#oh look Elliot’s being autistic about autism again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

biceratops7 · 7 months

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HOly fucking SHIT-

Guys I just had a complete Shellstrop style “holy motherforking shirt balls” moment at work about Donnie’s unusual speaking patterns. You know, when he does this:

This tendency to narrate his actions in the third person or verbally say onomatopoeias in place of the sound is uh… well it’s autistic right? Look it features in literally every compilation but no one knows why other than “vibes, sometimes it just be like that 🤷”

But NO. No it NOT be like that. I finally know what this fucking nerd is doing, hear me out…

… he’s scripting.

Think about it. You know what else describes action, emotion, and sound in purely words? Books. He has these little speaking quirks, yah, but if you actually zoom out and see the whole picture, Donnie talks like he’s a narrator. This makes a SHIT ton of sense considering we already have textual evidence that he engages in scripting behavior (more specifically some possible echolalia. See: saying “New York! What a Town!” in any situation something kind of abnormal happens after he hears Splinter say it with the exact same infections and everything.)

And we also know from the mystic library that Donnie actively seeks out and enjoys reading. So it stands to reason an autistic 14 year old who likes to be left alone to work on complex machines a decent amount and takes pride in his intellect would model the way he communicates off of written media as opposed to tv or his brothers. He could fill his social tool box with lines from Jupiter Jones and Lou Jitsu movies, but he may think it would give him less of a chance to properly express his capabilities.

Books are also the only form of media that can literally just tell you flat out what a character’s expression or emotion is supposed to be without it being awkward, which would be really appealing for Donnie. What solidifies this for me is the fact that at least once he verbally says “sad face emoji”, which could not have come from a novel or textbook. But we often do flagrantly use emoticons as tone indicators, and Donnie is constantly on his phone.

I think he’s definitely aware that this is not a regular way of communicating, but he’s clearly also self aware of his issues in getting his emotional meaning across and receiving input back. So it stands to reason he would accommodate this in a way that, yes, makes him sound odd, but is at least effective.

Now for my final little “I’ve connected the dots. I’ve connected them” moment, I headcannon that Donnie learned to read before he fully got the hang of speech. Aside from… literally everything I just said, he uses sign language to tell the squirrels to blow up his treehouse in that one episode. But he does the sign for “make” a bit incorrectly (there should be a slight twist in his upper fist), which leads me to believe he was probably taught baby sign out of necessity rather than being fully proficient in asl. This is fairly common for autistic children with speech delays.

#oh look Elliot’s being autistic about autism again #this has been sitting in my drafts for eons #bicera #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise donnie #rise donatello #autistic donnie #meta #analysis #scripting #echolalia #biceratops

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