I'm tired of seeing this (as someone with ASD) 

I never get when people do this with alien characters with different social behaviors.

Honestly, I’m really glad to hear someone talk about this, it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time… I find it kind of infantilizing that people act like seeing a character with my same disability this the only way I can relate to them… to be completely honest, I couldn’t give less of a damn about “autistic representation”, it’s just a disability. I don’t consume media to see people that look like me. In many cases, it’s to see people who *don’t* look like me, but who I can identify with in small ways. I do it to experience good stories, to grow attached to characters, and to appreciate the beauty that can come from the brilliant minds of artists! Just skimming every somewhat popular piece of fiction to find other autistic folks just seems like such a boring, one dimensional way to consume media. I engage with media to ingest the passion and substance of the artists dream. Compared to that, fishing for these supposedly coded characters just feels incredibly dull.

i get what you mean tbh. i like headcanoning characters as autistic personally tho because it brings me comfort as someone who has been diagnosed as autistic. i struggled with it for my whole life, feeling like i don't belong because i'm "different" so when i headcanon a character as autistic it's because i see my own traits in that character. but, when it comes to it, i dont like making it the only thing about their character because i love the character for more than these traits. sorry if my wording is confusing i hope you get what i mean

Sometimes headcanon-ing fictional characters as autistic can be used to self-comfort. It worries me when an entire fanbase makes the consensus and spreads some character as autistic even tho it has not a single ASD flag, sometimes giving the wrong perception of ASD. I've seen this with BPD. So many people claim my partner doesn't have it because he doesn't behave like some fictional characters who are considered BPD havers

Oh gosh, yeah, I lowkey agree with this. Especially the bit about "this is my personality, quirks included, don't write it off as a disability" which is pretty much the number one reason I *don't* want to see if I have autism. I wish some people would just respect the package as it comes, rather than be so insistent on putting a label on things. The number of times people I'm friends with have said "i think you could be autistic" to me is crazy and my response is always "sure, i could be, but would it actually make any difference? I manage just fine, I know my triggers, I have my coping methods and I'm generally happy where I am, I don't need a label that people can use to write off my personality as 'oh that's because they're autistic'." But that's apparently a strange response to them, I guess.

Honestly as someone w dx ASD I think it’s a little weird when it’s someone w/o ASD headcanoning characters as autistic. Some characters in canon are very explicit in showing a lot of ASD traits but it gets really weird if they somehow like… changed the character? Like the character suddenly acts “different” in their hc bc it’s never a personality thing it’s like if they show symptoms of things like overstimulation, lack of social skills (like reading cues), special interests, etc. I think hc characters is fine as long as it’s not actually changing their personality bc ASD is never abt personality.

Dang I wish I had a following to repost this for. This kind of stuff make me so angry as someone who has grown up around autistic siblings

Can you tell I didn't have a script? lol

Valid 💯

fair