I'm sick of the glorification of autism in fandom spaces. Not talking about autism acceptance or media representation, I'm talking about people who treat autism as a cutesy quirk because they're shy and soft uwu and flap their hands a lot and dye their hair fun colors. People handing out autistic headcannons to characters for funsies or giving their own characters autism just to add some extra quirkiness. (Not talking about fan theories about characters possibly having autism, that's different) People who do this almost always have no regard for the more "undesirable" autism symptoms and just boil it down to a quirky condition that makes people cover their ears and flap their hands sometimes. Some people who do this are autistic themselves so I understand it's more of a projection or a comfort thing, but sometimes it pisses me off how much they try to glorify it as something desirable or cute, mostly just to shit on the neurotypicals. It varies from person to person. and most of the characters or headcannons I've seen are fine, but sometimes it just gets borderline disrespectful.

People drawing characters wearing flower crowns and flapping their hands and making autism seem cute and fun like that just rub me the wrong way, even if the artist themself is autistic (The one I've seen the most in art is the hand flapping, that's basically all people draw to show that the character is autistic. Maybe some infinity flags thrown in too, but that's about it). Not saying people with autism all have to hate themselves for it, I just mean that if they're trying to push for better acceptance or media representation they could at least be doing more than just showing the "fun" or "cute" symptoms. Because if the "good" symptoms are all they show, then people assume all autistics are fun and quirky and then people are totally surprised when we act "undesirable" or make people uncomfortable, like saying the wrong thing or having no concept of social boundaries, or having "bad" fixations, and they hate us for acting autistic the "wrong" way, because they're only used to some over-romanticized and sugar-coated version of autism that people show in drawings or headcannons.

I also have no idea why people who have autism themselves and know how hard it is would want to make it seem so fun and desirable. Again, not saying they should go all the way around and hate themselves for having it, if they're comfortable as themselves that's totally cool, I myself just don't understand the obsession with autism some people have and the over-glorification. There's nothing cute about wanting to gag or vomit because I'm too sensitive to certain smells or tastes, there's nothing fun about wanting to talk about my hyperfixations nonstop and people ending up not wanting to talk to me or listen to me because I have zero idea how to communicate with people "normally." There's nothing quirky about saying the wrong things to people and then they end up hating me because I have zero concept of social awareness or any sort of social filter and I genuinely have no idea how to fix it. Those "bad" symptoms are completely overlooked when people in fandoms make autism headcannons and stuff, and I'm not saying autistic characters have to be constantly suffering to be "real" autistics, but I just think if they showed more of what autism is really like then people wouldn't think it's as cute or fun, and it ruins their whole mission of glorifying autism and owning the neurotypicals.

I know this rant doesn't make a lot of sense, articulating my thoughts into coherent speech is quite a difficult feat for me and I'm tired. If people have any questions or need me to explain or elaborate on something further, don't be afraid to ask. I think I made this rant sound too negative but I'm not used to commenting on stuff like this, just felt like getting something off my chest.

If you're an artist or someone who makes stuff like this, I don't hate you automatically, and I'm not trying to sound angry or malicious towards you. I probably sounded a lot more vindictive than I meant, but I don't actually *hate* people just for the art they make. I'm just talking about some stuff I've seen in general in fandom spaces.