Not completely NSFW this time!
Okay so. What got me thinking about this?
To start I am undiagnosed. But I recognise certain things I fall into and exposure to many who are diagnosed has told me that hey, I'm somewhere on the spectrum. My falvours from the ice cream parlour are moments of intense hyperfocus on things, new old, sometimes both then a sudden crash and lack of interest again. Except for music. Trust when I say taht even if I go deaf and I cannot hear it ever again, I'd still be as obsessed with it as I am now.
There's a fair few things I could into like how phones terrify me and its all internal, my little stims, sometimes being a ball of nervous energy and other times as slow as a sloth, hearing issues unrelated to deafness etc etc. It's a lot. There's a whole mixed bag but somehow I do function and cope. Cope is sometimes the keyword.
So again, what got me to think about this?
I have been reading New Edge Sword and Sorcery and in one of the editions I backed via Kickstarter a mini-essay on neurodivergence and the genre.
To summarise, sword and sorcery is an aspect of fantasy where you have a hero or heroine or heroenby, who is often facing unknown dangers. They are outsiders predominately, they enter a culture or society and they are often called upon to dispatch some great evil or unknown force. It was hugely popular in the 50's and 60, lulled then came back in the 80s and at least on a smaller scale, is now a good subject to start publishing again. Think Conan the Barbarian.
This essay essentailly was a page-long summary to explain that maybe those neurodivergent, who often see themselves as outside of the more neurotypical mindset, see parts of themselves in these outsider heroes. The sweeping disregard some of them have for authority for example, only called upon when helpful but otherwise declared an outcast. Or they have magical powers that mark them as other and while helpful, they are also feared in case the power might make the hero/heroine/heroenby a threat. Maybe they use shortcuts that get instant disdain. This is my addition but the point is made. I love this genre and I certainly see why I like it.
But how could this come into play with creating characters and then worlds?
Again I speak only for myself. I certainly know my neurodivergence instantly impacts how much I can create.
Starting with OCs, it's safe to say all of my OCs are outsiders. They all have particular things about them that society views with extreme caution. But not all of them have my ND traits. Sometimes they are outsiders for simply seeing what's there and breaking away. Perhaps its best I use some examples.
Armando Alighieri is one of my oldest OCs. He is a near albino fox with long ears and tail, had his eyes ripped out by a jealous lover and then was made immortal against his wishes. He's also a werewolf and is so much edge, you could cut yourself on him. What makes him an outsider? He's immortal for one. A werewolf. He has lived long enough that he hates authority. He also takes unconventional jobs to make ends meet, like the sort of hero you'd find in some of those stories. To unpack what makes him an outsider could take a long while but this list is only part of it.
Now let's try another OC, the one who actually gave me my name online. Loupgaros' story is at this moment being completely redone but it started as blatant wish fulfilment and part isekai. A human whisked away to another world, gets transformed into the mysterious blue-furred striped wolfess who turns out to be an embodiment of Law and has to stop an entity reresenting Paradigm Shift from going mad... This one was messy, okay? I was soaking up inspiration like a sponge. But how is this creation inspired by my neurodivergence? Um.. There's one part. Messy as hell. I don't know half of what went in this character or her world.
She retains the caste of outsider. For most of her story, she's trying to battle between human and lupine, chaotic human instincts vs being a representaton of Law. Except there, she's not great either because this impeding disaster has meant that no one really knows what Law is anymore and poor Loup can feel that everyone's as confused as she is! What exactly is conventional anymore?!
Everything around her is essentially me giving shape and personality to concepts. Loup regresents Law. Her brother (in spirit) represents Chaos. Between them, to keep things from going one way or the other too far is a force that represents the Paradign Shift. If you're not sure what this is, it's a thing I learned in history where for a long while ideas remain fundamentally the same but undernneath are new ones and gradually these gain traction. There's a period of change, doubt etc (not always violent but in academic circles, you never know) then the new idea is the new dominant force. The paradign shifts then it repeats. Is this a complete and accurate idea of history? Who knows. But I liked the idea of an equalizer being like 'Okay, Chaos, your turn, overturn things a bit. And... stop. Now Law, step in, tidy up their mess?'
There's other concepts explored, largely through transformation and... Well this isn't completely SFW as an entry but I won't go into detail, yes, it involved sexualy intimacy as a way to explore various ideas. Either way, with how messy it was and how messy she was as a result, I think it safe to say my neurodivergence was all over this one. There is a reason it's getting rewritten!
This chimes in nicely with the worldbuilding part I wanted to discuss also.
For me, to cvontrast with much much of a mess my first attempts were, this next one is the exact opposite. This Scorched Isle has my grubby ND mitts all over it and is a neater amalgam of ideas and OCs as outsiders in one.
It's the UK but the clock stopped midnight 1969. The UK does not see the new year in except with one hell of a show that no one is quite sure what happened. Society collapes and there is a literal dark age for about 50 years, after which things pick up from where they left off.
So after this, we fast forward about 100-150 years (time enough I reasoned for at least 2 or 3 new generations) and the UK is basically a shaow of its former self. Scotland broke away, Wales declared independence and defends its borders ferociously. England initially split off into various independent bodies but was merged under a declaration of Common Law and this was enforced by Justiciars and then Supreme Justiciars. There is a rule of Law worked out meticulously and this in itself took some time. There is no Royal family but legends of them still surviving persist.
So we have a UK taht is, for all intents, a post-apocalyptic wasteland but they have dragged themselves up and used the framework of legal documents found from before The Event. So it's not completely hostile. It's actually functioning.
There's a lot that is still to go in. Beacuse I am British, it's waht I'm most familiar with so I wanted it to be systematic. I wanted a legal system in place. I wanted a still rudimentary economy. I wanted a society that used the past to move forward. I wanted people in this society to not really know much of the past but to look at it like we look back on things 100 years ago and fail to understand it. In other words, I wanted it feel like the UK but in alternate universe. And it's still growing.
This has my ND mitts all over it because I like alternate UK takes. I am a huge history nerd but I rarely get time to indulge it. This was my way of putting my history hperfocus on laserbeam so i could make a believable but not always nice world that I could put my OCs in.
And that? Oh yes. Every one of my OCs is in this. They're all different versions but theya re here. An I wanted them to think they were the hero of their story. If anything, they kind of are. They still retain a lot of outsider material and are not completely 'in the system' as it were. So far, I'm still developing this, placing my OCs where and when. Making newer ones or NPCs to fill gaps.
I cannot speak for anyone else's worldbuilding if ND. I know it affects me and I can't hep but be curious: does it affect others too? Does it change your worldview when thinking of how you want your OCs to live? Like, would you make up a world so your OC can kick against it?
You don't have to answer, honest! But I felt I had to put this down because I think I may have been more ND than I thought I was, especially when I was younger.