We're dolls silly~

whatever. go my Soleils

GITM band au outfits designed by @/jaybirdhitman

I just take different parts of my own ND experience and amplify them with different characters!

So for cricket, it's creating an unreliable narrator by showing the world through the lens of someone with RSD, who is constantly trying to understand/react to the people around them in a way that doesn't 'rock the boat'. Who misinterprets the signals other people send (or don't send), because they don't quite understand how others think. Cricket also immediately accepts other peoples criticisms and negative jokes as literal truth- this is both internalised low self esteem and autism. The Sight is also a metaphor for sensory overstim that comes with autism. When I have to write exposition, I try to do it in the rambling, detailed way of someone who is explaining a special interest (all crickets repair scenes, for instance, where they are harping on about restoration minutiae).

But cricket isn't the only ND character!

Harry is very autism coded, through his collection/interests you see in the setting (a lot of show not tell there) and also in how he fundamentally clicks with cricket in some areas (ND minds think alike) yet has no real understanding of how he has hurt them or the way his actions effect them- there is a lot of bullheaded obliviousness which is the ugly side of autism.

Soleil is masking 2000% of the time. I write him straight up as I was as a deeply traumatized autistic teenager. You don't see his internal world at all, he is constantly modulating/masking his voice, hiding his stims, trying to copy human 'civility', trying to perform politeness and hide his anxiety. You see him self soothe by cleaning in a few chapters.

Sunspot is fun to write because I'm leveraging the 'low Vs hyper empathy' side of ND, exploring that stuff through the way he reacts to things and his relationship with being something non human that looks the most human of all.

I could go on about the other characters, but this is the crux of it:

Try to use show not tell as much as possible

Take the opportunity to weave it into the format/the unreliable narrator

Leverage your personal experiences

Show how characters react to stuff/events/eachother and imagine how those reactions might be effected by their neurodivergence

To write neurodiversity authentically you have to include/acknowledge the ways in which ND behaviours harm people and how two different people with different neuroses can negatively effect one another. For example: sunspots low empathy triggering crickets RSD. Crickets ADHD forgetfulness triggering sunspot when they make promises they don't follow through on. Harry simply not grasping the mental and emotional harm he has done to cricket. Soleil masking so intensely that it is tantamount to self harm.

There are a lot of ND representations out there that focus on the positives- or how being ND is hard for the person with ND. I do think that in order to write ND successfully there needs to be an acknowledgement of the ugliness of ND, too- of how it hurts those around us and isolates us. I think that makes the times the characters overcome those barriers and heal those hurts feel much more honest, and more earned. It gives the story meaning.

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY-