The Distance Between Us

Series Metadata

Creator:
Series Begun:
2026-05-14
Series Updated:
2026-06-01
Notes:

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

First: If you’re an autistic reader who sees yourself in Shane Hollander, that matters. That recognition is real, and I’m not here to take it from you.

That said, I want to be transparent about how I’ve chosen to write him in my fics.

Rachel Reid has confirmed that Shane is on the autism spectrum - but that he will never be diagnosed, never identify as such, and never engage with that part of himself explicitly. His autism was in many ways discovered in the writing rather than designed from the start: he began as a perfectionist with anxiety, and his neurodivergent traits emerged naturally from there. The “mask” Rachel Reid has described - the robotic precision, the routines, the literal thinking, the same-food safety - reflects a very specific, quietly internal, high-masking presentation. It’s a part of a spectrum that rarely gets page time, and that’s precisely what makes it meaningful.

The books themselves don’t name his condition, don’t explore sensory overwhelm, don’t examine the cost of masking, and don’t place Shane in situations where his neurodivergence creates visible social friction. That’s not an oversight - it’s the nature of how he exists on the page. Shane works because his traits read as human first. He’s not defined or reduced by his autism; it quietly shapes him without becoming the story itself.

In fanfic, I’ve seen a tendency to extrapolate from “confirmed autistic” toward a much more externally legible presentation - the kind depicted in shows like The Good Doctor or Atypical through meltdowns, blunt social obliviousness, and sensory crises rendered in vivid detail. While those portrayals can be valid to individuals with autism and reflect real experiences that deserve space, it isn’t Shane and applying it to him does something I want to actively push back on.

Autism is a spectrum - not a sliding scale of severity, but a genuinely varied constellation of experiences that can look radically different from person to person. Shane occupies one corner of that spectrum: high-masking, internally experienced, invisible to most people around him and to himself. When fics pull him toward the more visible, recognizable end, it doesn’t enrich his characterization - it erases the specific thing that makes his representation quietly remarkable in the first place.

There’s an unintentional cost to that. Readers who share Shane’s particular experience - people who mask completely, who were never flagged, who don’t fit the cultural script for what autism looks like - often go unrecognized for years precisely because their presentation doesn’t match what everyone sees on TV. Writing Shane as though he belongs in that script doesn’t just misread the character. It reinforces the idea that there’s only one way to be autistic, and that quieter, less legible experiences don’t count. I don’t think that’s anyone’s intention. But intention doesn’t change the effect, and I’d rather be deliberately open about that.

In my fics, Shane’s autism informs him the way it does in canon: present, real, and largely invisible to himself. He doesn’t have the vocabulary for it. He doesn’t seek it. He just is. In this fic specifically I try to explore other reasons besides just Shane's autism for why he might have masking behaviors - i.e. trauma.

He doesn’t have the vocabulary for it. He doesn’t seek it. He just is. I hope that feels like care rather than limitation.

Stats:
Words:
129,174
Works:
3
Complete:
No
Bookmarks:
90

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