[ SECRET POST #5888 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5888 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #843.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

As a trans, gay, autistic guy, I have written favorite characters as trans and gay and autistic... but like, I HATE the way a lot of other writers do it! You can't slap the current 'most correct' way of being X onto a character who grew up in a specific environment/historical era/fantasy universe and have it feel true! You can't throw in a bunch of things that are counter to who the character is!

If I write a character as autistic it's because I've seen relatable autistic traits in them-- and so I write about those things. I don't give them stuff off a checklist, because that's bad writing. Established characters HAVE established traits, if they didn't already feel autistic (or potentially queer), I wouldn't want to read/write about that.

But there are so many fics where like... a character being trans means they fit some idealized version of transitioning that wouldn't be probable or even possible in the canon setting, where the author didn't bother to think about what being trans was like in the past even though we have records of what life was like and how people transitioned and how they were talked about and treated (for contemporary historical fandoms, stuff set anywhere from 20-80 years ago where there are documented lives of trans people and social groups, but the process and the language around it were NOT what they are today). Or where a character being autistic means they suddenly behave very differently from in canon, have a weighted blanket, etc...

I get not wanting to read ANY fic about those identities when you run into fics that only show ONE way of being any given thing, and it isn't something that feels true to you as a reader OR to the character.

[scissorsevered]

I see this issue especially with making characters trans. I really cannot stand it when people write characters from media taking place in a time prior to when trans people were generally accepted and then just make everyone magically accepting. Obviously I'm not saying that trans people didn't exist prior to the past 10 years, but acting like this character in the 1980s is a transman and everyone is cool with it doesn't make sense.

[(Anonymous)]

Like, there were DEFINITELY periods within recent history where being trans was more accepted than it is now, we're seeing a big upswing there, but it also wasn't as openly UNDERSTOOD, and in the 1980s, the way transitioning was talked about and the way it was handled was radically different from today. But I NEVER see those realities talked about.

Like, when I write a character from the 80s as a trans man-- as I sometimes do-- for starters, neither he nor anybody else says 'trans'. I try to strike a balance between the language of the time and words younger readers would find shocking or offensive (which is an argument I don't have the energy for when I'm trying to enjoy fanfic writing), maybe talk around naming it overtly. He doesn't have a binder, any packing he does is of the stuffed sock variety, surgery was generally for people who had the means to come out *after* having had it...

For me, the thing about being queer and autistic is, one of my lifelong hyperfixations has been queer history in general and the 1980s moreso within that. So it's why I am drawn to those stories, but also why it takes me RIGHT out of it if all the dialogue sounds like a lecture written by a modern teenager, or if there are just a couple major ahistorical details. Like... you don't have to use the word 'transsexual' (even though trans people did and DO) or write about unsafe binding methods, but the slightest bit of research would make a difference.

[(Anonymous)]

This is so interesting, anon. If anyone in my fandom wrote fic like this I would love to read it even if I am not usually interested in trans headcanons but love me a well-written fic and some queer history, and could see it working for some of my ambiguously-trans faves from older media (that are sometimes written by kids and I go "what").

Sometimes I see kids (the teen-20s predominant age in fandom nowadays?) talk "trans" from a very ahistorical perspective and it's hard for me (someone old enough to remember 80s singers but who comes across as almost transphobic now) to conceal these two things. That seems like a fun way to learn, and reading kids' comments and their perspectives too.

[(Anonymous)]

If we have any of the same fandoms, I might have recs!

[(Anonymous)]

I do see it the most with trans issuefic, but I've seen it with autism, too. Got all excited about a fic tagged 'Autistic Dean Winchester' because he has his little canon stims and hyperfixations, and while his going non-verbal at age four was a huge trauma response more than anything, it was still something that pinged as #relatable... only for it to be the most egregious example of, like... ignoring EVERYTHING about canon.

Like, replacing his canon special interests with solely very... like, childish comfort things, which, why would you not just use Scooby Doo, his canon childhood comfort thing, and then throwing in a bunch of the most visible/stereotypical sensory things, making it all about his inability to care for himself post-meltdown or in general, in a way directly counter to canon... and I get the appeal in writing someone else taking care of him for once, but it was SO infantilizing. And it definitely ignored the environment in which he was raised and how that would affect his approach to anything mental health-related, even though there's no way he was diagnosed as a kid (moved around too much, masked too much, the understanding of autism was way different), and no way he's out there getting diagnosed as an adult because that would involve A) prioritizing his mental health and B) talking to a professional about it, and C) paying out of pocket because even if he HAD insurance, it wouldn't cover an adult diagnosis... self-diagnosis post-canon I could buy, but even then, everything was so clearly like... not good, in a way I found so off-putting, and it was written in a way that felt more 'writing for diversity points' than 'lived experience'.