Author: fluxfaun

fondwand:

So anyway I saw Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) yesterday and I liked it a lot. It made me emotional, I was mouthing along to the songs, Rami malek is fucking wonderful. Queens a big BIG thing in my family and so I know that there were some historical inaccuracies but honestly? It was a fun, inspiring portrayal of an amazing man. Its well shot, the actors are great. Maybe the dialogue gets clunky but it’s still good.

And then I see that it’s only got 50 odd percent on Rotten Tomatoes which, whatever, critics suck. THEN I read a review to see what everyone’s mad about and let me tell you I am fuming.

I read an economist article that worried that stopping other biopic in 1985 “might prevent an excellent performance from being a prize-winning one, of the sort that earned Oscars for Tom Hanks in “Philadelphia” (1993) and Matthew McConaughey in “Dallas Buyers Club” (2013).”

What. The. fuck. One of my favourite things about this film is that it didn’t show the horrible, pain-porn, graceful and yet horrific decline into aids that every other film about queer men in the 80’s milks out. The LGBT community knows about the aids crisis. Everyone knows that Freddie died of AIDS related illnesses. I’m so fucking sick of gay tragedies.

I loved this film because instead of being a glorification of his death it was a celebration of his life. You want to know when Freddie Mercury informed the public he had AIDS? The day before he died. He didn’t want to be a poster boy, a spectacle. He was a person outside of his illness.

Queer people don’t exist to die peacefully on your screen, leaving you with a hopeful majestic quote about how really everything’s going to be a alright. Growing up gay I truly thought I wouldn’t be able to be happy. Why? Because in every portrayal of a queer character they either died horribly or died alone.

So yes. I like this film. I like having a film about a queer person that focused on their life instead of their death

sunlight-in-winter:

prismatic-bell:

soprie:

pyxamid:

non-autistic authors write autistic characters all the time. they just don’t realize it. they’d rather not admit it most of the time, either.

the thing is, non-autistic people have met autistic people more than enough times. however, due to their stereotypes about autism, they often can’t identify it as autism. they see something is up, but they can’t put their finger on just what is up.

so they see people like us and they know the ‘archetype’ which is autistic people. they write us all the time: airheaded professors, awkward nerds, pent up geniuses, etc.

when autistic people point out how strikingly obvious it is that this character is autistic, they usually deny it, or at best, they say the character is ‘if anything, extremely high functioning’, which is more of a kick in the gut than a confirmation. we hardly get those, either.

so, here’s the thing: there are some characters that are very obviously autistic to actual autistic people. pearl from steven universe and papyrus from undertale are two of the most agreed upon examples that i’ve seen. nearly ever autistic fan of steven universe i met says, “yeah, she’s autistic”, and the same goes for papyrus. 

when we, as a community, bring this up, however, we are shot down. “oh, he’s not autistic.” i once was told that – ironic as it was – my headcanoning papyrus as autistic offended autistic people or hurt autistic people. but i’m autistic and they weren’t. 

two autistic people were both agreeing – damn, this character is blatantly autistic – but non-autistic people felt the need to but in and say how horrible it was to “project” onto characters with such a horrible thing.

listen, if you aren’t autistic and you’re reading this –

if an autistic person says a character is autistic, can you just shut up about it?

because if you’ve watched any amount of tv, read any amount of books, whatever – if you’ve consumed stories, there are tons of autistic characters in them.

just because neither you nor the media’s creators knows shit about autism doesn’t mean that the character can’t be autistic.

either way, it’s none of your business.

we have little to none confirmed representation that isn’t terrible and inconsiderately offensively written. 

find something better to do with your time.

NT Author: *Writes lovingly nuanced character who is quirky, shy, physically sensitive, socially awkward, clumsy, brilliant at a few special topics and has the capacity to grow and learn friendship and love in a nontraditional way*

NT Author: They can’t possibly be autistic!

NT Author: I’m gonna write an autistic character!

NT Author: “Doesn’t talk, rocks back and forth, loves trains”

Gonna say this as an author:

It is 100% okay to use the phrase “well, they are now.”

If a ton of people approach you with a character you didn’t realize you coded autistic, and they’re like “fuck yeah, autistic character!”

You can 100% say “I didn’t even realize that’s what I was doing, but you know what? Sure. With the number of people who see it, I’m not gonna say no. They’re autistic now.”

Nobody worth having around is going to be offended by that.

Agreed! Indeed, the author should take it as a huge compliment that their powers of observation were so accurate that they managed to recreate an autistic character without knowing it.

A few years back I re-read Camus’ “L’Etranger”/”The Stranger”; I’d previously studied the book in school (for French) and at the time my French teacher assured me that Meursault was just an average guy operating in an existential fog. My reaction was, “Well, if you say so, but his personality does seem rather out of the ordinary. His mother died the day before, and his reaction is to pick up a girl for casual sex that evening? That’s not a conventional reaction to bereavement, surely?” Reading it in the past few years with a modern awareness of autism, Meursault’s behaviour screamed “AUTISTIC!” loud and clear.

Now, checking it out, I see a peer-reviewed medical article published this year explicitly identifying Meursault as autistic:

https://www.dovepress.com/camuss-letranger-and-the-first-description-of-a-man-with-aspergers-syn-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-PRBM

And Camus based Meursault on his friend!! This is exactly the kind of case study the original poster @pyxamid is talking about: Camus didn’t know he was writing an autistic character, but he was.

themiscyra1983:

captainsnoop:

i was playing pokemon blue on stream earlier at 350% speed and i got to thinking

what if the reason nobody in the pokemon world has any good teams is because its considered a dick move to have a proper team comp

like culturally everyone is like “haha pick the pokemon you want! if you’re happy with three geodudes, thats you and your life!” and then you’re supposed to just have a friendly battle with any other pokemon trainers and whatever pokemon they just happen to have

like the average trainer is probably just walking around with a growlithe because that’s their pet, or a hiker has three geodudes because the geodudes help him with hiking. and if this pet owner and geodude hiker meet, you’re supposed to have a friendly battle but nothing too serious

now imagine the 10 year old kid that has six pokeballs on their belt comes up. you’re like “haha, we’ll have a friendly battle!” and you throw out your geodude 

and they throw out a fucking gyarados, and it one-shots your geodude 

and then you throw out your pidgey you have because the pidgey helps you navigate mountains because you’re a hiker

and then electricity crackles around the gyarados and a thunderbolt flies off of this giant dragon and evaporates your pidgey 

so you’re down to your last pokemon. you tell them you’re gonna send out your bulbasaur. the ten year old is like “oh okay in that case i’m gonna pull out my vulpix.” like not only is this kid walking around with an amped-up super dragon, but theyve also got multiple pokemon specifically for making type advantage counter-picks?

this kid’s a fucking asshole! really, kid? what are you trying to prove here? this is a friendly match between strangers for fun! why are you composing real-ass competitive teams? what a fucker! 

Well maybe that ‘when two trainers’ eyes meet, a Pokemon battle must follow’ rule was a STUPID RULE, dude, did you ever think of that? Listen, I’m trying to beat the most skilled and powerful Pokemon trainers in this whole country, I don’t want to fight you and your pet Growlithe. I’m just minding my business hiking this trail and you guys keep going “HEY LET’S HAVE A BATTLE” and here I’m going “Hey, listen, no, I’m training for competition, you don’t want this, please, let’s just pretend we never saw each other, I won’t tell anyone if you don’t, please don’t make me send you on a mad rush to the nearest Pokemon center” but you’re already pulling out your Pokeballs and going “hahaha whee battle” and just…

We are all trapped in a really dumb system, okay? I don’t want to do this. Please don’t make me do this. I am literally begging you. My Pokemon get hurt in these stupid street fights too and then I have to heal them, and that sucks, but the worst part is watching your face crumple because you thought we were having fun and I am LITERALLY NOT ALLOWED TO PASS YOU UNTIL I’VE STOMPED YOU INTO THE GROUND. I have places to be. I have other competition trainers to fight. I have this rival wandering around and THAT’S a whole thing. I have maybe 50 coins in my pocket and no, I don’t want to take your coins, okay? You spend that on food for your Pokemon or a cute hat or something.

Please don’t make me do this right now. Please.