#I'm sure Dino will treat her right. he used to be my li so i know he will 💖

[tinykingdomgalaxy]

HS 2 SPOILERS

Matchmaking Mimi and Dino ❤ Finally, my ship is canon now 👀 i started shipping them because of that one fanart 😳💖

[queen-of-my-goofball-army]

Undiagnosed Autism-spectrum disorder in The Michells Vs The Machines

I'm sure that more well educated people have put two and two together in this film but I really, really want to put my own spin on it from my experience. For me, as an aspie, film is one of my biggest interests. I love studying and more than anything I love watching and rewatching films. My latest favorite movie was one that I just watched last night for my family movie night, The Michells Vs The Machines. I also went 17 years of my life asking myself the same question that both Rick and his daughter ask each other, what is wrong with him/her?

Well, I'll tell you, in my firmly undiagnosed autistic opinion for far too long, that this family is full of people with undiagnosed autism spectrum disorder. When I was watching it with my parents my mom made the comment that "the dad was a jerk" and maybe "he just didn't love his daughter enough to let her be her own person." I thought that was so not seeing the bigger picture even though it was only fifteen minutes into the film. I have felt like Katie so much with my own dad. My dad is a computer nerd and a physics major for those of you that don't talk to me very often. That means in laminas terms that he's extremely smart. Way smarter than I will ever be in my entire life. Both of my parents are insanely smart in their own rights. My mom is a CPA accountant. But that isn't what I wanted to talk about here. I want to discuss the effect of undiagnosed autism and what it can do to a whole family when they all have it and just don't know that they do. This will probably go on for quite some time so you may stop here or read below the cut because this also has the probablity of getting super, duper personal.

We'll start with Katie! To me, Katie is one of the most relatable characters that I have ever come across. She's a film nerd, which alone has made her supremely relatable as somebody who is thinking about going into a degree in film studies. I am more of a critic of film than somebody who wants to make her own film but nonetheless, there were SO many little moments that I related to. The first thing that I personally noticed and related to was the stimming technique that Katie has. She chews on her hoodie strings. As somebody who has chewed on the drawstrings of hoodies far too often long before I was officially put into the Aspergers box. Aspies are also known to stick with one "special interest" for the rest of their lives if it's one that is wide enough and varied enough to make it applicable. For Katie, that's film. For me that's animation. I appreciated that little detail of most of her dialogue being references to other films because as a lover of films and movies in general I could go for days on just fumes and movie references that nobody else understands. The little things from her hair being perpetually messy (same that's a whole ass mood like I just learned over quarantine how to tye my own hair back), only having one earring in her ear at all times, the way that she dresses and draws on her own hands, this was just me when I was first in high school. I was one of the few people that wore shorts underneath all my skirts/dresses. Everyone who knew about looked at me like I had grown a third eyeball.

Aaron, the younger brother, also just oozes spectrum lil buddy out of his every pore from his being. I do think that they should have picked somebody capable of doing a bit of a younger sounding voice (I know what they were going for, but like Ben Schwartz has become a huge deal in both voice acting and live action before switching mediums.) His special interest is actually quite a common one, he loves dinosaurs. I've met a bunch of people on the spectrum that are fascinated by dinos and what they meant for the world as well as the universe as a whole. To me, there was one scene specifically that was the scene where Katie was lightly teasing him when they were going to the half assed dinosaur extravaganza. For me, this was SO relatable because both of my parents will mess with me about my interests most of the time it's when we go to Disneyland, they'll tell me that we actually aren't going to land of magic but to Timbuckto (hopefully one day they'll say some place else just to switch things up.) I related so hard to Aaron's protesting and whining in this scene since that is always my reaction to doing something that I want to do but get told that I can't do that thing.

Linda is more of your traditional mom but I think that she's on the spectrum as well. Just a more... normalized version as opposed to her family. She's able to be a teacher, she's able to interact somewhat normally around her neighbors. If anything, she reminded me of my own mom. This independent, takes nobody's trash (especially not her husband's), strong minded, and amazing mother who is completely in control of everything. She knows the special interests of her children and is constantly thinking of what will make them happy. Whether it be taking a detour for something dinosaur related, reminding her daughter that her dad loves her no matter what, and even something as simple as watching something that her daughter made and put her heart and soul into. I can't tell you how many times my mom has watched something with me. She watched my first anime Soul Eater with me when I was 12 and ever since then has been trying to get me to watch other shows with her. She's a lot like Linda, your loving, but firm mother who just wants her family to work things out.

Whew boy. This one is going to be probably where I cry. Comparing my dad to Rick is... something that I did consistently when I was watching the film. He's the strong but silent type usually, unless your me and he's just this constant annoyance when I'm trying to do something. He could be seen as just a "Jerk" but I think that is the undiagnosed aspie talking. Rick and Katie just struggle so hard to see eye to eye because their special interests can't intersect to save their lives. This, this hurt me because so often I struggle to relate to my dad. Especially when he talks to me about computers or physics. Now I took physics but without having been in quarantine and having him as my live in tutor I would have failed, not gotten an A. This has resulted me in saying things that I don't mean in the heat of the moment when we do argue. It doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to back when I was in middle school but when it happened it was because of one thing. I lied. I used to lie a lot because I felt so unworthy of being his daughter because on my best days I am not technically smart. You want to know how many nations of the world there were in 1991 when the original Animaniacs was airing? You want to hear my Dot Warner impression? Did you ever wonder how to recognize a specific voice when your watching anime? Have you ever had to watch a panel of your favorite anime voice actor just to laugh at something? No, well I did. But ever since I have started taking a quarter off from community college I have realized something. I am not technically smart. I struggle at learning the rules for math. My dad can do this with his eyes closed but me, I struggle and look like a complete moron. It took years for my dad and I to see eye to eye. Sometimes I still wonder if I was the product of some laboratory experiment of what would happen if two intelligent people came together, fell in love, and expecting that the daughter was smart I was the reject. Watching this movie with my dad I saw so much of my relationship with him on the screen. Struggling to relate to one another, fighting and getting into arguments about petty things, and not being able to be in the same room as one another without heated words because I didn't get him.

The scene that I related to the most when it was in terms of how much Katie just doesn't understand her dad was after he was nabbed by the machines. When Aaron asked her why she said those things to their dad and her simple answer was "I don't know." This. This right here was when I saw me. So many times I've gotten into heated arguments with my dad when he has simply annoyed me at the wrong time and I've just blown up in his face. Then I regret my actions and not know how to apologize for losing my temper with him because "I don't know" just doesn't seem like a nearly acceptable answer. I felt this in my soul because it happened especially often before I was diagnosed.

When I was diagnosed, things started to get better with my dad and I. We haven't had a fight in nearly four years now. He watches cartoons with me now to try and relate to me, it's mostly Pinky and The Brain but it's more than I could have ever asked for. I love my dad so much, more than anything in the entire world. This movie is so, so good at telling a story about how a family of undiagnosed aspie's and people on the spectrum struggle to relate to one another because their special interests are different.

Special interests and family's are especially difficult and I applaud this movie so loud because of the way that it was able to treat the subject matter with integrity and honesty. I'm sorry if this analysis got a little bit long in the toof but thank you for sticking with me! I really hope that if you watched the film you loved my analysis.