AnAutisticNewt

So I saw the movie a few days ago, and I really wanted to sit with it before giving my thoughts. Like my opinion matters much, but I’m still going to give it.

And a heads up that this is on the negative side. I may have a bias against this one, that I’m trying to see around, but I’m finding it hard to do.

Spoilers ahead.

I’m going to start with the good, and end with the bad.

It was so amazing to see and hear Dumbledore say that he was in love with Grindelwald. The backstory they give in the movie isn’t anything new, but it was nice to finally have it written into a movie for even general audiences to see, and I felt like the two actors, Jude Law and Mads Mikkleson, had great chemistry.

All the acting was good. I liked all the characters. The story was easy to follow. There were no annoying out of no where dramatic twists. And the special effects looked good.

Ok, now on to the bad.

Nothing happened. Period. No one did anything.

3 characters stories are different after this movie. Queenie and Jacob, who got to go back to a life together, and Credence who at the very end of his life, seemingly, finally met his father.

At least after the second one had all those terrible twists, there was something to talk about.

All Dumbledore does is explain backstory so they don’t have to film flashbacks, Theseus is just there to give Newt someone to save, Newts whole purpose to the plot is to be the owner of the case they use to transport animals, Jacob was around to worry about Queenie, Queenie is there for only Jacob to worry about, Credence is there because they needed Dumbledore to fight someone and it couldn’t be Grindlewald, Lally is there to talk in an old timey accent and transport Jacob around, Yusuf does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, Tina ISN’T EVEN IN THE MOVIE until the very end where she literally just says HI, and Bunty is APPARENTLY SO FORGETTABLE that the whole ending surprise relies on the notion that you forget that shes in the movie. Grindlewald’s whole plan is so simple and so easily defeated, I was embarrassed for him. And he gets away at the end! And Credence doesn’t die, we just know he’s about to. We get NO CLOSURE on ANYTHING! I get that they wanted to make 5 movies, but the way they crammed things into the last one, but did nothing in this one was just a really bad move.

Ok, I got a little worked up. And I’m sorry. I wish I liked it more. I know that some of this might be nitpicking.

Did we all collectively forget that they allegedly added a Dumbledore in the last movie?

Like it doesn’t specifically say “The Secrets of ALBUS Dumbledore”, it just says Dumbledore. I’m thinking it’s going to be more about the Dumbledore family in general and not specifically Albus. I really don’t think we are going to learn anything new about him or his relationship with Grindelwald.

I mean, “The Crimes of Grindelwald” didn’t really show us much backstory about Grindelwald. We literally got the most backstory about Credence/Aurelious, a character made up for these movies, and Leta Lastrange, a character they introduced then killed in the same movie.

The title means nothing.

It’s not in an episode you can find on the YouTube channel. It was a clip from their last live show. You have to pay £8-£10 to see those live, then they are private for only people with the link for a couple days, then private from everyone. I don’t think, as of yet, they’ve released any of the live shows for everyone or if they ever will.

But then other times it’s just:

Video Discription:

Over Zoom, Alex Horne (42 y/o successful British comedian and father of 3, wearing a bright pink t-shirt with a purple unicorn with rainbow mane and tail dabbing, yellow broken lensless sunglasses, and a purple hat with more unicorns on it): “Alright.....*cheerfully starts singing while bobbing head back and forth* I’m trying to read your faces. I don’t know what they mean!” *starts laughing*

I’m not going to answer them directly because a few were off anon and a little rude, and while they might not be worried about people knowing who they are, I don’t want to promote their blogs or send any hate towards them or myself by showing their blog names. But the gist of them were, how can I support a character like Newt, played by an allistic actor, but not the character from Sia’s movie, also played by an allistic actor? (I don’t know how they would have known that I don’t support Sia’s movie, but whatever, the assumptions were correct.) While the questions may not have come from a nice place, I do find it an interesting thing to think about, and thought I’d try elaborating. So here I go.

I think what really helps is headcanons. People headcanon characters as all kinds of things all the time. Autistic, ADHD, Trans/NB, other LGBTQ+ identities, Disabled, and even POC headcanons are everywhere. They are all great, and it’s a lot of fun for the people who have them.

If a character in a television show or film isn’t marketed as something, or casted as something, but the audience identifies a characteristic about them as this or that, it doesn’t matter who the actor is or if the actors themselves are this or that, all that matters is the character.

It’s a much different story if it’s the other way around.

Newt was not created to be autistic. So the fact that they hired a non autistic actor to play him is very acceptable. Eddie Redmayne plays the character as autistic because he believed after reading the script that that was the truest interpretation of that character. Because of his acting choices, it at least seems, that the writing for the second movie and acting of the younger version of Newt were influenced more towards an autistic version of the character.

?Music? (I think that’s the name of the character and the movie) was created to be an autistic character. There is no interpretation to be made. She is autistic, full stop. Why would you even think of hiring someone who isn’t autistic to play her? I don’t care if you only have an actor pool of 3 people to choose from. Pick the best of those 3 and go. If none of those 3 are able to act in your production because it is too distressing, make it less distressing for them! If you can’t make it less distressing rewrite the film.

Babies play babies, dogs play dogs, but you think an autistic person can’t play an autistic person?!? It’s so insulting to me that entire productions can work around the schedules and needs of young children and animals, but the minute an actor needs certain accommodations for a disability or neurodivergence or something like that, they all of a sudden can’t think of any way that they can work around it.

They do this because it’s easier, cheaper, they don’t really care, and they know they can get away with it.

There are many autistic actors out there. I bet several of them can dance too. I bet you could even find quite a few nonverbal or semiverbal autistic actors who can dance. And even if you couldn’t, you could work around them not being able to dance. Stunt doubles and cgi exist!

TLDR;

One version is

audience: “hey this character is autistic”

writers: “you know what? That wasn’t our initial intention, but you’re right, and should say it.”

The other is

writers: “this character is autistic, but the actor isn’t because we were lazy”

audience: “then you did a bad job”

writers: “shut up”

Well, it’s never too late to answer something right? Even if it takes a year? Very sorry. But in celebration of the new seasons release date, here it is, finally.

This is probably going to be a long post. So sorry for that, but I’ll be going through three characters.

Just as a disclaimer though, I don’t think any of them are intentionally coded as autistic, or that we are supposed to see them this way, or the actors are playing them this way. These are purely fun headcanons I have that no one has to agree with me on.

Ok, let’s start with Ella Lopez.

I love Ella. She’s probably my favorite character, and I usually don’t care for her “type” of character. You know, the kind of wacky, smiley, forensics specialist. But she’s made much more than that in the show.

Ella has a few characteristics that can be seen as neurodivergent.

Most notably, the inability to recognize when it is appropriate or not appropriate to hug someone. And wether or not that person wants to be hugged.

She talks a lot. Especially about her ideas at crime scenes and things she’s into. Often this can be seen as inappropriate given the setting and how excited she is.

She misunderstands some social cues and has pretty much zero subtlety in her own.

She’s loyal to a fault, and has such strong beliefs that when they are shaken she falls apart.

Possible Special Interests: Forensics, Cars, Counting Cards

And on to Chloe Decker.

Now, surprisingly I think for some, Chloe is the hardest for me to justify headcanoning as autistic.

Most of this headcanon is just purely me making things up in my head, but damn it, that’s valid too!

Like really, it’s mostly just my mind going, “yeah, she’s autistic. Proof? Don’t need it. So what? Come at me.”

But there are a couple things I can point to.

Now, you may atribute this to Lauren German’s acting choices. Or the writers way of writing her. I mean that’s what they are, ultimately. But when it comes to headcanons, you have to sometimes be of the mindset that these aren’t actors playing and writers writing characters but real people. I’m not saying German is a bad actress, or that the writers make poor character choices for her, but.....

Her facial expressions are often over the top or completely blank. Like she doesn’t know how to control them or she’s focusing too much on them. However, she communicates sometimes non verbally with her facial expressions. Often with Lucifer.

She is pretty stead fast in her beliefs, she tries to look at things logically, only believing in what she sees.

She can’t let things go. She struggles with trust (justifiably). She would rather work than relax. She loves puzzles.

Possible Special Interests: Her Job

And finally Lucifer Morningstar.

I don’t know why people think this is the hardest one. He is by far the easiest of the three. (Innuendo not intended, but happily discovered after checking for mistakes)

First off, yes, he’s not human. I know a lot of people don’t like seeing non humans headcanoned as autistic. However, I personally don’t have any problems with this, especially if the character in comparison to other members of their “species” tend to seem neurodivergent.

Maze and Amenadiel both struggle with their own and others emotions and actions, but their understanding of them afterward, in my opinion, outweigh Lucifer’s understanding. Lucifer has spent much more time among humanity, so he should be far ahead of them.

Now the reasons I headcanon Lucifer as autistic.

Lucifer doesn’t lie. He is blunt, and most of the time doesn’t understand why people become upset when he is. People being upset in general he is pretty much always baffled by.

Most of his “pretending” is just him emulating real people around him. In fact, he has to directly copy others to understand what he already knows about them. He also copy’s other people thinking he can become a “better” person by doing so.

He doesn’t understand affection. Like sex, yes, he’s great at that, but try to give him a hug or a kiss and he’s confused by it or uncomfortable.

He’s a terrible judge of character. Until he really gets to know someone and suddenly he notices the smallest things about them.

He believes that he is a monster, because he’s been told this even by his own family, not only because of his actions but also just who he is. He’s “different” to all of his siblings and expressed emotions and interests that he “shouldn’t” have, and his parents punished him for it.

He’s easily manipulated, yet doesn’t trust easily.

He’s not good at following rules.

He comes across as narcissistic or uncaring, when he genuinely cares but just doesn’t understand.

Less dramaticly, he’s very into movies. He becomes excited and talks a lot about things he’s into.

And finally, the conversation I had with a friend while watching the program together that made me realize all of this to begin with:

Friend: I think you’d get along with Lucifer.

Me: Why?

Friend: Because despite years of being around other people, neither of you understand other people’s feelings or actions or even your own until you’ve had at least three discussions with a therapist about it.

Me: Gee, thanks

Possible Special interests: Punishment, Cheesy B-movies, Bones(tv series), The Detective

So there it is. My very late and long explanation.

I hope you all had the best Autism Acceptance Month that it was possible for you to have in this trash fire of a year.

I know you’ve all heard enough about this, but I wanted to just put it out there, that even if you live in a place that is opening back up, to please be careful and please remain home as much as possible.

Im a medical professional and right now things are very stressful. I work 6 days a week, we are under staffed, and we don’t have enough ppe. I come home in the evening more exhausted than I think I’ve ever been. Most days I’m able to take a shower then go to sleep, wake up and go back to work. At work a few days ago, I hid in a back room and just cried for 10 minutes. I’ve caught a coworker doing the same.

There is no end in sight yet for this, and I’m burning out.

I don’t even have it the worst, and hate complaining. I can’t imagine how terrible working in an ER right now especially must be.

Wrth gwrs! Rwy’n dod o Gwynedd!

I had some posts planned for this month, but unfortunately I probably won’t finish them in time. Life is a little crazy right now. I’m a health care professional so I’m working a lot, and don’t have a lot of free time right now. Please stay home people!

However, I’ve decided to try to do the 30 days of autism acceptance. And I’m already a day behind lol!!

But here’s the first two days.

Day 1: Introduce yourself

Hi! My name is Thomasin, but I go by Tommie. I’m female, and 25 years old. I’ve lived in the US for 8 years and officially an American citizen, but I’m actually Welsh. My favorite genre is Sci Fi, my favorite animal is the penguin, and my favorite color is yellow.

Day 2: Redinstead Selfie/what does redinstead mean to you?

Sorry, I don’t feel comfortable posting selfies.

Red Instead was a breath of fresh air when I first heard about it. Autism “Awareness” always made me feel ashamed in some way. Like I was a cancer people needed to raise funds to help “cure”. There weren’t a lot of “light it up blue” things around me growing up, but there wasn’t anything about acceptance either.

I don’t know if this is supposed to be a complement.

My older siblings were very gifted in English in school, so I was always expected to be too. I kind of still put unneeded pressure on myself when it comes to writing, reading, etc.

My drafts spend, at minimum, 3 days being checked and rechecked before posting. Which includes asks too. And that only includes the days after I’ve finished writing them. Sometimes it takes up to a week or two to finish that part. Which is why it takes me a while to post things.

All autistic people are different. Our strengths and weaknesses are different.

This is an old ask, and I’m sorry it took me so long to answer it.

I understand both sides of that debate. Honestly though, as long as the headcanoner is autistic themselves, I think any character is headcanonable as autistic. That, of course, changes if the headcanoner isn’t autistic.

As far as my own headcanons, I have my own rule on which characters I personally allow myself to headcanon as autistic.

If the character is not human, I let myself headcanon them as autistic if A) there are other characters of that species/type within the media, and B) the character is, to me, noticeably neurodivergent to those other characters.

In DBH, Connor is noticeably different in his way of thinking, and acting, from Marcus, Kara, and most other androids. So I feel justified with the headcanon.

In contrast, Data, from Star Trek: TNG, acts very similarly to Connor, and many people headcanon him as autistic. However, I don’t because he does not appear to be neurodivergent when comparing him to Lore or B4.

Again, this is a personal rule of mine, and I don’t hold other autistics to that.

Yes, I work with autistics, but not exclusively autistics. The patients I work with are all sorts of people.

I’m not sure what you mean by “act more autistic”. I’m always “acting” autistic because I am autistic. But I’ll say that I don’t mask as much around other autistic people. Is that what you’re asking?

Sometimes that’s intentional and sometimes it’s not. Like the masking itself, sometimes I don’t intend to do it.

Sometimes I’ll straight up tell autistic people I’m working with that I’m autistic, so we can talk about it, and it helps them feel more comfortable around me. I do the same thing with lgbtq+ patients.

Oh my god, people are so stupid!

I guess no one had any sort of disorder or medical issue back when we didn’t have a name for them.

I get what you mean, but I wouldn’t say that there is anything “wrong with” Newt.

I can definitely see him knowing that he’s different. I mean, most non diagnosed autistic people recognize the differences in themselves to neurotypicals. He just, unfortunately, wouldn’t have a word for it.

The beauty though of him being an adult character is that he doesn’t have to care as much about his differences. He’s lucky enough to be able to take care of himself. So he can live the way he wants, doing what he loves, and does so very successfully. I mean, he obviously has his struggles, but he’s literally working his dream job, successfully flirting with the woman he likes, and making friends who would die for him. Like that’s so much better than we normally get.

Most autistic characters are high school students or younger, who are still figuring themselves out, and trying to fit into a world they really don’t have to. It’s the same story every time. And those stories are important, and need to be told, but it’s so refreshing to see a story that’s not one of those.