The Okay-ish OT

 In my earlier blog post, I talked about important factors when thinking about autism representation of media. This is a list of a wide variety of autism representation in media (primarily movies and tv shows), and each one has their pros and cons. Personally, I would say that I don't have an absolute favorite as of yet, because I still haven't seen any autism representation that looks like me. That being said, the more autistic participation, the better, but nearly all autism representation has some room for improvement.  This list is not a comprehensive list of every confirmed autistic character in media, and I hope to add to it in the future as we hopefully move towards more authentic and complex autistic characters, but for now I have a list of movies, a brief summary, and what I thought about their representation of autism. I hope this list is helpful for others as you think about the good, the bad, and the ugly in autism representation. Media Representation of Autism: Fr...

Sheldon Cooper. The Good Doctor. Rain Man. Music. The Blue Power Ranger. Donatello from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Temple Grandin. Even Matthew from The Chosen. All of these movie characters have something in common: their creators characterized them as being on the autism spectrum. Some of these examples are better than others, and some of them are actively harmful in their representation of autistic people. This week, I'll be going into the aspects of autism representation, why it matters, things to avoid, and how to do it well. What is Autism Representation? In media, autism representation happens when a character exhibits various traits of autism. These traits do not necessarily need to be labeled as autism, in fact many characters with autistic traits are simply referred to as "eccentric," "quirky," or "socially awkward." Even if a character wasn't originally intended to be seen as an autistic person, one only has to look as far as the inte...

As an occupational therapy student, one of the hardest classes I'll have to take is Anatomy, and I'm taking it right now. Aside from the sensory hell I experience from the bone saws, the embalming fluids, and... other fluids, it hasn't been quite as bad as I thought, but I'm always nervous when we get to the exams, so I'll usually try to study a lot to compensate.  This weekend, instead of being responsible and studying for my upcoming exam, I realized about halfway through the day that my cat absolutely needed a costume for Halloween, and I spend the next three hours going to the store, buying yarn, and knitting him the beginnings of an Ewok hood to match my Leia cosplay. I did get about five good hours of studying in that day, but in-between those times, I was playing Minecraft, watching NCIS, and trying to think of meals I could eat that would maximize time playing and minimize time spent cooking. I would consider this weekend relatively productive, but obviously...