#my brain just wants to ramble about silly childrens cartoons no matter what

[happi-dreams]

Ive been infected very sadly

[plusvanity]

Alright so, I wouldn't have finished this so soon but some of you showed interest in my silly ramblings sooooo... here are some of my headcanons for Larry's 'aloof' personality.

Asperger Syndrome

-Since he was a small child, there were a few behavioral differences between him and the rest of the children.

He never really knew how to properly communicate. That might be very common in children BUT he literally had struggles trying to explain anything. Sentences like: 'I want that' or 'can I have that?' were never on his tongue and lots of time he'd get upset at himself/ people around him for not being able to read his mind and take care of his demands. This kind of behavior crosses a bit into 'anti-social' tenancies. (Hard time to communicate, preferred playing alone, very poor social skills, etc) Shortly, his 'forever-upset' personality resulted in children excluding/ isolating him from their games and plays.

-Larry didn't know why nobody wanted to play with him, why everybody avoided him like plague and gave him dubious looks. Throughout his kindergarten and early-school years he never made friends, never had any significant relationships except with his parents.

Why did nobody see these signs and act accordingly?

We're in the late 90's. There's no such thing as ‘diagnosing kids with mental illness’ unless they've got some kind of schizophrenia that really makes them act out. Parents had little to no information about mental health, let alone autism and how it manifests in children. Rough times but that's how they were.

-Growing up lonely, Larry found his refuge in drawing and writing silly little cartoon stories. Solo hobbies are extremely common in the autistic spectrum, especially when they come in package with die-hard fixations/ obsessions.

-Sensorial sensibility: he can’t stand bright lights in his basement. That’s why he always keeps a small desk lamp on and nothing else to see around him.

-In school, he did poorly. The motto was: it’s either you’re the only one who gets it and nobody else does OR everybody else gets it and you’re the only one who doesn’t. No way in between these two.

-The internal struggle of 'Why am I like this? Why do they hate me? What's wrong with me?' never left his brain. Now, communication was absolutely required no matter if he liked it or not. That's school, you're supposed to answer stuff, use your brains to solve problems and get through the day.

-Firstly, he did what his autistic mind told him to do.. he went fully fucking honest and blunt. With every occasion when he got asked about something, he innocently pointed out everything that bothered him/ seemed wrong or annoying without any fucking filter whatsoever. Needless to say, his true-nature approach didn’t escape punishment. His mother was called, the teachers complained that he’s ‘too mean and arrogant’ , ‘never focused’ , ‘too lazy and selfish’ etc. Everything while Larry looked like a fucking deer in the highlights telling his mom that he didn't do nothing wrong.

-When he finally understood that ‘being honest’ wasn't the key for normal human-communication, that's when his mind began searching for other ways to go by.

-Masking-

Masking was the second option.

-He watched, heard, studied, learned and taught himself the Fine Arts of mimicking normal human response in social situations. Now, that's how he mostly made it work.

-As a chill but tragically misunderstood child, he had finally learned how to make friends. It started with Ash and Maple (alternative music and general outcasts) and later in middle-school, Ash presented him to Todd. (Now, I'd rant about Rob and their 'brother from another mother' dynamic and friendship but that's for another long post if any of you are interested)

-When his father abruptly disappeared from the family frame, it just.... made everything ten thousand times worse for Larry (This is gonna be another post if you're interested)

-All in all, now with a select group of friends he’s still aloof, weird, too loud or too quiet sometimes BUT at least he’s not alone and miserable anymore.

Normally, he's a laid back dude, a stoner (autism and substance abuse is another headache of a post..) a metalhead and maybe just a little delinquent sometimes after 8 pm because of teenage rebellion and all that stuff.

-His ‘masking act’ falls sometimes when he talks about painting, video games, music and basically everything that interests him. Asperger in boys is a lot different than in girls. Girls tend to keep their ‘masking act’ better than boys as boys often don't realize when they slip and start talking miles and miles about their favorite hobbies/ subjects without noticing if the person they're talking to completely loses their interest or gets angry for being talked over and interrupted all the time.

His friends find him a bit annoying at times cause… fuck, who like being talked over? but they’re so used to him that it’s just common and gets easily forgotten.

-When the sudden chronic-insomnia hit him, the fatigue and lethargy didn't go unnoticed by Lisa. Finally, she managed to drag him to a doctor that surprisingly or not, completely missed to diagnose him with autism. The shrink blamed his insomnia on weed (another rant here) and …. ADHD?. Larry took the classic DSM-4 test (oh boy, gotta love the 90′s..) it came back negative on symptoms, confirming everybody that he didn't have ADHD. (Now, I know that the two behavioral illnesses often came in package but with Larry it wasn't the case) After that, nobody did anything.

-Now, he lives freely his teenage years hanging out with Sal, regularly smoking weed, getting deeply offended by the un-true belief that he might have ADHD, still trying to figure out what's actually wrong with him that no shrink or DSM could tell and ultimately enjoying his hobbies and little shenanigans him and his best amigo do.

-The ‘masking act’ has long become an automatic behavior, an unconscious switch for normal social situations so, now he’s most definitely not aware that he’s doing it. 

Sal highly suspects him of being autistic due to the fact that he had far more contacts with doctors and psychiatrists in his entire life that he knows VERY WELL the red flags or autistic behaviors. That and because of their first interaction when Larry was like ‘Sup, you like metal? You GOTTA like metal!’ it screams autism from a fucking mile.

This post is embarrassingly LONG and useless.. and I'll shut the fuck up now for real. BUT If anyone feels like asking questions or going deeper down this rabbit hole, feel free to text me <3 as I love waffling about psychology and pretty much anything lol.

Sorry for my bad English, I did my best in trying to explain all that's written above. These are just some of my little silly headcanons and possibly?? more in-depth explanations for some of the things that go on in my SF fanfic.

Ko-fi l  DeviantArt