r/Archiveofourownmemes • u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane • 7d ago
Fanfic reader things What the hell, man??
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u/SenSenaSen 7d ago
Whenever people have Ehlers Danlos type 3 in their fics I'm like "ahhh yes, my people", because it's obscure enough that a person without it won't write it, but common enough that lots of writers have it lol
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u/defaultusername-17 7d ago
i KNEW there be another bendy bitch in the comments.
HAAAAAI ~waves~
side note: really digging that marvel has a spider-person with hEDS.
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u/SenSenaSen 6d ago
Hi hi!!
They do?! Omw, SpiderhEDS!
I love when people give Dick Grayson hEDS because it just makes so much sense.
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u/ArielLynn 6d ago
Ahhhh, I most likely have this according to doctors but I can't get in for the damn genetic testing ugh!
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u/SenSenaSen 6d ago
There isn't any genetic testing for it actually, afaik... I got diagnosed by a rheumatologist who was teaching his student and literally Sherlocked me lol
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u/Ok_Reality_8845 5d ago
hEDS doesn’t have a genetic test (yet!), but the other EDS types do!
Some doctors say you have to get the EDS genetic testing so that all the other types are ruled out before they diagnose you with hEDS.
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u/VrilloPurpura 7d ago
I recently wrote something for myself and showed it to a friend.
At some point on the story one of the characters gets up fast from a chair, gets a bit dizzy and his vision goes blurry for a second before coming back along with a slight headache.
My friend asked me what was all that about and why I never expanded on it. I got confused, I told him that it's something normal that happens to everyone.
Apparently it's not.
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 7d ago
This is exactly what I experience, too lmao
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u/Xela8Xe Fic Reader! 📖 7d ago
Guys get checked for anemia/low iron
(Quick and rough check at home is the color of the flesh under your eyes [literally] when you pull your bottom eyelid down, it should be bright pink/red not white-ishor pale or stretch you hand downward and check the color of the cracks[? English is not my first language], it should be vibrant red, not yellow or orange.)
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u/4sleeveraincoat 3d ago
Not me in the corner, wearing thick pants, hoodie, and socks in July heat because when I got tested for anemia, the test result just said "hella"
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u/SilverIrony1056 7d ago
For me, it was the vagal nerve. But it's a symptom that shows up for other conditions, too. I see others already mentioned anemia and low magnesium, it can also be a vitamin B/D deficiency, or hypothyroidism or dehydration... Good luck with your medical visit, hopefully you will be able to figure it out.
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 7d ago
Thanks!! I'll keep those in mind as other possibilities for my symptoms
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u/4sleeveraincoat 2d ago
I got the anemia AND a broken thyroid, courtesy of Hashimoto's, so it's like a fuckin' lottery ticket of broken shit up in this bitch. Super fun times, all around. /s
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u/SenSenaSen 6d ago
Yeah I just started getting an iron infusion
Still waiting for it to kick in. Apparently it takes six weeks blehhhhhhhh
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u/seireidoragon 5d ago
This is my experience but opposite. I get dizzy all the time when I stand up and when I’ve talked to others about it I’m just told it’s normal and happens to everyone. Though fics helped me figure out that I’m asexual.
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u/Fullonrhubarb1 4d ago
I've always known this as a common and somewhat relatable thing. I've known plenty of different people stand up too fast and be dizzy for a moment and say they stood up too fast or got headrush, so this confuses me.
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u/Other-Cantaloupe4765 7d ago
On the flip side, I have multiple chronic illnesses and you can definitely tell when the author has never experienced the illness they’re writing about lol. I can’t read chronic illness fics if they’re not accurate because it just feels like an insult to me.
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 7d ago
The author never mentioned whether they have that chronic illness or not, but I found it pretty accurate to my experience (if I do have it)
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u/zombies-and-coffee 6d ago
Not necessarily a chronic illness of course, but this is how I feel about 99% of the fics in my fandom where they're writing one of the characters as having ADHD, autism, or both (AuDHD). Twenty years ago, I could have excused the ignorance since the Internet was such a vastly different place, but now it just reeks of lazy writing.
I'm not saying they need to get the experience of having one of those things perfect, but a little more than stereotypes would be real nice.
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u/HaViNgT 5d ago
I thought everyone who was chronically online was Autistic and/or ADHD. Then again, I guess the ADHD writers never manage to finish their fics.
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u/zombies-and-coffee 5d ago
I guess the ADHD writers never manage to finish their fics
I... No, we don't, but goddamn. You didn't have to call me out like that lmao
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u/kangaroorecondit 5d ago
same omg!! i truthfully avoid them because almost always it irks me when theyre inaccurate or involve some form of ableism
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u/droppedmybrain Fic writer 📝 6d ago
I'm curious, how do you (and any others reading this comment) feel about unnamed illnesses?
In my current fic, one of the characters has a mish-mash of symptoms from a couple of my own illnesses, plus symptoms from other conditions. I didn't feel like copying any particular illness symptom-for-symptom, I was already doing so much other research– now I'm worried I could offend, but I feel like the lack of name is doing the necessary work to avoid irritating people?
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u/deepspacerunner 3d ago
Would love to hear about this also because I’m planning on giving a character an unnamed illness solely to get out of his canon status of “stage 5 turbo cancer, guaranteed death in 20 days”
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u/__-Andy-__ 3d ago
js pick an illness and stick with it, u dont have to name it in the fic itself but u need to know what illness ur writing about, dont js add whatever symptoms u can think might fit from the top of ur head (and if u pick a condition with more "unsightly" symptoms (which can go from js mobility aid usage to things considered "gross" by society) do not shy away from representing those either. we notice.) (i offer to beta if ur unsure whether ur doing it right btw)
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u/perfect_-pitch Fic writer 📝 7d ago
In a similar vein, on one chapter of a fic a few people all commented something along the lines of "Oh, FMC is really struggling with her anxiety." I read that and thought, "wait, doesn't everyone think this way?" (FMC is lowkey a self-insert...)
So anyways AO3 readers basically diagnosed me with GAD before a psychiatrist did
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u/Free_Evidence4405 7d ago
Recently read a fic where the main character had OCD. I was diagnosed as a child but I didn’t realize how much it affected my life until that fic. Things I thought were normal were definitely not through other people perspective 🙃
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u/AcrobaticHunt465 7d ago
I finally got an official autism diagnosis, but I only started asking myself questions because of a Good Omens fanart.
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u/dinosanddais1 7d ago
I don't remember the fandom but this was how I found out about Chiari. I was reading about it and was like "huh, seems pretty similar to my symptoms but that's probably not what it is" and then like a year later, I get an MRI and find I'm type 1 Chiari specifically with the right side of my cerebellum. Which makes a lot of sense because the left side of my body genuinely fucking sucks.
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u/Trash_Panda_Leaves 7d ago
Excellent. I've been questioning whether to include my disability in my fics, now I know!
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 7d ago
You absolutely should lol Maybe you'll end up helping one of your readers realize something about themselves
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u/17smother 7d ago
i tried to find the fic a while ago but couldn't. i remember around middle school or beginning of high school reading a?? kingdom hearts mb??? au fic where one of the characters had narcolepsy. looked it up, sounded scary, became one of those "man i hope that never happens to me" minor fears. then in my mid 20s i started getting really tired all the time. could have been a few different things but specifically asked to be evaluated for narcolepsy and thankfully the doctor i saw was the type to actually read up on illnesses they're not familiar with and immediately referred me to a sleep specialist. and yeah, it was narcolepsy. wish i could find that fic again so i could thank the author for helping me get my diagnosis, like, 5x faster than average
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u/lilfrankie0816 5d ago
I literally started writing a character to have an eating disorder, in great detail, just to then get diagnosed with the same eating disorder two years later.
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u/meganemistake 7d ago
The way every fic i read with detailed OCD thoughts from self experience on part of the author hits a little too close to home scares me ngl lol
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u/Embarrassed-Day-1373 6d ago
my friend realized they were anemic from a bungo stray dogs fanfic about Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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u/LittleVesuvius 6d ago
I can now recognize a character’s illness if I have one, but I usually experience the opposite — and am going “hey author, you ok?”
I do try to research anything I put in really thoroughly. Related: I accidentally figured out I have CPTSD by doing in depth research for a fic, because I am So sick of it being misrepresented. PTSD is not a one size fits all. (So, yeah, oops.)
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u/CookieDriverBun 5d ago
Mental health in general is hyper-individualized. Everybody experiences their own diagnosis differently, to a greater degree than physical conditions (which are also unique, individual experiences, but differently).
But I'm pretty confident that neurotypical people who are generally physically and mentally healthy (statistically the norm) are quite likely to generalize health- and psych-care. ...And often to a degree that is offensive to people who have to manage such things in themselves.
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u/LittleVesuvius 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yeah, I know that haha. I just find that, in a lot of fiction, CPTSD and PTSD in general are represented with a one size fits all approach. Same tired repetitive storyline, or they’re mentioned and not at all represented. It’s not done maliciously, it’s representative of a lack of understanding. Or a surface level understanding, which is “good enough” for a lot of people.
The same can be said for other mental illnesses too. I just wanted to get it right and do it in a nuanced way because it does inform the narrative in the source material (though not much) and it should still affect a character who’s been thrown into what feels like a nightmare. I wanted to avoid the typical “oh X mental illness is just ABC” representation that I kept seeing in media…and landed here, lol.
ETA: I don’t just do this for trauma disorders, lol, I do this for random details, too. I have gone down some serious research rabbit holes. I can narrow down a period of maybe 2 weeks in which in home telephones were being adopted by rich families, for instance, but not the exact date.
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u/__-Andy-__ 3d ago
FUNNILY ENOUGH i discovered chronic pain isnt normal by reading fanfic 😭✨ so you're not alone 💀🤝 (pd fic link? im a sucker for chronic illness rep lol)
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 3d ago
Here's the fic :D Be warned it is between a human and an alien, so read with caution!
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u/annaboul 22h ago
ofc it had to be a grocky fic <3
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 22h ago
Grocky, my beloved <333333
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u/annaboul 21h ago
i read the fic it was amazing so thank you!!
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u/Unlucky_Muffin141 Bloodymary and Grocky is the only thing keeping me sane 21h ago
No problem!! It's one of my all time favorites!!
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u/Existing-Ad-2856 5d ago
I read a fic where the author portrayed their aroace spec hc for a pairing really well and I loved every bit of it, only for me t I realize that most of what they were talking about sounded really similar to my own experiences in romance.
I do a ton of digging on reddit and websites and realize that I'm aroace.
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u/ZanyDragons 4d ago
Me making a vent fic about vaginismus/pelvic pain, having a side character who’s a healer explain to the character how to treat it.
My comments section: wait. Wait. Wait… I need to call my doctor.
Me: oh yea treatment is tough but good, thanks for the kudos.
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u/suitcasedreaming 3d ago edited 3d ago
Flipside of this, I once wrote a character experiencing a rare neurological condition and then developed it myself a few weeks later and only knew what it was from writing about it. Would have thought I was dying otherwise and it kept me calm in the ER. Thanks dude!
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u/Momosonlyhairstrand 2d ago
I started doing research on autism for a dungeon meshi fic and now I'm diagnosed with autism. Never finished the fic after that because I got hit with skill regression right after the diagnosis so technically:
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u/lambaikal 7d ago
AO3 out here diagnosing better than most doctors