A lot of the time when people bring up Bart Allen as being super autistic coded, they're bringing it up in conjuction with the rest of YJ (which, yes, I love autistic friendship) but sometimes I just wanna talk about Bart Allen.
I wanna talk about the kid who doesn't understand he's getting bullied and managed to be friends with everyone because of it. I wanna talk about the kid who is so bad at holding a conversation everyone thinks he's some sort of brooding asshole. I wanna talk about the kid who KNOWS that the older, more popular kids talk to him and dare him to do stupid stuff because "of course Bart will do it" and does it anyway because he likes making people laugh. I wanna talk about the kid who knows he's doing something wrong socially but he doesn't know what and wants nothing more than to fix it. I wanna talk about the kid who knows he's different but still thinks the rest of the world is the problem. I wanna talk about the kid who's so smart and so brave but everyone only sees him as some mess-up idiot. I wanna talk about the emotional kid who got bullied for being robotic and unemotional because allistic people can't grasp what his world looks like. I wanna talk about the kid who wouldn't know sarcasm from truth. I wanna talk about the kid who's low-empathy but does everything he can to be compassionate. I wanna talk about the kid who's surrounded by people, but still feels so alone because no one else understands his world.
Sometimes I just wanna talk about Bart Allen.
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teru & socialization
i've posted about this before but something ive been thinking about a LOT is mp100's themes of loneliness (and eventual connections). i think this is an aspect of teru's character (in particular) that gets left out because it's not as explicit but i've been wanting to do a deep dive on it for a while and i finally sat down to do it. just a warning, this post is gonna be LONG.
these two panels are from chapter 16 of the manga (which i'm using for my evidence because i. dont want to scrub through the anime LOL). initial sentiment: teru uses his powers to cheat having friends/a good social life and wouldn't have that if he tried earnestly. this is a fair interpretation of the scene. with what we know, at this point of time (as in within the teru-mob fight) teru would not be able to connect with other people earnestly, due to his mindset. which i think is a fair interpretation, HOWEVER:
(from chapter 17 ^^) the first panel shows teru's expression to be strained and the second is visibly unhappy. this puts the first set of panels into a different context, that maybe underneath all of this, teru doesn't WANT any of this life that he's built. keep in mind that i'm analyzing this with teru's possible autistic tendencies in mind & you dont have to believe he's autistic, im not your dad, but i do find this a pretty meaningful indication of masking if he were
(note: yes, the strain can definitely be read as comp-het, and i would agree but that's not relevant so go read this post on that instead)
even if the rest of these panels show teru content with his life, i think these expressions are pretty vital to how we read his life especially because we know so little of it. think about it, if you were a kid desperate for affection because you couldn't get it anywhere else, especially not in a way that would come off as "mature" or "unaffected", wouldn't you also look for validation in your popularity? even if it aligned you with people who you consider fundamentally different to you? my point here is that teru can't not stand out-- it's in his nature-- and we are shown how he tries to blend in & receive attention in the only way possible to him; which is to say that he molds himself into something that is palatable, likeable, and superior to other people. if he's nothing, like mob, he has spent his entire life covering up for it. if he fails socially, like mob, he has to be good at everything (even if he cheats to do so) so that everyone else can look past it.
(side note for my teru angst enjoyers: this is a panel of his mom. the mom who he hasn't seen in years. doesn't it make sense that, if he hasn't heard his mom say he's proud of him for literal years, that he would overachieve in response? not related to the autism thing i just have the teru bug. also don't be misogynistic in my notes both his parents suck we just get a singular mention of his mom)
so if teru couldn't meaningfully have friends before mob, that could very easily be because of his past mindset, right?
...except, we don't.. really... see him make other friends afterwards.
but, the awakening lab, right?
(ok i lied to you sorry there is one anime screenshot and thats because it stood out to me while i rewatched it earlier this month. sorry.) id like to bring attention to this screenshot during the cultural festival because the awakening lab can definitely be seen as a direct contradiction of this and i'd like to point out a couple things:
1) in this scene the shiratori brothers are in another room
2) them and the other three are friends with ritsu (or at least close enough acquaintances to want to see him).
considering this is one of the only times they appear together for Fun i am more inclined to believe this is an encounter where they went together because they all would've gone separately anyway. this isn't to discount the possible bond that these characters might have, but thats the thing. we... aren't really shown that they're friends and enjoy spending time together outside of this screenshot, where two out of six of the members are not even present. not to mention that teru is still placing himself in a role separate from his peers. despite stripping the superiority away, teru is still the awakening lab's mentor, not friend. teru still views himself as fundamentally different in a context where his psychic powers don't make him that way.
...except with mob. i bring this placement of power up because where he is the awakening lab's mentor, teru declares mob to be his rival, or, in other words, teru is just like him. he is accepting that mob and him are the same. (and if we view mob from an autistic lens... so on and so forth)
as if to hammer in that point even further-- in the summer vacation omake, teru explicitly states that "summer break is just a super long, super boring stretch of alone time." i'm not sure of the timeline here, but guessing from the hair, we're at least post season 1. which gives us explicit confirmation here that teru is spending the break alone despite his relationship to the awakening lab. his connection to mob is a lifeline here because mob is one of the only people who can intuitively understand teru's isolation without judgment
(also, on that point of teru's autistic tendencies: teru does and says a LOT of things that would raise other peoples eyebrows and doesn't seem to notice.
here we get teru actively admitting to his home life, right in front of reigen, WHO COULD CALL CHILD SERVICES ON HIM? this genuinely made me rethink this character entirely. teru's filter is... minimal. he isn't constantly volunteering information and generally minds his own business, but if you ask? Well.
teru is a social person, but to say he is proficient in understanding social situations seems... wrong. teru views his loneliness as boring because, despite being fairly open, does not actually allow himself to think about his own feelings and how they affect him. this loneliness is boring because he doesn't have enough of a reference to realize its not
if we are taking pre-mob teru to be a version of himself who is masking, or at the very least someone who is faking a lot of stuff in a less autistic sense, the fight with mob changes teru to the point where he no longer hides himself. in the same way that mob was able to shake teru's fragile superiority complex i think the change in appearance marks the end of the self teru had built up. from this point on we see him become a lot more... Him. his appearance and his fashion choices are, presumably, completely normal to him and we get no indication that he believes otherwise despite the reactions it gets-- which is... well, i wouldn't be writing this post if i thought it was one of his most neurotypical traits.
in fact, he seems... pretty oblivious to what other people think of him. which is an interesting distinction to make considering the intelligence we Know he possesses (which is not to say that you are unintelligent if you don't pick up on social cues, just that its common for media to depict it that way.) these traits are made pointedly, even if unintentionally, separate, ESPECIALLY when you note the amount of characters who Do ruminate on or stare at teru's appearance.
some examples. i don't even think this is all of it-- case in point.)
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another thing i love about laios:
HE IS GENUINELY A REALLY GOOD LEADER!!
despite struggling with the finer points of socializing, he has all the qualities necessary to be a good leader.
(i refer to the manga a lot in this post as someone who's read most of the manga at this point, but i avoided any specific spoilers)
He cares about all his teammates' well-being
He is extremely level-headed in a crisis
He is excellent at strategizing (within his areas of expertise; in the manga someone eventually points out he's pretty much useless at fighting other humans, lol)
If a plan fails, he is immediately thinking up a fallback plan - he doesn't give up
He is acutely aware of his teammates' strength and weaknesses, and accurately assigns them tasks suited to them in times of need.
He is perhaps not innately a 'leader-type'; he's fine deferring to the rest of the party most of the time, even when he doesn't understand why. (Just going along with the blindfold in the sauna for example, lol.) He was ready to head back into the dungeon by himself before Chilchuck and Marcille volunteered to come along. He doesn't think of himself as particularly smart or special. And when the party meets others (such as the old gnome couple) they don't tend to assume Laios is the leader.
But he has an unwavering vision (during the story it's rescuing Falin), and, you see it again and again: when they enter difficult combat, or any time things fall apart and everyone is panicking, Laios steps up and takes charge. His calmness helps everyone else calm down, and they generally follow his lead. They intuitively look to him in a crisis, to the point they're shocked the few times he doesn't have any ideas.
It kind of ties into another thought I have; he is repeatedly seen as "having no interest in other people" by other characters, but this isn't really true! He struggles to understand people and he is aware that they struggle to understand him. This leads to him mostly focusing on the things he IS good at understanding, such as monsters. But he genuinely makes a big effort to understand the people he cares about. In the manga, there are times you see him think deeply about his friends' struggles and motivations. For much of the early arcs, he understands Chilchuck better than Marcille or Senshi do. He and Marcille don't get each other that well at the start of the story, but by the end they have a very strong reciprocal friendship.
I could go on about it honestly but this post is already very long. Tl;dr laios one of the characters of all time to me and i think people should appreciate his leadership skills more!!
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anyway here’s my evidence that Will Solace is autistic
doesn’t always get jokes:
struggles to read expressions:
has a hard time understanding what other people are thinking:
frequently interjects with statements that aren’t appropriate for the situation:
special interests:
he knows when he’s upset someone but he doesn’t know the “right” way to socialize or how to fix his blunders:
flirts like this?
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