#AUTISTIC POWER FANTASY

[aphel1on]

laios has very quickly become dear to me not just because he's an autistic protagonist but because his autism is itself one of the reasons his party has an edge over others. though we see him struggle in social situations, his special interest makes him hypercompetent in the context of dungeon survival. i'm aware that's not a NEW observation on him but i was impressed that he even used his special interest to successfully solve a crisis that relied on noticing social cues- he was able to pick out the impostors bc he honed in on the small discrepancies in their attitudes toward monsters. if that isn't weaponizing your autism, i don't know what is

#omg this keeps getting notes... u shld look at my reblog w additional ramblings/meta in it too 👉👈 #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi #laios touden #laios #actuallyautistic #autism things #aphelion.txt #ALSO WHAT WAS WITH THAT RANDOM 5SEC ANIMATION THAT WAS JUST HIM STIMMING #WHAT WAS THAT HUH #hes like ok im shifting into barking mode. gotta hype myself up with a quick flap sesh. i love him wtf #but yeah. being in the exact situation that your neurodivergency makes you extremely well equipped for is like #any autistic person's power fantasy #dunmeshi is just so much fun

[reallygoodguacamole]

hey. don't feel bad about writing submas angst. gamefreak did that to them. exploring that space and playing in it is entirely reasonable. it makes sense to want to look at the twins' separation, and the different ways things could go after PLA/what happened to separate the two of them. just tag it, like you would anything else, and move on your happy way.

it does not make you ableist to explore canon. and hey, as an autistic adult? ive written a power fantasy where emmet gets to be unhinged with an axe! i have 5k of nonhuman ingo human emmet written up and not posted because when i was a kid i always hoped i was some fae thing and not human! my power fantasies encompass those things and so much more.

none of this is inherently ableist. emmet did not go apeshit because he is autistic- he went apeshit because the world stole the most important person out of his life and he would not let that stand. in any of the many aus i have where one twin or the other is nonhuman, it's not because they're autistic, it's because they're copying the other twin, and there's other people in the world that are also like that! it's my personal power fantasy, and I'm going to write it! it's not inherently ableist!

finally, certainly none of this is comparable to an extended hate campaign intended to wipe autistic people out of existence. don't feel bad about writing these things. tag them, make sure you're not doing it Because they're autistic. and then don't espouse any autism $peaks bullshit and you will be fine.

if you try to argue that your experience is more authentic/important than mine i will block you. please learn about competing access needs, and move on

#submas #im just. fucking tired bro. #a whole event got eaten in some kind of ouroborus apparently #the angst is canonical. #pre hisui? those train men arent sad #during? god i do not know what characters you're talking about if you think ingo or emmet are happy while separated #i am not going to debate this! im just exhausted of writing what i an autistic adult want to write #and then going to dig in the tag and seeing a brand new wave of remember! dont be ableist! #im not. thank you. #i am experiencing autism power fantasy moments #the guacamole mutters

[justablix]

WAIT wait I figured it out. the reason every single modern adaptation fucks up irene adler by giving her romantic feelings for holmes (and vice versa) even though SCAN is about her trying to live a quiet live with the (non-holmes) man she loves and acd basically put a giant NO HETERO HE ADMIRED HER SKILL HE DIDNT LOVE HER warning sign at the beginning of SCAN is that not a single male director could imagine a man respecting a woman for her intelligence and skill without having romantic feelings for her. In this essay I will SCREAM

#Irene adler #sherlock holmes #acd holmes #ritchieverse #nrh #soviet Holmes #bbc sherlock #did i miss any? probably #in the course of writing this i also started a new essay on why holmes (mostly in newer adaptations) is autism coded in such a way that it #makes him a male power fantasy and symbol of masculinity #instead of realistically autistic

[shadowsageingempress]

Lucrecia: Have you ever seen something that changes your life and you’re just like ‘huh.’

Vincent: I saw you.

Lucrecia: W-well, that’s very sweet, but it also makes this a little awkward because I was going to show you a video of a snake opening a door.

Vincent: Oh, now this I have to see.

#final fantasy vii #incorrect ff7 quotes #vincent valentine #lucrecia crescent #vinlu #vincrecia #vincent x lucrecia #autistic power couple

[catastrothy]

anyway i read frieren. i was really worried itd be like, typical fantasy adventure slop (and to a degree i guess it is) but it's actually way better than i thought. i love a lot of the demon designs too

#text #i was very concerned itd be harem garbage and tho i can power my way thru that id... rather not lol.... #i do love fantasy slop tho theres smth rly comforting about it to me #also i like how frieren is aroace + reads as autistic

[sephirthoughts]

Father: Verb

Summary:

11 year-old WMD Sephiroth is assigned a new handler/bodyguard, named Vincent Valentine.

I am sure this has been done 10000 times but I can't stop thinking about it, so here's my version.

Rating: teen and up

tags: vincent & sephiroth centric, canon typical violence, autistic sephiroth, canon fix-it

Chapter 1: Spaghetti

He never cried.

He never dared. Not after that day, when a fit of exhausted frustration, during a rigorous testing session, resulted in the violent destruction of half a research facility, which killed nine people, and left fifty-two injured. The Shinra first responders found him huddled amid the flaming rubble, in tears.

He was seven years old.

Sephiroth is dangerous. His emotions are destructive. When he fails to control himself, people die.

But he was a hero. A hero doesn’t let people die. A hero doesn’t lose control. His over-educated but emotionally immature mind surmised that a hero must have no emotions. So from then on, Sephiroth had no emotions. At least, not the dangerous kind, that made people have long meetings about him, behind closed doors, and whisper about him in the halls.

It was shortly thereafter that he began to have a recurring dream, about a pair of eyes, watching him, in the dark. He was used to being watched constantly, by people, but these eyes were different. They were cold and inhuman, and their gaze was filled with killing intent.

“Who is the man with the glowing red eyes?” he asked one of his handlers, who was delivering breakfast, one morning.

She looked confused. “I’m not sure. Was this someone you saw, in the house?”

“No. I’ve only dreamed of him,” the boy said, matter-of-factly, as he scooped up a spoonful of dense, grey, nutrient-rich paste. “He watches me, and never says anything. He wants to kill me, but…he doesn’t, for some reason.”

“If you’re having nightmares, I can request that they prescribe you a sedative, to help you sleep,” she frowned.

“They’re not nightmares. It’s only that he seems so sad.”

“What does he look like? Can you describe him?”

The boy shook his head. “I can’t see his face, only his eyes. But I think I’ll meet him, soon. I’ll tell you, when I do.”

Four years passed, however, before he met the man with the red eyes. Though, by then, that handler had long been moved to another division, so he never had a chance to tell her about it.

He was walking down the hall, headed for the training yard, as he did every morning, when he noticed something was different, today. The atmosphere was tense, and the energy of the place was all wrong. People were whispering in excited tones.

“…aware that no one here can handle him. If something goes wrong we’ll all die…”

“…sending in a Turk. You know, just in case….”

“…hear that guy’s not normal…”

“…supposed to be a real badass, though…”

“…say they woke him up, just for this assignment…”

They always thought Sephiroth couldn’t hear them, if they lowered their voices, as if he was a normal person, with normal hearing. He never bothered to disabuse them of the notion. They didn’t like being reminded that the eleven-year-old biological weapon they were working in close proximity to every day was, indeed, a literal superhuman.

He pretended to ignore their chatter and reported to the training yard, as usual. If the fuss was related to what he suspected, they would come to him, soon enough. He was calmly practicing his sword forms, when his chief handler appeared and asked him to take a break. Following him, was the man with the red eyes.

Sephiroth had never seen anyone like this person, and was instantly enthralled by him. He was very tall and thin, and he wore strange, black-leather body armor, from head to toe, with one brass gauntlet, brass boots, and a floor-length, crimson cloak.

His long, shaggy, black hair hung over most of his face, and the rest of it was hidden behind the high collar of the cloak, but the eyes were the same. They were blood red, and one had flecks of gold around the pupil. Keen and cold, and filled with killing intent. The exact eyes from his dreams.

“This is Special Security Agent Vincent Valentine,” the handler was saying. “He’ll be looking after you, from now on. He’s your direct superior, so you must address him as ‘Agent Valentine’ or ‘sir’ and treat him with all due—”

“Just Vincent,” the red-eyed man interrupted gruffly. “Don’t call me sir, either.”

“Pleased to meet you, Vincent,” Sephiroth said, bowing dutifully. “I’m Sephiroth. I don’t have a surname, so everyone calls me by my forename.”

“Unless you need anything else, I will leave you two to get acquainted,” the handler put in, with a bow. “Good day, gentlemen.”

“Turks are assassins and spies,” Sephiroth asserted, once he’d gone. “Why would they assign you to look after me?”

“Not a Turk, anymore,” the man named Vincent replied, without looking at him.

“Have you been in the labs upstairs? I’m not allowed to go up there.” Sephiroth got out his locket and held up the picture, for the man to see. “This is my mother. Have you ever seen her?”

The scarlet eyes flickered over the locket and away. “No.”

The boy wasn’t excessively surprised or disappointed by the answer. He’d asked every person he’d met if they’d seen her, and no one ever had. He tucked the locket away again. “Why do people say they woke you up for this assignment? Were you in stasis?”

“Something like that.”

“You’re not afraid of me,” Sephiroth said, stepping closer.

Vincent gave a derisive snort. “No.”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it. It’s not to protect me, it’s because they think you’re strong enough to kill me, if you need to.”

The scarlet eyes glanced down at him, but the man said nothing.

“Would you really kill me?” Sephiroth persisted. “Do you think you could?”

Vincent’s arms were crossed tightly on his chest, under his cloak, and he hadn’t moved, since they began talking. Now, suddenly, too quickly for even Sephiroth’s superhuman eyes to see, he seemed to vanish and reappear in front of him, his blood-red cloak billowing and whirling in the windless air, with a life of its own, and the massive triple-barrel of his heavy handgun pressed to the child’s forehead.

“You’re not the only freak in this sideshow,” Vincent growled, as the hammer clicked back.

Sephiroth switched instantly into combat mode, and his blade flashed out, like lightning. His first slash would’ve taken anyone else’s arm off, but Vincent was already behind him, somehow. Sephiroth dodged the grapple and flipped forward, throwing out a barrage of slashes, which missed the cloaked man as he vanished again, in a whirl of crimson.

The boy gave a cry, as his knee was kicked out from under him, then quick as a whip, he was hoisted up by the back of his jacket and thrown bodily across the training yard. He careened into a concrete barrier, through which his body smashed like a meteor, before he pushed off the ground with his feet, and went darting back through the air, toward Vincent, only to be swatted away like a fly, and wind up rolling to a stop, halfway across the training yard.

They went on like this for quite some time, without pausing, the red and black-clad man tossing the armed child around the training yard, neither of them showing any signs of fatigue or loss of focus. Sephiroth would’ve kept going all day, if he’d been allowed, but eventually Vincent called halt, and said he was expected to escort the boy to his quarters, for his noon meal. They’d been at it for almost three hours.

Thrilled and elated, to find someone who could actually fight with him, Sephiroth followed Vincent eagerly, big, green eyes fixed admiringly on the back of his head, as they walked down the halls, together.

He had never felt so energized, in all his time here—which was his entire life. This strange man with the red eyes, from his dreams, was the first opponent with whom he’d genuinely let loose and used all his strength.

And he’d been beaten so soundly, he felt it in his bones. It was an exhilarating feeling, to no longer be the strongest person around, and not to have to carefully restrain himself, when sparring with a partner.

“Vincent, will you stay and have lunch with me?” the boy asked hopefully, when they arrived back at his quarters.

Vincent hesitated at the door, then stepped reluctantly inside, looking about the suite of rooms like it was a wild animal exhibit, and the denizens might leap out from behind the furniture and attack, at any moment.

“It’s only me who lives here,” Sephiroth assured him. “I don’t know why they gave me all these rooms. I only use the bedroom and the main room. And the bathroom. Do you live in the manor, too? What are your rooms like?”

“I live…downstairs,” Vincent said vaguely, behind his high collar.

“There’s nothing below this floor but the basement storage levels. You don’t mean you live down there, do you?”

A handler arrived to deliver his meal, just then, so the conversation was forestalled, for the moment. Vincent stood against the wall, watching silently, as the man set a tray in front of the boy. It was divided into six sections, each filled with a different colored paste.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” the handler said to Vincent. “We weren’t told you’d be joining the asset for lunch. I will bring whatever you’d like from the kitchen, right away.”

Vincent was silent for so long, the man began to get visibly uneasy.

“Spaghetti,” he said suddenly, his deep voice giving the handler a start. “Spaghetti with meatballs. And…apple juice. And ice cream. Strawberry ice cream.”

The handler blinked, bewildered, then bowed and hurried away, saying he’d bring the things as soon as possible. When he’d gone, Vincent walked over to the table, took Sephiroth’s spoon from his hand and his tray from in front of him, and strode down the hall.

Sephiroth sat, speechless, for a moment, then jumped up and hurried after him. Vincent was in the bathroom, using the spoon to scrape the the contents of the tray into the toilet.

“Vincent, what are you doing?” he asked curiously.

“Putting this shit where it belongs,” Vincent replied flatly. “Don’t eat this anymore, understood?”

“Th—that’s the food they give me. What do you mean, don’t eat it anymore?”

“This is not food,” Vincent said, brandishing the tray and then tossing it into the bathtub. “Is this really what you’ve been living on?”

The boy looked perplexed. “What else is there?”

Vincent stood there, looking down at him, for a beat, then he dropped to one knee, in front of him, and pulled his collar down, exposing the rest of his face.

Sephiroth’s heart lurched and began to run raggedly in his little chest. Vincent was…beautiful. He was the most beautiful person the boy had ever seen, aside from the picture of his mother. He wanted to touch his perfect face, but he would never dare do something so outrageous.

To his immediate astonishment, however, the beautiful man touched him. Cautiously, as if Sephiroth were a baby bird that might be crushed in his hands, he reached out his black-gloved hand, and laid it almost weightlessly on the boy’s shoulder.

“Sephiroth, I…I’m sorry,” he said, inexplicably. “I’m so sorry.”

Sephiroth had no idea what was happening, except that the man was touching him, in a non-hostile way, that didn’t appear to have an immediate purpose, and it was making his head feel hot and fuzzy, the way it did when the old professor gave him medicine, sometimes.

Aside from the lingering trace of killing intent in his scarlet eyes, Vincent’s face wore an expression Sephiroth didn’t recognize. It wasn’t on any of the emotion flash-cards the Shinra PR people made him study, in order to ‘seem more human.’

Was he a lunatic? He didn’t dress like anyone else Sephiroth had ever seen, and he was acting rather bizarrely. When the handler asked what he’d like to eat, he said a lot of strange words, that Sephiroth had never heard, and then he’d dumped Sephiroth’s lunch into the toilet.

“It’s alright, it was just a little food. I can get more,” Sephiroth said gingerly. “Vincent, are you…unwell?”

“No—well, yes.” His black brow furrowed. “But I’m not insane, which is what you’re asking, correct? If I’m reacting strongly to some things, that’s because it is difficult, for me, to see you living this way, like an animal in captivity.”

“Why should you be distressed by the way I live? We only met today.”

The scarlet and gold eyes gazed intently into his, for another beat, then Vincent looked away, shaking his head. “Because you’re an innocent child. They have no right to treat you this way.”

“I’m an asset, not a child,” Sephiroth pointed out. “That’s what the old professor says. They don’t treat me that badly, so don’t worry about me. I like the food.”

“Do you?”

“Well…no, but I don’t hate it. It’s just…normal.”

“That’s because you’ve never eaten anything else. We’ll fix that, today.”

When the handler returned, Vincent took the tray from him and growled, “Get out,” before the man could say another word. He hastily retreated, more than happy to leave the two terrifying superhumans to whatever they were doing.

Meanwhile, the tangy-salty-herby aroma coming from the things on the tray struck Sephiroth’s enhanced senses like a slap. He wrinkled his nose, as he eyed them doubtfully.

There was a large plate of some pale, yarn-like substance, doused in a thick, red slurry, with dark brown lumps in it, a glass of what appeared to be urine, at first glance, and a bowl with a creamy, pale-pink paste in it. That seemed the most familiar, only there were red chunks in it, that Sephiroth was revolted by. They looked a bit like human flesh, when it had been torn up by explosives.

He watched warily, as Vincent used the fork to wind the yarny bits from the plate into a wad, then stuck the tines through a brown lump.

“Eat,” he said, holding it out to him.

Sephiroth balked. “Vincent, I don’t—mph!”

His protest was muffled by the forkful of food Vincent simply shoved into his mouth, when he opened it to argue.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Vincent warned, seeing the boy about to spit it out. “Chew. Swallow. Now.”

Suppressing a gag, Sephiroth did as he was told. Then his big, green eyes went wide. His slit pupils dilated. A tart, salty, sweet, oily, aromatic, nearly indescribable chaos of flavors was exploding on his tongue.

A little shudder passed through his body, and suddenly his eyes were stinging, like they’d had a bright light shone in them. He stared, stupefied, into the middle distance, and opened his mouth, for the next bite, which Vincent was already hovering with.

“What…what is this?” he asked, after he’d chewed and swallowed again.

“Spaghetti. You like it?”

“I never tasted anything like it in my life! I want to eat spaghetti every day! For all three meals! Only spaghetti!”

“You’ll get tired of it, if you do that. There are other things just as delicious. Let me show you how to wrap the noodles up on the fork, come here.”

Sephiroth took the fork in his hand, and guided by Vincent, went to work learning this new skill. The noodles kept slipping off, but at last, he managed to wind up a somewhat lopsided spaghetti wad, complete with meatball on the end.

He stuffed the large bite into his mouth, beaming triumphantly as he chewed.

Vincent gave an approving dip of his chin.

Within a very few minutes, Sephiroth had cleaned the plate spotless. Vincent picked up a napkin and dabbed the orange sauce stains from then corners of the boy’s mouth, as he gazed mournfully down at the empty dish.

“Don’t look so tragic,” he said, holding out the spoon. “Try this, now. It’s called strawberry ice cream.”

CH2:

#ff7 #ff7 rebirth #sephiroth #vincent valentine #final fantasy 7 #miniroth #child sephiroth #shinra electric power company #canon fix-it #autistic sephiroth #father son dynamic #rating may change #tags may change #teen and up audiences

[kayas-kosmos]

Kals Mega-Post.

Hey everyone.

I've done a set of illustrations for the "Kals" book series that my friend is writing and I wanted to put them all in one place, so here's a mega-post showing off the main cast.

The series is based around characters who have divine elemental powers that they use to battle demons. It's part fantasy, part superhero!

Luc - Kal of light.

Mikage - Kal of earth.

Flora - Kal of water.

Theophile - Kal of air.

Tamir - Kal of fire.

If you would like to check out the Kals book series, please consider following the author's page here

The book is currently in French, but hopefully there will be an English version eventually.

Also, I am currently open for commissions! If anyone would like to work with me, please contact me at [email protected]

Or if you like my work and would like to support me, please consider donating a Ko-Fi!

#artists on tumblr #fantasy artist #fantasy art #digital art #autistic artist #character design #elemental powers #water elemental #fire elemental #earth elemental #Light elemental #elemental #Air elemental #Air element #water element #fire element #earth element #light element #KalsBook

[sunfoxfic]

Feligami as a ship is about being comfortable with being closed off, and being comfortable with someone who's closed off, and finding someone who's comfortable with you being closed off. That's the appeal. I know that emotional vulnerability is great in the right situations but sometimes you need someone to stick by you while you're not ready yet for that, and Feligami is about two people who aren't ready and they know this and they say, "Okay, we're not ready. But we still deserve to debate politics, we still deserve to eat food with someone else's company, we still deserve to be comfortable while we're not ready." It's about the mutual agreement, the mutual trust, the mutual boundaries being placed, which is in fact a very real fantasy for many, many people.

#feligami #ml analysis #feligami is just an autistic power fantasy send tweet #they fucking deserve it

[whereserpentswalk]

Warroir from deep below the sea, rising to the land once more.

#196 #my thougts #worldbuilding #my worldbuilding #dark fantasy #my artwork #my art #autistic artist #scifi #scifiart #science fantasy #science fiction #power armor #creature art #monster art #fantasy #creature design #creature drawing

[autisticgirliesbracket]

I need to go to bed so I don’t have time to actually write up propaganda but tbh sometimes seeing the name is enough of a reminder for people so submit so

✨PLEASE SUBMIT✨

Marcy Wu 💚🪸

Entrapta 💜🤖

Dendy 💛🪛

Ayda Aguefort ❤️‍🔥📚

Thank you 💖💖💖

^!

#autistic girlies bracket #ask #anon #amphibia #she ra and the princesses of power #ok ko! let's be heroes #dimension 20: fantasy high

[philcoulsonismyhero]

I found a new book series a while ago, btw, and I'm planning to be obnoxious about it now that I'm caught up, or at least I will be when I have some actual spare time. Feel free to blacklist 'rivers of london' if you don't care, I'll be tagging all posting after this with that.

#i've ended up really fond of the books they're great #they're really scratching the terry pratchett watch series itch #and the modern crime drama itch at the same time #it's such a fun mix of really detailed police procedural #and slowly-building-in-complexity urban fantasy worldbuilding #and i love both of those things #plus there's a quietly sad ridiculously powerful immortal mentor figure #in the obi-wan-kenobi-but-Doesn't-in-fact-die mould #and that's basically my own personal catnip so i'm having a Great time #good books good time i can Feel myself getting exponentially more autistic about them on the reread #art will Definitely be forthcoming #personal stuff

[mypralaya]

Me: I think Haven is really intuitive about people and great at knowing what to say and navigate social situations gracefully with even the most difficult or unpleasant people Me: however the fuck I even write that

#me realizing shes a power fantasy for my autistic ass lol #AND THIS IS NOT A THING I CAN JUST FAKE WITH RESEARCH LOL FAIL #out of haven

[ollovae3]

Fun question for the day: reblog with your assumptions of people based on what fantasy race they're obsessed with.

#reblog game #question #reblog fun #i know i like elves because i have issues around death/dying and feeling like the world is moving too fast #but also i love more animalistic elves because id also love to make my emotions clear w ears + hold more power via sharp teeth to bite with #i want my weird tendencies to seem ethereal and oddly beautiful and not just strange and unsociable #but know that I assume all yall dragonborn kids are either dino nerds or kids who never grew out of liking dragons and reading abt em #also youre likely autistic #and i say that while being autistic #fantasy #fantasy races #elves #dwarves #whatever media you like just have fun assuming things but for shits n giggles

[patricia-taxxon]

When I was eleven or twelve, my sexuality started growing in weird like an unchecked wisdom tooth. I had thoughts that were terrifying to me, sadistic sexual fantasies, specific and comprehensive, ones that I couldn't tell anyone close to me about. I thought it spoke to something horrible within me, something broken, I tried to shove it out but I couldn't. I just groomed myself on niche forums and communities, accepted at the age of 15 that I was a pervert and a pariah. I wrote songs about young gay love, but it was a front.

I'm 24 now. Maybe it's improved theory of mind, maybe it's just cus I've been able to talk about these things with other sexual assault survivors and I'm looking at my sexual self from the outside for the first time in my life. In the past months, I've realized my fantasies were always age appropriate. They were the fantasies of a scared and angry puppy, they were juvenile cries for help, desire for power, for love, a need for the things that were done to me to make sense. I'm autistic, all the interests I had in my youth are still with me, that scared and angry puppy is still here. It's cute, really.

#cilantromixture #mini essay

[mmikmmik]

some of the things about dunmeshi that make me so so emotional, in no particular order

Laios killing chimera Falin because even though it would be much cleaner and easier for Marcille to kill her with magic, he doesn’t want Marcille to carry that weight if this is Falin’s final death (incredibly underrated moment)

Chilchuck asking Marcille if she wants to meet his family, even though she’s being Like That, and Marcille immediately perking up

just in general the incredible love and gentleness the party shows towards dungeon lord Marcille and their unwillingness to hurt her and how much she obviously loves and treasures them in return. so powerful.

HIPPOGRIFF SOUP……..

The implication that Laios, on at least some level, wishes to abandon his humanity completely and also wishes he could always be there for Marcille and his other loved ones, and reconciles those two wishes with an impossible fantasy of leaving a “better” version of himself behind that can be with them instead (very underrated)

Laios thinking in one of the bonus chapters(?) about how intense dragon experts get and how it made him feel inadequate and alienated from loving dragons, but when he really thinks about them/interacts with them, he realizes it makes him happy and he really does love them. autistic joy is so real.

when the winged lion asks Falin if she wants to eat more. something something the inseparability of hunger from life. for some reason that single line made tears spring to my eyes. and then she says yes.

Laios in the final scene being so kind to the children and explaining himself to them. he’s so good!!! all you fuckers [other characters] misjudged him!!! you never knew him!!! and now he’s loved and understood and creating a better world!!!

#dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi manga spoilers

[saturdaynightspecialpresentation]

Poor Things

First of all, Emma Stone’s performance is as good as everybody is saying. Stone takes a very difficult role that easily could have gone very, very wrong and makes it look like the most effortless thing in the world.

I have been looking at the reviews, good and bad, and I think that the minority of people who didn’t vibe with this movie had slightly skewed expectations.

Poor Things starts out at Tetsuo The Iron Man levels of fucked up, but by the end it has dropped to Edward Scissor hands levels of fucked up. This is probably plenty of weirdness for the average movie-goer, but true connoisseurs of mondo cinema should calibrate their expectations.

Second, apparently this is being talked up as a sort of feminist coming of age fable chronicling an everywoman’s sexual awakening and liberation, and it really isn’t that, and I think if you are hoping for that you’ll come away disappointed.

Better, I think, to look at it as an autistic coming of age fable and power fantasy, which I think it does a tremendous job at.

Very minor spoilers under the cut; really, this is more an essay about what I thought the film was about than a review, my review would be that it's somehow simultaneously a feel-good crowd-pleaser AND a movie where an adult woman with the brain of a toddler stabs the eyes out of a corpse with a scalpel and then plays with its penis (I wasn't kidding with the Tetsuo comparison)

Honestly now that I've actually written that out I have maybe underestimated how impressive it is that Yorgos Lanthimos made a movie where that happens on screen but somehow basically everybody loves the movie.

In terms of sex, we do watch Bella discover sex, but she very quickly comes to a conclusion about her relationship with it which never once changes throughout the rest of the movie:

She likes it, she likes it more with an attractive partner, she is utterly lacking in any kind of sexual jealousy, and she doesn't attach too much more to it than that.

This is an odd comparison, but Bella treats sex the way Joey did on Friends. A man acting this way is a sitcom cliche, but a woman acting the same way…

This is a film that is really, really not interested in the real-world consequences of this kind of sex; in fact, given that a pregnancy is the inciting incident of the film, it came off a little weird to me that the possibility of a pregnancy or STD was never really addressed (unless there was a line or two that I missed while I was in the bathroom).

For the most part, though, I was able to get past it by just thinking of it as a heightened world. The sets and settings are extremely artificial, and ultimately I figured, “Hey, if I can buy this kind of thing as harmless and fun in a sitcom, I can buy it in this other kind of heightened reality.

I will say, I don't think Bella is meant to be an every-woman, and that there's textual support for this in the film itself.

All of the women Bella deals with in some way question her approach to sex, making it clear, sometimes through explicit dialog, other times more reading between the lines, that her approach to sex is not for them.

If there’s any particularly feminist message in the film, it’s that when confronted with Bella’s bizarre approach to the world, none of the women get angry at her, and most of the men she meets do.

But Bella’s relationships with other women aren’t really the meat of the film, that’s more about her relationship with men, and particularly the way that they feel, deep in their bones, that they should have control over any woman that they have sex with.

Duncan Wedderburn, when he first discovers Bella and convinces her to go away with him, thinks he is tricking and seducing a beautiful naif who he can use and then discard when he tires of her. Their relationship disintegrates as it becomes clear that Bella hasn’t been tricked at all; she wanted exactly what he was able to give, a chance to sow her wild oats by having some no strings attached sex with an attractive, likable person in an exciting foreign city.

This makes Wedderburn increasingly unhappy and unhinged (He says at one point that he has become what he hates, a “grasping succubus”) much to Bella’s growing consternation. She has no idea why he can’t simply be happy having sex with her and otherwise letting her do what she wants, and he is so committed to a certain vision of gender roles that he can’t even begin to explain it, he can only lash out in frustration.

And that I think is the meatier part of the film; Bella doesn’t so much flout social expectations as she is simply totally unaware that they exist. 

Honestly I think the character isn’t so much coded as autistic as she just is autistic. Bella is a woman who is basically totally unaware of social expectations and constantly taken aback to discover that they exist.

More than that, she has to figure out a way to work around the fact that many of the people who become most enraged by her are also so totally lacking in self-reflection, and view their social situation as so normal, so self-evidently obvious that they cannot explain to her why it is she has made them angry. They suddenly fly into rages that clearly perplex Bella and which they themselves don’t even bother to explain, because they regard their own ideas as self-evident.

Bella is an idealized autistic hero; personally as outlandish as she is I don’t really think the film expects us to take the side of anybody else, and I think there are some fairly subtle and accurate bits of autistic behavior on her part.

She responds to life as a kind of social experiment, attempting to parse out a set of logical rules and, especially in the latter parts of the movie, she often justifies her actions with a perfectly sensible internal logic that the emotional men in her life can’t parse out. Late in the film, when she and Wedderburn are destitute, she prostitutes herself for 30 francs, and with implacable logic, explains the two reasons that Wedderburn ought to be quite happy she has done so: First, her john was much worse at sex than Wedderburn, which ought to satisfy his ego, and second, they now have 30 francs and the potential to earn more.

Wedderburn does not appreciate her logical approach.

Another thing that strikes me as very true is that Bella has a very odd theory of mind for other people. There’s a scene where, traumatized by the unspeakable poverty and suffering she sees in Alexandria, she puts all of Wedderburn’s money in a box and rushes out to give it to the poor. Unfortunately the ship is leaving, but two port attendants tell her that they will be staying on the island, and would be happy to deliver a package. She tells them that she has a big box filled with money and they should give it to the island’s poor, and they agree to do so. Now, the film never tells us one way or another whether they keep their word; but Bella herself retains an iron certainty that they did exactly what she asked them to. Now, we know Bella understands what lying and deceit are, because we’ve seen her trick people before, like when she chloroforms McCandles to run away with Wedderburn. But it never once occurs to her that these sailors might do something similar. Call it paradoxical, but that kind of thinking is common in autistic people.

There’s also the scene where the self-professed cynic Harry Astley shows her the suffering in Alexandria; he admits, when he sees how terribly it has affected her, that he didn’t tell her simply because he thought it was the truth of the world, but that her attitude made him angry, and he wanted to hurt her. A very common part of the autistic coming of age is the slow realization that not everything people tell you is part of a dispassionate, scientific search for the truth.

There’s also a scene in a whorehouse in which Bella argues that it would make more sense to have the women decide who is to sleep with the johns, so that then the john could be more confident that the girl was attracted to him, which he must doubt if he chooses. You can tell I’m autistic because I immediately had the thought, “Well, but the johns would probably be worried that nobody would choose them.”

One of Bella’s fellow working girls instead tells her, “Some of them like the fact that we don’t have a choice”.

#poor things #movie review #autism #cw violence #I'm actually not sure what kind of content warning I should put for the corpse stabbing