It will be as if I’d never existed. The words ran through my head, lacking the perfect clarity of my hallucination last night. They were just words, soundless, like print on a page. Just words, but they ripped the hole wide open, and I stomped on the brake, knowing I should not drive while this incapacitated.
THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON by Stephenie Meyer Chapter 5: Cheater.
i have a problem with the "the writers didn't make spencer show less autistic traits post-prison to make him hotter/more likeable to the general audience, they did that to show he started masking more as a trauma response" idea that goes around the fandom.
explaination under the cut because i talk way too much
i don't mind when people say he started masking more after prison as an in-universe excuse for what happened to his character (if that makes sense), but i DO have a problem with this notion that the writers care about autistic people at all.
if you actually watch a lot of scenes where spencer's odd behaviors are brought up or implied, he's usually on the end of some type of ableist (or just plain mean) jokes. either from the characters or from the writers through context/sounds/the way the scene is shot.
i don't know, i think we just need to be less accepting of poor rep/poor writing and actually acknowledge that sometimes this how sucks. for 15 out of 18 seasons now, it was a primetime, copaganda, crime drama. these types of shows were not originally meant to be binged, they were meant to be viewed one week at a time, with the assumption that the average viewer wasn't paying too much attention to the show.
i beg that this fandom realizes that the writing of this show (and a lot of television, specifically crime dramas and the like, from the pre-streaming era) was not to fully develop their characters or to properly represent things like autism, neurodivergency in general, queer people, disabled people, ect. criminal minds, and most crime/medical dramas from that era, was much more focused on the cases and situations than the characters.
it does have its moments where it develops the characters in a good or semi-good way (the big game/revelations and spencer's addiction arc, hotch and haley's storyline throughout s1-5, derek's past in profiler, profiled, the lauren reynolds/ian doyle storyline, jj and roslyn, ect); however, this character development and character focused writing is not seen in spencer's 'implied' autism. (implied is a strange word to use here, i suppose, but we never get an in show confirmation [though i feel as though it's basically canon, especially with alex's comment in that one episode and the actor's comments about him outside of the show])
there are so, so many times when spencer is being used as the butt of a joke because of his autistic/neurodivergent traits. (i say neurodivergent here because there could be an argument for ocd spencer too! i personally think it's more autism than ocd, but there are hints towards both, kinda.) it's actually a bit disheartening if you realize it while watching, honestly. the whole mean girl scene with jj is actually what got me thinking about the topic of how the show handles spencer's neurodiversity. time and time again, spencer's neurodiversity is always the joke. it's always about how weird he is, how much he reads, how "robotic" he is, how he acts in social situations, his mannerisms, his germophobia.
i'm not really sure how to conclude this honestly. i could go on for days about spencer and how people (other characters, but also the fans and writers too) treat him. i really dislike the sentiment that his lessened autistic traits post-prison were because of a meaningful, well-intentioned reason. maybe i'm being a bit cynical (like with jemily and the queerbaiting in evolution) but i can't imagine that it came from a good place. to me, it seems like the writers caught onto how attractive the fans found him (during the prison arc or during the entire show, doesn't really matter) and tried to make him more conventionally attractive from a personality standpoint for a general audience.
apologies for the long post, and apologies for any formatting/grammar errors, my brain is melting and i needed to get this out of it asap. i also apologize if i got a few things wrong about how television/the show was operated in the early days, i am 16 and was Not Alive in the 2000s when those episodes were airing. i can only view this show through the perspective of someone who binged it entirely in 2021 on netflix (and a pirating website) and not someone who experienced it live, unfortunately. i love spencer reid he's been my special interest for 4 years i Never stop thinking about him
i have a problem with the "the writers didn't make spencer show less autistic traits post-prison to make him hotter/more likeable to the general audience, they did that to show he started masking more as a trauma response" idea that goes around the fandom.
explaination under the cut because i talk way too much
i don't mind when people say he started masking more after prison as an in-universe excuse for what happened to his character (if that makes sense), but i DO have a problem with this notion that the writers care about autistic people at all.
if you actually watch a lot of scenes where spencer's odd behaviors are brought up or implied, he's usually on the end of some type of ableist (or just plain mean) jokes. either from the characters or from the writers through context/sounds/the way the scene is shot.
i don't know, i think we just need to be less accepting of poor rep/poor writing and actually acknowledge that sometimes this how sucks. for 15 out of 18 seasons now, it was a primetime, copaganda, crime drama. these types of shows were not originally meant to be binged, they were meant to be viewed one week at a time, with the assumption that the average viewer wasn't paying too much attention to the show.
i beg that this fandom realizes that the writing of this show (and a lot of television, specifically crime dramas and the like, from the pre-streaming era) was not to fully develop their characters or to properly represent things like autism, neurodivergency in general, queer people, disabled people, ect. criminal minds, and most crime/medical dramas from that era, was much more focused on the cases and situations than the characters.
it does have its moments where it develops the characters in a good or semi-good way (the big game/revelations and spencer's addiction arc, hotch and haley's storyline throughout s1-5, derek's past in profiler, profiled, the lauren reynolds/ian doyle storyline, jj and roslyn, ect); however, this character development and character focused writing is not seen in spencer's 'implied' autism. (implied is a strange word to use here, i suppose, but we never get an in show confirmation [though i feel as though it's basically canon, especially with alex's comment in that one episode and the actor's comments about him outside of the show])
there are so, so many times when spencer is being used as the butt of a joke because of his autistic/neurodivergent traits. (i say neurodivergent here because there could be an argument for ocd spencer too! i personally think it's more autism than ocd, but there are hints towards both, kinda.) it's actually a bit disheartening if you realize it while watching, honestly. the whole mean girl scene with jj is actually what got me thinking about the topic of how the show handles spencer's neurodiversity. time and time again, spencer's neurodiversity is always the joke. it's always about how weird he is, how much he reads, how "robotic" he is, how he acts in social situations, his mannerisms, his germophobia.
i'm not really sure how to conclude this honestly. i could go on for days about spencer and how people (other characters, but also the fans and writers too) treat him. i really dislike the sentiment that his lessened autistic traits post-prison were because of a meaningful, well-intentioned reason. maybe i'm being a bit cynical (like with jemily and the queerbaiting in evolution) but i can't imagine that it came from a good place. to me, it seems like the writers caught onto how attractive the fans found him (during the prison arc or during the entire show, doesn't really matter) and tried to make him more conventionally attractive from a personality standpoint for a general audience.
apologies for the long post, and apologies for any formatting/grammar errors, my brain is melting and i needed to get this out of it asap. i also apologize if i got a few things wrong about how television/the show was operated in the early days, i am 16 and was Not Alive in the 2000s when those episodes were airing. i can only view this show through the perspective of someone who binged it entirely in 2021 on netflix (and a pirating website) and not someone who experienced it live, unfortunately. i love spencer reid he's been my special interest for 4 years i Never stop thinking about him