Sia wanted to make a movie about an autistic girl that manages to connect to people/feel safe and confident through music. So far, nothing outrageous, just a simple concept that would obviously put Sia's music front and center while doing something nice and educating people on autism.
There was controversy about her not casting an autistic actress as it would have been nice representation, but she could have totally gotten away with that since, come on, hollywood hasn't even figured out Rain Man isn't exactly true to life, they're not ready to have an autistic person playing an autistic character. Baby steps.
The real problem started when Sia started promoting the "charity/support group" that was helping "educate" her on the topic to make the movie. The "charity" in question was Autism Speaks - which is absolutely HATED by the autistic community for things like:
1 - Spreading the myth that autism is a mental illness that one can develop/catch like the freaking flue and potentially be cured of, instead of a neurotype, aka something starts in the woomb and cannot be "cured" because to do that you'd need to replace someone's entire nervous system, which is impossible.
2 - Using that myth to get outrageous amounts of money from people so they "search for a cure" - that doesn't exist and will never exist because curing autism is biologically impossible, AND despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of autistic people don't even want to be "cured" (plus, since said "cure" would essentially mean giving the person a new brain, it leads to the question of "Would I even be the same person, or would that just kill and replace me?")
3 - Using the myth of "We don't know what causes autism" (we do, it's genetic) to, of course, get MORE money from people so they can "do research to find the missing puzzle piece" (if you ever see autistic people complaining about a puzzle piece being used to represent the condition, that's why, it was started by Autism Speak's massive disinformation campains).
4 - Falsely "confirming" things like soy milk cause autism with one of the world's most ridiculous "research", losing only to "vaccines totally make kids autistic, buy MY vaccine instead, guys, I am totally not an unbelievably biased person, it's ALL the other doctors/scientists lying to you. GIVE ME MONEY!"
5 - Pushing the narrative of "autism is inherently a tragedy" to distract from the fact that all the money they waste on stupid shit could be used to help autistic people and their families. Instead, they focus on creating more and more panic, making parents in particular despair even more - to the point that one of their "awareness videos" includes a mother talking about how she wants to murder her autistic daughter and then kill herself... while sitting right next to said daughter.
6 - Promoting ABA "therapy" - which was created by the same guy responsible for the attrocity that is gay conversion "therapy." Both have led to unbelievably high rates of confirmed PTSD and suicidal ideation in patients (victims), and ABA in particular has been compared to literal dog training. Very fitting since it was created by a guy who famously did not believe autistic people truly counted as thinking, feeling human beings, and said as much several times. Despite that, it is still praised by some utter bastards because "it makes the patients act less autistic when they're not crying in the corner or trying to jump out a window"
So yeah, working with these guys is a genuinely horrible thing to do since they're basically a scam/hate group pretending to be a charity - and people were STILL willing to give Sia the benefit of the doubt, since Autism Speak uses all their resources to make sure they're the first thing people see when looking up how to help autistic people.
Lots of Sia's fans, both autistic and allistic, warned her repeatedly, politely, that she needed to supporting them IMMEDIATELY as their goal was the exact opposite of the one she claimed to have - aka raise awareness through an accurate portrail of autism. People were even kind enough to name organizations like ASAN as replacements to help her fix any damage done to the project.
And instead of being a decent human being, Sia decided to cry on twitter about how the mean retar-I mean, autistics were bullying her even when she was so kindly using them for her vanity project.
Because yes, that's how the movie turned out. An unwatcheable piece of garbage, with the autistic "character" being so fucking bad even the people who actively use "autistic" as insulted being offended on our behalf - and of course, she was used just a prop to show how awesome Sia's character was.
Seriously, it was so bad the actress playing the autistic girl was sobbing in between scenes because she knew how it was horrible and she didn't want to insult anyone, but Sia is literally her godmother and helped her career by putting her in nearly all her music videos so she felt obligated to go along with it.
a mix-up of good omens-coded songs (idk how to title this--)
Hellooo my maggots, so there were a number of songs that were just so good omens and ineffable lovers coded that I had to see how they sounded together. But me being me, I don't know how to actually mashup songs, so I just sang it the way I'd have wanted to mashup the songs and made it into one song.
Of course all songs remind us of Good Omens now, that's a different matter of significant concern. But these especially were very Aziraphale and Crowley's religious-trauma-and-being-queer vibey.
The songs I cover here are (in order and excluding repeats) Devil's Backbone by the Civil Wars, Take Me to Church by Hozier, Angel By the Wings by Sia, Falling by Harry Styles, Holy Water by Noah Davis, The Village by Wrabel and Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.
And, well. Yep. The lyrics in the order that I sing them are below the cut. Thank you maggots for dragging me into this brainrot it is painful and unholy and I love it here so so much. Thank you @falling-raine for yelling at me to post this. Wahoooooooo!
[LYRICS]
Oh lord, oh lord, what have I done
I’ve fallen in love with a man on the run
Oh lord, oh lord, I’m begging you please
Don’t take that sinner from me
Oh, don’t take, take, take, take
Take me to church, I’ll worship like a dog
At the shrine of your lies, I’ll tell you my sins
And you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death, good god, let me give you my life
Oh lord, oh lord, what do I do?
I’ve fallen for someone who’s nothing like you
He’s raised on the edge of the devil’s backbone
I just want to take him home
Oh, I just want to take, take, take
So take an angel by the wings,
Beg her now for anything,
Beg her now for one more day
Just take an angel by the wings
Time to tell her everything
Ask her for the strength to stay
What am I now? What am I now?
What if I’m someone you won’t talk about?
I’m falling again, I’m falling again
I’m falling
I’ve walked through hell and back again
Cause I’m a man who loves a man
No you don’t need to pray for me
No I don’t need your
Holy water
I don’t need your sympathy, sympathy, your—
Holy water
Just cause you think differently, differently
There’s nothing wrong with you
It’s true, it’s true
There’s something wrong in the village, in the village
Oh
Coz I’ve been there, sitting in the same chair
Whispering that same prayer half a million times
It’s a lie though, buried in disciples
One page of the Bible isn’t worth a life
But I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music
Do ya?
And it’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken
Hallelujah
Hallelujah.
My love you have found peace
You were searching
For relief
You gave it all
Into the call
You took a chance and
You took a fall for us
You came thoughtfully
Loved me faithfully
You taught me honor
You did it for me