Some autistic Alastair Carstairs headcanons (by an autistic person)
I love with this character and I want more autistic rep that’s not ‘white boy obsessed with trains or dinosaurs’ so enjoy lol
Alastair’s room is neat: both because he’s used to moving around a lot and it’s easier to pack, and because having too much going on is overwhelming sensory-wise
Alastair stims with his daggers, twirling them idly between his fingers. He’s a shadowhunter so ‘weakness’ is frowned upon, but being nimble with weapons is encouraged
Alastair likes his spears because they allow him to keep distance between himself and demons, which often have awful smells, or are loud and messy. He carries them everywhere because having to fight with another weapon last minute throws him off his rhythm
Alastair goes on long walks when he wants a break from the noise and stress of everything. On very rare occasions, he goes because I’m semispeaking and I love him okay nonspeaking and goes for a walk so no one notices.
Later, when he and Thomas are dating, Thomas finds out and Alastair is scared he’ll judge him. Thomas is awesome about it and gives Alastair tight hugs which are calming, and reads to him until he is able to talk again.
Alastair is better at expressing himself in writing than he is by speaking, after particularly bad clave meetings he writes passionate pieces about social rights, racism, xenophobia and more which he publishes anonymously
Alastair likes hedgehogs because they’re sort of like him: A bit prickly if you don’t take the effort to know them well, but if you’re kind and they trust you not to take advantage of them, they can be super loyal and kind
At first, Alastair wasn’t sarcastic at all. He was just really, really blunt. But then at school he noticed people would laugh with him, not at him when he said some things and that made him feel good. So he learned what they thought was funny and kept doing it so he could feel more in tune with his classmates. Now it’s almost second nature
Books are one of Alastair’s Special Interests. He will read everything and anything, but he especially likes Persian poetry and English historical fiction. Sometimes Will or Tessa references a really niche book they’ve read, not expecting anyone to understand, and are shocked when Alastair laughs at the joke
Another one of his SIs is languages. He knows English, Persian, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Marathi and Arabic fluently and Hindi, Portuguese, German and several others conversationally.
He’s Bridget’s favourite person because once when the ND club he, Lucie and Christopher went to the Institute kitchen for food, he replied to something she said under her breath and she was thrilled to meet someone spoke her first language
After his father died he started learning Mandarin as well, one day he hopes to talk to his Uncle Jem in Mandarin because he personally loves when people make the effort to speak Persian
When Kamala decides she wants to reconnect with her culture, she asks Alastair for help bc I love LGBT POC solidarity it makes me vv happy. He’s happy to help he learn Marathi!
He showed up late to the Townsend’s musicale because he doesn’t like parties and wanted to make small talk for the least amount of time possible.
The reason he doesn’t look at someone when he’s lying is that it’s too difficult. He already has to work really hard and be very uncomfortable to make eye contact since it’s what’s ‘expected’ from him, doing that and lying at the same time is simply too much
no I didn’t steal this trait from myself what are you talking about
(slight nsfw) When he’s lying down kissing someone, Alastair likes being underneath him. The deep pressure from the other’s body weight is very comforting.
When they were little, Cordelia would know when Alastair was struggling to cope with sensory input or was nearing a shutdown. They had a secret hand signal where Alastair could tell her from across the room if he needed to leave or just needed to retreat a bit, and she would help him excuse himself from whatever the situation was by faking an emergency she needed his help with, etc.
Alastair subconsciously used that signal when he was being harassed by Charles in COI, Cordelia saw it and came to tell Charles to go fuck himself
Alastair likes to know what he’s going to be eating beforehand so he can ‘mentally prepare’ for meals another thing I stole from myself what of it. Risa knows this and she tells him what she’s making in advance, because she’s awesome like that.
@alastairxxcarstairs @the-wckd-powers @nott-the-best @thechangeling @littlx-songbxrd (y’all are the only people I could remember who were talking about autistic alastair so I tagged you, hope you don’t mind!)
