ayellowbirds:geekremix:captainsblogsupplemental:Data was an artist on a level organics cannot achiev
ayellowbirds:geekremix:captainsblogsupplemental:Data was an artist on a level organics cannot achieve and I appreciate him.it continues to astonish me how much Data is proof of neurotypical writers being unable to conceptualize an actual lack of emotion. As an autistic viewer, i always found him deeply, profoundly emotive, driven by passionate interests and deep bonds, with a strong sense of personal identity. But the text of the show constantly affirmed that none of that was true, that he didn’t feel anything—which, of course, made it all the more absurd that he wanted to feel, because someone who was truly lacking emotions shouldn’t feel the pangs of desire to feel them. we constantly see Data exploring creative pursuits, immersing himself in different art forms and cultures, while his organic (and especially human) crewmates mostly entertain themselves at the holodeck and other such diversions. How many times was Data’s exploration of an art used in an attempt to convince the audience that he didn’t understand, that he couldn’t feel, when neurodivergent viewers could immediately see a sympathetic attempt to learn a new skill by someone who was inexperienced in it? Data’s appreciation of a unique poetic form from an ancient nonhuman culture is presented for absurdity, while the series tells us it’s perfectly normal that a bunch of space explorers want to play at Robin Hood (what, were there no other great works of storytelling between the point of timeline divergence and the start of TNG? That’s centuries!) -- source link