I think it needs to become common knowledge that “inability to read social cues” can show up as overcompensating.
You don’t know how much misbehaviour is allowed, so you become the perfect child who never tests rules.
You don’t know if someone is irritated with you, so you’ll be extra generous and self-effacing.
You don’t know how much is expected of you at work so you’ll kill yourself in a minimum-wage job and not notice that nobody else is working like this.
“Hardworking and quiet” should be as much of an autism red flag as “ignores rules and doesn’t know when to stop talking”. Or why don’t we just start using words to communicate so i can stop tracking everybody’s eyebrow twitches, that would be great.
Sometimes (though not nearly as often) you get subtypes of this where overcompensating even grows into a special interest. I’m looking at you, autistic actors, psychologists, etiquette experts, interculturalists, anthropologists, sociologists, hospitality gurus, fiction writers, philosophers… All you bemused scholars of humanity.
“Ah, this doesn’t apply to me… after years of intense study, I can reliably read most social cues!”
When you spend all day in a performance where you are so incredibly Normal and Socially Skilled and then collapse into a nonverbal puddle as soon as you get home, that’s an autism.
…
Also. “Not picking up on social cues” is a frame of the situation which looks in from the outside, where “social cues” are a mundane, obvious facet of reality.
As an internal experience, it feels more like: “Most other human beings are weird and unpredictable, especially in groups. They seem to have shared sets of secret rules and nearly imperceptible ways of communicating which lead to erratic, disturbing behavior.”
In addition: if you notice that your ability to parse and respond to social cues suddenly goes to absolute shit when you are tired or distracted… you might be looking at hypervigilant social compensation. like a swan gliding through a pond full of sailboats. sure, you might actually be more maneuverable and faster than the sailboats in some circumstances, but boy howdy are those little feets paddling underneath the surface..
you will go for like three months with nothing happening and you’re bored as hell and then in the span of two weeks eight different things happen at once - some fantastic and some shitty and some just plain bonkers - and you’re just running around like a chicken with your head cut off and no clue what the fuck is going on
And here’s the thing. It’s one thing to, say…build an actor for a few minutes if the actor died during filming. (I’m explicitly thinking of Carrie Fisher here.) You use the AI to finish off lines that person already signed off on, already agreed to. And then you put them to rest. I can understand it as a stopgap “we were 95% done with filming, we only had reshoots” measure.
But to just…decide you get to put words in their mouths forever?
That’s how you end up with Mr. Rogers saying it’s good to beat the woke out of your kids.
The problem with Paramount+ removing, not just cancelling but removing, Star Trek Prodigy is that for Star Trek to exist as a franchise, as a thing that continues to be produced past the next 5-10 years Prodigy is the single most important Trek property.
The other shows are good and enjoyable but they’re made for existing Star Trek fans and aren’t picking up young fans the way Legacy Trek did. People are either too young to know this or it’s been so long that they’ve forgotten but Legacy Trek, particularly the Original Series, The Next Generation and Voyager, all had young fans because they aired in prime time on major networks when families watched TV together. Children would watch with their parents both because this is what passes as family time but also because the shows were appropriate and accessible to kids. They might not understand everything, but they’d get basic plot and could appreciate the character relationships. Don’t believe me? Go check the age rating for Voyager. It’s listed as 8+.
Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds aren’t interested in gaining new fans, particularly young fans. They move fast and don’t explain important concepts like how technologies work, political history, traits that are typical to each species. Great for old fans, adults, and for people who catch on fast but not great for kids. Additionally if parents even feel it’s appropriate to watch around kids the kids can go watch one of the many plot and character driven shows that are specifically made for 7-14 year-olds (we didn’t have that in the 90s. We had bootleg anime and comedy shows that started to lose appeal by the time we were 10).
There is no future for Star Trek without Prodigy. It is the thing that will keep Star Trek alive. You cannot have a successful franchise without children. By removing Prodigy Paramount is making it very clear they don’t have long term interest in Star Trek. If you like Strange New Worlds you’d better care real hard about Prodigy. Anson Mount knows that. Kate Mulgrew knows that. As long as Prodigy is unavailable Star Trek’s future is critically at risk.
