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Feedback for TV Pilot about an Autistic Girl with Psychic Powers

A Bull

Hello

I'm Arran Bull and I am an animation masters student currently developing a TV pilot for a show called "Psychic Maria".

It's about a teenage autistic girl with psychic powers learning to control her powers while fighting society aliens and getting through school. The pilot revolves around her and her neuroptypical sister Sam, who is also psychic, fighting cats in a night club to get Maria's stolen city pop record back. It will be aimed at 7-15 year olds but I want the show to be enjoyable to all ages.

As an autistic male, I was hoping if I could please get some feedback from any autistic women to make sure how authentic Maria's character is.

Here's the link to the script: drive.google.com/.../view

As a bonus, here's an art book of concept art for the pilot so far: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RgWlndQErGTe64DZlVLKnSvvKz66UzdK/view?usp=sharing 

Maria is impulsive and happy-go-lucky when it comes to action and her special interests, but is shy when it comes to social interactions and gets very easily overwhelmed when something doesn't go as planned. As an autistic male, I chose to centre around a female autistic protagonist due to the lack of representation. But I also want the representation to be right. So please, any honest feedback would be helpful.

Maria was also in my final year short film from my bachelor's degree. Here it focuses on sensory overload and female masking on autistic girls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCLvsSfid-Q

I look forward to hearing your response and I hope I can deliver an entertaining pilot that helps spread awareness on autism in women.

~ Arran Bull

Parents

  • Animation isn't really my thing, but I like your concept very much.  I did read over the script.

    Funnily enough the connection between the senses and psychic ability is something I was pondering the other day.  I'll have to watch it now, this is where folks will think I'm bonkers, lol.... but...

    I am a Spiritualist and a very developed psychic sense does run in my mother's family.  We do just know stuff, sometimes future tense, or about the contents of letters we haven't opened yet etc without knowing how we know.  My mother has it, my aunt had it and so do I.  Now of all the senses listed which can be problematic in autism...beyond the main five into balance, interoception, proprioception etc... (and I seem to have issues with them all lol), the psychic sense is never listed.  The post-Enlightenment world doesn't believe in it, but it exists.  Personally, I think we ALL have it, but in the modern age people pay little heed to it and it is stronger in some people than others.

    For me, I may not be able to read the subtle paralinguistic cues of other people, but by god I can read the energy in a room and very, very occasionally, if the intentions of some one I've just met are not good, I KNOW before they open their mouths.  I say nothing, stay away from them and watch.  Within weeks they will be causing trouble to people around me....hmmmm... list goes on.

    So, with that, I find the concept of a lass who's so easily overwhelmed by the sensory intrusion of the physical world, yet adept in using that 'other' sense very intriguing.  What will be the relationship between her autism and her sensory difficulties and her sensory talents?  Can she marshal the latter to compensate for the former?

    Additionally, it'll be good for autistic girls to see a hero figure just like them.

    You've excited my imagination now.  Very good luck to you.  I hope it's a success.

  • in reply to Dawn
    Dawn said:
    For me, I may not be able to read the subtle paralinguistic cues of other people, but by god I can read the energy in a room and very, very occasionally, if the intentions of some one I've just met are not good, I KNOW before they open their mouths.  I say nothing, stay away from them and watch.  Within weeks they will be causing trouble to people around me....hmmmm... list goes on.

    This is so intriguing for me as a not-yet-diagnosed-but-thinking-I-must-be-autistic adult. I can’t work out what sensory issues I have, beyond some tactile and interception issues, and have been trying to find a way to describe exactly what you’ve described.

    Since thinking I might be autistic, this feels like an important part of it. My son (who’s diagnosed, and has led me to wonder about myself) definitely has this too. He’s so sensitive to the energy in the room. And I feel like I can sense what he senses intuitively, when others can’t.

Reply
  • in reply to Dawn
    Dawn said:
    For me, I may not be able to read the subtle paralinguistic cues of other people, but by god I can read the energy in a room and very, very occasionally, if the intentions of some one I've just met are not good, I KNOW before they open their mouths.  I say nothing, stay away from them and watch.  Within weeks they will be causing trouble to people around me....hmmmm... list goes on.

    This is so intriguing for me as a not-yet-diagnosed-but-thinking-I-must-be-autistic adult. I can’t work out what sensory issues I have, beyond some tactile and interception issues, and have been trying to find a way to describe exactly what you’ve described.

    Since thinking I might be autistic, this feels like an important part of it. My son (who’s diagnosed, and has led me to wonder about myself) definitely has this too. He’s so sensitive to the energy in the room. And I feel like I can sense what he senses intuitively, when others can’t.

Children
  • in reply to AlexC83

    I wonder whether we rely on this ancient sense, also often present in animals but which the modern world no longer taps into, because we struggle with our other senses.  Maybe by using it we make it stronger and it kind of compensates, I think.

    I might miss the unspoken intentions and motivations of strangers, but some people I love deeply...I always know what they are thinking without a word.  Yet I'm not reading that in their body language or facial expressions.  Their back can be turned to me or we are in the dark and I will know.  Doesn't work with many people, but one or two I am atuned to.