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northern-punk-lad · 7 months

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I also paid for a sketch of Josh from a local comic book artist

#watch dogs #watch dogs 2 #watch dogs Josh

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hurtyknees · 2 years

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I think Josh Sauchak is one of my favorite examples of Explicitly Autistic Characters In Media.

Obviously, he's not a *perfect* example, because at the end of the day there are still cliches he falls into (being white, cis, pretty young, etc etc etc) but IMHO he's not insufferable, or an offensive caricature (like Sheldon - even tho they have a lot of basic similarities- or Sia's Music ™).

All that being said, here are things i appreciate in the way Josh's character was made:

1. He's an actual adult.

A lot of people who are much smarter than me talked about how shitty it is to infantilize neurodivergent people. And they're right; it annoys me to no end when people who are close to The Autistic Character™ treat them like a child, with no agency of their own. WD2 doesn't do that!

(some could argue that Sitara does it. I'd disagree; It goes with how her character is set up - she cares deeply about her friends, and goes out of her way to make sure they're okay. She's protective. Not just towards Josh, but Marcus, the Unnamed Friend from the Moscow Gambit mission, off the top of my head.)

There's only one person i can think of who explicitly infantilized Josh and treated him less like a person, and more like a pet. And that's Lenny. Y'know, someone who game tried very hard to let us know we're NOT SUPPOSED TO LIKE.

and - SPOILER - it did bite her in the ass at the end, didn't it?

2. He's a full, well rounded character.

I'll try to keep it short and sweet- the difference between Josh and Sheldon - the unholy staple of autistic characters - is that Josh doesn't feel flat. At least to me.

He does admit in one of the side missions that autism does have a huge impact on his personality. Now i couldn't find an exact quote, but after Marcus asks him whether or not he'd take part in the "experiments" being held that could supposedly "cure autism", Josh's answer is something along the lines of "only if I could go back from that. I like who i am, and i don't know if I'd like myself without it (the autism)".

Side note- it's genuinely so uplifting to see an autistic character and people around them not treating neurodivergency like some fucking curse. It happens way too often.

But yeah, going back to the point- Josh has a full, fleshed out personality. He's passionate, self aware, can be absolutely hilarious, and doesn't let other people walk over him. But he also holds himself to very high standards, and can be really harsh on himself if he doesn't meet them.

3. How he's treated by others.

I touched on that briefly before, but i simply love every interaction Josh has with others.

They treat him so normally, that in media where neurodivergent people are more often than not treated like aliens this felt extremely refreshing.

Dedsec members don't baby him as mentioned above, but they also don't get mad when he doesn't understand something, or - in his head - fucks something up.

(And honestly, that applies to everyone in Dedsec. I was so scared that the writers are gonna go for the lowest hanging fruit- do something that will make the group temporarily fall apart. But they didn't. Not when Marcus had his big fuckup at !nvite, not when Ray showed up. They stuck together. And didn't dwell on each other's mistakes.)

TLDR; it fascinates me to no end how media that treat themselves so insanely seriously fail at being inclusive, but Watch Dogs 2 - the game that took a giant U-turn from being that, after seeing how first game was received - has had some of the most genuine, heartfelt, casual representation I've seen in a long time.

Again, it's not perfect. But it's honest and down to earth. It didn't treat marginalized communities it included instrumentally.

I just love this game so much.

#watch dogs #watch dogs 2 #watch dogs legion #josh sauchak #Josh watch dogs #Josh watch dogs 2 #watch dogs Josh #wrench #watch dogs wrench #sitara dhawan #marcus holloway #wrencus

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erythroniumseedling · 2 years

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