Fanfiction author appreciation shoutout to every single writer producing fanfiction be it once a year or once every two weeks. A lot of people don’t understand fanfiction is a hyper-concentrated expression of how much you love something, and it takes a lot of bravery to share that with people who might judge you for simply wanting to give that happiness to others.
Always remember ‘you do you’ and to be proud of yourself. Fandom would be nothing without its fanfiction writers.
completely double spaced version on google docs here – this post is more blocky for the sake of people’s dashboards, but still long so people will be less likely to glaze over it. my apologies if that makes it hard to read
things to look for and avoid in an autistic character
• symptoms only manifesting as “nonverbal and rocking”
• super smart / living calculator
• super dumb / doesn’t understand anything
• all the symptoms you can come up with for them are “awkward” and “has special interest(s)” (please do more research)
• trains, technology, and/or math as special interests
• acting like a child
•
getting treated like a baby
• unreasonably cruel and uncaring about others’ reactions to them being cruel
• if they’re comparable to sheldon from the big bang theory, start over
• animal comparisons
• a lack of feelings
• please no stories about what it’s like to be autistic told by allistics
talking about things outside of special interests (again…. come on……….) (special interests are usually the default things our brains go to when theres no stimulation or we want to entertain ourselves – it isn’t literally all we think or talk about ever. if a conversation has no connections to a special interest, reconsider having your autistic character bring it up in a context that is not an introduction.)
•
explicitly expressed to be capable of attraction and romantic feelings – if your character is an adult, add sexual feelings to this point
•
capable of general functioning, just with a disability that makes it more difficult – not a walking disability (….sigh)
• a wide amount of feelings and emotional turmoil (but perhaps only being able to express it in limited ways)
• we’re people
• just people whose brains are wired differently
things to avoid in research for an autistic character
•
autism moms / autism blogs and websites not run by autistic people
•
any affiliation with autism $peaks means you should walk away and never look back
•
a scientist trying to create explanations for what autistic people do without actually asking / not mentioning asking autistic people
• anything about a cure for autism
• a person that “worked with autistic kids” phrased in the same way as “worked with animals”
• talking about autistic people as if they are mysteries, are like animals, or are otherwise othered weirdos instead of people
things to look for in research for an autistic character
•
actual autistic people talking about their experiences and symptoms
• just stick to that and you’re good but it’s hard to find sometimes ngl. just look for the above red flags
things i would personally like to see in an autistic character
• less easy to swallow sadness and more destructive anger. i would love to see a canonically autistic character who was frustrated easily by small things and had trouble communicating why •
not a story about being autistic, a story that happens to have a character or characters who are autistic – it isn’t pointed out or questioned, they’re right at home with the rest of the cast and not othered (a la symmetra from overwatch) •
intensive sensory issues / small sounds making large reactions • clear communications about not liking x sensory thing (for example being touched) •
poor motor skills / clumsiness and not being laughed at for it • walking funny (body bent downwards, walking very fast, walking slowly,
big strides, shuffling, stiffness, etc) – no one treats it as if it’s funny or something totally strange • a big personality that has a presence so they can’t be cast aside (but feel free to have quiet characters too) – if this was along with being nonverbal they would probably leap to being one of my favorite characters ever • a fear of asking for clarification on sarcasm or jokes because of past experiences and an arc about the character becoming more comfortable asking questions
>> if any fellow autistic people want to add something, feel free <<
So there’s a known thing in the study of human psychology/sociology/what-have-you where men are known to, on average, rely entirely on their female romantic partner for emotional support. Bonding with other men is done at a more superficial level involving fun group activities and conversations about general subjects but rarely involves actually leaning on other men or being really honest about emotional problems. Men use alcohol to be able to lower their inhibitions enough to expose themselves emotionally to other men, but if you can’t get emotional support unless you’re drunk, you have a problem.
So men need to have a woman in their lives to have anyone they can share their emotional needs and vulnerabilities with. However, since women are not socialized to fear sharing these things, women’s friendships with other women are heavily based on emotional support. If you can’t lean on her when you’re weak, she’s not your friend. To women, what friendship is is someone who listens to all your problems and keeps you company.
So this disconnect men are suffering from is that they think that only a person who is having sex with you will share their emotions and expect support. That’s what a romantic partner does. But women think that’s what a friend does. So women do it for their romantic partners and their friends and expect a male friend to do it for them the same as a female friend would. This fools the male friend into thinking there must be something romantic there when there is not.
This here is an example of patriarchy hurting everyone. Women have a much healthier approach to emotional support – they don’t die when widowed at nearly the rate that widowers die and they don’t suffer emotionally from divorce nearly as much even though they suffer much more financially, and this is because women don’t put all their emotional needs on one person. Women have a support network of other women. But men are trained to never share their emotions except with their wife or girlfriend, because that isn’t manly. So when she dies or leaves them, they have no one to turn to to help with the grief, causing higher rates of death, depression, alcoholism and general awfulness upon losing a romantic partner.
So men suffer terribly from being trained in this way. But women suffer in that they can’t reach out to male friends for basic friendship. I am not sure any man can comprehend how heartbreaking it is to realize that a guy you thought was your friend was really just trying to get into your pants. Friendship is real. It’s emotional, it’s important to us. We lean on our friends. Knowing that your friend was secretly seething with resentment when you were opening up to him and sharing your problems because he felt like he shouldn’t have to do that kind of emotional work for anyone not having sex with him, and he felt used by you for that reason, is horrible. And the fact that men can’t share emotional needs with other men means that lots of men who can’t get a girlfriend end up turning into horrible misogynistic people who think the world owes them the love of a woman, like it’s a commodity… because no one will die without sex. Masturbation exists. But people will die or suffer deep emotional trauma from having no one they can lean on emotionally. And men who are suffering deep emotional trauma, and have been trained to channel their personal trauma into rage because they can’t share it, become mass shooters, or rapists, or simply horrible misogynists.
The only way to fix this is to teach boys it’s okay to love your friends. It’s okay to share your needs and your problems with your friends. It’s okay to lean on your friends, to hug your friends, to be weak with your friends. Only if this is okay for boys to do with their male friends can this problem be resolved… so men, this one’s on you. Women can’t fix this for you; you don’t listen to us about matters of what it means to be a man. Fix your own shit and teach your brothers and sons and friends that this is okay, or everyone suffers.
The next time a guy says, “What? You don’t want to be my friend?” I’ll text him this and then ask if he really wants to be friends or just have another potential girlfriend.
y’all I am living for these analyses where the new way to fight the patriarchy is to teach men to love each other and themselves
Im a communication student and can confirm the above is absolutely 100% accurate and it’s called agentic vs communal friendship theorized by Steven McCornack
I love getting replies, too! It makes me feel special that the author took a moment to thank me for what I’ve said or give me that little window into their process. 🙂
It’s funny this should pop up today because I was having this conversation with another author friend of mine only last night, and she always worries that people will think she’s trying to inflate her comment count by replying, but then she worries that she’s being rude by not replying.
My thoughts, as a fellow writer and poster of fanfic: I freaking LOVE getting comments. If a reader takes the time to tell me what they liked about my work (or even just to smash the keyboard in excitement), that means the world to me. It seems like the very least I can do would be to respond, even if all I can say is “Thank you” or a smiley-face emoticon. I think ignoring (or at least, not responding to) your comments is a good way to discourage people from commenting, so why on earth would I want to do that? I want you to comment. I live for your comments. You deserve a reply.
“comment inflation” is an author worry, not a reader one. At least, that’s my impression after running this blog for a while. People who post fic worry that replying to comments is somehow “cheating” on the stats while people who read fic see replies as the mark of an author who interacts. A lot of readers automatically halve the number of comments because they assume replies. Plus, searching by number of comments isn’t all that common from what I’ve heard.
Chapters: 53/? Fandom: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Vector Hyllus/Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine, Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Theron Shan, Vector Hyllus/Theron Shan, Theron Shan/Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Vector Hyllus, Felix Iresso/Jedi Consular | Barsen’thor Characters: Theron Shan, Vector Hyllus, Female Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine, Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine, Bounty Hunter (Star Wars), Lana Beniko, Male Smuggler (Star Wars), T7-O1, Female Jedi Consular | Barsen’thor, Qyzen Fess, Felix Iresso, Male Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython, The Outlander (Star Wars), Kaliyo Djannis, Koth Vortena, Senya Tirall Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Polyamory, Mutually Supportive Partnerships, Past Torture, Shameless Smut, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Strong Language, Whump, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Aftermath of Torture, Polyamory Negotiations Series: Part 3 of Fire Meet Detonite Summary:
The ongoing relationship between Republic SIS agent Theron Shan, Imperial Intelligence agent Miranza Gerrick and Joiner Vector Hyllus, set against the backdrop of Knights of the Fallen Empire/Knights of the Eternal Throne.
I hate when I’m reading star wars fanfiction and all of a sudden someone says “fuck”
fuck doesnt exist in star wars! they dont say fuck in space!
Yeah. They say
K R I F F
let them say fuck
NO
Fuck that noise, sometimes you just need to let them say fuck.
Yeah, my simple response to this is…
Fuck
Fuck
Fuckity Fuck Fuck
kriff is a stupid-ass word and i fucking refuse to use it.
also I’d put good money on astronauts have indeed said “fuck”.
and they only don’t say it because PG rating.
so fuck that.
The only time I ever use “kriff” is if there’s another good expletive immediately following…such as “kriffing shit”. LOL.
I can’t imagine any of my characters or the NPC’s I write swearing in PG. Sorry, not-a-gonna-happen.
I write a lot of Lt. Pierce and basically write him as a Marine. We, uh … in this house we don’t swear in PG. xD
I’ll admit to using the occasional kriff but otherwise
Let them say fuck!
Yeah. At no point ever will anyone in my work say “i want to kriff you”.
N E V E R
I mix it up because 1. different languages/different dialects are gonna have different swear words and 2. sometimes I just forget and default to my natural state which is Fuck 24/7 and 3. sometimes kriff is funny. But never, no never, will I type “I want to kriff you.” That’s just ludicrous.
Yeah, I’ll toss “kriff” in the mix, usually as a modifier, for the purposes of swearing. But NEVER in a sexual situation.
Might as well be like “wow you’re moist” in terms of how immediate and visceral a turnoff it is.
I have some characters who will say or think “kriff” because I recognize that it is a part of the Star Wars universe canon, but man, “fuck” gets used a LOT in my fics. Like, a lot a lot.
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