DCTV Autistic Headcanons

[deadtedkord]

Do you have any headcanons about the Legends + being autistic? (especially Jax)

yes!!! i love this ask anon, thank you.

jax:

- STIMS WITH MECHANICS. so much. fiddling with a wrench 24/7.

- like if Jax is having a Bad Day he will 100% just shut down and go sit in the engine room for hours and work, and tell Gideon to ask that nobody bothers him

- also, finds it easier to talk to Gideon than to talk to actual human beings sometimes, because she’s a voice and not a face/eyes that he has to look into. talking to a body-less function is so relieving. jax and gideon have some good long chats.

- he liked playing football especially because it left him with the pleasure of friendship (jax is so an extrovert, y’all) but it was also?? controlled interactions. he had the football mask between him and other people, which made it easier, and could focus down on the games and the plays. jax misses football a lot.

- also those huge football jerseys? he loved those. they were so loose and felt right against his skin

- special interest in mechanics. echolalia in the form of repeating facts he read years ago in some mechanics textbooks, like a walking dictionary on mechanical terms and facts, interrupts people to tell them an Interesting Fact he remembered/knew.

- was Really Worried about merging with Stein in case Stein didn’t want to be mentally joined with an a-spec person, and while Stein noticed Jax’s different way of processing things compared to his own, all he said to him was: “if it ever gets too much - no matter where we are, fight or flight, let me know and we will un-merge immediately. I care about your well-being, Jefferson. this includes your mental well-being. Promise me that you will let me know if you need help?” and then jax. cried a bit. and hugged stein.

- occasionally gets sensory-overload during fights, but having Stein in his head actually helps - the old man will give clear instructions on what they need to do, and order the information around them calmly if jax isn’t able to, and it helps him to have someone keeping him tethered to the moment.

ray:

- ray being autistic should be like, canon at this point, okay

- BIG FLAPPY HANDS. when he is excited. or talking about science. or Thing is Happening. ray’s big flappy hands is so cute.

- had hyperlexia as a child, read well above his age level and retained all the information, probably had a huge stack of books about astro-physics at age 7 and would calmly explain that he understood it to confused adults. ray had trouble connecting to people his own age as a child.

- Special Interests include: science, all science, he loves Science a lot ok. but ray has a lot of weirdly specific special interests. ray can tell you trivia about star wars or trek for days. he knows the name of every dinosaur in the cretaceous period. he can recite pi to it’s 140th number. he can tell you exactly which scientist created which new piece of technology, especially about computers - but ask that boy a basic general knowledge question and he will go ?????

- trouble making eye contact, a lot. ray, despite being a ginormous human being, will try to make himself small and drop eye contact if he feels threatened/like he is being told off, with sloped shoulders and hiding his hands in the sleeves of his cuffs.

- The Leg Bounce, can and will not sit still, ADHD

- sensitivity to bright lights!! ray works in a dark lab and hyperfocuses on a project for days, and if the light gets suddenly turned on, he will scream and be very distressed until the light is turned off again. inside the atom suit is very dim too. also, the visor really helps distancing himself and avoiding sensory overload. it keeps things from getting Too Bright, which is why it’s tinted.

- struggles to understand sarcasm/negative social cues. a lot of people assume ray is just naive or optimistic as a result, but in fact he struggles a lot to identify social interactions that are Bad, he genuinely believes people mean what they say, because why would they say it otherwise?

rip hunter:

- meltdowns. so much. rip during s1 has multiple meltdowns over his family, which essentially leave him sitting in dark rooms, usually curled up with a leg curled into his chest, non-verbal and isolating himself for days. rip’s s1 meltdowns are canon.

- struggles with social interaction and identifying emotions!! especially in s1, rip finds it difficult to form social bonds and interpersonal relationships. this is a form of Alexthymia which means he cannot identify emotions easily, in himself or in others. he can appear unsympathetic/unemotional because of this.

- which is why rip has several episodes where he learns social cues from the others, usually sara, and watches their relationships before trying to understand them and replicate them.

- stimming w everything in his office. a lot of those gadgets and shiny things have clever purposes, but like 9 times out of 10 rip is just holding them to stim and fiddle with the mechanisms, especially when he is talking to people. he likes spinning the globe on it’s axis. it makes a nice sound.

- coat is way too big for him but he loves wearing it sm!! big sleeves!! hide his hands and he can swing them around!! jonah’s coat is big and heavy and he feels uncomfortable without it.

- trouble holding eye contact/meeting people’s gazes. looks at his own hands or drops his gaze first. also likes talking to gideon for this reason - no body to intimidate him. she also knows how to dim the lights and play his records when he is having a Bad Day and is getting overloaded.

mick:

- non-verbal a lot of the time. speaks in grunts and shrugs a lot bc its easier and he struggles with words sometimes. especially when he is upset/processing, he will sit in his room and not talk to anyone, and lock the door.

- dyslexic and struggled in school because both this and his autism went undiagnosed, right up until he got onto the waverider, and ray told him that “i think you’re like me!!” and mick wasn’t sure how to feel at first, but came to accept that ray understood and could explain. prefers actions to words.

- synesthesia in the form of misophonia. ie - mick’s emotions can be triggered by certain sounds, especially gut-wrench self-preservation movements - fighting, pushing someone away if they are too much, grabbing someone close and holding them to protect himself. because of his trauma, he has a natural trigger of fire & anger and fear.

- as such, experiences sensory overload to loud noises. wakes quickly if there is a loud noise and automatically moves to a defensive position. flinches and reaches for his gun at a car backfiring. does Not like the sound of cutlery scraping on a plate and it physically feels as if it is hurting him, so he eats with his hands a lot instead, and doesn’t like the Team Dinners.

- frequent headaches and migraines, which he tries to keep quiet and self-medicate with alcohol, but Gideon is a snitch who sends Ray with painkillers if Mick is really suffering.

- can struggle to form meaningful bonds and relationships, and is exhausted after Too Much social interaction. he can take it to a degree, but often removes himself from the situation if its too much for him, which sometimes people think is rude before he explained it to them. sleeps a lot after a long time interacting.

these are the legends I personally headcanon as being on the a-spec, so I’ve done headcanons for them, but I strongly believe in headcanoning any character you like as autistic so lmk if you want any of the other legends specifically!!

also y’all I have so many characters I hc as autistic/adhd, so please feel free to ask about them!! <3

[augustheart]

@autisticdctv

[augustheart]

Cisco Ramon + @autismtypes

[gayamericanoutlaw]

Since it’s autistic character day for #walkinredinstead, I’m FINALLY gonna write that Reasons Why Cisco Ramon Is Totally Autistic list/detailed headcanon that I said I would write…what, like six months ago?? Anyway, it’s written now, so here it is:

– There’s several episodes where he’s shown stimming with a small rubber ball or other object.

– He also spins in his chair quite a bit (my personal favorite way of stimming.

– He always wears at least two layers and one of those layers is always a comfortable t-shirt.

– He has a special interest in superheroes.

– He nicknames every meta as a way of categorizing them (and because he’ll totally forget them all if he doesn’t.)

– He speaks in 75% pop culture references (do other autistic people do that? Or is it just me? I rely on references/analogies a lot because I’ll have no other way to accurately describe a situation, which is what Cisco does.)

– Hyperfocus. So much hyperfocus.

– He’s either really chill or rEaLlY jUmPy and there is no in-between (again, dunno if that’s common or just me, but it’s something I relate to him on so it goes in the list.)

– His voice is generally pretty monotone. You can tell when he’s excited but otherwise he tends to sound the same.

– He can be SUPER Not Aware of His Surroundings sometimes.

– He’s very trusting and tends to take what people tell him at face value. After multiple villains use this against him, he tries to be more wary but that just leaves him confused as to whether people are telling the truth or not.

@autisticheadcanons!

[autisticbee]

Autistic Fictional Characters Asks

I’ve never seen one like this so decided to make one, I’m Autistic myself so some of the questions are based on my own experiences as  an autistic person.

put a number or a few in my ask and a fandom, & I’ll pick a character(s) I see as autistic & tell you:

1. How are they with clothing textures? are they fine with fashionable but uncomfortable clothes or do they prefer casual & comfy? or other? 

2. Stimming head canons?

3. how do they feel about touch?

4. favourite foods & textures?

5. hated foods & textures?

6. how do they feel about music?

7. what calms them down?

8. Do they know they’re Autistic? if so when & how did they realise? 

9. if you hc them as self diagnosed how did that impact their life? 

10. do they have friends? if so, are they accepting and accommodating? 

11. how do they prefer to communicate? are they non verbal/have periods of being non verbal? do they use sign language? do they talk? do they prefer text, etc? 

12. Is there any senses they struggle with particularly? (hearing, taste, etc) 

13. their special interests? 

14. are they open about being autistic or do they prefer to keep it to themselves?

15. if you ship them with anyone how is the other person(s) with them? (do they like listening to them info dump cause of how happy it makes them. do they know what smells/textures/places/etc to avoid so not to stress them out. etc)

16. if you ship them with anyone how are they with the other person(s)? (do they figure out code words together to understand what each other is feeling better, etc)

17. how do they prefer their hair? (if they have hair of course), is it a big issue sensory wise or is it not?, do they have their hair for style? comfort? do they find it hard to take care of it? or is it well maintained? do they have to have a certain product or is any ok?

18. are they generally well kept? or do they find it hard to keep up good hygiene?

19. what would be their ideal happy place?

20. what would be their idea of sensory hell?

[philcoulsonismyhero]

Autistic Eobard Thawne

@autisticheadcanons​ has been writing up some amazing detailed posts for various characters, and I got inspired to do the same for one of my favourite autistic headcanons: Eobard Thawne. (Specifically, the version from the DC TV shows The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow, although his comics counterpart is clearly written as neurodivergent as well.)

So, here’s a list of all the traits that add up to Eobard pretty much being canonically autistic:

He wears the same/very similar clothes every day for the sake of both comfort and familiarity (and possibly because he could never really be bothered figuring out 21st century fashion)

He has special interests in the Flash, the Speed Force, and physics/science in general

He’s very prone to hyper-focusing on particular obsessions, often to the exclusion of pretty much everything else in his life

He stims with small, hand-held objects and also by rubbing his fingers together, flicking his fingers, running his hands along interesting surfaces, and fidgeting with his glasses/gloves/etc.

He doesn’t go out of his way to make social connections, and seems happy with a very small circle of friends and no other social life

He listens to music (specifically instrumental music or opera that doesn’t have lyrics in English) to help calm down and switch out of “dealing with people” mode

He has routines and habits that he always follows- eating the same food (in particular, Big Belly Burger becomes a comfort food because it’s consistent and familiar), his routine when he gets home, etc.

He doesn’t really control the volume of his voice, and can end up shouting in the middle of sentences or going randomly quite quiet. He’s also got non-standard inflections, and tends to use a lot of emphasis when he’s talking in order to convey his exact meaning, which is probably because being understood is more important to him than whether or not people notice he talks strangely

He has low empathy, meaning he finds it hard to understand other people’s emotions or put himself in their shoes. He’s learned to read people pretty well, but it’s a learned skill and he has to be paying attention or he misses things or misunderstands. He barely engages emotionally at all with people outside of his small group of friends

He showed hyperempathy towards Grodd, and also talks to Gideon like he would to a person

He often echoes the same phrases, and seems to have planned out scripts for specific circumstances and conversations (see: most of his monologues, which are usually very eloquent and thorough and almost seem rehearsed). He’s a lot more halting and hesitant when he’s not been able to work out what to say in advance

He tends to be hyperverbal, using very precise and eloquent language. Often, he’ll repeat himself, rephrasing what he’s saying each time and using a lot of words to express a single idea

He plans out pretty much everything, and gets noticeably agitated and irritable when things don’t go according to plan. When he has to improvise, his social skills pretty much disappear because all his focus is going into figuring out what to do and he doesn’t have the energy for conversational niceties

He infodumps at the slightest opportunity, and has a tendency to over-explain things without realising he’s doing it

Socially, he’s not great- he tends to come off as “arrogant, prickly, brusque and at times contemptuous” because he doesn’t waste energy on social niceties when talking to people he considers unimportant

His sense of humour is quite quiet and subtle, and based mostly around puns, sarcasm and wordplay rather than situational or social stuff. Sarcasm is his go-to for helping to deal with stressful situations

His friends (in the 21st century, at least) are all noticeably younger than him, and he struggles a lot more when trying to befriend people closer to his own age (like Joe)

He spends a lot of time alone- lives alone, often disappears off to the Time Vault, etc.- and seems to prefer it to company a lot of the time. He gets noticeably uncomfortable when people are in places that he would usually be alone in, like his house

He’s very good at putting on an act in social situations- which is probably a skill he picked up through trying to pass as neurotypical- and his acting abilities also help him maintain the ‘Harrison Wells’ persona

He’s noticeably touch averse, and only ever initiates physical contact in emotionally significant situations (and the extent of that is putting his hand on someone’s forearm or shoulder)

His facial expressions tend to be either exaggerated or very subtle, and he often stops overtly emoting with his face when he’s focusing or emotionally overwhelmed

He tends to react physically to strong emotions like anger, throwing things or knocking them over in sudden outbursts

He’s extremely perceptive, picking up on tiny details very quickly and noticing things that other people don’t necessarily notice or care about

He thinks in quite black and white terms, and keeping the logic of his own internal rules is more important than anything else, e.g. if someone gets in the way of his plans, they need to die, regardless of his feelings towards them. Similarly, the Flash is his enemy and must die. Things get very hard for him when he starts caring about Barry and has to confront a grey area ruled by emotions rather than logic

[Caption: a gif of Eobard-Thawne-as-Harrison-Wells (from episode 1x17 “Tricksters” of The Flash) stimming by spinning a small black cube-shaped object in his left hand]

[philcoulsonismyhero]

@reggiephelps asked if I would elaborate on my autistic headcanons for Martin Stein, so here goes:

Martin is self-diagnosed. He figured out that he was autistic when he was at college (with some input from a friend who was a physchology student), but it was the 70s and getting a diagnosis seemed like a lot of trouble to go to since there weren’t really all that many accommodations available to him. Mostly he was just happy that he’d finally figured out why his brain seemed to work a little differently from normal.

Time travel is Martin’s #1 special interest, and he’ll infodump for hours about it. He’s written numerous essays comparing fictional methods of time travel, entirely for his own amusement, and has Opinions on all of them. He’s also trying to come up with a theory unifying Speed Force and timeship time travel, and spends most of his free time on it.

Martin has a very black and white concept of morality, which causes him a bit of agitation given the abundance of grey areas on the Waverider. If he can help, he considers it his duty to do so, and he’s prone to hyperempathy on top of that.

He gets very flustered when he’s expected to make decisions based on incomplete information or give an opinion before he’s had time to actually form one.

Martin tends to be overly formal because he’s never quite gotten the hang of what degree of formality is appropriate in what situation and with which people. He’s least likely to offend people by being too formal, so he sticks with that.

He doesn’t do a lot of stimming, or at least doesn’t recognise what he’s doing as stimming. But he waves his hands around a lot and taps his fingers on things when he’s thinking, and he really enjoys the sensation of writing on blackboards with chalk. Heavy sweaters are also a good sensory feel, both in terms of texture and weight.

It took Martin quite a while to get used to the additional emotional and sensory input from the Firestorm psychic link. It wasn’t too bad with Ronnie but he and Jax share a lot more and it was overwhelming at first. (For both of them, actually, as Martin feels things very strongly.) But they eventually got the hang of regulating things, and Jax is very good at picking up on when Martin is getting overwhelmed, sometimes even before Martin himself realises.

Martin is really prone to disordered sleep. He’s always relied on Clarissa- who keeps a steady and sensible routine- to keep him diurnal, so he slips a bit on the Waverider. Jax starts getting fed up with Martin enthusiastically sciencing at all hours, so talks him into a reasonable bedtime (and enlists Gideon’s help to enforce it).

I’m sure I’ve got more, but I’ll stop there for now. Thanks for asking!

[philcoulsonismyhero]

Nobody asked, but I’m going to answer the rest of the questions on this meme for Wellsobard anyway because why not.

1. How are they with clothing textures? are they fine with fashionable but uncomfortable clothes or do they prefer casual & comfy? or other?

Fashion is one of those Arbitrary Social Things that Eobard could never quite figure out. He’s gone through life finding one simple outfit that fits whatever situation he’s in and then wearing that or simple variations on it every single day. So when he ended up in the 21st century and suddenly had a new set of fashion conventions to suss out, he just found the first thing he was comfortable with and stuck with it. The all black thing started off as a way of being seen to be overtly mourning Tess without having to put too much emotional effort into it, and eventually he just couldn’t be bothered changing it. Clothing textures are the other reason there isn’t much variety in his clothes- he has trouble with a lot of fabrics, especially unfamiliar 21st century ones, so once he found something he could handle he stuck with it. As a general rule, Eobard would rather stick with what he knows rather than try something new, especially when other people’s perceptions are involved. Being perceived as idiosyncratic or odd for wearing the same clothes all the time is easier than trying to work out how people would react to a sudden change in his wardrobe.

2. Stimming head canons?

How about stimming canon? In addition to all the stuff he does with his hands, though, he also uses music to help him both focus and relax. Plus, running at superspeed is the Best Stim Ever because of the combination of lightning and wind and acceleration.

5. hated foods & textures?

He Cannot Deal with pickles in his burgers. He has to pick them out. He does the same with lettuce sometimes, but that he actually eats separately because he just doesn’t like it in combination with the other textures. Certain fabrics are also Bad Textures, and he’s spent a lot of time trying to find Regular Person running clothes that he can deal with as a result. (He figured that he should probably make sure he was seen doing exercise like a normal person to explain his frankly improbable level of fitness.)

8. Do they know they’re Autistic? if so when & how did they realise?

Eobard is acutely aware of the fact that he’s autistic. He actually figured it out for himself when he was a kid, only to discover (when he found a way into the family medical records) that he’d been diagnosed at a very young age and his parents had decided not to tell him. Naturally, he was Not Happy about this, especially when his parents’ only response to being confronted about it was to up the number of social skills classes he was forced to attend. Although it was only partially the social skills stuff that led to him figuring it out for himself- mostly it was sensory things, and realising that he processed the world rather differently to his classmates.

9. if you hc them as self diagnosed how did that impact their life?

Eobard was professionally diagnosed, but for all that was acknowledged by the adults in his life he might as well have been self diagnosed. But figuring it out helped him out a lot on a personal level, because he was able to look things up and find other people like him and ways to cope with the world. By the time he was old enough to speak for himself on such matters, he knew exactly what accommodations to ask for and how to go about getting them.

10. do they have friends? if so, are they accepting and accommodating?

Eobard didn’t really have friends back in his own time period (he never really felt the need for them- his work was enough to keep him happy), but he did have colleagues and students, and the university where he worked (which the Flash Museum was part of) had a very thorough system of accommodations. Eobard’s parents may have been terrible about the whole business, but his society as whole was thankfully much more accepting of nd folks.

In the 21st century, Eobard might have pushed away all of Harrison’s old friends, but he eventually found himself working with people he cared about at STAR Labs. Which was very strange, because he really hadn’t intended to get that close to them, but there he was. And Cisco, Caitlin, Hartley and Ronnie were always very accommodating towards him. Caitlin in particular would often run interference for him at events when things got too much, and Hartley especially loved to listen to him infodump. When Barry ended up at STAR Labs, he quickly figured out that ‘Dr Wells’ was nd and made an effort to be as accommodating as he could. It took him a while, though, and he was only just starting to get the hang of things when the big reveal went down and everything changed.

11. how do they prefer to communicate? are they non verbal/have periods of being non verbal? do they use sign language? do they talk? do they prefer text, etc?

Eobard is extremely verbal, and relies almost entirely on words to communicate pretty much everything. He’s a verbal thinker, and that’s why his speech patterns can be a bit odd- he’s trying to convey exactly what he thinks, and ‘unusual’ emphases and word choices are often necessary to get across his full meaning. Also, language evolves and he’s from the future. It’s a good job he had Harrison’s memories to fall back on, otherwise he’d have gotten lost trying to get the hang of all the slang and idioms. But once he got the knack of it, he’s surprisingly good at evolving with the times. For a middle-aged dude, he’s remarkably hip to meme culture, much to Cisco’s simultaneous embarrassment and delight.

But Eobard does go nonverbal when he has meltdowns, and that’s one of the many reasons that he hates them. Being out of control and unable to express himself makes an already terrible experience worse, so he’s gotten very good at avoiding and preventing them. He does know sign-language (most people from his time know at least some), but he tends to avoid using it because he hasn’t had to much since getting stranded and thus isn’t as familiar with the 21st century version.

He also relies on scripting rather a lot. He has stock phrases that he uses (”Mr Allen, a word please?” for instance), and he’s always a lot more eloquent when he’s had a chance to figure out what to say beforehand.

12. Is there any senses they struggle with particularly? (hearing, taste, etc)

Eobard has pretty sensitive hearing. He’s almost impossible to sneak up on, and often finds himself unintentionally eavesdropping on conversations people assume he can’t hear. Both pretty useful skills for an undercover supervillain. He also has a hypersensitive sense of smell, which is a bit less useful and, in fact, is a major inconvenience. The 21st century is far too scented for his liking, and he actually ended up banning strong perfumes from STAR Labs pretty early on. Nature also disagrees with him, thanks in part to the pollen allergy he picked up from Harrison. He spends most of the summer sneezing for a myriad of reasons, which he finds incredibly undignified.

13. their special interests?

Take a wild guess. The Flash (and by extension the Golden Age of Superheroes) has been Eobard’s Number One Special Interest since he was a kid, and the Speed Force itself is a close second. He’ll talk for hours about either of them, and managed to make a career out of it back in his own time as the professor of Speed Force studies at the Flash Museum. (His parents stopped disapproving of his “frivolous obsession” when they realised the salary that he was earning.) In addition to the Flash and the Speed Force, physics and engineering in general have always fascinated him, as have most of the sciences. Physics is the special interest, though. He picks up a fondness for 20th century sci-fi from Harrison, which is then encouraged by Cisco who is always delighted to find a fellow movie nerd.

15. if you ship them with anyone how is the other person(s) with them? (do they like listening to them info dump cause of how happy it makes them. do they know what smells/textures/places/etc to avoid so not to stress them out. etc)

I don’t ship Eobard with anyone, since to me he comes off as very aroace, so I’m going to talk about his friends instead. Hartley (who, let’s be real, also had a giant crush on ‘Dr Wells’) always loved listening to him infodump, and Eobard would listen to him do the same in return. They were both on pretty similar wavelengths in a lot of ways, and also shared a disdain for certain types of social occasions. Caitlin always kept the best track of the things that bothered Eobard- she’s a doctor, so she does that sort of thing for pretty much all her friends- and would usually be the first to pick up on when he was getting stressed because of over-stimulation. Cisco can be a little oblivious about that sort of thing, but he does his best to try and pick up on it. He’s also the go-to guy if you want to enthuse about something, and will never judge someone for getting carried away over a special interest.

16. if you ship them with anyone how are they with the other person(s)? (do they figure out code words together to understand what each other is feeling better, etc)

Eobard has a few code words or subtle signals for dealing with social situations, and also for when he just needs to be alone. Saying he needed to go ‘stretch his legs’ used to be the go-to, but that became a bit unfortunate after the accelerator accident so he stopped using it as much. Emotions are hard for him to understand sometimes, especially unspoken ones, so he’s always made it clear to Caitlin and Cisco that they’re free to speak their minds around him. Not that he necessarily takes their feelings into account, but at least that means he’s aware of them.

17. how do they prefer their hair? (if they have hair of course), is it a big issue sensory wise or is it not?, do they have their hair for style? comfort? do they find it hard to take care of it? or is it well maintained? do they have to have a certain product or is any ok?

Hair is an aggravating subject for Eobard, post-body snatching. Not so much because it’s a sensory issue, but because when he had straight hair it took him minimal effort to keep it tidy and presentable. Unfortunately, Harrison Wells had distinctly wavy hair that seems to have a mind of its own, so he was forced to waste a lot of time and energy figuring out how to control it. In the end, he mostly gave up on tidy and settled for “controlled and out of the way” instead.  His sensory issues mean that he tends to avoid scented products as a rule, but other than that he’s not picky.

[augustheart]

Autistic Barry? All the headcanons pls?

barry allen is autistic

he doesn’t have a ton of meltdowns but when he does have them he always goes nonverbal so he taught joe and iris sign (caitlin and wells already knew and cisco knows enough to understand what barry’s trying to say)

the speedforce was literally sensory heaven 

when he’s tired he’ll wander around the house wearing his weighted blanket (he got it for his birthday) around the house like a cape. he also loves to hide under the table while cocooned in it

he always has to be fidgeting with his hands, whether it’s vibrating them or messing with his molecule model

iris and joe have both learned to recognize the signs of an overload for him so they can get him out of the stressful situation 

he’s an incredibly cuddly autistic (like me lol)

iris loves it when he infodumps to her even though she doesn’t always understand what he’s talking about

barry also loves chewing on things, so he usually wears a chew necklace although it’s tucked under his clothes because he’s afraid that people are going to make fun of him for it.

[philcoulsonismyhero]

I'm curious about your Autistic Ray Palmer headcanons :3 Please say some?

I reblogged a post here with some excellent headcanons from @secretly-a-dragon and @batmanisagatewaydrug, but here are some more:

Cooking food is kind of complicated, and he can never decide what to make (too many choices tends to make his brain stall a bit), so Ray pretty much exists on takeaway and microwave meals. He has tried to stick to proper structured healthy diets in the past, but taking time out of whatever he’s working on to prepare food that seems unnecessarily complicated? No thanks, he’d rather just stick to quick and easy.

Of course, this makes things interesting when it’s his night to cook on the Waverider. Fortunately, Gideon is happy to select a meal for him and provide a simple recipe to follow (and also remind Ray that it is in fact his turn), which means that Ray’s night to cook is one of the few nights when the team will be decently fed.

Actually, Gideon is a huge help in general. Ray talks to her a lot (she’s not always actually listening) because verbalising his thoughts helps him sort them out. She’s also great for letting him know when it’s getting too late or he hasn’t eaten in a long time, and Ray appreciates it a lot because he just. Forgets. His brain is not good at prioritising things like food and sleep over whatever project is currently holding his interest.

People are Complicated. He can’t really read them very well, not to mention the trouble he has understanding opposing viewpoints to his own and predicting people’s behaviour. He’s always really appreciative when his friends pick up on this and give him pointers or let him know when he’s being a bit Much or missing cues.

Ray has had a lot of special interests over the years, and they’re usually somewhere within the realm of science/engineering/sci-fi/superheroes. Star Trek has always been a big one, as has Doctor Who, and pretty much anything to do with space.

He stims a lot with his hands, playing with objects that click or spin or feel smooth in his hands. When he was a kid he used to carry action figures in his pockets so he always had something to play with, but as he got older he swapped them out for more ‘acceptable’ stim toys since playing with plastic superheroes in a business meeting tends to lead to you being taken less seriously.

When he’s feeling a bit overwhelmed, he likes finding small spaces to sit in (which got a bit complicated as he got older, taller and broader, but he manages). Blanket forts are especially Good, and sitting kind of curled up on his bed is another thing that helps him calm down.

Thanks for asking! I love Ray as a character, and he’s very much one of my favourite and most secure autistic headcanons.

[philcoulsonismyhero]

Do you have any Kara Danvers autistic headcanons?

Sure do! First off, I really love the headcanon (which I stole from @squireofgeekdom) that all Kryptonians are autistic by human standards because it also fits Supergirl’s version of Superman really well. But here are some Kara-specific headcanons:

Kara struggled a lot with sensory overload in her first few months on Earth, and it persisted even after Jeremiah gave her those glasses to help dampen her senses. Add that to her social struggles due to coming from a different culture, and one of her teachers at school approached Eliza and Jeremiah about possibly getting her an autism diagnosis so she could get accommodations. Her foster parents were hesitant at first, because Kryptonians work differently from humans and was autism even a valid diagnosis for them? But they eventually came to the conclusion that, whether she was technically autistic or not, a lot of the accommodations she could get if she were officially diagnosed would help her out a lot on this new and unfamiliar world. So they went ahead with things and Kara got diagnosed as autistic.

She felt a bit weird about the whole thing, because it seemed wrong to be diagnosed with a disability when really she could do so many things that regular humans can’t, but then she talked to Clark and discovered that his adoptive parents had done the exact same thing and it had helped him out a lot. She felt a lot better about it after that.

Kara has hyperempathy, and finds it really hard not to care about people and situations. This got her into trouble a few times as a kid, because she couldn’t just stand by when she had the ability to help someone. And helping people is Much More Important than keeping her secret identity.

She and Winn had a bit of back-and-forth on the material her suit should be made out of, since the first one he went for was a Bad Texture. As a general rule, Kara prefers soft things over other textures, which is why she wears a lot of woollens.

Cat knows that Kara is autistic, but she’s never actually acknowledged it out loud. Her son, Carter, is also autistic, which helps a bit, but she’s still getting used to his diagnosis and doesn’t really know the words to use, which is why she never outright said “he’s also autistic” when Kara was looking after him for the day. Kara picked up on it pretty quickly, though.

Since she doesn’t wear her glasses when she’s in Supergirl mode, Kara has to be a bit more careful when it comes to avoiding sensory overload. After the first time she got overwhelmed while on a mission for the DEO, J’onn set aside a quiet room for her to use whenever she needed it. 

Kara’s very much a huggy autistic rather than being touch averse, and hugs from Alex or Eliza were always something that helped her to calm down as well as just being Good. Her friends are pretty tactile as well, which is great.

Being autistic superheroes who struggle with sensory stuff is another thing she and Barry bonded over when he ended up on her Earth.

Kara struggles with words a lot when she’s emotionally overwhelmed (hence her habit of angry stammering and such like), and she goes nonverbal or switches to speaking Kryptonese when she’s heading towards a meltdown. She picked up sign language pretty early on, though, which is a big help.

Thanks for asking! I’m going to stop there before I go on forever, because I’ve gotten very invested in this particular headcanon.

[augustheart]

I want to hear about Autistic Jesse bc yeeesss why did I not think about that sooner

@philcoulsonismyhero has more autistic jesse evidence than i do but that does not mean i don’t think it isn’t Real and Canon also please consider:

jesse stimming with her powers like barry does by vibrating and hand flapping at super speed

tiny autistic jesse infodumping to her dad

jesse doing laps when she needs to calm down and maladaptive daydreaming like me

barry and jesse bonding a bit over being autistic speedsters. as soon as wally gets his powers he’s welcomed into the group chat

jesse going nonverbal and signing at superspeed so barry and wally are the only ones who understand her

[philcoulsonismyhero]

@thewaterintheforest Autistic Jesse is an A+ headcanon and I wrote a post about it here, but here, have some more thoughts:

Jesse hyperfocuses a lot when she’s gotten invested in a project. It’s quite useful when that project is a school thing, but not so helpful when it’s something that’s actively distracting her from her work. 

She cycles through special interests pretty quickly, which is why she ended up doing five majors. Everything is interesting, so how could she possibly pick just one or two areas to study?

Jesse will sit on anything. Perching on random surfaces is much more interesting than just sitting on a chair, and she also likes finding small spaces to sit and work in.

She’s a big pressure stimmer, so she tends to prefer tighter fitting clothes and really loves the feel of her supersuit. But looser clothes that she can play with or move in interesting ways are also good, hence why she tends to layer multiple shirts.

Familiarity is Important, and she doesn’t deal with change very well. She can manage when it’s her choice (like when she ran away), but if it’s imposed on her (like getting stranded on E1 when the team closed the Breaches) she finds it really difficult. Her life and her friends and her familiar routines were something she thought about a lot to reassure herself while she was Zoom’s prisoner, and ending up in a new unfamiliar place after she was rescued just made things worse.

Jesse is really observant when she chooses to actively pay attention, and picks up on things really quickly. When she was little, saying “it’s a surprise” never worked, because she’d always figure out what was going on, and that’s how she earned the nickname ‘Jesse Quick’. She’s also much better at reading people than her dad, who’s pretty much irredeemably terrible at picking up on people’s emotions.

Jesse uses a lot of exaggerated facial expressions when she’s talking, and that makes her a pretty terrible liar. She’s got no poker face whatsoever.

[augustheart]

Asks you about autistic e2 Barry???

thank you!! !! !

it’s basically canon that he has a SI in commander carl space marshal like… look at these faces:

aka actual images of me infodumping 

he also avoids making eye contact with everyone except for his iris

he’s got his stimmy lil bow tie!!!

starts overloading when he gets anxious and is fairly blunt-apparently used to antagonize joe, snaps at cisco, etc

clearly dependent on routine and gets agitated when he finds out that he’s been knocked out for a day

his echolalia makes iris’s life…very interesting 

they have a code worked out so she can tell when he’s getting overwhelmed and when he needs to get out of a situation

seems to be pretty touch adverse and doesn’t like it when cisco grabs him and covers his mouth (although i think he’s ok with touch if he’s the one initiating it)

generally just a good autistic csi bean who has done pretty much nothing wrong 

[thepingle]

Okay but consider this: Autistic Hartley Rathaway.

Who’s special interests are music, physics and soundwaves (and Harry Potter but you can’t tell Cisco)

Who stims by tapping out rhythms and chewing on pens and wearing clothes with long sleeves and preferably hoods because A) He can hide when it’s all Too Much and B) The feeling of tugging his sleeves over his hands is Really Nice as is flapping his hands with overly long sleeves. He repeats Cool Words and rocks and flaps and it’s Really Cool.

Who struggles to read peoples faces and tones and find the appropriate response. Leading to Bad Misunderstandings when he took something the Wrong Way.

Who was never diagnosed until he started working at Star Labs because his parents simply refused to have an autistic kid. I hate them so much wow

Who was so confused and hurt when his father started yelling when he came out because he couldn’t understand the way his face had changed and formed around his disgust as Hartley spoke.

Who is Utterly Overwhelmed by large groups of people and has to wear noise cancelling headphones when he goes out so he can Think. Who prefers to be alone because then there are no Rules and Faces and Words With Double Meanings, he doesn’t know the People Equation, and they don’t like him enough to teach him.

Who starts working at Star Labs and is immediately isolated for how ‘weird’ he is, how he signs when he’s stressed, how he taps at his desk, how he rocks when he ‘should’ be still. Who notices one day that something is Wrong in his office and spends the whole day fixing it only to look up and see people laughing as they leave, having moved everything a little to the left. Who’s computer starts acting up and hundreds of pop ups, loud, flashing pop ups that just Won’t Go Away or just Shut Up and he can’t cope. Who goes down to the pipeline for the warmth and pressure and Quiet when no one helps. When they just Laugh as he starts Hurting.

Who goes into work the next week to be locked in his office, his computer flashing and blaring and someone has found every newspaper clipping from when he was disowned and highlighted and blown up every nasty thing the papers said and taped them to his wall. Who has a meltdown and tries everything he can think of to Calm Down but nothing is Working and he just Screams until he retreats into his mind, face blank and hands shaking.

Who’s boss is furious, who’s boss fires Jones From Floor Five Who Thought It Was Oh So Very Funny and helps him get rid of the papers. Who lets him play chess with him because its Nice and the way the pieces sound as they move across the board is Really Cool. Who’s boss buys him stim toys and gets him diagnosed and doesn’t tell him off for being ‘wrong’ like his parents would have.

Who’s boss quickly becomes his Favourite Person, even when he brings in another scientist who is everything Hartley is not, even when Hartley has learnt what face means what (he has a notebook, he can’t remember everything) and realises that he no longer has time for Hartley. Who knows now that people only care as long as they think they can fix him. Who thought that Harrison was Different.

Who figures out the problem with the accelerator because he didn’t realise that he was being warned off it. Who doesn’t understand why Harrison has security guards with him until it is too late and he is being dragged away.

Who meets Len Snart and appreciates his poker face because at least now Hartley isn’t Supposed to know what he’s thinking. Who doesn’t realise how fond the rogues are of him until he was nearly killed and he had Shawna sobbing her relief into her ‘Best Friend’s (he’s never had one of those before) shoulder and Lisa taking off her golden sparrow brooch and pinning it to his tee shirt, ‘for luck’ while Len ruffled his hair and Mick told him never to worry them like that again.

Who starts being allowed to wear Len’s parka because he likes the pressure and how big it is on him. Who gets to walk around with the heat gun because the warmth is So Nice even if he had Problems with the design. Who is the only person Lisa will share her jewellery with because its so Shiny and Awesome.

Who Len lets join in on Shawna and Mark’s clause in the Contract for, they never get put in the pipeline. Ever. This being after the first and only time he was. He had a meltdown within minutes, everything was too Small and the textures were Horrible and everything was so Bright and he could hear Everything. Len had had to restrain Lisa from Harrison, who had protested from his spot tied up in his wheelchair as they broke out their shaking friend, stating that Hartley deserved to be there. Len had let Lisa break his nose. Hartley let Mick burn his old, dust covered copy of Harrison’s biography.

Who is Happy with the Rogues.

Just, Autistic Hartley Rathaway.

Nice.

[augustheart]

Would you mind doing Autistic!Hartley headcanons? You don't have to I was just wondering.

IM HERE FOR THIS

his parents are Awful and basically made him hide the fact that he was autistic and made him act neurotypical even when it was an enormous struggle for him.

wells knew he was autistic but pretty much nobody else did (caitlin knew, actually, and so did ronnie.)

he doesn’t have a lot of empathy and struggles a lot with that because he knows that most (NT) people do, and he’s supposed to act normal why can’t he be normal (his parents pretty much drilled it into his head that he had to fit their definition of “normal”)

when jerrie was born and started displaying signs of autism hartley was terrified because he knew that his parents would do to her what they were doing to him

they did

his main SIs are physics, bioengineering, and splitting off from that biology and engineering respectively

he stims listening to flute music/other wind instrument music (but usually flute music), petting his rats, hand flapping, and tapping his feet

his costume is specially designed to constrict around the middle and it helps keep him calm 

hartley forces himself not to stim in public even when he needs to because of what his parents did

he was officially diagnosed when he was four or five, so very young. jerrie was diagnosed at a similar age.

hartley chews on his sleeves and the collar of his shirt a lot, as well as on pencils, pens, etc

hartley has a lot of issues with touch in general

after the particle accelerator explosion, hartley has a lot of sensory meltdowns because of the increased sensory input in his ears. it took him a long time to find implants that didn’t cause him pain.

[augustheart]

I wanna hear more about autistic Barry, please go on

!!!GOOD

he stims by vibrating different parts of his body (hands, legs, face, vocal cords, etc), bouncing in place, tapping his knuckles on wood, and rubbing his face on things with different textures like blankets, pillows, the wall, towels, etc, etc.

his main SI has always been forensic science, but he also has an SI in, surprisingly enough, biology, although his job doesn’t alway require him to use that knowledge.

iris lets him follow him around and infodump to her. he doesn’t think she’s listening, but she is.

barry has a chew necklace, but he doesn’t usually wear it because he’s afraid of what people will think since he was bullied a lot as a kid.

he does a lot of hand flapping especially at superspeed.

the flash is like… the biggest denouncer of autism speaks ever and it’s great and he tells his richer friends (bruce, oliver, ray, etc) not to donate to them ever

they don’t

the suit is a pressure stim for him and it hugs his body really tightly and he loves it.

he’s a cuddly autistic. and a chews-on-everything autistic. pens, clipboards, shirtsleeves. he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it but he is.

barry’s not exactly open about it? he had a counselor in middle school who was p terrible and basically did all of that stuff that’s like… trying to get kids to be neurotypical-passing. so he doesn’t like to tell people even if they usually guess.

he told iris the day he got his diagnosis he was so fuckin pumped.

he’s hyperempathetic

usually he goes nonverbal after meltdowns, so he taught himself and his friends and family sign language at a really young age so that he could still communicate (although sometimes he doesn’t have the energy for it and just takes a nap instead). 

alright that’s all for now i fuckin love this headcanon talk to me about it at any time please and thank you.

[philcoulsonismyhero]

The Flash, 3, 4, 7, 19!

Wellsobard-related infodumping time, woo! Thanks for asking!

3. how do they feel about touch?

Unexpected physical contact is The Worst. When Eobard was a kid, he used to physically lash out if people touched him without asking, but he quickly learned that that was considered Unacceptable Behaviour so trained himself out of such an extreme reaction. As an adult, he mostly just glares at people, but he has been known to lash out when he’s otherwise overwhelmed. A few people (Cisco and Caitlin, mostly, but eventually Barry) are on his list of people who can touch him without repercussions, but he still prefers to be asked in some way first. Handshakes he can cope with, because those you can see coming, and he has been known to return the occasional fistbump, although he’d vehemently deny such a thing. (You should have seen Cisco’s face the first time he instinctively went in for a fistbump and actually got the gesture returned.)

So, being touched is generally a no-go, and the same is true of touching other people. Physical affection is something that Eobard has never been comfortable with, so he doesn’t really understand the rules of it (especially in the 21st century, which has different social conventions to his own). Which is why him actually touching someone willingly has a lot of emotional weight. His go-to is a hand on the shoulder (later forearm, when shoulders become a bit harder to reach), and he usually reserves that for significant emotional moments when he’s trying to be emphatic about what he’s saying.

Physical contact of the violent variety is kind of separate, because in a fight situation he’s expecting to be hit or grabbed and that makes things a bit easier. Basically, touch is only okay when he’s expecting it, and otherwise (if you’re not Cisco or Caitlin) you’d better take that hand off of him if you want to keep it.

4. favourite foods & textures?

BURGERS. Burgers are great, especially the fast food variety, because they’re consistent. You know exactly what’s in them, so there are no unexpected textures or flavours, and there’s the added bonus of beef being an entirely unfamiliar and interesting flavour to someone from a future with no cows. Other than that, I don’t really have a huge number of specific headcanons for what Eobard likes to eat, but I get the feeling that he doesn’t have a lot of variety in his diet. 21st century food is complicated and unfamiliar, so he mostly sticks to things that resemble food that he knows, or stuff that Harrison was particularly fond of. (Harrison’s memories were a huge help, and he picked up the burger thing from him.) Once he finds something that he likes, he doesn’t experiment any further. Remember Caitlin’s line “you can have more than two boiled eggs for breakfast”? I get the feeling that both Caitlin and Cisco despaired of his eating habits, and probably wondered how he managed to stay so fit given the amount of fast food in his diet.

As for textures, he has a habit of running his hands along smooth, hard surfaces. His main stim toy is that plastic cube thingie, and he’ll also rub his fingers up and down the frame of his wheelchair or along the edges of desks. The smooth probably-not-leather of his suit is also a Good Sensory Feel, and he prefers his plastic-framed glasses to metal frames for both aesthetic and sensory reasons.

7. what calms them down?

Pacing, certain music, stimming with his hands, stuff like that. Unfortunately, post-accident he can only pace in the privacy of the Time Vault, which is why he tends to disappear off there at random. So stimming with his hands becomes #1 anti-stress stim, because he can actualy do that in public. Also, running at superspeed is The Best Stim Ever and he really missed it when his powers were on the fritz. Once they got a bit more reliable, he’d often end up going for long runs if he’d had a particularly stressful day. (Although one time he almost got stranded somewhere in the wilderness of Canada when they gave out unexpectedly, which was not conducive to improving his mood at all.)

(I already answered 19 for Kepler here, so instead of repeating myself I’m going to do 18 instead.)

18. are they generally well kept? or do they find it hard to keep up good hygiene?

Eobard has always been reasonably good at hygiene. It’s a routine thing, and he relies on routine to function. Even when he’s in a situation where his other routines are disrupted, he tries his best to stay clean and presentable because it’s something he can control. But if he ends up focused on a singular short-term goal, that’s when he starts to slip a bit. Like how he was distinctly untidy during the last few episodes of s1- his plans were finally falling into place, and there was no way he was taking time out to bathe because what if some significant development occurred when he was distracted? And then he ended up locked in the Pipeline, serious case of Cowl Hair and all, and staying presentable became the last thing on his mind.

[philcoulsonismyhero]

6, 14, 19, 20, The Flash

THANK FRIEND. This is going to get long…

Okay, so my #1 autistic headcanon for Flash is Eobard Thawne, and I have complementary headcanons for the assorted alternate versions of him (Wellsobard, pre-s1!Eobard, Herobard, etc.), but, in the interests of not infodumping all night, I’m going to stick to Wellsobard (and then probably answer ALL of the questions in my massive Google doc of Herobard headcanons later, because that’s just the sort of person I am.) 

So, headcanons:

6. how do they feel about music?

Music is good and helpful and something that Eobard has well and truly incorporated into his daily routine. That thing he does where he goes home, switches on music and pours himself a drink is something he does pretty much every day, and it helps him to switch out of both “Harrison Wells” mode and just generally “dealing with people” mode. Eobard is really picky about which music he uses, though. Generally it needs to be instrumental music, or stuff like opera with lyrics in another language, or he’ll get distracted by the words. But in other situations, where he’s listening to music to help him focus rather than relax, he actually prefers stuff with lyrics. It’s all a matter of balancing the amount of information input he’s getting, so if he’s doing something routine that doesn’t require much thought (like exercise, or mundane practical stuff) the music gives him something to occupy his brain with. But if he’s stressed, something instrumental is better because it’s simpler. He’s a very verbal thinker, so adding extra words is Bad and just makes things worse.

(Cisco, on the other hand, usually needs music with words to help him calm down and concentrate, so they’re not so good at sharing space when they’re both stressed. Headphones are a big help, as is the fact that they have separate work rooms.)

14. are they open about being autistic or do they prefer to keep it to themselves?

I’d like to think that by Eobard’s time, neurodivergence is a bit more accepted by society, so Eobard probably spent a lot of time being deeply annoyed by 21st century attitudes. So my headcanon is that he decided to be open about his own autism, especially once ‘Harrison Wells’ became a pretty well-known public figure. He’s more the ‘visibility is important’ sort of activist than anything else (mostly because he’s got enough on his plate already without adding activism to the list), but he’ll casually mention it in interviews if it comes up, and it’s definitely in his biography. It helps that the original Harrison was autistic as well, and he picked up a few of his preferences and stims when he body-snatched him. So no one who knew Harrison before Eobard stole his identity batted an eyelid when he started being open about it to the media. The whole thing actually has the rather positive side effect of STAR Labs being a pretty accommodating place for ND folks.

Also, one of the big reasons Eobard is open about his autism is that his parents were pretty terrible about the whole thing. Comics!Eobard’s parents were pretty much the opposite of accommodating, and I headcanon that TV!Eobard’s were just as bad. So being open about his disability is kind of a rebellious, “screw you guys” thing, because he knows his parents would hate it. He’s spent a lot of time getting over the fact that they considered him a disappointment, so small acts of pride in his identity are kind of a big thing.

19. what would be their ideal happy place?

Nowhere in the 21st century, that’s for certain. It’s too loud, and the clothes are made of weird fabrics, and everyone’s ableist and also it’s just Wrong. The closest thing to a happy place Eobard has ever had was his office at the Flash Museum, so that’s what he tends to picture when he needs to. He’s sitting in his office, working on some manner of cutting-edge research project related to the Speed Force. It’s either quiet or there’s music on in the background. No students are bothering him, he’s back in his own body, everything is calm and quiet and all he has to figure out is his research.

(He was deeply, deeply unsettled the first time he mentally retreated to his happy place and realised that it had started to resemble STAR Labs more than his office at the Flash Museum, but he justified it by telling himself that it had been so long since he’d been back there that of course his memories are starting to degrade a little. So he had to fill the gaps somehow, and STAR Labs is the place he spends the most time so of course he’d use it. It’s got nothing to do with him being actually happy here in the 21st century because that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? Oh look, I made myself sad.)

20. what would be their idea of sensory hell?

Eobard hates crowds. He can deal with speaking in front of them, but actually being in them is Terrible. There’s too much noise and too many smells and people touching him unexpectedly is The Worst. He’s actually pretty grateful for the wheelchair when he realises that people finally give him space. Actually, one of the reasons that Eobard gained a reputation for being “arrogant, prickly, brusque, and at times contemptuous” (other than just generally his personality) was that he doesn’t cope at all well with being ambushed in public, whether by reporters or just regular people. He’s yelled at more than one perfectly friendly member of the public who tried to talk to him when he was already dealing with crowd-induced sensory overload, and he very narrowly avoided a meltdown when he was leaving the hospital for the first time after the accident and had to face a whole battery of cameras and people with microphones when he had specifically asked that they wait until the scheduled press conference to talk to him. The inconvenience (and sensory complications- it makes noise when it moves, which is Not Good) of the wheelchair, the noise and the flashing lights all combined into Serious Sensory Hell and pretty much the only thing that prevented him from bolting at superspeed was the fact that his powers weren’t quite working properly yet so he hadn’t regained the use of his legs. As it was, he just about managed to tough it out until he made it back to the privacy of his house, where he could use what little Speed Force energy he had regained to stim at superspeed in order to calm himself down.