#and even if they didn't intentionally make catra and razz autistic they're still great characters and 100 percent autistic

[thatweirdtranny]

The thing that allistics don’t always understand about autistic representation is that autism is a spectrum. Autism isn’t just a single set of characteristics, so two wildly different characters can represent different places on the autism spectrum. And allistic creators most of the time have no idea they’ve written a character with autistic coding, because they don’t know how to recognize autism in its very wide spectrum.

Entrapta in She-Ra is very obviously autistic and is confirmed as such by Noelle, but Catra and Madame Razz are also coded as autistic. And they are all very wildly different characters from each other.

I’ve written before about how wonderfully and unapologetically autistic Entrapta is, but I’ll do another run-down. Entrapta doesn’t understand neurotypical social cues, hyperfixates to the extreme on her special interest (and this is a positive attribute because her special interest is her superpower), eats only specific foods, and has trouble expressing herself in ways that neurotypicals around her can understand. Entrapta wonderfully represents a place on the autism spectrum.

Catra is about as unlike Entrapta as you can get. She also struggles to express herself in ways others understand, but that’s where the similarities end. She appears aloof and her expression of affection and emotion is difficult for other people to understand unless you take the time to understand her, as Adora has done, but anyone can tell that she has a different social calibration from most people around her. She can mostly pick up on traditional neurotypical social cues and use them as she desires, sarcasm is something she weaponizes freely. She also hyperfixates but in a very different sense from Entrapta: she hyperfixates on her goals and is singularly driven to achieve what she desires. Also, Catra experiences sensory difficulties the most out of anyone on the show. This is most apparent with water, another nod to her cat attributes, but it’s an extremely common thing with autistics and other neurodivergent people to struggle with certain sensory experiences. Catra represents another place on the autism spectrum.

Madame Razz. We don’t see enough of Razz to really understand her character in its entirety aside from her sweet but flummoxed apparent state. We eventually see the world from her point of view and find that she experiences the world in a way so wildly different from anyone around her that it causes a struggle in communication but also sets her aside as an incredibly important source of knowledge, wisdom, and perspective for both Adora and Mara. To put it simply, Madame Razz experiences the world in a completely different way, which causes communication issues as she tries to express her thoughts and get her point across, but allows her to see things and patterns that no other character can see. This, by default, makes her autistic in my eyes. This is how many autistic people describe their experience of the world. Madame Razz is incredibly unique and represents yet another place on the autism spectrum.

I had a point when I started all this, but I guess my point now is this: neurotypical writers, you need to know that autism doesn’t describe a particular type of person or attribute. It encapsulates many different experiences and characteristics, and you shouldn’t assume there’s just a single archetype for autistic characters.

Also, we’re better at recognizing autistic characters than you. If autistic people are telling you that the character you’ve made is autistic, then they’re autistic, full stop.