[Images: @cassiabaggins asked "Hmm autistic Fili and autistic Thorin. I'm thinking about it! (And projecting, what of it???) Thoughts?" @bananzer asked "I always hc Kili to have adhd. Thoughts?"]
Time to confess that I haven't seen the Hobbit movies since they first came out, and I haven't read the book for even longer. Sorry :(
But idea: almost all dwarves are neurodiverse.
Their "crafts" are really just another term for what we might know as special interests, and that craft can be anything!
Their long projects at the forge and endless patience, working until a piece is perfect? Hyperfixations.
The beads and fancy ornaments they wear in their hair? The main purpose is stimming, although hair decoration is also used for personal expression and to convey rank and deeds.
Their hearing protectors? Outsiders believe they're exclusively for protecting hearing while mining or crafting, but actually some dwarves wear them whenever sound is distressing or overwhelming. (There are also a lot of deaf and hard of hearing dwarves, but that's another story.)
Other races sometimes think that dwarves are cold or antisocial, but it's really just a case of neurotypicals and neuroatypicals struggling to communicate in a common language. (Culture comes into it too, of course.)
It's not like there aren't plenty of neurodiverse people of other races, but neurodiversity is pretty much the norm in dwarven society. This means that masking generally doesn't happen at all within dwarven communities and they don't do it when they're around other races.
Tolkien also told us about Iglishmek, aka Dwarvish Sign Language, in HoME Volume XI. It was taught to all dwarves starting at the same age as spoken language and there were regional dialects. This is wonderful on so many levels, but I'm mentioning it specifically here because non-verbal dwarves!
Lmk your thoughts everyone, but I've got neurodiverse dwarves in my head now.
