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echo-bleu · 3 years

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Hey Emma! I adore your writing and I was wondering if I could ask for your advice. When writing an autistic character, are there any characteristics / plots etc that you don't like seeing? Or anything stereotypical that is overused or often portrayed incorrectly in writing?

Hi! Thank you so much 😊 I’m always willing to talk about autistic rep! This is a very interesting question and I’m so glad you asked.

Obviously this is going to be my own opinion (and to some extent, things I’ve talked about with other autistic people) so it’s not representative of the whole community. There is no absolute do/don’t rules here, because autistic people are as different from each other as allistic (non autistic) people are, so the rep is and needs to be varied and complex.

There are many overused tropes when it comes to autistic characters. I think the most obvious one is that a very large portion of autistic characters, especially in general media, are white, male and mostly cishet. It is a misconception that autism is more present in men, and autistic POC deserve rep. I’m not sure how widely known this is, but there is also a much higher fraction of queer autistic people than among the general population. (I tried to find some more articles to link here but I don’t have any on hand and looking this up is a minefield I noped out of immediately. I’ll try to come back with clearer resources).

The usual autistic character is usually of one of two types: little white boy who doesn’t speak, where the story is invariably about his parents/siblings/teacher and never about him, or adult white man who has “Asperger’s” (or maybe isn’t even clearly identified as autistic) and is socially awkward and a genius, usually in math or computers. Those are very much overused stereotypes. Both are often portrayed incorrectly as well: the nonspeaking child is usually only portrayed through the eyes of allistic people and not given any kind of personality, and the adult man often has very little personality other than their genius and their bluntness, doesn’t seem to have any other autistic traits than the ones allistics are meant to admire or laugh at (think Sheldon of TBBT).

That is not to say that all those characters are bad rep, but it would be really nice to see more variety. I want to see autistic POC. I want to see autistic women and nonbinary people. I want to see autistic WOC & nonbinary POC. And I want to see more diversity in the autistic traits that they have, but also in their personalities. Autism isn’t a personality, even though it is part of a person’s identity and affects who they are directly. Autistic characters should have their own likes and dislikes, dreams and hurdles to overcome that aren’t linked to their autism, and their own agency. This last one is especially important in the case of any disabled characters (and doubly if it’s not a man) because this is something that isn’t often given to disabled characters.

Now into slightly more details:

- Autistic geniuses do exist, but that trope is way overused and usually portrayed badly. That doesn’t mean it should never be used again, but it should be done carefully. Characters like House (House, MD), Sherlock (BBC Sherlock) or Sheldon (TBBT) have imo done actually harm to our community, and definitely to me personally (because identifying with a character who self-identifies as a “high-functioning sociopath” is didn’t really help my mental health when I was 16 and depressed). They are either assholes to the people around them, or their awkwardness is played for laughs. You’ll notice that these are also characters who aren’t formally identified as autistic in the shows, even though they are clearly autistic-coded. I do have examples of autistic(-coded) genius characters I think are quite well done, like Sherlock in Elementary or Flynn, Cassie and Jake in The Librarians. Parker, in Leverage, could go into this category, but I’d say that her ‘genius’ is of a different sort, and it’s an interesting twist on the trope.

- Nonspeaking/semi-speaking autistics are underrepresented as full characters (ie outside of the trope mentioned above). That would be really nice to see, but please do proper research before trying to write it. I would love to see characters using AAC tablets or sign language, for example.

- A lot of autistic people also have other disabilities. That can range from other neurodivergences & mental illnesses (ADHD, bipolar, dyslexia, PTSD, etc), physical disabilities, chronic illnesses (some illnesses like EDS have a high co-occurrence with autism). A lot of autistic people are queer. Both of those are things I’d really like to see more of.

- Stimming. The stimming I’ve seen portrayed, when it’s even there (it tends to be mostly forgotten in the genius-type storylines), tends to be very stereotypical. We all have different ways of interacting with our environment and of communicating. There are a lot of ways to flap (clapping, hitting fists together, fluttering fingers, etc), to rock, to self-soothe. I’d like to see characters who use chew toys and stim toys, who stim-dance, who sing, who echolalize a lot.

- Meltdowns. [mention of self-harming stims] This one is a bit delicate. Writers who have an autistic character tend to want to show them in a meltdown at some point to sort of “drive home” that they’re autistic and what it means. I get that, but I also think that it’s something that is hard to portray respectfully if you’re not autistic yourself, and maybe you should really think about whether it’s necessary. If you do decide to do it: not all autistic people will hit their head or hurt themselves or get angry. I tend to just burst in tears and be unable to stop for hours. There are many ways to melt down.

- Specific interests. While math and computers are common specific interests, they are way overused. Specific interests can be anything. Mine is currently Shadowhunters, but also medieval swords and sailing ships and autism and linguistics. Specific interests can be lifelong, they can change overtime, they can last a month and be over. They can coexist simultaneously. Some autistic people don’t really have any.

- I would like to see more stories of late-diagnosed people, though maybe leave the stories about diagnosis and identification to autistic writers. I’d like to see older autistic people. Especially older autistic people who are more visibly autistic. I’d like to see autistic people who are thriving in life, who are in love and have a partner who loves them back, who are good at their job (but not geniuses), who don’t have a job but volunteer and create and do things, who have children or pets.

- Sensory stuff. Hypersensitive hearing tends to be the most common trope, though not necessarily overused, but there are so many other things you can do. We have a lot of senses (more than the usual 5), and autistic people can be hyper and hyposensitive to each of them, sometimes both at the same time. So you can have your character struggle to feel pain, but be bothered by lights. They can be hypersensitive to color, or inversely seek it. They can love listening to the same music over and over again (that’s also a stim).

- As far as plots go. Again, agency is paramount. Their autism shouldn’t be their personality and their motivation. They shouldn’t be striving (or be required) to “overcome” their autism, and even less be cured of it. Accessibility barriers are a reality that should be reflected in fiction, but the story needs to be about more than that.

Here’s a post with some advice and things we’d like to see more of. I hope this was what you’re looking for!

#Anonymous #asks #autism #autistic characters #writing resources

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