#because theyre kids. they should be able to live normally as children instead of leading an army | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tumblunni · 7 years

Note

How do I write an autistic villain without demonizing autism by accident? ;-;

I’m not really sure why you’re messaging this to me. I’m really sorry but I’m not an expert on like.. political stuff about autism stereotyping, just because I’m autistic. And it depends on which country you live in, I know that america has a far more visible sort of cultural presence for stereotypes, due to the whole Autism $peaks controversies. I dont live in america and I’m not super smart or anything, so yeah this is a disclaimer that this is just my opinion and you should probably research answers given by other people too. And maybe ask people about the specific circumstances of what you’re writing, like the context of the setting of the story and what the villain is like, etc. I’d be happy to chat to you about that if you need help! (but again, im no expert, lol)

ANYWAY!

My opinion on the subject is that having an autistic villain is perfectly fine, as long as you’re not villainizing autism. Like...* Don’t make the autism the reason theyre a villain.* Don’t make people scared of them because of the autism, rather than because they’re a villain.* Don’t treat their autistic traits as scary or inherantly villainous.* Don’t make anyone insult them for their autism and act like its justified because they’re evil.

And similarly its bad form to do any of that stuff in regard to any sort of minority really. An example that always bugged me is how Excellus from Fire Emblem Awakening is scary and evil because he’s a murderous monster, yet everyone in the game constantly insults him for the fact he acts ambiguously gay/transgender/effeminate. Like, there’s way too many jokes about people finding him ‘disgusting’ because of some random thing he can’t change, like a sexuality, race or mental illness which plenty of non-evil people have too! It also lessens his impact as a villain because the characters barely even address the actual villainous things he does, and he doesnt seem to have any motive at all. They just ride on the whole ‘the audience will find him gross’ thing as a crutch and forgot to bother writing a good villain.

Oh, and your concerns are indeed valid, yo! Sometimes it is important to think about the context you created a character in, even if you didnt intentionally create any negative messages within your writing.It’s just that the case where a character will be seen as villainizing [minority trait] for being a villain... that’s kind of only in a very specific circumstance? its just that this specific circumstance is very very common in mass media nowadays.It’s ‘The Smurfette Principle’.If you only have one character of a minority in your cast, its easy for an uninformed audience to pick up messages that you’re saying ALL members of that minority are the same as them.If you only have one autistic character and he’s the villain, then you might accidentally be villainizing him. In a world where autistic characters being villainized for their autism is already very common, people could just assume you made them autistic for the same reason all those other writers did- because they think it’s ‘scary’. It feeds the stereotype even if you didn’t conciously intend it that way.

So a very very easy way to fix this problem is just to add multiple characters of a minority into your story, filling various roles from villain to hero to helpful npc. or anything you can think of!

Another good quick fix is to have your villain be autistic, but portray their autistic traits as sympathetic/relateable/a humanizing aspect of them. Not just portraying it as something neutral that doesnt make them scary, but going out of your way to add some scenes showing how they’re just like anybody else. Or even making it one of their redeeming traits!It doesn’t have to outright be something like ‘yo being autistic makes me inherantly good and childlike’, which is a stereotype all to itself, lol. But you could show them experiencing predjudice from another character, in a way that makes the audience sympathise. Honestly having a character attack them for being autistic instead of being a villain would be a good way to do this, as long as that character is actually shown as being wrong for what they’re doing. Or simply showing the villain having common autistic traits, facing common problems, doing common everyday things... that can be enough to portray autism positively. Have them shown doing this stuff outside of the situation of them being villainous. It makes them feel more human and less of an abstract symbol of evil. And because these small glimpses of normality are lightening the mood, they become seen as a positive aspect!

KIND OF AN OFFTOPIC TANGEANT SORRYJust my personal experience as an autistic kid experiencing this story... I personally headcanoned Cyrus from pokemon as autistic. Not because he’s ‘scary and emotionless’, but because his backstory was relateable to me as an autistic person. It’s said that his parents were emotionally abusive, and that he had nobody to turn to because everyone thought he was ‘a creepy kid’. And he was able to find solace by obsessing over repairing machines in his bedroom, and apparantly has trouble understanding people because they can’t be fixed as easily. Stuff like maths and science are kind of a stereotypical Special Interest for autistic children to be given in fiction, I guess because it makes you seem more intelligent when you obsess about that instead of video games, norse mythology, or collecting tiny novelty spoons from around the world XD (Yeah i was a weird kid.)So yeah sorry I went a little offtopic there, but the point is that it might have been by accident instead of intention but that villain has a lot of traits that read as autistic. And when i first played Diamond and Pearl I actually disliked him a lot because of that, I felt like they were villainizing someone who seemed relateable and potentially redeemable. I mean, he seemed pretty depressed too! Give that man some therapy! But when I played Platinum and got to learn his backstory I started to feel like the writers actually did want us to feel sympathetic to him, because of how all those ‘scary’ traits were presented so sympathetically. Like.. the backstory isn’t that he became evil because he was an autistic kid who did creepy things like obsess about machinery and suck at social contact. No, he became a villain because he was abused by his parents, him being ‘weird’ is just intended to make it clear here that he didnt deserve it. It makes him pitiable, it makes him relateable, it makes you feel so much more frustrated that nobody listened to him and saved him from that hell, and nobody even seems to remember him fondly, just because he was ‘weird’. And hell, even his ‘emotion is evil’ philosophy seems very relateable to me as an autistic child. It seems like he learned to seclude himself to avoid angering his parents. That’s the impression I got from his final scene in Platinum, where he finally acts angry at you for beating him, then gets angry at himself for expressing emotion and forces himself to go back to how he usually talks. I get a bit pissed off whenever I see fans of the series claim he actually IS emotionless, lol! This scene made it clear to me that this is just a guy who WISHES he was emotionless, somehow seeing it as the only way to be free of pain. Someone who struggles to deal with his own emotions, or feels like he’s disgusting when he expresses them. And this is VERY relateable specifically to an autistic kid who suffered from an abusive parent! “Quiet Hands” is a kind of common concept that autistic kids might experience, that’s the name for a popular ‘parenting technique’ that really fucks people up. Focusing on making your kid never ‘act autistic’, rather than actually helping them understand things. ‘Quiet Hands’ is specifically about slapping or smacking your kid whenever they show stimming behaviour. (Hand flapping being a common way this symptom can manifest.) We’re taught never to be too loud, and to always always have to restrain ourselves to avoid embarassing our parents. We have to try and learn how to act like ‘normal people’ and become scared of harmless parts of our own brain just because theyre ‘embarassing’, leading to even worse emotional problems as an adult. i mean seriously how is it logical to tell a kid who has troubles with social interaction that they shouldnt even practise it?? Plus its a huge mess to teach these kids to do way more emotional labour than neurotypical kids are expected to do, and then treat them like they’re below average intelligence for not being able to do twice as much as everyone else...

ANYWAY! That’s a thinG! Sorry I went rambling off there about how a particular fictional character touched my heart, lol!I just kinda wish he could be canonically autistic, or if I had similar canonically autistic characters to relate to, instead. So i think having more autistic villains can’t be bad, we’re so badly in need of more autistic characters in general! And villains have a unique perspective of being able to hit our emotions the hardest. I think its easier to cry over someone who has a sad backstory of how they became evil, compared to anything else!So yeah what I was trying to say before I went offtopic is that if the backstory is ‘became evil because autism’, then people will complain. But if the backstory is ‘became evil because someone mistreated them because autism’ then that’s a good way to make people sympathise with autism. Aaaaand I’m bad at explaining this, because autism XD Well, i mean, my personal symptoms and lack of diagnosis til I was an adult means that I’m still working on learning how to communicate correctly, I don’t mean every autistic person writes terrible tl;dr advice posts that degrade into pokemon XDOh man i feel embarassed now, you asked me such a polite question and I didnt know how to answer it very well...I just hope maybe I inspired you to go out and do more research, rather than putting you off with my nonsense!

#im sorry this is incoherant and bad #i didnt know what specifically was making you worry so #i tried to explain all the common problems and solutions i've seen from different villains #if this didnt help would you mind sending me another ask with what i got wrong?#or more info on your villain so i can figure it out a bit more #i hope your storywriting is going well and you have a great day!#A Nonny Mouse #ask

7 notes · View notes

somedaypast-thesunset · 7 years

Text

you know whats unhealthy?

being made to be upset before 7am about things which are projections of the issues someone has with themselves and needs to find something or someone to blame for their own problem because admitting it is their own problem would be admitting a fault in themselves.

you know? thats the lack of stability.

he told me to make a list of my problems. i felt like maybe he should make a list of my problems because he seems to have a different list than i do.

heres what i know:

a) i have very fast metabolism to the point i need to eat frequently throughout the day in order to feel super super on top amazng healthy. i cannot afford to eat healthier or as frequently as i want to. this leads to buying lower quality food to try and buy “bulk” amounts to last longer or things with “empty” calories just for sustenance. i occassionally buy fresh vegetables and fruits but they are not a good investment when you’re poor. period. a box of rice costs 1.99. three apples cost about the same. can you eat 3 apples for a meal? a very frequent problem is not being able to afford to eat alot in the day and then getting a meal at the end of the day from his home but only being served ridiculously small portions. i’m grateful for anything at all but it’s not enough for me to not feel hungry afterwards.

however when we eat snacks in the evening and sleep on it, my normal very fast metabolism is not active. this has caused me to put on 10 extra pounds that i have not carried in at least 5 years. what can i do? i dont have alot of options at my disposal.

b) rheumatoid arthritis runs in my family. this is an autoimmune disease. this means that the genetic line in my background dictates that the dna that makes up my body is suspcetible to creating a being with weaker joints because the body itself - not by injury, activity, or lack there of, is attacking the joints. being prone to having weaker joints means that it is important to strengthen and stretch and be active however it also means knowing that you have some physical limitations in your activity. maybe your activity will be like 30 minutes instead of an hour. but it’s still being active.

one of the biggest issues i have by far are very weak knees. well .. i think thats actually the wrong word to describe the issue. that automatically implies that i need to strengthen my knees. my knees have painful joints that are unable to maintain repetitive motions such as cycling or walking for long periods of time. maybe a knee brace would help not create so much stress and tear on joints and ligaments that are natually inclined to wear quickly but those cost _money_.

additionally, i can continue being active after a break. like i can do 20 minutes of very good, heart pumping activity with repetitive motions but then i need a break because its very painful and stressed and once its able to relax, it’s good to go. i don’t think this implies i’m unable to be active. i think this implies that i have a moderate activity level right now that is equal to how much nutrition i get and the expecations i have during activity.

c) i smoke cigarettes. sucks. i dont do chemical or pharmaceutical drugs. i maybe do shrooms once every few years. i smoke weed. i have never been addicted to chemical or pharmaceutical drugs in my life. i have never injected drugs in my life. i have never smoked chemical drugs. i have inhaled drugs probably 7 - 10 times in my lifetime. i only casually drink alcohol and have only drank to excess maybe 7 - 10 times in my ife where i’ve vomited or had a hangover. i have maybe 10 beers over the course of 4 - 6 months at a time. that’s the lvel of “casually drinking” i have. i almost never drink mixed alcohol anymore but used to drink on a more frequent basis and drank orange juice with vodka primarily. so guess what? despite the obvious ill effects that smoking has had on all of my organs, i probably havent created any additional issues to my major organs by doing any of these things. i have not created any stress on my heart or my liver.

but i do smoke. and that is legitimately the worst thing i do in my life in terms of harming myself or being unhealthy. absolutely nothing in my lifestyle is more unhealthy than smoking. in no way what so ever do i deny the effects smoking has. it is very very bad. not only do i have some breathing issues naturally to begin with including asthma and apnea but i am now putting layers of toxic tar on top of my lungs and much of it admittedly has been unfiltered for almost 10 years and have ben low quality tobacco. not that higher quality is necessarily better but lower seems like its probably even worse. probably like even more random chemicals they dont write anywhere. ive pulled out like pieces of wood from cigarettes before. my dad rolled his own for a long time as well. it’s bad. it’s totally completely bad.

this is going to cause negative side effects in my life in the future. for sure. will i get cancer? maybe. it doesnt run in my family but maybe? lymphoma? copd? sounds like it could maybe happen but again, genetically i’m not pre-disposed but i can cause it by smoking regardless. everyone in my family smokes. they did not age super well in terms of like.. visually. and mentally theyre totally fuked up. but physically theyre oddly in decent shape. like theyre all still moderately active people capable of doing things in their 50s and 60s which is probably a decent sign they’ll be moderately mobile in their 70s and 80s.

d) depression is the NUMBER ONE DISEASE THAT RUNS IN MY FAMILY ON BOTH SIDES. VERy SErIOUS CLINICAL DEPRESSION WHICH GOeS UNTREATED FOR YEARS IF NOT DECADES. my uncle shot himself in the stomach with his kids in the next room and he was not even blood related. thats how much depression runs in this family. we attract more depression. and it’s not just depression but i’m going to use it as a blanket term because to simplify the pain of this generational experience its that everyone deeply suffers from depression as a disease and not as just like.. a way to describe a deep sadness. a good number of people in my family who are my age but third generation are on drugs. you can clearly tell. my cousin lives in a hospital for huffing glue as a teenager and hes like an old man now. the matriarch on my fathers side literally jujust abandoned all of her children. just peaced the fuck out. literally. thats fucked!

but what we have to KNOW - we HAVE to KNOW that depression is a disease in this family. trauma is accepted and depression is a genetic disease passed down. if we dont KNOW this then we’re fucked. we’re all fucked. you have to know the enemy. you have to know what youre fighting in order to win. many people so far have passed because of a heart attack or diabetic complications. however the more and more i think about it (which is a lot. like everyday.) my father died of depression. he had zero will to live anymore and its lke.. he had guilt for that because i was there and i was a good kid who didnt do anything but try to help him but he had no will to live. it wasn’t selfish either - he gave me everything he could but he had absolutely no desire to carry on in life and he made harmful choices over and over again partially out of being stubborn, partially because he just did not care. he told me many times that he was WAITING TO DIE. my own father. and do you know what i replied? “i know dad. i’m waiting to die too.” and you know what he said? nothing. nothing. we just existed in silent empathy of eachother - understanding.

depression will absolutely kill me before any disease does if i do not get taken out by a random heart attack which honestly i am terrible at eating salt in moderation so i feel like im more likely to have like a sodium related issue that in combination with smoking would lead to a random heart attack. but i would never, in my opinion, knock on wood, suffer from a long term disease because i already do and depression will totally kill me way before anything else. right now, at 27, i can see me going until 40. maybe. MAYBE. ive already done 27 years. but the next 10 are going to be fucked. totally fucked. and if i make it until 40 then wow. wowwww.

e) i am very .. easily persuaded in regards to someone telling me an observation they have about me. i have experienced trauma numerous times by multiple people which has created a personality flaw that leads to very serious emotional & mental instability with how i perceive myself and what i know and what i’ve seen. this is not a “disorder”. this is not an “illness”. this is a personality flaw which has been created through life experiences. essentially, by listening to other people amd choosing to believe them over what i legitimately know to be true is one way of choosing to harm myself. i am “doing it to myself” even though these people could be being assholes at the time. but i am not capable of immediately filtering and having the confidence in what i know - because it’s been questioned so often i question my literal sanity and reality of the world on an hourly basis - so instead of knowing how to cope, instead i allow the traumatic experiences to play out as i am familiar to them acting out. they tell me something, i accept it, question myself, fight with myself and being picking apart things that maybe arent even that big of issues but ive correlated it with what theyve said and now im focused on all these problems i think i have with myself.

i was told i was sick for a long time. do you get that? i’m not even making this up. like the fact im SAYING THAT should be enough. i was told by my mother that i was sick for a long time. i was told this. she made up all the fucking things she could and told me and told doctors and everyone that i was sick. i had many infections and illnesses and just.. things. i was sick. i was TOLD i was sick. i was TOLD i had a problem i couldnt see or feel or hear. and thus the cycle begins.

i fight it as well - but i’m not sick. i’m not sick. i’m not weak. i’m not stupid. OBVIOUSLY. OBVIOUSLY IM NONE OF THESE THINGS. but im listening to these convoluted assholes spouting opinions which again are projections of their own personal insecurities make me doubt myself and question if i am. maybe i am. maybe i’m so stupid i cant even see what they see. now theyre in a position of power. to counteract i spend my time having one sided arguments and writing personal essays about how i’m none of these things and this doesnt even make sense because all this other shit happened! but now ive stressed over something that meant nothing to my being for x amount of time, become tired and stressed out, emotional and depressed.

~~~~

last night i kind of felt like i didnt really want to be sleeping at his house. i was uncomfortable and had trouble breathing and the silence combined with his heavy breathing is soo grating it takes sometimes hours to fall asleep. i still like sleeping with him. i do. after this conversation, i dont realy feel like i want to hang out with him again anytime soon anyways.

i have to balance and meditate on my own knowledge and perceptions because i have not been wrong before about how he infers more “important” or “bigger” emotions. we have been together for a year but he refused to acknowledge a relationship until last week. which means we are not emotionally affectionate - we don’t express affection in words either but we are both very aware that we are in love.

i believe he knows that i am both the problem and not the problem at the same time. i believe he has a lot of love for me on a lot of levels and would do just about anything for me. i believe he wants a future with me and wants to have me in his life “forever” but he can’t be promised forever if i’m dead at 40. he cant invest all this emotional attachment to someone whos going to die. he needs to know im not going to die and everytime i light a cigarette in front of him im choosing that over living with him until im dead.

i lso believe some of the frustration comes from knowing he could live with me in some capacity if we didnt smoke weed or i smoked cigarettes or we ate junk food because we would have more money to build an appropriate life (possibly to his standards) together.

quitting smoking is not something im considering right now because its acrutch. its a daily crutch that gets me from one difficult 5 minutes to the next. i am very scared to live without it because i am not capable of handling long term stress emotionally & mentally right now. i also have no real personal desire to stop. its not a big deal to me and if i did quit i am sure they would all ask me if i felt better etc. and ii’d just shrug and tell them sure. they feel better, clearly, so i guess i feel better because i dont listen to them put me down for my personal choices in life anymore. just another thing im told. im told. im told.

his ignorance to the legitimate issues and difficulties of living in long term poverty is overwhelming and to add trauma and depression on to it .. incomprehensible.

additionally since he has no self control he wants other people to be his self control by not smoking weed or eating junk food and promoting an active lifestyle. he said he couldn’t take me biking or for a run - and that’s fine; it’s not fun to do those activities with him. i’m not interested in exersizing with him, i’m interested in just being active and going at break neck speeds are not fun at all for me. i enjoy a level of activity that gets my heart rate going but is still leisurely and like.. not aggressive. i’m not looking to run aggressively, you know? if i die in a freak accident because my stamina is not good enough to run aggresively well then i die. it’s cool. i probably died in a fucked up way anyways if i needed to run aggressively away and at tht point kudos to me for trying at all.

when we tried to canoe it was terrible. just a shitty experience because he likes adrenaline and the rush that pushing himself gives him but you know what? maybe - maybe. some people. just want to have a casual leisurely canoe ride. okay. thats not fucking terrible. they arent weak. theyre fucking enjoying life and the experience. thats how they enjoy it. go make some adrenaline junkie friends. let us slow pokes enjoy the ride. i am not required to fulfill every role in his life. i am not required to be his clone and like all the things he likes and do all the hings he does the way he does it. we have a ton of things in common already and we get along super well. his mother frequently buys pretty terrible pre-packaged foods and granola bars full of sugar and stocks his lunches full of fruit and like honestly fruit is good for you but you cant just eat fruit and say youre healthy. you cant eat shitty grocery store bread and say youre healthy.

however we both like the same foods. whenever i cook for us he has never complained but openly complains about his mothers cooking. the only time he has complained is when i try to bake frozen fries in a fucking oven because his mother thinks its just “tht much healthier” when you’re eating fucing mccains frozen fries to begin with and then baking them until theyre brown to simulate cripsyness.

if we lived together i could actually feed him healthy foods that are homemade and not store bought as i have done in all my previous live in relationships. i made dinner with multiple food groups every night too. alot of my lunches would be salad or soup or a sandwhich or all of it together. did i also eat snacks? fuck yes. did all i eat qualify as a snack? no. i ate healthy. and i actually ate even healthier as i got older and included more vgetbles and fruits in my regular diet.

but living between two places and having his mother feed us once a day is pretty fucking stupid. sry2say. buy your own foods. know that the cupboard doesnt restock magically. when you make foods you actually accept in eating left overs of or create lunches a week a head of time like other people do its not as easy to turn to snacks either.

but what do i know.

i’m just sitting here waiting for this guy to figure out that hes still causing 50% or more of the “problem”.

0 notes