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@e-n-leonard

Whelp, that’d be me. Does this character castle emanate those ND vibes Cathy was talking about?

Honestly, it does ngl XD I think the internet, in general, is WAY easier to work with for ND folks. Several reasons: I can infodump uninterrupted and if someone is bored with it they can just skim and no harm done. I can use and overuse tone indicators like “XD” and emojis to make sure I’m coming off the way I intend, which is way harder irl! Also, I have time to think through my responses before having to react to anything, and it’s so much easier to find people with similar interests, like via SE!

…ok, maybe not an “if”… *girl who accidentally switches accents checks off a bunch of boxes, notable exception being the blending in one*

YESSS welcome to the neurosparkly club! XD That’s epic!

Okay so actually that blending in thing with Aydin is a really specific thingy that I have thought through and it’s one of the main things that made me realize it!

Okay so in general autistic people really struggle to blend in, mainly because it’s hard that you work on different wiring than everyone around you. However, many people become really aware of this at an early age and start ‘masking’ which basically means imitating NT’s, like copying body language, carefully regulating tone of voice, suppressing stims, mimicking expressions, and practicing what to say beforehand (That’s called scripting)

Now, not all autistic people do this! However, it’s a pretty common thing, even more so with girls. It’s really hard and exhausting since you’re working twice as hard to get through a social situation.

I think Aydin became really, really good at it, mainly because he was always in a situation where he was criticized if he behaved in any way that wasn’t expected. So, he learned to mask really well, which led to him externally blending in really well. However, I was surprised that once I got into his POV, his internal narration in every social situation was basically “I don’t belong here, these people don’t even know me but they hate me because I’m doing everything wrong” Which… not healthy but common.

Also, YES accents are such a fun stim, though it’s not often recognized as one! I used to do it a lot, that and copying voices!

And I’ve got a question: does anyone find “diagnosing” their characters helpful? I rather think it might just screw things up.

Okay, I’m going to second @calidris !

It helps me with quite a few things. Understanding them, keeping it internally cohesive, and connecting with them!

As Calidris said, knowing something like that about a character can MAJORLY shift everything into perspective.

For example, Aydin again! I knew all through writing him that for some reason, he had always been regarded as ‘not good enough’  but I could never figure out why. After all, externally he was doing pretty much everything that was expected of him? He didn’t stand out, he didn’t appear to be unusual or terrible at anything specific. I was stuck on this point right up until I figured out he’s autistic. It just clicked everything into place.

Of course, he was criticized a lot and regarded as ‘odd’ and a disappointment! He already grew up in an unhealthy situation, this just made it way more specific, and explained the majority of his internalized misbeliefs, besides explaining exactly why he seemed so out of place.

It also gave a whole new layer to his redemption arc. Once he’s out of that horrible situation, a lot of his internalized misbeliefs start fixing themselves, as soon as he’s surrounded by decent people.

Also, it gave a new layer to his interactions with some of the other characters. My MC, Liorah, spent a long time being highly confused and suspicious of him. It’s one long series of misunderstandings that are morbidly hilarious. A notable instance is that Liorah constantly suspects him of lying because his body language is tense/uncomfortable, he’s fidgeting and avoiding eye contact. She gets even more confused because this happens all the time, even with things he couldn’t possibly lie about, like the weather.

Also, I have another character who is also Autistic coded. (Acyn, for those of you who remember him.) Thankfully though, he’s way less traumatized, so he doesn’t mask nearly as much, and his behavior is just accepted as normal by all the other characters. I think Liorah has a lightbulb moment of ‘Oh, Aydin acts a lot like Acyn!’

Also, Acyn and Aydin become friends, which is very fun to me because you seldom see two autistic characters interacting in media. Also, it’s just really nice because they get along great and it eliminates a lot of misunderstandings and just generally makes me happy 🥰

Another example is Ophelia! Like, y’all saw her behavior, the way she kind of pretends to be sillier and less intelligent than she actually is. That’s a good example of masking since she’s basically learned that’s what’ll get her attention and good reactions. If I didn’t know she was ADHD, I probably wouldn’t understand why she was acting like that.

Now I know that, it gives me a whole lot of new ideas, like how Ophelia always underperformed in school because she really struggles with concentrating. She doesn’t know she’s ND, which contributes to a lot of her self-esteem issues. She thinks she’s just wrong and bad at everything.

Besides that, it helps me keep everything cohesive! Because I know why they’re acting like this, I can keep their behavior and reactions internally consistent, even though it seems unusual from the outside. That was something I used to struggle with writing Aydin. I couldn’t seem to get a good grasp on why he was acting in some way, so it was often inconsistent.

Also, it helps me connect with them so much more! If it’s an experience I share with them, it’s so much easier to get into their headspace and connect with them!

And as previously discussed, there’s such a lack of good or even decent representation, so anything I can add makes me happy, even if it isn’t published. Writing it makes me feel better and more comfortable with it, and it helps me process it more by actually articulating it!

Also, another example I recently saw that made me a bit uncomfortable was an author who had written an autistic coded character. It was never stated she was, but apparently, readers picked up on it. (I didn’t read the book, I’d never heard of it before that point, but in the article, they mentioned some of the traits and she absolutely sounds autistic.)

When the author was asked about it, she said the character wasn’t on the spectrum, but that her traits were a result of trauma, which… fair, they often seem to overlap. But then she added she was ‘really keen not to portray her as tragic or a victim; she has agency and the power to make her own decisions’ (Quoted)

Look, that’s a good thing, a great thing, but it doesn’t contradict her being autistic? Being autistic doesn’t make a character a victim, even though it’s often framed that way.

Yeah, anyway XD

Very interested to hear your and anyone else’s thoughts about diagnosing your characters or not!