We’ve been thinking about different ways we challenge the norm, trying to give ourselves more support in those areas. One thing we do is create every character as autistic, and we pretty much headcanon every character as autistic, conciously or not. Autism is the default to us, which makes sense. We are all autistic, and extrasystem, we mostly interact with certainly or likely autistic family members and friends.

We get this weird feeling about headcanoning so many characters as autistic. There who people who tend to be accepting of autistic headcanons but will argue with you if the character isn’t “obvious” enough. There’s this implication that you have to have “good reasons” to headcanon someone as autistic, and that you can’t headcanon everyone as autistic, and that you certainly can’t change a character’s behavior to make them act more autistic when creating fan content.

I think this is a byproduct of autism being seen as lesser, abnormal, and purely medical. It’s a shame. As an autistic system, we naturally want to imagine and write characters with similar brains to us, and yet we are expected to include token allistics, lest we be unrealistic or water down the meaning of autism or something.

We’re trying to embrace this culture of “autistic takeover” that exists inside us despite external pressure (we also call it “autipunk” dunno if that’s been coined yet, also ACA meaning “all characters are autistic”). This “culture” embraces trans autistics, any and all autistic headcanons, autistic world-building, autistics 4 autistics, reinterpreting both fiction and non-fiction to be “more autistic”, consensual autistic supremacy, evil autism (having “problematic” traits caused or affected by autism), and more.

  • sewerqueer
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    6 months ago

    I love this idea! I see autistic people and the concept of characters as having strong connections. I think a lot of autistic people tend to view themselves in a character-like way, much more commonly than allistics do. Also I’m definitely autistic 4 autistic as I much prefer to have intimate relationships with others who are more likely to understand my cognition/quirks AND not belittle me for them. 😁 I headcanon my fictional crush as autistic as he is loved my many autistic people who make fan fics of him, so naturally the autistic behavior “rubs off” onto the character.

    • Arden
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      6 months ago

      I’m autistic and I totally see myself as a character lol I never noticed till I saw this post