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  • josh susserjoshsusser@autistics.life
    Oct 18, 2026, 5:36 PM

    I finally got a chance to watch #Murderbot, and I agree that it's probably the most #autistic show I've ever seen on TV. The story is so autistic that there's an episode titled "Eye Contact". And the humans that Murderbot has to deal with are super allistic and keep screwing things up because they are so focused on communicating feelings that they miss important facts and can't react to threats. They insist that Murderbot performing "allistic human" is more important than operating according to its nature, and that makes its job harder and everyone suffers for it.

    There's a great bit where a human requires Murderbot to make eye contact during a conversation just to make himself feel like Murderbot is paying attention, which actually makes it harder for Murderbot to pay attention, and it's the most authentically autistic moment I've seen on TV. I kinda want to make all the parents and teachers and managers in the world watch it so they understand that "look at me when I'm talking to you" is not something they should ever say to us.
    #ActuallyAutistic

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  • FoolishOwlfoolishowl@social.coop
    Oct 18, 2026, 6:29 PM

    @joshsusser The books are good but the TV series was better. Martha Wells, the author of the books, was central in the production of the series, and I think she made excellent use of the opportunity to re-examine the characters. Wells had said she was surprised how many fans of the books had said they were an exploration of the autistic experience, which led her to realize she was autistic.

    In particular there's more character development of Dr. Gurathin and the often tense relationship between him and Murderbot. Dr. Gurathin also seemed like an autistic character.

    I've seen it pointed out that in a lot of adventure stories, you get a group of four men and one woman, and that one woman is required to represent all women, which is very limiting. It's easier to have relatable characters when one isn't bearing the weight of representing an entire category.

    And I think that applies to Murderbot and Dr. Gurathin.

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  • josh susserjoshsusser@autistics.life
    Oct 18, 2026, 7:50 PM

    @foolishowl I'm now keeping a list of writers who discovered they're neurodivergent by unwittingly writing an ND character or story so well that fans congratulate them on the representation and end up raising questions. Besides Wells/Murderbot, I have Holly Smale for Geek Girl, and Daniel Kwan for EEAAO.

    Dr G is interesting from how he fits into yhe narrative construction. I see him as a metaphor for a high-masking autistic. He is enhanced and has some cybernetic abilities, and the other humans see him as somewhat different, but he also puts a lot of effort into acting human and policing Murderbot's robotic behaviors. Makes for a good narrative contrast with Murderbot.

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