#autistic taco

[numberonetacostan]

Okay so first of all- I really really liked your post about Taco’s Friendship tier list since it was so so so in character for her omg-

Tho tho, as an autistic girlie myself, I can’t help but ask, what’s your hcs on Taco being autistic ???

Like omg- I can already imagine some like her getting sensory overload from touch & like you said, vocally stimming whenever she’s nervous- but yeah- like what I’m trying to basically say is that I’m really curious on your take on it XD

Hi Loopy!!!^^ Welcome, and thank you for sending in an ask!!!! :] AND THANK YOU FOR COMPLIMENTING MY TIERLIST. IT IS MY FAVOURITE POST HENCE WHY IT'S PINNED I WORKED SO HARD ON IT!!!!! :D

Well as yet another person who does quite a bit of autism, I'm happy to answer this one!!! Very happy!!!!! I think of Taco as rather good afab autism rep!!! X) Sorry if this one sucks btw. I feel like I kind of just exploded all over this one.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not only dumb but also probably projecting hard. This is a matter of my view on the character, you can view her however you'd like! Though, if I say something incorrect or offensive, please know it is unintentional and please correct me! I am not an expert, just some guy. I am some autistic guy, but still, just some guy.

Taco is constantly masking!! I feel like this one's obvious. Chameleon behaviors, yeah? She changes how she acts based on who she's with to her advantage as well as . It also shows in how she acts with Mic and Mepad. With Mic, she's unable to be very genuine with her, even once she's accepted Mic as a friend and equal. Not only does she have trouble recognizing and dealing with her emotions, but she's so used to masking constantly that it's really hard for her to unmask in front of someone!!! She likes Mic a lot, but it's still hard for her to be herself since even she doesn't really know how to act "like herself" with someone. She never does it!!! Even with Mepad, when he gets some more of her genuine thoughts/feelings out of her, she's doing in under the guise of her persona as well as quickly trying to change the topic the second she realizes.

With masking, I think a lot of her stims whether they be vocal or physical are more subtle. She does it much much much more openly in season 1 when she's flanderizing the parts of herself she sees as weak or childish (something that can often come esp. with afab autism!!!!!), but things like fiddling with her teacup or invisibow or tapping her hands together reading to me as stimming!!! Hooray for stimming.

Limited social interaction/close friendships. Y'all Taco has had 3 friends ever. And we see that after season 1, she doesn't really care about anyone else but Pickle!! She hung out with Paper and OJ during s1 too, and was technically in an alliance with Bomb as well, but none of them matter to her. She picked her person and stuck to them! Season 2? She and Mic go from partners to friends, and Taco doesn't care about anyone else. She loses Mic, and despite that rousing Mepad had no advantage for her, and was frankly more like to be disadvantageous, she wakes him up. She's lost her social outlet yet again, and coming off of such a loss is the only time we see her reaching out to someone she doesn't have an established relationship with!!! You'd think that when she's getting reintroduced to the group in episode 17, she'd be trying to make them feel less wary of her presence from the moment the doors open, especially with how nervous she was about seeing them all for the first time in so long, yeah? But no, she stands there with a big dumb grin <3 and lets Mic talk. She knows she's supposed to be acting genuine like Mic wants her to, but does not know how to do that. Her first line once is doors open is her clarifying that she's being genuine, but beyond that? Quick topic chance to get the attention off of her and the fact that she hadn't been genuine in the past. And also!!! Taco has been living in the woods alone for years. For a lot of people, having no interaction for that long would be really difficult!! But Taco's only really ever wanted one or maybe two friends at a time!! She doesn't need to be around a lot of people, at least to the degree that other people do, so she's able to get by on her own better!!!! Like I said, only missing her one actual close friend. This goes more into how I think she wouldn't enjoy larger groups/crowds, since not only autism headcanon, but she's been alone for years!!! It would be really overwhelming for her!!!

Intense/possessive tendencies in friendships. The many letters sent to Pickle after season 1, her self-destructive streak after losing Mic in which she wants to, and I quote "burn [the game] down in Mic's image." Her watching them from outside the hotel. Those are all intense and possessive tendencies towards her friends!!!

Pedantic speech. This one is pretty obvious. She speaks very formally, so much so that even Mic questions if that's how she really talks in episode 11!!

Difficulty speaking when upset/emotional- She is silently staring at Mic the entire time they're in the void. She could be defending herself, arguing, explaining herself, but she is silent. She's gone from happy and proud to hurt and devastated in a single moment!!! That's a lot of strong emotional whiplash, that results in her going quiet! Yes I am projecting thank you for asking.

Constant analysis + Planning things carefully + Distress when plans are disrupted. It's Taco. She's always planning! She has a plan for when Knife discovers them right away! But when she doesn't have a back-up plan, and something goes wrong? You get incidents like the season 1 finale's aftermath and her shooting Fan & Test Tube in episode 14! Impulsive outbursts of violence and/or anger because it's genuinely difficult for her to deal with plans going awry, and she lashes out!! Strategically, it would have been better for her to keep acting after the s1 finale, yeah? But she's too distressed by her plan being thwarted and not having a back up plan to help her to keep up her act, and she snaps!! She didn't promise Mic she wouldn't be violent, but what she said did imply that she wouldn't use violence! And by episode 14, Taco genuinely really likes Mic, she wasn't dancing around agreeing because she was wanting to be violent against her wishes, yeah? She was trying to reassure Mic, even if she didn't actually understand why Mic was upset!!

Takes criticism/judgement very personally. After Mic cuts things off, mentioning Pickle and that she'd gained nothing by working with Taco is when we finally see Taco snap and start spiraling, expressing that she finds herself to be monstrous and defective!! Now, that's not to say that Taco didn't feel this way before, but that Mic openly judging her to be such a way really opened the flood gates for that self-loathing to overwhelm Taco as we see it does in the show, to the point in which she's uncaring of the inevitability of her own death due to her injury!!!!

Difficulty understanding/expressing her own emotions. Taco adamantly refuses to taco 'bout her own feelings, even if it's to her own detriment and the detriment of her relationships. She keeps accidentally getting attached to people, and didn't even realize until it was too late with Pickle!!! She pushes her own emotions down so hard that she herself doesn't even recognize them!! In the end, having someone like Mepad who has learned to understand their own emotions is what really helps her understand her own, and what helps us see a lot of progression from her after they meet!! She wants to apologize and reconnect with Pickle and Mic, despite her having not done so before because she had trouble understanding her own feelings on the matter!! She writes letters to Pickle, yes, but from what little we know about them and the apology she gave Pickle in the finale, it's her trying to logically explain and/or justify her actions, rather than any understanding/expressing of her own feelings. And this gets into my next point!!!

Difficulty understanding others emotions/Low empathy. I think Taco is a great depiction of a low empathy person!!!!!!!!! At least according to myself!!!! She canonically has trouble understanding other people's perspectives!!!!!!!!! It never crossed her mind that Pickle would be upset about her betrayal!! She didn't think Mic would be so upset at her over her shooting Fan and Testy in episode 14, despite having noticed that Mic was uneasy before!! She knew relatively explicitly from Mic's diary that she wanted recognition, and keep going with the assumption that that's what mattered most to Mic! She hadn't known that Mic's priorities had changed and that her moral compass was more important to her than accomplishing her goal, because that's not how it is for Taco!! She has trouble seeing things from others' points of view, even those important to her!!! She's not intentionally hurting them, it just genuinely doesn't occur to her that what she's doing will upset them!!!! It can also be seen in how Taco initially acts towards Mic as well before she starts putting effort into their relationship rather than just their partnership. She's pretty critical towards Mic for listening to her heart/emotions when making a decision, like when giving back the taser! She responds with anger to Mic's emotional distress when being given the taser in the first place, yeah? And this lack of empathy leads to problems in her relationships!!!!! Aaaaaaah, sorry, I love her as low empathy rep so much. She feels remorse once she realizes she's hurt people she cares about!! She just doesn't think about how her actions will affect them, yeah?

I'm going to cut it here since I typed a lot but maybe I'll come back to this if I have more thoughts. I once again apologize if this is bad because I think I just word vomited for over an hour. Thank you for sending in this ask though!!! I like thinking about autistic Taco.

[lavender-rising]

“let’s go get subway!”

“Ooo! yeah! i want an autistic taco!”

“a what?”

“au t is ti c t ac o”

[bluepandadraws-log]

Animation test, featuring Taco stimming!! YIPPIE!!!!!

[boop-a-loop]

Okay right- so don’t judge me too hard- I’ve literally never used tumblr before buuuut I had to note this down because like- I had this thought in the middle of class & needed to write it down somewhere-

Right so, this hc is inspired by @numberonetacostan & @inanimateimprov for context along with myself because we love self projecting lmao-

Anyways, personally whenever I’m in class, I sometimes find it hard to focus for a lot of reasons due to me being autistic

But in this case specifically, it’s because I’ll be studying & then suddenly everything gets noisy ( even tho I’m not upset / the teacher didn’t change her tone of voice, things that can trigger sensory overload )

So then my brain can’t filter out the backround noise which means that I can’t focus or process anything, even if I put my AirPods in ( which usually helps me focus unless it’s this )

So now you may be asking “well, what does this have to do with the random II hc you had ?” & my answer is, well- you know in the gingerbread house live stream from @inanimateimprov ?

Well in it, Taco / Rosin ( if I remember correctly ) finds it hard to answer the chat whilst having the Christmas music on in the background. So she turns it off because Mepad / Hiraeth left

So whilst ik it’s probably not intended to be taken the way I’m taking it, it did seem to align with @numberonetacostan’s hc about Taco being autistic since maybe she was going through something similar where she couldn’t really think because the music was on & just needed white noise ?

Idk, it’s just a random hc I thought of a few hours ago ^ ^”

[trygamer45]

Just remembered something my brother said while we were eating lunch on Tuesday. He literally opened up his steak quesadilla and when he saw no cheese, only meat, he said this: "This is a quesadilla! Queso literally means cheese! Where's the cheese?!" He's autistic and blunt, so I couldn't stop laughing.

[infinite-ticking-clock37]

Sorry if Max sees this, but... thanks to Achillean Taco, I can see Tacopad. Consider me in the club.

HELL YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ANOTHER TACOPAD FAN FOR MY COLLECTION GET IN THE BAG BUDDY-

mandatory Tacopad screenshot for a Tacopad ask

[justashamwithwastedpotential]

I have created lore for Wyatt

Also created another farmer named Salim who's Wyatt's childhood friend

[mysterymessmachine]

when you order food with a ton of substitutions because you have Issues with Food and also several allergies, and they make it wrong but somehow it's more delicious than what you ordered

[tacofriend]

I'm real tired of individualism as the goal. I see so many organizations for queer people or for neurodivergent people (I am both), and their stated goal is to get their clients to be independent and live on their own, transitional living and such, as if needing others is something to be outgrown and not the center pillar of human success. I don't want to live on my own. I did that and it was miserable. I want community. I want to be helped by others when I need it and to help them in return. I want people who will check up on me if I'm having a major depressive episode. I want help with the stuff I struggle with. I want to be useful to others to others. I want living in community as a goal, not as a step to independence.

I've been lonely so much of my life. I don't want that anymore.

[br1ghtestlight]

just realized mepad reminds me of another fictional robot/alien character i love who sacrificed themself to save humanity bcuz they were in love with it.... paying justin to say a monologue from that book in mepad's voice actually. but it would break me

[dreamersneverlose]

Okay no you know what? I’ve held my tongue on this for long enough (everyone in my life knows my opinion on this topic) - I have a very deep beef with chain restaurants changing their soft pretzels as if that isn’t a direct personal attack against me, specifically. First it was Applebees beer cheese and pub pretzels like 5 years ago. They used to look like this:

Long, skinny, look like they’d be dry as fuck but they were soft on the inside with a delightfully crisp exterior and the beer cheese was DIVINE. This is what they replaced it with:

This switch happened around the same time Applebees added breadsticks w/ Alfredo dipping sauce to their list of appetizers. When I tell you that these things are just straight up the breadsticks with a spray tan. I’m not sure if the breadstick flavor made the beer cheese taste like Alfredo, if they mistakenly gave me Alfredo sauce, or if they straight up replaced the beer cheese with Alfredo sauce. I can tell you that I tried it at two different locations (hoping the second would have the old ones) and then swore off Applebees forever.

But you wanna know a recent, even more heinous soft pretzel betrayal? Monk’s Bar & Grill. I don’t think I’ll even have to explain this one. Here’s the old pretzel option:

And here’s what they replaced it with:

They don’t even salt these bland, dry, cheap bites. Monks, how could you?

I hope Culver’s doesn’t get any wise ideas from these chumps.

[numberonetacostan]

my favorite autistic taco headcanon is that taco was fixiated on law at some point, that's why she is so good at breaking the rules. Someone pisses her off or whatever and she proceeds to recite EVERY. SINGLE. LAW. She knows until someone is begging her to stop

Hi Kiara!!!^^ Welcome back, and thank you for sending in an ask!!! :]

Hehehehe, Taco would know every rule in preparation for breaking them, or even for dodging them to serve her plans. I like to think that if Mic had won and it had been discovered that Taco had been helping her, Taco would have been READY. She could pull out a comically thick season 2 contestant contract or something from her shell and go over how there is nothing against Mic getting her help, since she did it in some way or another that used a loophole in the rules.

[starryystim]

taco (inanimate insanity) stimboard for anon!

[protectcosette]

you ever go to a new restaurant and just encounter the absolute worst vibes

[keevan-girlboss]

those gay scientists from pacific rim and their frequent trips during work hours to the alaska taco time am i right

[binx0r]

They’ll do the insecticide

They’ll do the heat treatment

No just insecticide

But hey the heat treatment

THEY’LL DO THE COMBINATION HEAT TREATMENT INSECTICIDE