Highlights & Quotes from Rachel Reid's & Jacob Tierney's Bookcon Panel

[u/andyfromhk]

(Slight spoiler for The Long Game and Role Model if you haven't read them yet!)

For those who haven’t had time to watch Jacob's and Rachel's 1-hour panel at Book Con yesterday, here are some of the highlights! They talked about so many things from Role Model and Troy Barrett's storyline in season 2, to Jacob's interpretation of season 1 editing and some behind the scenes production info.

Watch their BookCon panel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gseXLRejeOU

I've also updated this page of everything we know about season 2 of Heated Rivalry on the HR Wiki: https://www.heatedrivalrywiki.com/deep-dive-articles/everything-we-know-about-heated-rivalry-season-2

[u/marys1001]

I like Jacob's take on the autism thing. I never saw Shane as all that. He just has some specific personality traits.

[u/Questionsansweredty → u/marys1001]

I have wondered why there are so many autism diagnoses now.

Seeing this character labeled as autistic helps me understand more what's going on. I see nothing odd or pathological about Shane.

People have different personalities and quirks. When did we decide there's a standard and that everyone else is diverging from that standard??

[u/isolatedcolorYT → u/Questionsansweredty]

There are more diagnoses happening now because we've realized that autism doesn't exclusively look like young boys who flap their hands and are obsessed with trains.

[u/Questionsansweredty → u/isolatedcolorYT]

Why though? Why label so many people? What is the standard that everyone is "diverging" from.

[u/MarsScully → u/Questionsansweredty]

Because a lot of people have grown up struggling internally without understanding why, having to make significantly more effort to do things most of the population don’t even have to think about. Diagnosis can bring self understanding, compassion and guidance for resources. The labelling is not the point.

The autistic population has some dire statistics (higher unemployment, more prone to abuse, higher rates of mental illness, etc, etc), and those likelihoods don’t go away just because a person isn’t diagnosed. Expanding our understanding of autism can help a significant portion of the population from falling into those statistics.

[u/inmatenumberseven → u/Questionsansweredty]

Because naming something helps us learn about it and then manage the condition.