Case (
case) wrote in
fandomsecrets2014-07-05 03:26 pm
[ SECRET POST #2741 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2741 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 112 secrets from Secret Submission Post #392.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 2 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Re: I'm sorry but...
"Also they kept on about mentioning she 'struggled in regular school' and that seems off canon because Hermione seems to just naturally be a bookish studious type who is extremely interested in homework and always nagging at Ron and Harry to do their homework. This doesn't strike me as someone who would be struggling in school."
That one I could see, actually. I was labelled as 'gifted' when I was seven or eight, and that gave me a MASSIVE complex about having to be the very best at everything. I was bullied pretty badly (from everything due to being fat to... well, being as awkward as an undiagnosed autistic in a private school with a LOT of rules!) in primary school, and latched on to 'intelligent' as my main identifier - my thinking was basically, who cares if I'm not pretty or popular, I'm still smarter than everyone. And that created this massive fear of failure that, by high school (Australian high school, starts in seventh grade, so only about a year later than Hogwarts would start), I was actually starting to UNDERachieve because I would rather not do something and get failed for inactivity, than try something and fail. When I started a new school, I ramped up trying to succeed in everything because it was a new place to make an impression on, but that fear of failure was still lingering around. Hermione may have had similar issues in primary school, decided that Hogwarts was a new place where she WOULD succeed, and actually did manage to do pretty well by overworking herself to the extreme, but never could shake off that fear of failure (her Boggart! HER BOGGART!).
Whoops, long paragraph.
Anyway. Short version is, I still see Hermione as autistic, but not necessarily for all of the reasons on that list. Some of them, however, do ring true. (Particularly the one I mentioned above, the info-dumping, although I think she'd be more cautious around Muggles, the one with the schedules, and yeah, I can see being autistic as being a factor in seeing the library as a safe, quiet space.)
Re: I'm sorry but...
I apologize for coming off hostile. I felt like there were being made assumptions about me, and I also just dealt with this person on tumblr who came at me all "how dare you".
I actually am on the spectrum and in my own personal works I try to include a diverse range of autistic characters.
I can actually see your reasons more and they make more sense. I just kinda get wary about people jumping the gun so much with autistic headcanons. It's not so much that I find it an insult to consider a character autistic, I just find that when such headcanons are tossed around so carelessly , it seems almost fetishizing or "slapping on labels" especially on tumblr where some people think it's all just wonderful and grand to make characters have some disorder.
(In the comments of that one person's headcanon I picked apart there were comments like "AUTISM IS GLORIOUS" that really rubbed me the wrong way. Like I don't think it's horrible but...I feel like calling a disorder 'glorious' is sugarcoating it and insulting to people who are nonverbal and suffer from severe versions of the disorder. Just ...tumblr's whole treatment of mental disorders bothers me)
Maybe that's just my bias.
Re: I'm sorry but...
Re: I'm sorry but...
The 'glorious' part I don't actually mind? And it's kind of a generalisation to say that everyone who's nonverbal and has a 'severe' version would find it insulting - look up people like Amanda Baggs, who is nonverbal and was diagnosed as 'low-functioning' but is also an articulate (with a computer) autistic advocate. It's definitely not a Tumblr thing - I've seen very similar sentiments for around the nine years I've had a diagnosis for, and that well and truly predates Tumblr.