Dear Autistic Author
Jul. 7th, 2015 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seerofbreadHello! I was drafting this earlier, but I lost the draft, so this might be a bit rushed, or come off as sort of demanding. (I'm not sure if it said anywhere in this challenge, but I'm used to the idea of exchanges that match only on fandom/character with everything in the request letter optional. Obviously I'd prefer if you did letter things, but if your specialties lie elsewhere then I'll probably love whatever you do with the fandom/characters.)
Some general stuff I'd like to see is fluff. So much fluff. If you want to do angst, that's fine, but JSYK I would prefer that you made it more hurt/comfort than straight-up angst. Also, I'd slightly prefer if you were willing to put some female characters in romances, but honestly I love female/female relationships in every relationship, platonic or romantic. All of the mentioned characters are acceptable in ships with all the other characters, with exceptions of age gaps and canon student/teachers and incest. Otherwise go wild!
Emelan universe
Not to be the person who headcanons every character as autistic.... but every character in the Emelan universe is autistic. (This has a bit to do with my own feelings about ambient magic and analogies for my own experience.) So I really would be happy here with literally any characters.
I'd especially like to see something about Evvy. She does canonically need Rosethorn and Briar to tell her when she's infodumping, and she seems to use rocks (and her magic with them) as a stim. I'd be particularly interested in something where she is finding coping mechanisms, maybe including the development of her nonverbal language with Rosethorn and/or Briar? Or, later, getting advice from someone else, probably also involving help from Luvo? Uh, I'm not sure my requests for other characters would be hugely different from that....
Steven Universe
So, I think that Connie and Pearl are a really good student/teacher pair, and I think that Pearl could be really good at helping Connie through the whole "experiencing the world as someone with autism" thing. (I'm not sure if Pearl would consider herself autistic because it's sort of an organic thing, and might have a different classification in gems, but I think she would have a similar enough experience while on Earth to be able to help.)
Whether she helps primarily with finding coping mechanisms and stim toys or if she actually helps with tutoring is up to you.... but I really like the idea of older!Connie needing help with history and asking Pearl to help (presumably after having a good time with something other than sword fighting, maybe math or science?) and Pearl does an excellent job of teaching Connie history that is not in her school's curriculum, either because the textbooks recorded a different version or because Pearl only really wants to talk about irrelevant anecdotes about people in the same general time period.
Steven can be there, either observing to make sure that Pearl doesn't get carried away again or because he really does need an education at some point or because he's also neurodivergent and also learns better from Pearl.
Firefly
I'd like to see something with Kaylee being adorable and adjusting to life on Serenity. Obviously, she loves it, but she probably doesn't already know every single place on the ship, so there's some exploring to be done. I feel like Kaylee would have at least tried to live in the crew's quarters, but eventually realized how much better she feels in the engine room and probably puts a hammock there just for when she's shutdown but soon is just sleeping there.
And I really like seeing Kaylee and Inara interact, because they seem like such good friends? Kaylee thinks Inara's glamorous and pretty, and I think Inara likes to entertain her. You can't convince me that neither of them have ever braided each other's hair. And I think that Inara wouldn't mind sharing the space of her shuttle, which is pretty intentionally designed to be very aesthetically pleasing, with Kaylee sometimes. For the super bonus, Inara seems good at advice and probably could suggest the engine room as a coping mechanism for when Inara is away.
River is also cool, and probably would go through a similar process, except with more PTSD, and hiding less in the engine room and more in literally every tiny space where she can't be seen and there's nothing to feel but the press of cool metal on all sides. So, if you'd rather write River, same thing. Or if you'd rather have River and Kaylee interacting, that would also be cool! (Inara can also help River with similar things.)
Gravity Falls
So like.... obviously, if Pacifica were autistic, her parents would put her through ABA therapy. Meanwhile, if Mabel were autistic, she would be pretty unrestrained and behave exactly how she wanted to. (And I guess Dipper too? I don't know if he would necessarily have autism too but either way.) And I think that it'd be really interesting to see Mabel's sort of "This is how the world is outside of your parents' mansion" lessons included trying to undo this.
But if that's too specific, then it'd be cool to just see Pacifica learning to hang out with autistic!Mabel, and how to help in rough times and listening to her infodumping on Sev'ral Timez and sticker collections and everything else. And I guess that if you really don't want to write Pacifica, then it can be Mabel and Dipper hanging out.
(I think that, of all the characters in all my prompts, Mabel/Pacifica is the one that I most strongly ship romantically, so I'd be really excited if you were willing to go there. But obviously I am also cool with them being good friends.)
Orange is the New Black
I feel like this isn't very likely to be the fandom that you matched, but I'm still willing to scream this into the void: Please let Suzanne Warren be happy. Just, lay on the fluff, give her a lot of heavy blankets and hot chocolate and chew toys and film productions of Shakespeare, alone or with someone who doesn't mind her perfectly mimicking the actors. This can be before or after prison (or during, if you can pull it off--most of those things seem impossible to get in prison) but I'd really prefer if Suzanne's mom and Vee were both completely irrelevant and not mentioned once.
Edit: It would be pretty cool if Maureen were there too. In a relationship or flirting or just being friends who probably have similar problems with other people.
Some general stuff I'd like to see is fluff. So much fluff. If you want to do angst, that's fine, but JSYK I would prefer that you made it more hurt/comfort than straight-up angst. Also, I'd slightly prefer if you were willing to put some female characters in romances, but honestly I love female/female relationships in every relationship, platonic or romantic. All of the mentioned characters are acceptable in ships with all the other characters, with exceptions of age gaps and canon student/teachers and incest. Otherwise go wild!
Emelan universe
Not to be the person who headcanons every character as autistic.... but every character in the Emelan universe is autistic. (This has a bit to do with my own feelings about ambient magic and analogies for my own experience.) So I really would be happy here with literally any characters.
I'd especially like to see something about Evvy. She does canonically need Rosethorn and Briar to tell her when she's infodumping, and she seems to use rocks (and her magic with them) as a stim. I'd be particularly interested in something where she is finding coping mechanisms, maybe including the development of her nonverbal language with Rosethorn and/or Briar? Or, later, getting advice from someone else, probably also involving help from Luvo? Uh, I'm not sure my requests for other characters would be hugely different from that....
Steven Universe
So, I think that Connie and Pearl are a really good student/teacher pair, and I think that Pearl could be really good at helping Connie through the whole "experiencing the world as someone with autism" thing. (I'm not sure if Pearl would consider herself autistic because it's sort of an organic thing, and might have a different classification in gems, but I think she would have a similar enough experience while on Earth to be able to help.)
Whether she helps primarily with finding coping mechanisms and stim toys or if she actually helps with tutoring is up to you.... but I really like the idea of older!Connie needing help with history and asking Pearl to help (presumably after having a good time with something other than sword fighting, maybe math or science?) and Pearl does an excellent job of teaching Connie history that is not in her school's curriculum, either because the textbooks recorded a different version or because Pearl only really wants to talk about irrelevant anecdotes about people in the same general time period.
Steven can be there, either observing to make sure that Pearl doesn't get carried away again or because he really does need an education at some point or because he's also neurodivergent and also learns better from Pearl.
Firefly
I'd like to see something with Kaylee being adorable and adjusting to life on Serenity. Obviously, she loves it, but she probably doesn't already know every single place on the ship, so there's some exploring to be done. I feel like Kaylee would have at least tried to live in the crew's quarters, but eventually realized how much better she feels in the engine room and probably puts a hammock there just for when she's shutdown but soon is just sleeping there.
And I really like seeing Kaylee and Inara interact, because they seem like such good friends? Kaylee thinks Inara's glamorous and pretty, and I think Inara likes to entertain her. You can't convince me that neither of them have ever braided each other's hair. And I think that Inara wouldn't mind sharing the space of her shuttle, which is pretty intentionally designed to be very aesthetically pleasing, with Kaylee sometimes. For the super bonus, Inara seems good at advice and probably could suggest the engine room as a coping mechanism for when Inara is away.
River is also cool, and probably would go through a similar process, except with more PTSD, and hiding less in the engine room and more in literally every tiny space where she can't be seen and there's nothing to feel but the press of cool metal on all sides. So, if you'd rather write River, same thing. Or if you'd rather have River and Kaylee interacting, that would also be cool! (Inara can also help River with similar things.)
Gravity Falls
So like.... obviously, if Pacifica were autistic, her parents would put her through ABA therapy. Meanwhile, if Mabel were autistic, she would be pretty unrestrained and behave exactly how she wanted to. (And I guess Dipper too? I don't know if he would necessarily have autism too but either way.) And I think that it'd be really interesting to see Mabel's sort of "This is how the world is outside of your parents' mansion" lessons included trying to undo this.
But if that's too specific, then it'd be cool to just see Pacifica learning to hang out with autistic!Mabel, and how to help in rough times and listening to her infodumping on Sev'ral Timez and sticker collections and everything else. And I guess that if you really don't want to write Pacifica, then it can be Mabel and Dipper hanging out.
(I think that, of all the characters in all my prompts, Mabel/Pacifica is the one that I most strongly ship romantically, so I'd be really excited if you were willing to go there. But obviously I am also cool with them being good friends.)
Orange is the New Black
I feel like this isn't very likely to be the fandom that you matched, but I'm still willing to scream this into the void: Please let Suzanne Warren be happy. Just, lay on the fluff, give her a lot of heavy blankets and hot chocolate and chew toys and film productions of Shakespeare, alone or with someone who doesn't mind her perfectly mimicking the actors. This can be before or after prison (or during, if you can pull it off--most of those things seem impossible to get in prison) but I'd really prefer if Suzanne's mom and Vee were both completely irrelevant and not mentioned once.
Edit: It would be pretty cool if Maureen were there too. In a relationship or flirting or just being friends who probably have similar problems with other people.
