#especially after s&k were revealed to be random people and not artificial creatures

[beevean]

What bothers me about how forceful/unbased some neurodivergency/LGBT+ headcanons are is how they give off the vibe only neurodivergent or queer characters are allowed to have anything going for them. Not even anything special! Let's take TMOSTH: Tails feels empathy for many things? Autistic! Espio speedread a book to spoil the ending for Knuckles? Autistic! Or what you pointed out in Archie, with Shadow stating he likes his motorcycle? Autistic! As someone who only recently found out they might not be entirely neurotypical, I recall quite disliking and feeling somewhat hurt that every single thing a character did immediately gets spun around to fit the OP's projecting, with the attached "fuck the straights and the neurotypicals only gay people would ever do this" that tends to come along with it (where the thing "only gay people do" 99% of the time is the most basic thing in the world). It's almost like people don't want to consider that the most normal, down-to-earth, "boring" (used in the way such OPs tend to use it: as an easy jab) neurotypical cishet person can feel empathy for many things, speedread, or like a motorcycle. I feel like there is more behind that due to the state of the world at large, but it's annoying to see have to come across it in fandom all the time, and then have the "proof" be complete nonsense or entirely taken out of context to "support" the statement. Not to mention the "joking" accusations of bigotry if you do not share such headcanons that occasionally get added as well.

Another example I thought of the moment I hit the "ask" button: Surge getting revealed as Sonic's "clone" and the ENTIRETY OF TUMBLR immediately deciding this meant Sonic was trans. The fact they aren't even the same species nor look alike in the slightest and the fact I thus promptly got very worried about the biology knowledge of the entirety of Tumblr aside, thank god that shit died down when it got revealed Surge legit was just some rando Starline plucked from the streets with no relation to Sonic.

You hit the nail on the head.

When autistic headcanons are created from the basis of "X has a passion for Y!", I'm here like... do you think autistic people are the only ones who can feel any sort of love or attachment over something? Do you think neurotypical people can only blandly tolerate things? Isn't hyperfixation something much, much more intense than a passion? Isn't autism much more than "being shy and with something they love", and isn't ADHD much more than being excitable? This shit makes legit harder for people to realize if they're neurodivergent or not because I swear that literal human nature is deemed to be "divergent". If "neurotypicalness" is associated with being an emotionless, insensitive asshole, no wonder no one would want to identify as, or call their favorite character, neurotypical!

Don't get me started on how for some people "straight" is a synonym for boring and "gay" is a synonim for fun and quirky. Shocker: love and fun are not limited to non-cishet people. It's not a "weird", exceptional state of humanity. Cishet people can have a personality too.

lmaooooo I remember that headcanon, good times. Speaking of which, while the headcanon "Sonic is trans because he doesn't have chest fur" is... something, I side-eye people who headcanon Surge as trans. Oh, you think that the nasty, aggressively masculine bully is trans? It doesn't look good in either direction :) (same for the people who headcanon her as a lesbian, despite her having 0 meaningful interactions with female characters, solely because she's "butch". I wouldn't want to do that, but I may be biased lmao)