone who thinks this is a bad game 😤😤😤), and so the franchise continued... and we got, uh. rayman raving rabbids, in 2006.

i'm using an older ps2 cover here purely because i think it looks cooler but the game was primarily developed with the wii in mind seeing as it ended up being a party game. initially, it was developed as rayman 4, and it was supposed to be a platformer like the others (i could rant about the scrapped prototype for a WHILE) but they tossed that concept aside because they wanted to incorporate the wii playstyle into it.

i am not a huge fan of the rabbids. they're like the minions before the minions existed. i actually didn't even know they were in the same franchise as rayman until i got into the rayman franchise, because they ended up branching off and ubisoft favoured rabbids games over rayman... so he sort of got abandoned for a while. in the period between 2006 to 2011 we got some rabbids games. i'm not going to go over them because 100% honestly i do not care for them a whole lot HAHA.

well, 2011 rolls around, and our boy rayman is back in the spotlight with RAYMAN ORIGINS!

despite its title, it's a direct sequel to rayman 3, not a prequel (though it was originally supposed to be, and it was gonna detail rayman's past and how he grew into the hero that he was, but that idea was put aside last minute).

rayman's returned to his 2d platformer roots and he's here to just go through goofy shenanigans and kick some ass and i can respect that!

in 2013, we got a sequel to rayman origins, rayman legends! another great game. i played this one with two of my friends and i had so much fun.

both really good games!

anyways for the next near-decade we just got a bunch of mobile runner games that recycled origins and legends assets. they're fine, nothing noteworthy.

nowadays, ubisoft hasn't paid much mind to rayman anymore, despite him being the mascot that got them where they are today, and they still seem to favour the rabbids, considering that they got in a game with MARIO before rayman did. but it seems like ubisoft hasn't completely forgotten about their old friend... :D

let me tell you. 2023 cannot come fast enough.

#sorry for the essay y'all i just love rayman an ungodly amount and will take any and every opportunity to infodump #ask games #frozenhi-chews #anon #💜☀️ray of sunshine☀️💜

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emilydb7 · 1 year

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Intro To Me :)

Hello Beautiful Humans! :))

My name is Emily, (Em for short) and online I go by Em The Grem. Its a little inside joke my boyfriend and I came up with as a cute little nickname. Its short from Em The Gremlin cause that's what my boyfriend calls me but Em The Grem rhymes. Anyways; I use all pronouns but my preferred pronouns, unless otherwise specified, are they/them. I'm genderfluid/nonbinary. Im autistic and my special interests are The Hunger Games, other dystopian media like The Maze Runner and The 100, and Psychology.

I'm 19 and just recently discovered my neurodivergence. At the moment I am self diagnosed and working on getting a professional diagnosis but as most people know it is a very long and tedious process. Im currently on a list just to be put on another list. It's very frustrating but thankfully within this community self diagnosis is widely accepted and in some cases encouraged depending on your circumstances.

I created this blog mostly because I was listening to a book called Different Not Less by Chloe Hayden on audible and she explains how when she was a teenager she created a blog to share her thoughts and feelings about her autism diagnosis and find community with more people like her. I don't have many people in my life that can completely understand what I am going through and I thought having a blog like her to share my thoughts and feelings as well as meet new neurodivergent people would be a stupendous idea! I'm very excited to be starting this blog especially because Tumblr has a special place in my heart.

When I was a little undiagnosed teenager not knowing why they were so different from everyone else the Internet, like many others, was my escape from the real world of bullies and unspoken rules. I became so enamored with youtuber's like Dan and Phil and JackSpepticEye who had very large followings and a very large fan base specifically on this platform. I spent hours on my old account looking though pictures, fan edits, wallpapers, fan fictions, and anything to distract myself from the doom and gloom that was my life outside of the internet. Looking back it was so obvious I was a little neurodivergent child who needed support but didn't know where to look for it. Thankfully, this website was here. it was also on this website my best friend and I saw an inappropriate adult video for the first time but that's a story for another day lol. What I'm getting at is this website brings back so many memories of my teenage years (even though technically I still am a teenager lol) and I don't think there would be a better place to create a blog about discovering myself again than this debatably amazing website.

Sorry that was filled with rambles and I'm sure after posting this I'm going to read it back and wish I had revised some parts of it but I'm just so excited to start this journey that I'm writing quickly and posting at the same speed lol.

I hope you enjoy coming along with me as I post about myself, my autism, my special interests, and my complicated feelings. if you've made it this far please give me a follow and if you have any questions, comments, or just wanna chat my dms are always open :))

Thank you for reading!!!

-Em The Grem (they/them)

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transmalewife · 2 years

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"but also that’s what you get when a show plays queerness for a joke all season for every character except the main two" Can I ask why you feel that Lucius/Pete and Jim/Olu were played for a joke? YMMV but I just watched a panel with Lucius and Izzy's actors (the former is openly gay, the latter has done a ton of gay roles) and they talked about how much they love that queer sexuality is never a joke on the show despite it being a comedy.

If i had tuned in randomly to an episode of the show without the context I got from tumblr and saw lucius on screen i would have been convinced I am watching an actively homophobic caricature of an effeminate gay man from an edgy tv show from the 90s. How many times does the show pause and wait for the audience to laugh after he does something especially limp wristed?

Now, of course it's more complicated than that. Gay men who act like that undeniably exist, the stereotypes didn't come from nowhere. But imo the show felt a touch too comfortable playing them up., considering the decades of media that did the same thing with actively negative intentions. The problem with writing a world where homophobia doesn't exist is that you never get to adress homophobia. No one makes fun of Lucius for being like that within the text, but no one defends it either. He's accepted for who he is, sure, but he's accepted by his crew of inept weirdos.

I felt uncomfortable more than a few times when watching. And of course that's just my personal reaction. But it doesn't come from nowhere. That's exactly the way the media and social norms I grew up with portrayed gay men to dehumanize and mock them. we do unfortunately live in a society. More thought needs to go into gay characters than 'some are limp wristed, some love dressing up and the rest are just plain stupid, with the exception of the black and nb character who are played dead serious because the writers won't dare touch them with a ten foot pole.'

"Can I ask why you feel that Lucius/Pete and Jim/Olu were played for a joke?" I never said that. The ask is reffering to this post, in which i said the queerness was played for a joke, not their relationships. I did exagerate a touch, I do think jim and omu were treated respectfully by the plot and jim especially sets a revolutionary new standard for nb rep.

However. As we all know, just because a character doesn't say "I am a homosexual" doesn't mean they are not gay. And what I especially meant in those tags is how the show uses queer coding (and autism/mental disability coding but thats a discussion for another day) in the background characters and yes, consistently plays it for a joke. Or rather frames it in a way that a homophobe (or a clueless straight person) would just see another gay caricature to laugh at in the comfort of their unchallenged stereotypes (until and unless they stick through to the end), and looking through the notes on that post and the obliviousness of the straight people described in them only proves my point.

I STILL THINK IT IS A GOOD SHOW. A NET GAIN IN TERMS OF QUEER REP. SOMETHING TO BE ENCOURAGED AND EMULATED DESPITE ITS MISTAKES. PROGRESS ISN'T LINEAR. TWO STEPS FORWARD ONE STEP BACK IS STILL BETTER THAN NOTHING. CRITICISM IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF CONSUMING MEDIA, EVEN GOOD MEDIA, AND IT DOESN'T MEAN I THINK ITS BAD AND NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED. THE FACT IT CAN EVEN EXIST SHOWS HOW FAR QUEER RIGHTS HAVE COME IN THE LAST DECADE. THE FACT YOU AND PLENTY OF OTHER QUEER VIEWERS DON'T HAVE THE SAME KNEEJERK REACTION AS ME IS A GOOD THING AND A SIGN THINGS ARE GETTING BETTER IN OUR WORLD

#putting that disclaimer on there because the way queer media is criticized in fandom makes me want to rip my skin off #also someone playing queer characters doesn't make them an authority on gay rights come on #tldr is 'more than once watching the show I felt like wait I'm supposed to laugh at something that homophobes irl have used against me?#and the result was i just didn't laugh at all a lot of the time which is not great for a comedy #mine.#ask #anon

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gragooshka · 6 months

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rant/get to know me

maybe this is the delusion talking ( and its only delusion if i wanna claim and call it that) but i have so many good things to talk about. and i've been building a pretty good platform for the past two (?) ish years. but i'm only at 5k. the main videos that have gone viral in the past are the ones where i'm joking around or dancing, that do really good. the "odd" one were i talk about autism and how genetically we still carry those fears from the constant subjection to being in survival mode in the conditions we were in. from running away when we laugh because cracka masta did not like it when we did anything other than work and pick varying crops. to the way black autizzies mask our stimming or otherness to be under the radar of violence. of course not all of us had that privilege to do so as autism is a spectrum and no two autisics are the same.

my "new" dilemma is how i want to reach more people with my messages. maybe i come off to agressive/abrasive or i just curse too much (or i could just be really fucking annoying that's why my video's don't get pushed) . but i want to make myself more palatable for the tiktok algorithim but, that's the thing. making myself palatable just to get more views seem ingenuious to me, beacuse at the end of the day that will be a character of myself and just the idea of that has always been upsetting to me, hence why i haven't gone down that path yet. and maybe tiktok isn't the place for me. its no secret that tiktok has been supressing and even pushing black publishers videos so they are on white supremacists pages . so ig this will be an introduction. my name is chikondi chisomo avero. i'm 20 and have been consistanly posting on tiktok since 2021 offically. i am not perfect as no one is, and i will always try to be self accountable even if i'm not happy about it. i consisder myself spiritual and think no one religion should be "supreme" over any others, for all come from the higher source that we all come from.

governments should be dismantled and esp the ones that have been set in place by one who could not care less if the people of this world were to die tommorow. my mission is to tell people that you don't have to care what other people think, do, or say unless if effects the collective at large.

black people can be racist and even white supremist beacsue anybody irregardless or race can enforce white supremacy.

homophobia in religion is about othering. "oh i don't like men, so you lusting after men is wronf a disgusting" that is THE stupidest shit i have ever heard in my goddamn life.

women need to be in more postions of power but beacuse patriarchy/misogynism being rooted in white supremacy, women are gonna have to fight harder. and to do that we need to do more community widde efforts that are women/queer based- covens if may.

the government is using seriously ancient spiritual means to secure he places that they get to when also using mass forces of violence. ie: the cia's various experiements and projects

i think those are all my controversial opinions that tt doesn't like me for idk.

#black spirituality #liberation at any cost #get to know me #i hope at lest one person reads this 😳#anti capitalism #bring back the early 700s

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tarobytez · 3 years

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disability in the Six Of Crows Duology; an analysis of Kaz Brekker, Wylan Van Eck, and the fandom’s treatment of them.

****Note: I originally wrote this for a tiktok series, which im still going to do, but i wanted to post here as well bc tumblr is major contributor to what im going to talk about

CW: ableism, filicide, abuse

In the Six of Crows duology, Leigh Bardugo delicately subverts and melds harmful disability tropes into her narrative, unpacking them in a way that I, as a disabled person, found immensely refreshing and…. just brilliant.

But what did you all do with that? Well, you fucked it up. Instead of critically looking at the characters, y’all just chose to be ableist.

For the next few videos paragraphs im going to unpack disability theory (largely the stuff surrounding media, for obvious reasons) and how it relates to Six Of Crows and the characterization of Kaz Brekker and Wylan Van Eck, then how, despite their brilliant writing, y’all completely overlooked the actual text and continuously revert them to ableist cariactures.

Disclaimer: 1. Shocker - i am disabled. I have also extensively researched disability theory and am very active in the disabled community. Basically, I know my shit. 2. im going to be mad in these videos this analysis. Because the way y’all have been acting has been going on for a long ass time and im fuckin sick of it. I don’t give a shit about non-disabled feelings, die mad

Firstly, I’m going to discuss Kaz, his play on the stereotypical “mean cripple” trope and how Bardugo subverts it, his cane, and disabled rage. Then, I am going to discuss Wylan, the “inspiration porn” stereotype, caregivers / parents, and the social model of disability. Finally, I will then explain the problems in the fandom from my perspective as a disabled person, largely when it comes to wylan, bc yall cant leave that boy tf alone.

Kaz Brekker

Think of a character who uses a cane (obviously not Kaz). Now, are they evil, dubiously moral, or just an asshole in general? Because nearly example I can think of is: whether it be Lots’O from Toy Story, Lucius Malfoy, or even Scrooge and Mr.Gold from Once Upon A Time all have canes (the last two even having their canes appear less and less as they become better people)

The mean/evil cripple trope is far more common than you would think. Villains with different bodies are confined to the role of “evil”. To quote TV Tropes, who I think did a brilliant job on explaining it “The first is rooted in eugenics-based ideas linking disability or other physical deformities with a "natural" predisposition towards madness, criminality, vice, etc. The Rule of Symbolism is often at work here, since a "crippled" body can be used to represent a "crippled" soul — and indeed, a disabled villain is usually put in contrast to a morally upright and physically "perfect" hero. Whether consciously on the part of the writer or not, this can reinforce cultural ideas of disability making a person inherently inferior or negative, much in the same way the Sissy Villain or Depraved Homosexual trope associate sexual and gender nonconformity with evil. ”

Our introduction to Kaz affirms this notion of him being bad or morally bankrupt, with “Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason”, etc. This mythologized version of himself, the “bastard of the barrel” actively fed into this misconception. But, as we the audience are privy to his inner thoughts, know that he is just a teenager like every other Crow. He is complex, his disability isn’t this tragic backstory, he just fell off a roof. It’s not his main motivation, nor does he curse revenge for making him a cripple - it is just another part of who he is.

His cane (though the shows version fills me with rage but-) is an extension of Kaz - he fights with it, but it has a purpose. Another common thing in media is for canes to be simply accessories, but while Kaz’ cane is fashionable, it has purpose.

The quote “There was no part of him that was not broken, that had not healed wrong and there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken.” is so fucking powerful. Kaz does not want nor need a cure - its said in Crooked Kingdom that his leg could most likely be healed, but he chooses not to. Abled-bodied people tend to dismiss this thought as Kaz being stubborn but it shows a reality of acceptance of his disability that is just, so refreshing.

In chapter 22 of SOC, we see disabled rage done right - when he is called a cripple by the Fjerdan inmate, Kaz is pissed - the important detail being that he is pissed at the Fjerdan, at society for ableism, not blaming it on being disabled or wishing he could be normal. He takes action, dislocating the asshole’s shoulder and proving to him, and to a lesser extent, himself, that he is just as capable as anyone else, not in spite of, but because he is disabled. And that is the point of Kaz, harking back to the line that “there was no part of him that was not stronger for having been broken”.

I cried on numerous occasions while reading the SOC duology, but the parts I highlighted in this section especially so. I, as many other disabled people do, have had a long and tumultuous relationship with our disability/es, and for many still struggle. But Kaz Brekker gave me an empowered disabled character who accepts themselves, and that means the world to me.

Keeping that in mind, I hope you can understand why it hurts so much to disabled people when you either erase Kaz’s disability (whether through cosplay or fanfiction), or portray him as a “broken boy uwu”, especially implying that he would want a cure. That flies in the face of canon and is inherently fucking ableist. (if u think im mad wait until the next section)

Next, we have Wylan.

Oh fucking boy.

I love Wylan so fucking much, and y’all just do not seem to understand his character? Like at all? Since this is disability-centric, I’m not going to discuss how the intersection of his queerness also contributes to these issues, but trust me when I say it’s a contributing factor to what i'm going to say.

Wylan, motherfucking Van Eck. If you ableist pricks don’t take ur fucking hands off him right now im going to fight you. I see Wylan as a subversion another, and in my opinion more insidious stereotype pf disabled people - inspiration porn.

Cara Liebowitz in a 2015 article on the blog The Body Is Not An Apology explains in greater detail how inspiration porn is impactful in real life, but media is a major contributing factor to this reality. The technical definition is “the portrayal of people with disabilities as inspirational solely or in part on the basis of their disability” - but that does not cover it fully.

Inspiration porn does lasting damage on the disabled community as it implies that disability is a negative that you need to “overcome” or “triumph” instead of something one can feel proud of. It exploits disabled people for the development of non-disabled people, and in media often the white male protagonist. Framing disability as inherently negative perpetuates ideals of eugenics and cures - see Autism $peaks’ “I Am Autism” ad. Inspiration porn is also incredibly patronizing as it implies that we cannot take care of ourselves, or do things like non-disabled people do. Because i stg some of you tend to think that we just sit around all day wishing we weren’t disabled.

Another important theory ideal that is necessary when thinking about Wylan is the experience of feeling like a burden simply for needing help or accommodations. This is especially true when it comes to familial relationships, and internalized ableism.

The rhetoric that Wylan’s father drilled into his head, that he is “defective”, “a mistake”, and “needs to be corrected”, that he (Jan) was “cursed with a moron for a child” is a long held belief that disabled people hear relentlessly. And while many see Van Eck’s attempted murder of Wylan as “preposturous” and overall something that you would never think happens today - filicide (a parent murdering their child) is more common than you would like to believe. Without even mentioning the countless and often unreported deaths of disabled people due to lack of / insufficient / neglectful medical care, in a study on children who died from the result of household abuse, 40 of 42 of them (95%) were diagnosed with disabilities. Van Eck is not some caricature of ableist ideals - he is a real reflection on how many people and family members view disability.

Circling back to how Wylan unpacks the inspiration porn trope - he is 3 dimensional, he is not only used to develop the other characters, he is just *chefs kiss* Leigh, imo, put so much love and care into the creation of Wylan and his story and character growth that is representative of a larger feeling in the disabled community.

That being said, what you non-disabled motherfuckers have done to him.

The “haha Wylan can’t read” jokes aren’t and were not funny. Y’all literally boiled down everything Wylan is to him being dyslexic. And it’s like,,,, the only thing you can say about him. You ignore every other part of him other than his disability, and then mock him for it. There’s so much you can say about Wylan - simping for Jesper, being band kid and playing the fuckin flute, literally anything else. But no, you just chose to mock his disability, excellent fucking job!

Next up on “ableds stfu” - infantilization! y’all are so fucking condescending to Wylan, and treat him like a fucking toddler. And while partly it is due to his sexuality i think a larger portion is him being disabled. Its in the same vein of people who think that Wylan and Jesper are romantically one sided, and that Jesper only kind of liked Wylan, despite the canon evidence of him loving Wylan just as much. You all view him as a “smol bean”, who needs protecting, and care, when Wylan is the opposite of that. He is a fucking demolitions expert who suggested waking up sleeping men to kill them - what about that says “uwu”. You are treating Wylan as a burden to Jesper and the other Crows when he is an immensely valuable, fully autonomous disabled person - you all just view him as damaged.

And before I get a comment saying that “uhhh Wylan isn’t real why do you care” while Wylan may not be real, how you all view him and treat him has real fucking impacts and informs how you treat people like me. If someone called me an “uwu baby boy” they’d get a fist square in the fucking jaw. Fiction informs how we perceive the world and y’all are making it super fucking clear how you see disabled people.

Finally, I wanted to talk about how the social model of disability is portrayed through Wylan. For those who are unaware, the social model of disability contrasts the medical model, that views the disability itself as the problem, that needs to be cured, whereas the social model essentially boils down to creating an accommodating society, where disability acceptance and pride is the goal. And we see this with Wylan - he is able to manage his father’s estate, with Jesper’s assistance to help him read documents. And this is not out of pity or charity, but an act of love. It is not portrayed as this almighty act for Jesper to play saviour, just a given, which is incredibly important to show, especially for someone who has been abused by family for his disability like Wylan, that he is accepted.

Yet, I still see people hold up Jesper on a pedestal for “putting up with” Wylan, as if loving a disabled person deserves a fucking pat on the back. It’s genuinely exhausting trying to engage with a work I love so much with a fandom that thinks so little of me and my community. It fucking shows.

Overall, Leigh Bardugo as a disabled person wrote two incredibly meticulous and empowered disabled characters, and due to either lack of reading comprehension, ableism, or a quirky mix of both, the fandom has ignored canon and the experiences of disabled people for…. shits and giggles i guess. And yes, there are issues with the Grishaverse and disability representation - while I haven’t finished them yet so I do not have an opinion on it, people have been discussing issues in the KOS duology with ableist ideals. This mini series was no way indicative of the entire disabled experience, nor does it represent my entire view on the representation as a whole. These things need to be met critically in our community, and talked about with disabled voices at the forefront. For example, the limited perspective we get of Wylan and Kaz being both white men, does not account for a large portion of the disabled community and the intersection of multiple identities.

All-in-all, Critique media, but do not forget to also critique fandom spaces. Alternatively, just shut the fuck up :)

happy fucking disability pride month, ig

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imagining-in-the-margins · 3 years

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Alex Blake and Spencer Reid in “Through the Looking Glass”

A Defense of Alex Blake from an Autistic Person

Disclaimer(s) before I get into this: Autistic people/people with autism are not a monolith. We are all entitled to our feelings about how people discuss/joke about autism, and some of us will find things hurtful that others do not, and those feelings are entirely valid. The opinion stated below is just my opinion and only speaks to my interpretation.

Also please note that Asperger’s is, in the United States, an outdated diagnosis named after a Nazi. It’s been changed in the DSM to autistic spectrum disorder (ASD/autism), which is how I’ll refer to it in this post. I also don’t use “functioning” labels, but an opinion on this scene will obviously change depending on the severity of a person’s symptoms.

That being said, I’m here to explain why I love Alex Blake, why I don’t think this “joke” was ever a joke at all, and why I actually really love these scenes as an Autistic person.

So, to start, I think that this scene is filmed in a way that leaves it very open to interpretation. I personally find that myself and a few of my autistic friends interpret it a way very different from most allistic (non-autistic) people I’ve talked to.

This scene is, above all, extremely relatable to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve discussed something just to be unknowingly describing things that apply to me. This exact scenario has happened to me several times, where someone points out as I describe autism that I was describing myself. When I saw this scene for the first time, I laughed. I laughed because I’d been there, and I was watching it happen to someone else. Things always seem more obvious when it’s happening to someone else, ya know?

This scene makes me happy, too. It makes me happy because I can see the love in Alex and Rossi’s faces when they share that moment after it goes over Spencer’s head. A lot of people view it as a mocking smile, but from my perspective I see two people who clearly don’t view autism as a bad thing and are just finding an innocent joy/humor in his obliviousness.

And I think that’s what a lot of this comes down to. For a lot of people (like my allistic boyfriend, for example), implying that someone is autistic is seen as an insult. But I do not feel that way, and I don’t think Alex or Rossi do, either.

In fact, they are two team members that don’t regularly roll their eyes at him or mock Spencer’s autistic tendencies (unlike Emily and JJ, both of whom I love, although they do regularly kind of hurt my feelings, lol). I mean, in this same scene, I don’t see people talking about JJ’s expression, which is clearly (also innocently) screaming “Do you really not hear yourself right now?”

Later in the episode, Alex is once again confronted with Spencer’s relatively obvious autism, and she actually feels bad about the fact that he might’ve understood what she was saying and interpreted her silence as mocking him. But then it’s very obvious that he didn’t realize it, and she’s just kind of overwhelmed with how much she appreciates him for his autistic traits.

It’s not often that obliviousness to social cues or a blunt, non-sarcastic personality is depicted as something admirable, but that’s exactly what Alex does. She tells Reid that his personality is why she loves him, and that she basically thinks that there is nothing wrong with who he is. She does all of this without ever denouncing his autism or speaking in spite of it.

And I think we also have to acknowledge that Spencer specifically said that he doesn’t take offense to the fact she insinuated he is autistic (and doesn’t deny that he is, either). He outright says that he doesn’t take offense to that idea, and I’m guessing it’s because (1) he also doesn’t view it as a flaw and (2) he knows Alex respects him.

We talk about the rest of the team as being close to Spencer because we see it on screen, but Alex and him knew each other before she arrived at the BAU. Their relationship went further back and in more detail than we saw. To her, he is an intellectual peer and a son figure.

So, yeah. Idunno. I think part of why some people interpret this scene as a bad thing is because we view autism as a problem/flaw. But there are autistic people who exist that don’t feel that way. I love who I am, and that includes my autism. Of course, it comes with its own struggles, but I’m forever grateful for a character like Alex who doesn’t take it too seriously. Someone who clearly loves an autistic person for who they are and doesn’t try to change him.

That’s my defense of Alex Blake. You don’t have to agree (obviously, lol), and if you were harmed by her lines as an autistic person, I deeply sympathize with you. We all feel different things about ourselves, and they should all be respected ❤️

And to all the allistic people who made it this far, thank you for listening! I hope this gives you a different perspective of how deeply anti-autistic narratives and beliefs can bleed into how we write, perform, and interpret autistic characters and storylines.

#alex blake #Criminal Minds #spencer reid #through the looking glass #autism #dr spencer reid #bau #long #personal #disability #activism #ssa blake #reid and blake #actuallyautistic

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alwaysahiccupandastrid · 3 years

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How Bad is Sia’s “Music” really?

I watched it illegally (because there was no way I was paying for that bullshit) and found out. It’s not as bad as we thought... It’s worse.

TW for ableism, Sia, drugs, alcohol, just in general a terrible movie, meltdowns, blackface

Literally the first thing you hear while they’re showing the production companies is THOSE stereotypical noises. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll know what I mean.

And yes, she does this for the WHOLE fucking movie

What was the need to show her in her underwear? Maddie Ziegler was 14 when this was made, so what was the need??? And why did Sia prolong the scene by having her hitting herself?

Less than a minute in and my reaction was already “what the fuck is this shit?”

So the opening number not only had stereotypical exaggerated facial expression, it has Maddie in BLACKFACE?!? And with culturally appropriated hair?!?

The exaggerated facial expressions are literally constant and I took photos during the film to show it, more later, but I’ll keep mentioning it

ITS LITERALLY THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME SHE IS ON SCREEN

Even her way of walking is fucking offensive, Jesus Christ

The vocalisations just had me cringing so hard, I cannot describe how awful it made me feel

Why do all the neighbours need to be paid off and help her when she goes for a walk? I don’t-

Yes, by about the five minute mark I was already seriously debating all my life decisions. It was that bad.

Kate Hudson really didn’t give a fuck that her grandma died

I will keep saying it but WHY are the facial expressions/vocalisations CONSTANT?!! Literally they do not stop at all. I work with a child who is actually similar to this in that he’s nonverbal and he makes similar noises/faces, but the way they’re in this movie is so over-exaggerated?!? And even the kid I work with doesn’t do it 24/7?!?

Sia, calling your characters Zu and Music doesn’t make them interesting in the slightest. They’re still painfully terrible and one dimensional

Literally ONE minute after being left alone with her autistic sister, Zu calls the mental health service asking if they could “theoretically” “pick up” her sister?!? Like she wants to get rid of her already?!?

“A magical little girl” - autism isn’t a magical power?!? And Music is a young woman, not a little girl?!? Why are you infantilising her?!?

Okay I’m not being funny but this choreography is NOT hard. ANYONE can do it, so claiming that you needed to hire a dancer to be Music because of the numbers is literally bullshit (and even so, there are so many amazing autistic actors and dancers?!?)

20 minutes in and I wanted to give up

So she had her first meltdown because her hair didn’t get braided immediately and that’s... certainly interesting??

The fact that Leslie Odom’s character says “I’m going to crush you now”?!?

AND THEN HE FUCKING PICKS HER UP AND FULL-BODILY PINS HER DOWN ONTO THE FLOOR

“I’m crushing her with my love” - oh fuck you, just fuck you

So Sia lied, the restraint scenes were NOT removed and there was no warning. She’s a fucking POS liar

I have no idea why he’s called Ebo or why he has such a cliche African accent?!? I might have missed out on why because I was busy trying not to bang my head into the table while I watched this film but just... yikes

“He (his brother) liked to be held” - YEAH, HELD. NOT FUCKING CRUSHED

“He is dead now” - IM NOT FUCKING SURPRISED IF YOU CRUSHED HIM LIKE THAT

The constant babying and patronizing of the autistic character is so exhausting to watch. I’m so tired

“Planning on sending her to the people pound but I guess I’ll keep her a little longer” - SHE WAS JOKING BUT THAT WAS NOT EVEN REMOTELY A FUNNY JOKE. NOT EVEN IN AN AWKWARD WAY

STOP THE FACES IM-

^ YEAH, Sia, totally a fucking love letter to the autistic community here ^

So Zu finds this necklace she made as a kid that had a little dog on it, and she says to Music, “He had seizures too, just like you”... MELTDOWNS AND SEIZURES ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE SAME FUCK THIS MOVIE-

It’s like Sia is trying to make the movie funny but it’s really not at all

Is Zu implying that Music is autistic because the mum was a junkie?!?

For real though, the dialogue in general is so fucking awful and cringey. Whoever wrote this should never be allowed to write again

Did she seriously leave her autistic sister alone to talk to who I’m presuming was her dealer or loan shark?!?

Also why is he - a white dude - wearing cornrows?!?

So who is the film really about? The autistic girl or the older sister saviour? I think we all know the answer to that one

WHY IS SHE WALKING AROUND WITH HER TEETH JUTTING OUT LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME

The musical numbers are literally so painful to watch. The overly bright colours, the flashing... my eyes were hurting and so was my brain

Autism representation aside for a second, the musical numbers/choreography are all fucking atrocious. Ditto for the costumes

LIKE WHAT THE FUCK WERE THE PINK OOMPA LOOMPA FRUIT THINGS?!? THEY LOOK LIKE THE PINK VERSIONS OF VIOLET BEAUREGARDE THE BLUEBERRY

I wanted to cry by this point, this movie is far more awful than I thought

“I’m not saying she doesn’t want to change, I’m saying she can’t” - FUCK YOU. Why is it okay for him to assume what she can or can’t do

Can I just say that autistic people aren’t constantly in a coked up wonderland state?!! We don’t see the world as a wonderland fantasy world 24/7?!!

“She can hear you from two rooms away” / *shows her listening through two brick walls to a conversation* — Also, we don’t have super fucking sonic hearing?? WE CANT HEAR THROUGH FUCKING BRICK WALLS?!?

“She can understand everything you’re saying to her” - she’s autistic not fucking deaf

Less than 45 minutes in, there’s another meltdown in the park

“I’m not climbing on top of a small screaming white girl in public” - yeah please fucking don’t

So Zu fucking pins her down with her weight 🤦‍♀️

“She doesn’t know who she’s hitting” - IM SORRY WHAT

EBO LITERALLY SAID “TREAT HER LIKE A BEAR” when talking her through the prone restraint, I fucking CANNOT

“Tell her she’s safe” - NOT IF YOU FUCKING RESTRAIN HER LIKE THAT SHE IS NOT

The fact that she gets up, smiling and happy after a meltdown and immediately is excited to get a snow cone... I can honestly say that after a meltdown, I am in no way happy or smiling. I am often not very verbal and I’m withdrawn/not myself for at least several hours, usually the rest of the day. Fuck this film

This film is literally just about Zu, and Music is there for a plot device to give her character development. That’s all she’s there for.

Love how Sia shoehorned Zu being suicidal in there. You know, just to try and make her more easy to sympathize with (it doesn’t work)

This film is literally just a 1 hour 47 minute Sia music video with ZERO plot

WHY WERE THEY WEARING PILLOW DIAPERS IN ONE NUMBER-

I really did not feel into the side plot with that guy who was fighting but it was still better than the actual movie so...

I am SO DONE with the NON STOP CONSTANT vocal shit. So tired.

LOJ’s only role in this film is to be the stereotypical wise black guy who assists a white woman’s story. There’s like hardly any other depth there

The Ebo/Zu romance is so fucking stupid and pointless and out of NOWHERE. I couldn’t even tell if they were into each other or not

I was already so bored of the musical numbers by this point. They added NOTHING to the plot but they pretended they did, and I was so over it. And it’s not because I’m not “creative enough” or anything to understand, I love musicals and I think it could have been cool if done right... but it wasn’t. They were a mess. It’s just bad.

Sia really tried to pretend her movie was deep but really it’s a shallow mess

So Zu is meeting rich drug clients and says to Music “try not to have one of your freak outs up there” and “if you could try to get it out now”... FUCKING YIKES. It’s not an on/off button, shut the fuck up

YEP THIS WAS THE SIA CAMEO FUCK THAT BITCH

The fact that she just calls “DRUG DEALER?!? DRUG DEALER IS THAT YOU”, fucking end this please-

I fucking hate this bitch I’m dead serious

“We’re gonna send them to Haiti cause there’s been an earthquake. All these buildings fell down, children’s bones were dislocated” - WHY WAS SHE SO CHEERFUL ABOUT IT

“Gonna buy a shit load of pain meds, gonna but them on my private plane” - FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

“Pop stars without borders” - Sia thinks she’s so clever but I would give anything to punch her I swear-

ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER JUST STOP IM BEGGING YOU

There’s this awkward conversation/bit with Zu and her drug dealer/loanshark about his outfit that was clearly meant to be funny but was just flat and painful

Yep, Sia really showed Music eating chewing gum off the underside of a park bench. Of course.

Look, the kid I work with does similar stuff by putting literally anything and everything in his mouth but like... why would you put that in your movie?

And there’s no indication before this that Music puts everything and anything in her mouth, she just randomly decides to get on her knees, under the bench and eat chewing gum, like she calculates that it’s there and gets it???

She has a THIRD meltdown after an allergic reaction to a bee sting and her sister just yells at her before realizing... I’m not here for this movie, I feel like I drifted off and was not really there

So Zu got angry because she left the drugs at the park but she’s not that upset that her sister had an allergic reaction???

Zu gets absolutely drunk because a) she lost Sia’s drugs and b) she’s stressed out by her autistic sister... wow, great message, Sia!

She really fucked off and left her sister alone to go clubbing/on a bender

The less said about the musical number here the better

Sia’s movie also checks the box of having stereotypical Asian parents, specifically stereotypical Asian dad being harsh/angry and hitting his wife!

ALSO HE PUSHED AND KILLED HIS SON WTF IS HAPPENING

Less than 3 minutes after the last, there’s a musical number that I think was about this side character going to heaven... another shitty Sia-esque number

The patterns during the number made my brain hurt.

Also there are so many autistic actors who can also dance, and yet Sia chose the neurotypical one because ✨ N E P O T I S M ✨

I just want to know how it was deemed necessary to show the fact the autistic character peed/wet herself? I mean... ??? It’s just so undignified and not at all necessary to the plot. Nothing happens after that, it just moves onto the next scene and it didn’t do anything

“I have no one” - 1) YOUR FUCKING SISTER. 2) GEE I FUCKING WONDER WHY, couldn’t be that you’re a shitty human being?!?

There’s a scene where Music is walking and she does ALL the stereotypical behaviours at once... just YIKES

Zu somehow stopped another meltdown just by grabbing Music by the shoulders and sitting her down???

Aaand yep. Another shitty musical number

Zu really goes to put her sister in a fucking facility and claims it’ll be “better for her” - BULLSHIT. Better for Zu, maybe, not Music.

Ah yes - the girl who the characters have said has problems with routines being changed/change in general... you’re now going to fuck up her routine by dumping her in a facility. Perfect Plan.

The nonverbal autistic girl suddenly speaking to say “don’t go” - you can just predict it from the off, can’t you?

Love that as soon as Music starts talking, Zu is like “fuck it, I’ll keep her!”

Zu really went and crashed Ebo’s brothers wedding... in a fucking bralette... YIKES

“I almost gave Music away” - SHE IS NOT A DOG YOU DONT GIVE PEOPLE AWAY

“We should sing a song” - PLEASE DO FUCKING NOT

Also that kiss/romance montage between Zu and Ebo was the CRINGIEST fucking shit ever

This movie seems to be implying that Music has locked in syndrome or something, like she’s locked in her own head or whatever it’s called, and I just... *sigh*

Oh and now Music magically fucking sings in a room FULL of strangers... this is literally embarrassing, please let this end

I mean it, this movie was fucking painful to watch on ever level

She got a service dog puppy which... okay?

Oh look, it’s the only decent song on the soundtrack but with an absolutely shitty over-stimulatory music video with the credits!

I can only name 5 characters in this film. Maybe 7 at a push, but even then I would be guessing

AND YEP SHE THANKED AUTISM SPEAKS OVER THE CREDITS. FUCK YOU SIA 🖕🏻

Let me reiterate: this is a movie about a neurotypical former drug addict whose character development comes from the autistic character, from having an autistic sister she has to take care of. I’m so tired.

We are NOT plot devices or tools for character development. Not once does anyone in this film treat Music like a human being - she’s treated as a burden, a problem, and then like a pet that they decide to keep. Not once is the film focused on how she is feeling - it’s always about Zu or Ebo. The performance itself was so over exaggerated and it made me want to cry when I watched it because this is how the world sees us, and this movie will make it ten times worse. It’s stuff like this that made me think “I don’t want to be labelled as autistic because people will think I’m a certain way”, that made me wait so long before going to the GP to get a referral.

As I said, poor autistic representation aside, the movie is just so appallingly bad. It truly is one of the worst films I’ve watched. If you’re going to watch it, please don’t - or, if you want to because you want to see how bad it is/to raise awareness/critical posts, at least do it illegally. Do not give Sia your money.

#sia #music #music 2021 #music movie #autism #tw ableism #tw meltdown #tw blackface #anti sia #lol sia

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