#again also - tism4tism lloydconnell <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[a-wins-a-win]

#maybe i'll do a longer deliberately autistic reading of his character like i did jason. you'd have to believe me then - guess what this is!

tldr; looking at Matt's character through an autistic lens gives him an interesting layer of complexity, and a different way to interpret a lot of his traits & behaviours - rigid thought patterns and intense rule conformity, a strong sense of justice to the detriment of his social relationships, a tendency to over-explain himself, and a general sense of being on the fringes/on the outside of the social bubble he tries so hard to find a way into.

look he is not in as many songs as Jason is so it's a much shorter extended post but it's under the cut anyway

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to be perfectly honest a lot of it is about the vibes/the way he is often staged/my interpretation of him being in the group in the sense of most of the cast have obviously been friends by association due to just. the proximity thing. but he's not In The Group the same way that everyone else is - they tolerate him well enough, and they're not trying to actively exclude him, but he never quite feels like he exactly fits in amongst the rest of them

* i also want to preface this one by stating i am conscious of the fact that at times Matt's incessant pursuing of Ivy is interpreted as like. deliberate, shitty, & borderline weird/disrespectful. and i don't want to imply that i am excusing that type of behaviour, OR that autistic people get a pass because they may not understand it the same way as neurotypical people. but the interpretation i have of Matt - as a character generally and as an autistic character in particular - i truly don't think he is crossing any lines in regards to his attempted flirtations (although different actors/productions will play him in different ways - so it's hard to put a blanket rule over it)

Auditions is interesting in the way it introduces Matt as a character. He's obviously upset that he didn't get the part he was (arguably) told he would get, which is a fair call, and as such his interactions with Jason are played often as tense & passive-aggressive - but throughout the rest of the show I would argue that he's established as a generally sincere/honest character in his reactions.

"Well, congratulations." if we choose to interpret Matt's congratulations of Jason as sincere, we can extrapolate issues with tone - both his own and how he understands (or doesn't) other people's

Wonderland serves best as a drawn out example of Matt's hesitation to break the rules, and this super strict adherence to them to the detriment of his social life could be looked at as a textbook symptom of autism.

"Something classy, something small..." Matt's line of thinking here can be looked at in an interesting way through an autistic lens - just in regards to him picking something he'd like without a clear understanding of whether Ivy would actually like it? (and i mean. her excitement about/willingness to go along to the rave would suggest she does actually have a penchant for that type of event - loud, bright, etc.)

"And what is that supposed to mean?" the line is usually played as defensive, but i also think it's a reasonable angle to consider that Matt genuinely doesn't understand what Jason is actually saying (that Matt's whole aesthetic is not quite rave-appropriate)

i think it's interesting to look at Matt during Portrait Of A Girl through an autistic lens - in regards to the fact that he wants to have this connection with Ivy, but can't effectively navigate his real life interactions with her to make that happen.

"Don't know what to say / I'm scared I'll say too much." this sentiment in particular could be looked at as an insight to Matt's lack of a filter - a trait common in autistic people

while i actually think that Matt's upset during Birthday, Bitch! at the way the others are crashing the party is really reasonable, interpreting the extremity of it as related to both sensory overload and the fact that it's plans being interrupted/changed last minute can be spun into a solid talking point for autistic Matt.

"Maybe I'm not being clear-" autistic people will tend to over-explain themselves, and this line in particular feels like a segway into that (until of course they are interrupted by Ivy's arrival)

One Kiss is actually just a really easy example of Matt not understanding glaringly obvious social cues.

"Dance with me." ["Next song."] "Okay." ["I'll find you."] "You might not - anyway..." the part that gets me about this interaction is that Matt is canonically a smart guy - and yet somehow still takes all of Ivy's words here at face value. i would argue that any other character would be able to pick up on the hints that Ivy's dropping, but Matt just never seems to

Are You There? is a) one of my favourite songs in the show and b) a really good character moment for Matt.

"[...] what it's like to stand outside? / To watch the world [...]" this concept of Matt's being an outsider despite all his best efforts to get along with/fit in with everyone else, and the idea that there's a separation between him and the rest of the world, is a common sentiment amongst autistic people

"[...] ask You how come life is so unfair?" again, fairness & honesty being at the core of Matt's characterization/personal belief system can definitely be read through an autistic lens

Reputation Stain'd capitalizes on the concept that the themes & situations they're playing out in rehearsals parallel their real life - and if we twist it up a little, it could allude to the idea that Matt finds it easier to comprehend social situations/relate to people through the lens of fictional stories.

One, while not heavily featuring Matt, does offer us a fairly self-explanatory "[...] dying to fit in." one of the big parts of Matt's character is wanting to be able to interact with his peers they way they all interact with one another, but despite his best efforts he just can't.

Promise my beloved <3 - While we can all acknowledge that outing Jason was a terrible thing and Matt absolutely shouldn't have done it, oftentimes autistic people will have a really strong sense of justice - principles they stick to irregardless of nuance/wider contexts that neurotypical people would take into account. Matt reads as a character that absolutely believes lying is wrong, with no exceptions. And even if he is weaponising it for his own gain (if you want to interpret him that way), it still relates to the idea that he prioritizes honesty over pretty much anything else. The anger in the delivery of "Don't play dumb with me Peter" could also tie into that reading of the situation.

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i swear on my life i had more to say about him, but for some reason this one was much harder to articulate than my autistic Jason character breakdown, so you're just going to have to take my word for it (or don't! it's ur life & ur interpretation of Matt as a character, you know?)

once again! i am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, this was just a fun little exercise in characterization. i'm not claiming Matt was deliberately autistic-coded, or that anyone else has to read him that way, just that viewing him and his interactions with the other characters through an autistic lens can put a different spin on things and add an interesting point of complexity to his character.

queer autistic matt lloyd i see you <33

if i told you Matthew Lloyd was autistic too would you think i was right or insane?