Carnary Gurl
Scribe
I’m pretty much the same gist. You’re normal to me.
*hugs* Thank you. I know that this is some tender territory for a lot of people, and deciding to talk some about it is brave. "Brave," gets overused and often misapplied, but as someone who, for all my endless chatter, is an intensely private person, I have deep feels about it. But I also have deep feels about being a good influence and support and how important making these connections is, especially for our younger writers. I think it's important for them to see it's not just them. Yes, they are crazy, but we all are to a greater or lesser degree and I know so many writers who I went to school with and have known in passing who don't know this. And as someone who's nutty as a fruit bat, but did have a writer and a mentor in my early life - and no interwebs, just chat rooms and whatnot, while all around me other kids were barely treading water, I think knowing and grokking being a creative and part of the creator community saves lives.I'm not sure I like being asked about my mental health in a public forum, especially with a reference to it being "obvious," and offering "dysphoria" without some kind of basis. But okay.
What makes stoicism the wrong foot? I’ve assumed many roles for folk in my stories, and have seen stories evolve into autism, but the wrong foot sounds evil to me.Because setting out on the wrong foot is going to take you onto wrong paths, and your readers will not appreciate it.
Put very simply, stoicism is an active choice. ASDs are not. That makes for very different characters.What makes stoicism the wrong foot? I’ve assumed many roles for folk in my stories, and have seen stories evolve into autism, but the wrong foot sounds evil to me.
So you put the right foot in, the right foot out, the right foot in, and shake it all around.Put very simply, stoicism is an active choice. ASDs are not. That makes for very different characters.
For the record I did admit that I had thought Soicism is some form of autism, I never assumed anything more than that after learning more about stoicism. I have not doubled down on stoic-ness being related to autism after finding out the definition either, if there was any confusion there. Also for the record it was you guys saying that he was giving the impression of an autistic person, which after that I decided to try and pin down what he might logically fit into if he was diagnosed, while saying that I would personally rather have him undiagnosed and simply on the spectrum, since he doesn't 'neatly' fit into any one category of the spectrum. This is if I decided to make him autistic at all to begin with. He could very well be just a naturally cold and distant person, who approaches things and situations in a far more robotic way.If you are confusing autism with Stoicism, I'd have to say you are off on the wrong foot entirely. The terms speak to entirely different things, which makes me question the advisability of writing about either until you learn more. Much more. Because setting out on the wrong foot is going to take you onto wrong paths, and your readers will not appreciate it. I'll go one step further. In an earlier post, in reply to what you mean by stoicism, you talk mostly about strength and battle skills, which has nothing to do with either autism or Stoicism. Or even with being stoic in the sense of a personality attribute.
Yeah I need to write him some more before I make some decisions on those fronts. This is a re-write of a story I wrote a long time ago (Right around when the show RWBY was new and exciting) and this version of this particular character has changed a lot in the re-write. It's hard to explain but for every way he's 'the same' character, there's other ways where I have him totally different. His origin has shifted about...four or five times, and even then they're kind of the same 'idea' but with minor tweaks.> I never assumed anything more than that after learning more about stoicism.
Good to hear. I totally missed that on the thread; apologies.
WRT stoicism or any philosophy, you might consider this approach. Try just writing the character. Have them behave and talk and think in ways you think are consistent, interesting, and relevant to the plot. Once you have the story done or close to done, take a step back and look at what the character did and said and thought.
Then ask yourself if that aligns with stoicism or some other philosophy or whether aligning with any sort of philosophy adds anything to the story. Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but at least you'll be dealing with the actual character.
"make it matter" is advice with wide applicability!