Genuinely irritates the fuck out of me when people are like "omg u made the autistic coded scifi character interested in machines and computers and stuff that's so stereotypical what's wrong with you"
Like yeah guess what sharon
- I'M autistic coded
- I'M interested in machines and computers and stuff
- I'M the one writing this thing
Leave my autistic ass and equally autistic ass self inserts the fuck alone.
It's such a stale take to be mad about this type of thing, and I see it all the time, and it's usually followed up by "well if the writer's autistic then it's ok" like guess what fucknuts, I don't owe you my diagnoses. Nobody does.
And it's the same with disabilities
"oh you made this type of character with x disability be that type of way ew"
bitch maybe the author is that way or knows someone that way. Stop being a judgy fuck. People being portrayed as people is not a bad thing.
Characters having stereotypical traits is only a bad thing if they are entirely reduced to those stereotype traits and are meant to be a mockery of the real world people like them.
- It's okay to have autistic characters who like tech.
- It's okay to have disabled characters who cannot do certain things and/or bitch about being disabled sometimes.
- It's okay to have fat characters who like food a lot.
- It's okay to have religious characters in fantasy and sci-fi settings.
- It's okay to have trans chicks with more chiseled and “traditionally masculine” traits in your fiction.
- It's okay to have trans dudes with softer and “traditionally feminine” traits in your fiction.
- It's okay to have nonbinary people who aren't the picture of androgyny in your fiction.
As long as it is done respectfully and they're not demonized for these things, it's okay.
Because these people exist in real life.
But if you make these characters flat and offensively horrid caricatures of the people who share these traits, if you make a mockery of everyone intentionally, I will personally come for your friggin knees.
Fuckin be respectful but stop trying to homogenize shit in the name of diversity, because I've seen some of y'all's ideas of "diversity" and "proper portrayal", and you should have your writing privileges removed and a foot parked in your ass for good measure because y'all keep tryin'a make shit like some stepford wives setting without anything what actually made stepford wives interesting.