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[bbtin]

This is all the validation I need.

[naliniasha]

Can you talk more about Elle Woods being autistic in Legally Blonde? :)

Elle strictly follows the traditional rules of femininity as dictated by southern californian culture, with special interests in the color pink, fashion, and her parter. She is extremely trusting and takes people literally when they are kind to her which is OK when she “stays in her place” as gender norms dictate, but as she leaves her familiar habitus in which she has cultivated social, cultural, and symbolic capital through careful study and adherence to these social norms, she finds herself ostracized and abused. Even though she is hyperlexic and has a high IQ (as traditionally defined), she has difficulty reading social cues in new environments. She also copes with transitioning into new circumstances by falling back onto familiar routines of personal hygiene and filling her personal space with familiar items. She is also extremely ethical to her personal morals which gets her into difficulty when social norms dictate being flexible with one’s ethics. She also does not privilege human companionship over other species. 

damn…. I should write an article on this. This was fun. Mostly because I’m the Elle Woods flavor of Autistic in many ways. 

Elle Woods is the kind of Autistic that most neurotypicals can’t recognize because she is camouflaged in “socially acceptable” practices, but to someone who is also Autistic is clear that the way she approaches these practices is neuroatypical. Many Autistic women survive and ‘blend in’ by making traditional feminine norms their special interests, and their neuroatypicality can often become disabling only when they change habitus, which means the circle of people and environment and all the culture and practices that go with it. They spend a lifetime getting “good” at one habitus and fitting in, but suddenly stand out as “different” when their habitus changes. Autistic women are also often extremely trusting, and when they are “attractive” by traditional feminine norms they don’t question when people are kind to them. They assume people mean well unless they say otherwise, making them highly susceptible to abuse and bullying, often by fellow women. Many Autistic women have above average IQs (by traditional definitions) and apply these abilities to traditional feminine practices such as fashion, art, homemaking, pop culture, etc. So they don’t fit the stereotypes of the “absent minded professor” which is extremely gendered male and white. As many Autistic people often feel that other people, often partners, are their special interests, some Autistic women are camouflaged by their focus and dedication to a boyfriend or husband, because gender norms literally normalize this as an acceptable, desirable practice. Practicing their ethics with strict black and white rules, they can appear to be extremely “pious,” religious, and “dedicated” wives and mothers, which again is normed by gender practices and camouflaged. If they experience OCD qualities, these are often practiced in homemaking-related skills like cooking, cleaning, and personal hygiene, again… all camouflaged by gender norms as simple being a “good girl” and a “good wife and mother.” 

[nonrequiredreading2018-blog]

So, PSA: Against Me!’s “Unconditional Love” has a B-side, “500 Years”, and as I’m going through a friend break-up that’s partly tied to my trans-ness, it’s really helped to listen to them together. So, PSA: Against Me!’s “Unconditional Love” has a B-side, “500 Years”, and as I’m going through a friend break-up that’s partly tied to my transness, it’s really helped to listen to them together. “Unconditional Love”, for me, is about contorting yourself to what someone else expects from you (“my sycophant love song”), even when it’s destructive to you (“You make me want to smoke cigarettes”). You’re aware this is messed-up: the line “even if your love was unconditional” acknowledges that the other person’s love is conditional. But you’re not sure you deserve more or are capable of better (“What makes you think you’re going to die any different?” and, of course, “It still wouldn’t be enough to save me”). It’s a song about the problems with expecting to find your salvation in another person. It’s also a song about the dangers of being someone you aren’t.  On the flip-side (yes literally), “500 Years” also laments giving up parts of yourself to satisfy someone else, but it’s about coming alive again, too. The song opens with the singer waking up and noting “my lungs were filled with sulphur.” She’s just come out of hell, and the Devil’s still after them: “his black eyes were watching on me.” (I love the phrasing of that: “watching on me.”) And the phrasing “I was a ghost for you…I was lost for you.” You can be a ghost to someone or lost to/from someone: like, the person perceives you as a ghost or doesn’t know where you are. But “for” implies that you became a ghost and you became lost as a favor for someone else. And now the singer’s just waking up, after five hundred years of doing that, after five hundred years of putting herself through hell for someone else.  And now, she’s got to rebuild herself. She’s got no memory left of who she was, and her corpse has been rotting this whole time. She ends with “Sometimes, it feels like I have always been here / Sometimes it feels like I will never leave.” Which is sad and scary: she’s buried herself so deep that coming back is going to be a struggle. Maybe it’s not even a matter of coming back or remaking yourself so much as coming out and making yourself for the first time, because you were never allowed to fully exist before. But it’s also hopeful: she only feels this way sometimes; she was a ghost for five hundred years, but the rest of the millennium is her own to live out.  

[loudenoughtohear]

An Autistic Writes about Writing Autistic Characters

THE BASIC DOS AND DONTS 

Do not use functioning labels. Just don’t.

Do use the word autism, preferably have the autistic character describe themselves using the word autism, or an autistic-created word, such as neuroatypical, nuerodivergent, etc.

Do not tell a story about how difficult it is on the family of the autistic person to “deal” with them.

Do tell the story of a family loving their autistic relative/child, and struggling against societal stigma to make sure their autistic relative/child gets the proper resources and education they deserve, if this is applicable to the story you are telling, of course.

Do not base your autistic character on tropes and stereotypes. Yes, we all love the autistic detective trope, but unless you are writing a well rounded autistic detective, then DO NOT utilize this trope.

Do base your autistic character on the advice and comments of actually autistic people.

Do not strip your autistic character down to just their disability/disabilities.

Do write a complex, 3-dimensional character, that also happens to have autism and/or other disabilities.

Do not write an autistic character that completely lacks any sort of empathy, and portray them as a monster.

Do write an autistic character that maybe experiences empathy differently from neurotypicals, but recognize that it is a very complicated issue, and it does not innately make them a bad person.

THE MORE COMPLEX STUFF

1. If you are not autistic, do not write the autistic experience.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great that you want to write an autistic character. But, if you are not autistic yourself, then do not write about being autistic. You want to have an autistic shipbuilder in your historical fantasy? Awesome! You want to have an autistic superhero? Great! But leave the stories about autistic people learning about their diagnosis, or learning to cope with internalized ableism, or dealing with abuse they may have suffered as a result of therapy to actually autistic people. Do not let this discourage you as a writer though. It is very important that autistic people have more representation, but there are some stories that should just be left for an autistic writer.

2. Remember that social difficulties are complicated

The most cringeworthy thing about a lot of the autistic characters that I see is the badly written social awkwardness. Yes, autistic people have social difficulties. But that is not the ONLY symptom of autism! And, it is actually a rather complicated thing. Autistic people are not the same “type” of social awkward in every situation. Just like neurotypical people, we act differently around different people. Some people we are more comfortable with, while others we are not so comfortable with, or may actually dislike. This does not mean that our social difficulties melt away when we are around loved-ones, but they are different. Because we usually know those people very well, we understand what is expected socially, and what is not. We understand the rules. But the exhaustion that comes with a lot of socialization is still there, and the tendency towards bluntness is still there. My suggestion is to get to know your character as a person first, their likes and dislikes, their personal quirks, and then judge how they might interact in different social situations, based both on their personality AND their autism.

3. Do not forget about sensory sensitives

A lot of the writing I have read/watched with autistic characters completely leaves out sensory sensitives. Sure, there are probably autistic people out there who do not have sensory sensitives, but they are a small minority. The vast majority of autistic people do have some form of sensory sensitivity, and to leave it out is to write an incomplete autistic character. If you are non-autistic, sensory sensitives may be difficult to write, but I do encourage you to do more research, and talk to more autistic people if you are serious about writing a well-rounded, fully fleshed out autistic character. Remember that sensory sensitivities can go both ways, also. For example, I am highly sensitive to sound and smell. Particular sounds (crinkling of chip bags, or hearing whispering) can make it impossible for me to think or concentrate until it goes away or I move away from it. But, on the other hand, I have a very high tolerance for pain and cold. The cold does not bother me, and oftentimes I will leave the house without a jacket or hoodie, only to come home sick. I can’t remember how many times I have cut myself by accident, sometimes pretty badly, and I didn’t even realize it.

4. Most autistic people have co-morbid disabilities, and sometimes we can’t even tell the difference

Most autistic people have some other disability outside of their autism. It could be physical or mental or both. Personally, I have anxiety, major depressive disorder, and hemiplegic migraines. When I see autistic characters written, they usually do not have anything else other than autism. Again, I am sure there are autistics out there that only have autism, and no other disability, but they would be in the minority. There are times that I have seen autistic characters with other disabilities, but it was very poorly written. One day the character was dealing with her autism, the next way she was depressed, and on the third day she was fatigued from a physical disability. This is not how disability works in the real world. All of my disabilities come together to form an amalgam of traits and symptoms that I have deal with everyday. It’s not like every Tuesday is depression day, and every Wednesday is autism day. Here are some questions I ask myself on the average day: “am I anxious because I don’t like that sound or am I about to have a panic attack?”, “am I feeling down because of autistic burnout, or is this the beginning of a depressive episode?” All of my disabilities are always there, even if I am having a particularly anxious or depressed day. This is probably the most complex aspect of writing an autistic character, because you want to represent it properly, but you also do not want the disabilities to overtake the character, and it only be about their disabilities. Again, I suggest talking to more autistic people about these things to get the portrayal correct, but remember that your character should be a person outside of their disabilities.

5. Do not infantilize your autistic character

Okay, this is a huge issue, and something I see A LOT of. There is this weird idea that autistic people are these naive, child-like forest spirits that neurotypicals must protect from corruption. It’s ridiculous and REALLY annoying, especially since it is mostly focused on women. All adult autistic people, across the gender-identity spectrum are, in fact, adults. We can be sexual/sensual. We can be mean. We can understand complicated ideas about life, love, loss, etc. We can be selfish. We can be forgiving, while also still feeling the pain of betrayal or lies. In summation, although we are autistic, we still have the full range of human personality and introspective thought. Please, please, please remember this when writing autistic characters!

6. You really should have an autistic editor to read over the parts of your story that include your autistic character

At the end of the day, I can give you a lot of advice and tips, but if you are not autistic, there are going to be things you find difficult to write, or things that you may not even think of. It is important to have an autistic editor/helper/consultant whatever you want to call it, with you throughout the entire process. This is does not give them license to just change anything, it is still your story. But, my advice is limited in its helpfulness if I do not know anything about your autistic character, the setting of the story, etc. If you do not have anyone you feel comfortable with sending your writing to, I offer my services as an autistic consultant. I have dabbled in writing myself, so I am familiar with the process, and I promise not the share or speak about any of your writing unless you give my express permission to do so.

[celluloidautism]

Autistic Rey’s Social Interactions Explained

This is a response I wrote to an allistic that tried to speak over autistic people and “prove” that Rey is non-autistic. They specifically focused on her relationships with others, and how autistic people “cannot form meaningful relationships”. I thought I made a pretty good, very well reasoned response, so I wanted to share it as a text post.

While it is true that autistic people have difficulty forming social relationships, that is a very broad and basic characterization of autistic people. A “social relationship” or “meaningful relationship” can take many different forms, and does not have to just be what allistics think it is. For example, Rey does form bonds with Finn, Han, Chewey, and even Leia, but she does it in a very autistic fashion. Most, if not all of these relationships she must develop in order to survive. She needs Finn to help her help BB-8. She needs Finn to help her get off of Jakku. The first interactions between her and Finn are them bonding over escaping from Jakku and Tie fighters, then meeting Han and Chewey, and trying to escape that situation with the monsters, and them trying to figure out what their next move is going to be. For Rey, an autistic person, these are actually the best circumstances in which to bond with another person, because she doesn’t have to struggle through small talk, or typical social situations, and her abilities (developed through special interests) are the main focus of many, if not all, of their interactions.

You can also see Rey’s autistic traits in her relationship with Han, especially when it is compared to Han’s relationship with Finn. Han and Finn bond over Finn’s affection for Rey, and how that reminds Han of his affection for Leia. It is an almost purely social interaction. Finn understands the undertones and unspoken words when Han tells him that women always find out. Compare that to the relationship between Rey and Han. They bond over Rey’s ability to fix the Millennium Falcon, and her interest in the mythology of the Jedi and Luke Skywalker (both special interests of Rey’s). There is nothing particularly social about their relationship or bond. When Han gives Rey the blaster, as a non-verbal attempt to display his affection for her, she does not initially understand. “I can handle myself” she says, matter-of-factly, as though Han just didn’t catch on to that. She is misreading the social interaction going on between her and Han, and she only understands when Han explains that he does know she can take care of herself, thats why he is giving her the gun.

When Han and Finn find Rey after Kylo Ren kidnaps her, she is overwhelmed with emotion that Finn and Han actually came looking for her. But, she does not express this in her own words. Instead she translates what Chewey says into english, as a proxy for how she is feeling. It is probably as close to echolalia as any movie character has ever gotten, even ones that are offically deemed autistic.

Even in small interactions with Rey and others, her autistic traits shine through. Her first response to BB-8 is to fix their bent antennae, and then she proceeds to info dump about the different things that BB-8 will need to know in order to survive Jakku. These are all practical things, and connected to Rey’s knowledge and special interests. Again, not a social interaction. When Rey hugs Leia, there are no words spoken, probably because Rey has no idea what to say, or how to communicate her feelings in that situation (so your theory that she can express her wants and needs very well is thrown out). Instead she just hugs Leia, as an expression of her unspoken feelings, because she feels that strongly. The fact that she doesn’t like to be touched, or to hold hands with Finn makes the scene with Leia all the more powerful. It was not about the fact that Finn and Rey had an altercation and therefore she did not want to touch him; it is an integral part of her personality. When Rey finds Luke, she also does not say anything. Again, because she does not know what to say, or how to communicate her feelings. Instead, she simply holds out the lightsaber, because all she understands is getting down to business, getting answers.

Furthermore, Rey does have trouble understanding others and expressing her wants and needs. For example, when Finn decides that he wants to run away instead of fight with the rebellion, Rey is extremely confused. Rey’s confusion goes beyond her not understanding that Finn lied to her about being apart of the rebellion (the fact that she believed that terrible lie is another indicator of her autism). Rey is confused because she does not understand what Finn is feeling, and he is not verbally communicating it very well. This is a much more realistic and accurate representation of the form that a “lack of theory of mind” takes. Its not simply that we cannot see anyone else’s perspective, its that we have trouble with non-verbal communication and facial expressions. Simply put: if you do not explain to us, in words, what you are feeling, we will have trouble understanding. This is exactly what Rey is going through in that scene with Finn.

Then, later in the same scene, Rey is confronted with the Skywalker lightsaber. She sees emotionally charged visions, and becomes so frazzled and scared that she runs away (the very thing she was upset with Finn for doing a few minutes ago). When Maz tries to explain to her what happened, and tries to ask Rey what is going on, and what she saw, Rey cannot express it. Rey essentially goes non-verbal. She may still be speaking, but it is so frazzled that it almost doesn’t make sense.

Autism does not come down to a simple list of traits that need to be checked off in order for that person to fit. It is a way of thinking, and a way of being. It is a different operating system, that has a million tiny changes and differences that only those who have that operating system installed can fully understand.

[this-reading-by-lightning]

citations for why "theory of mind" is bullshit

this is the brief synopsis (in articles/citations) of over a years work reading basically everything ever written on these subjects. i still study them. i plan to continue studying them. but i want to crowdsource knowledge of this stuff, because “theory of mind” (as applied to autistic people, and as applied elsewhere) is actually an intellectual farce. here is why, if you’re up to reading:

why theory of mind is psychological/cognitive bullshit:

“The weirdest people in the world?” by Henrich, Heine and Norenzayan in Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33

it’s bullshit because 99% of psychological research is sooo non-representative of humanity as a whole that it’s not. even. funny.

“Joint Attention: Twelve Myths” by David A. Leavens in Joint Attention (2013)

theory of mind is bullshit because this is literally the greatest thing you’ll read in a long, long time. i would propose marriage to david leavens solely on the basis of this piece. all his other work? ALSO GREAT. but thisss. this was published IN THE SAME VOLUME as (and was actually the chapter right before) work by almost ALL the most famous social psychology/’theory of mind’ researchers in the world. 

if you ever wanted to read someone INTELLECTUALLY WHOOPING SIMON BARON COHENS ASS IN A PUBLIC FORUM this is what you’ve been waiting for your whole life.

these arguments are on the topic of comparative psychology (i.e. comparing humans and other species—in this case, other ape/primate species) but they are like ALL relevant to human developmental psychology.

“Conceptual and Methodological Issues in the Investigation of Primate Intersubjectivity” by Racine, Leavens, Susswein, and Wereha, in Enacting Intersubjectivity (2008)

theory of mind is bullshit because the people who do all that research on babies and chimps and whatever else and autistic people and whatever…those people? yeah, they’re heinous at theoretical science AND heinous at experimental science. and here’s a discussion of why this is so by some great primatologists/comparative psychologists who work with non-human primates (including david leavens my boo). 

why theory of mind is anthropological/cultural bullshit:

“Toward a cultural phenomenology of intersubjectivity: The extended relational field of the Tzotzil Maya of highland Chiapas, Mexico” by Kevin Groark in Language and Communication 33

“Speaking the Devil’s language: Ontological challenges to Mapuche intersubjectivity” by Magnus Course in Language and Communication 33

(preface about anthropology: these are nerdy white male anthropologists acting as authorities on non-white, non-western cultures to which they do not belong. i dislike ethnography 99.9% of the time for these reasons, but these articles are tolerably not-dickish and very insightful/relevant, so i’m citing them)

theory of mind is bullshit because none (NONE) of the “normal human social development” or “normal human social assumptions” that theory of mind researchers constantly reference are consistently present in cultures besides highly industrialized western cultures.

why theory of mind is sociological/ethical bullshit:

“The Pathos of ‘Mindblindness’: Autism, Science, and Sadness in ‘Theory of Mind’ Narratives” by John Duffy and Rebecca Dorner in Journal of Literary and Cultural Disability Studies 5:2

“Minds Between Us: Autism, mindblindness and the uncertainty of communication” by Anna McGuire and Rod Michalko in Educational Philosophy and Theory 43:2

boom boom boom theory of mind is bullshit because its so obviously an idea people have made up specifically to tell certain stories about autistic people AND about neurotypical people. and those stories they tell with theory of mind? they’re not innocent or neutral WHATSOEVER. they make up theories like this for a reason.

AND THEN the best of the best. this was published around the end of my year of researching this, when i had been told by my advisor that i needed to publish on the topic, and when i was sitting around saying “my life is in shambles, i am almost getting kicked out of school, all because i can’t write, how could i possibly write this now? but it needs to be written?” and then i saw this one morning, and spent the rest of the day dancing around campus. i squealed when i saw the title. just knowing that someone else was thinking about this in similar ways was enough to pull me through that time. i love this piece:

“Clinically Significant Disturbance: On Theorists who Theorize Theory of Mind” by Melanie Yergeau in Disability Studies Quarterly 33:4

[13faeinapenguinsuit]

@vulcanfeminist reading material, including (apparently) Simon Baron-Cohen getting taken down a notch or ten. Required reading for you and I, methinks,

[myautisticpov]

Writing Autistic - Tropes - The Insufferable Genius

TV Tropes Page.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across an Autistic character who is considered to be on the part of the spectrum commonly referred to as “Asperger’s” who doesn’t embody this trope.

That’s a problem.

Keep reading

[myautisticpov]

Writing Autistic - Tropes - Neurodiversity is Supernatural

TV Tropes page.

“A real-world atypical neurological condition, most often autism or schizophrenia, is presented as the result of or the presence of something supernatural. Bonus points if it doesn’t occur naturally at all in the fictional universe.”

Keep reading

[myautisticpov]

Writing Autistic - Tropes - Hollywood Autism and Ambiguous Disorder

TV Tropes Pages

Hollywood Autism

Ambiguous Disorder

Short version

Don’t do either of these.

Long Version

Oh boy, okay, here we go…

Keep reading

[bbhhhhhhh]

Guides on writing autistic characters

There’s a lot of great advice about writing autistic characters on the internet, and the aim of this post is to link to all of it. If you’ve got something that should be included in this post, please include a link a reblog.

Writing characters, not symptoms: A gamer with autism discusses what our hobby gets wrong by Joe Parlock

Advice from Loud Enough to Hear

Note to People Thinking of Writing Autistic Characters by Ada Hoffman

How To Write Autistic Characters ( With Examples From Ruby’s World ) by Neil Kapit

How to Write Genuine Autistic Characters by Bard

Writing Autistic Characters: Behaviourizing vs. Humanizing Approaches by Elizabeth Bartmess

So you want to write an autistic character part 1: Integration dysfunction and what to do about it by Senga

Writing Autistic Characters by Real Social Skills

On Writing Autistic Characters by ChaoticIdealism

Writing Aspergers from WriteWorld

Tips for Writing Autistic Characters from SilverSarcasm

Writing reference: things to keep in mind when writing autistic characters by Yehudisha

How to Write an Autistic Character by Draggle Ella

Writing Autistic: Autism is Not A Character Flaw from My Autistic Point of View from My Autistic Perspective

Great advice from TAL9000

5 Step Guide On Writing A Character With X Disorder or X Disease by ReferenceForWriters with an autistim-specifc appendix by YouNeedACat

[myautisticpov]

I’ve got a bunch of other Writing Autistic posts (besides Autism is Not a Character Flaw) under the Writing Autistic tag, and newer ones were posted to my main website.

[celluloidautism]

An Autistic Reviews: Jane Wants a Boyfriend

This review will spoil the entirety of the movie Jane Wants a Boyfriend. This is the first and final spoiler warning. 

This is will a long review, but I will have a summary with bulleted points at the very end for those lacking in spoons. 

The independent film Jane Wants a Boyfriend actually came out in 2015, nearly 2 years ago. I remember watching the trailer before it came out, and groaning to myself. The trailer marketed the film as a Hallmark-esque love story with a neurotypical guy falling for an autistic woman, complete with the sickly sweet tagline, “This is not your neurotypical romance”. Puns. Great. (Sarcasm). 

 The film is independent in the extreme, with most of the people acting, writing, and directing being foreign names to me. I recognized Louisa Krause, who plays the titular Jane, from a part she had in the amazing independent drama Martha Marcy May Marlene. I also recognized a few of the other actors from small parts in indie films or TV shows. The writer, Jarret Kerr is unknown to me, as well as the director, William Sullivan. The producer for the film, Kerry Magro, an autistic man, was also an autism consultant on the film.

 Here is the point where I should probably admit that I am not a fan of rom-coms or Hallmark movies. I have nothing against them, they are just not my cup of tea. As an unabashed cinephile, I have always been drawn to the dark gritty underbellies of crime and mafia films, the seediness of murder mysteries, the filth of the majority of Fincher’s films (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo still being one of my favorite portrayals of an autistic woman). In short, if I don’t come away from the movie feeling like I need a shower, then I probably didn’t like it. Which is why it took me so long to watch Jane Wants a Boyfriend. But I am currently on Fall break and thought “what the hell” as I booted up the movie on my computer. Many of my worries about the rosy depiction of a woman on the spectrum in a rom-com were justified and realized, but there were also some pleasant surprises. 

Keep reading

[morkhan]

so i’m pretty sure Baby is autistic

like more sure than just about any other character i’ve ever seen. i just got back from my second viewing and now i’m more convinced than ever. evidence:

adherence to routine: baby still eats at the diner where his mom worked, and he still orders from the kids menu. the waitress said that he’d been coming there for as long as she’s worked there; baby has basically lived his entire life around that diner, and he hasn’t updated his routine in years because the routine brings him comfort.

delayed echolalia: a significant portion baby’s spoken dialogue is actually just him repeating things he’s heard before in other contexts. we all do this from time-to-time, everybody likes a good quote, but baby does it… a lot. like, way more than normal. he seems FAR more comfortable speaking in quotes than he does speaking off-the-cuff.

immediate echolalia: and he doesn’t always store quotes for later. sometimes he repeats them back immediately. this kind of parroting is something autistic children have been known to do to help them process what is being said, not realizing that their repetition is being taken as a response. when doc asks baby “are you in?” and baby repeats “am I in?” almost automatically, you can tell this is an exchange they’ve gone through many times, likely going all the way back to when baby was a kid. perhaps that’s how it started.

memorization - this goes hand-in-hand with echolalia; you have to remember quotes in order to repeat them, after all. but it goes beyond mere snippets of dialogue; baby is able to memorize extremely complicated plans and rundowns and repeat them verbatim after hearing them exactly once. he does this twice; once when doc is telling the crew the plan, and once when he goes into the post-office and sam gives him the rundown of the security.

hyperfixation: baby lives and breathes music. owns dozens upon dozens of ipods that he has clearly gone through the trouble of buying off other people, each of which is loaded with different songs for different occasions and each individual library of which he has memorized. has keyboards and turntables and other mixing tools to create his own music, has a huge case of tapes of his own stuff, and a wall of vinyl records he’s collected. choreographs his getaway driving to music. hell, choreographs his entire life to music, to the point where baby has to stop what he is doing to restart, rewind, or find a song multiple times over the course of the film, even when his actual life is in jeopardy.

sensory issues: constantly listens to music to drown out his tinnitus. for many people, the ringing from tinnitus is something they can get used to and ‘tune out’ so to speak. baby’s inability to do this suggests that either his tinnitus is more severe, or he has some form of sensory disorder that prevents him from ignoring unwanted stimuli, forcing him to override it with something else.

savant syndrome: there’s really no way around this; baby is goddamn driving prodigy. if he were a middle-age man, his skill would put him among the best in the world; the fact that he’s this good now, and that he’s been this good since he was an actual child puts him so far into the stratosphere that we can’t even see him anymore. like, sorry, kevin spacey, but it’s not baby’s personal playlist that makes him the best driver on the fucking planet; there is something else going on in that kid’s brain, and whatever it is, it ain’t normal.

add all of this to the fact that baby’s intense focus and quiet, seemingly emotionless demeanor makes his criminal associates suspicious of him to the point where various idiots accuse him of having ‘mental problems,’ being ‘not on planet earth,’ with one particularly dumb asshole even throwing the R-word at him, and I’d say at the very least you have a strong case for baby being anything but neurotypical.

“I’m not slow. I’m fast.”

hell yeah you are. i love my fast autistic son. 🚗

[thewickedbohemian]

In a dilemma

In a few of my fandoms, there are long-held opinions the fandom has had with a lot of canon justification that got shut down by the writers. Who’s right, if anyone? Although this, as I said, is sadly true in a couple of my fandoms, if I were to refer to one specific incident, it would be the Leverage writers, post-show, denying that Parker is autistic/that they wrote her that way because “they didn’t want to conflate autism with abuse” or some crap like that

[celluloidautism]

I don’t watch Leverage, so I can’t comment on that show specifically, but I can say that MANY writers inadvertently write autistic characters without realizing it and then back out of it because they don’t want the responsibility of an autistic character. Most of the time, the autistic characters that were written on accident are the most realistic ones, because they are not subject to all the biases and bullshit in the writers room that canon autistics are. My point is, if you, and many other people in the fandom feel this character is in fact autistic and the character is a good representation of autism, then the character is autistic. Death of the author is always valid.