#Autistic Leo

[that1notetaker]

It's not a headcanon if it's the truth.

[poppitron360]

The most relatable thing about Leo Valdez is that he has a tool belt of infinite pockets and it’s still not enough fucking pockets.

[aroaceleovaldez]

in your most recent tyson post, you said something about leo being distinctly autistic-coded and I was wondering if you could elaborate on that? it sounds really interesting (sorry if you've already posted something on this, I couldn't find anything though)

Of course! I do have a specific tag for talking about Leo's autistic-coding/traits - [here], and [one for Nico as well].

The main aspects with Leo being autistic-coded actually have a lot to do with Nico being autistic-coded, because it's the comparisons between the two that most clearly indicate Leo is autistic-coded rather than it just being his ADHD or etc.

So with Nico being autistic-coded, it's very clear in the Titan's Curse that he's intended to be autistic. First, the first series has a repeating pattern of secondary characters being very distinctly neurodivergent-coded in different ways (Annabeth's adhd/dyslexia, Tyson's down syndrome-coding, Nico's autism-coding). With Nico's introduction, he's pretty stereotypically autistic and we're given a lot of descriptors about him that are notably not attributed to him being ADHD, like it would be for other demigod characters. He doesn't register social cues such as people getting annoyed at him, he's asking/making inappropriate or impolite questions/comments, he gets particularly upset about change (such as Bianca joining the Hunt) and generally gets emotional, and one of his most notable traits he's introduced with is the fact that he has a special interest (MythoMagic) - and we're shown that this special interest particularly colors how Nico navigates the world. While ADHD has hyperfixations, we don't really get much acknowledgement of hyperfixations with demigods usually - Annabeth gets a little, but most others don't and it's not nearly as focused-in on as Nico's is.

Then as the series continues we see these traits stick with him and him start to show or voice more traits that similarly indicate he's autistic: He regularly mentions how he doesn't understand living people and prefers the company of the dead (social issues). He has more notable stims than other demigods (twisting his ring, fiddling with bones, etc). He's indicated to have strong sensory preferences (usually wearing mostly black/aversion to bright colors, usually wearing layers/his coat, multiple times he's described as wearing loose/baggy clothing or clothes too big for him). He has specific comfort items (his ring, likely his jacket(s) as well). We later get even more information about his special interests (Mythomagic/mythology/history and an older interest in pirates - the latter he specifically notes likely heavily influenced his feelings towards Percy). He struggles with emotions and facial expressions and tone. He struggles particularly with ostracism and feeling like he doesn't fit in and has something distinctly different about him from the people around him (who notably, all have ADHD, which indicates it isn't the ADHD that's making him feel that way), and other characters regularly describe him as being off-putting because of his strange behaviors - again, different from specific ADHD traits they recognize. And that last point is kind of notable because we have Hazel and Bianca for comparison - we know people are off-put by both Nico and Hazel because of being children of Hades/Pluto and their powers/aura, but other characters get past that general feeling of discomfort way faster with Hazel. And even after characters get past the death stuff with Nico, there's a second thing that they aren't moving past that isn't a factor with Hazel (Nico's autism).

So that brings us to Leo - Leo is paralleled to Nico a lot. And there's some very specific traits about him that we know are autistic-coding because of how they're used with Nico: He similarly struggles with social cues/etc, and in a very similar parallel to Nico describes how he prefers the company of machines to people because machines make more sense to him. He has similar types of clothing/sensory preferences (again some stuff with layers but also - pockets! He likes having pockets and things to put stuff in! He's even introduced as having a jacket with lots of pockets), and he has a distinct special interest (machinery) that we specifically know heavily influences how he views and navigates the world (constantly comparing things to machinery, describing things with machinery metaphors/terminology, etc etc). He even describes his entire general worldview to Hazel and it's a machine metaphor. He also similarly struggles with ostracization like Nico does, the only difference being that Leo specifically puts on a persona to compensate for areas he knows he's lacking in and very explicitly describes it as a means to make people like him, because without it he normally struggles to fit in (He's masking!). We also see notes of characters describing that similar discomfort with Leo's behaviors that they do with Nico, except without the aura of death this time. And when we're in Leo's POVs we see a very stark difference between his masking and his actual personality/behaviors such as his internal dialogues or how he behaves when he's alone. Also, like Nico, he stims more than other demigods, though for Leo it's more attributed to his ADHD. Leo also, more often than most, similarly struggles with tone and reading the room, such as making misplaced jokes/comments or etc.

But yeah! It's really interesting. Also it's just a fun thing that ADHD/dyslexia and autism have comorbidity, so it makes sense that we see demigods who are also autistic. It's also really fun to look at how other characters are coded in the series, what coding looks like in the riordanverse specifically (usually it's tied into the mythological stuff - like Chiron being in a wheelchair but he's actually a centaur, Grover being introduced as having a muscular disease but he's actually a satyr, demigods having adhd/dyslexia, Tyson being coded as having down syndrome but he's a cyclops, etc etc - it's a lot of specific metaphor stuff that I've talked about a bit before), and to look at how characters are compared to one another.

[m-for-now]

I have this thing where I project my stuff onto fictional characters I like, so sometimes I go

What if Leo Valdez also had that thing where sometimes autistic masking and adhd procrastination are so exhausting that you consistently want to do something, but you just kinda can't and the sentence

"So, what did you do today?"

Is incredibly depressing, because the answer is "nothing much" but what is really also true is "I was trying to force myself to do literally anything at all the entire day and I kept failing the entire day so even if I factually did a thing, it doesn't count because I didn't achieve anything valuable that someone else could understand"

[knotsoangelic]

shes very autism core i will die on this hill

[apledi]

2012 leo is autistic and transfem. i will die on this hill <333

[lu-inlondon]

Bzgl. deinem "Leo wurde auch nie Neurodiversität diagnostiziert", weil he is the king of masking ist aber auch so:

Leo realisiert das irgendwann für sich, erzählt das Adam so "Hey ich glaube ich bin auf dem Spektrum" und er so "Was das war NICHT offensichtlich?!!" 😂

And Leo is slightly mad about it probably

Leo, der sich wochenlang darauf vorbereitet hat mit Adam darüber zu sprechen. Er hat immer noch keine offizielle Diagnose, weil er sich Sorgen macht, was das für den Job bedeuten könnte. Aber Adam ist sein bester Freund, sein Partner - gerade darum ist es auch so wichtig, dass er von Leos Vermutung weiß: "Ja, also das ist nur eine Vermutung, es könnte sein, dass ich falsch liege, aber ich hab mich mal damit beschäftigt... *10 Minuten rambling* ... und es könnte - ich betone könnte - sein, dass ich auf dem autistischen Spektrum liege."

Adam, umgeben von Leos obsessiv angelegtem Dschungel, akkurat sortierten Büchern, einem Haufen farbcodierter Notizbücher, die eine Tasse in der Hand, die Leo ihm immer zuteilt: "Warte, das war das was du mir erzählen wolltest? Das weiß ich schon seit +/- 20 Jahren oder so"

Leo: "Ist das so offensichtlich???"

Adam, der versucht nicht aufzuzeigen, WIE offensichtlich das ist: "Nur wenn man dich wirklich gut kennt..."

[autismbrain]

april spends a day w/ autistic ppl O_O

[blindaysblogforturtles]

I BRING ASKS!

Sooooo....what's your favorite tmnt headcannon? (Any iteration)

Hmmmmm.... that's gotta be a difficult one. I HAVE SO MANY--- I think- I really like the headcannon that 2012 Leo is autistic bc I relate to him very much and it just adds another layer. Also explains a lot of his behaviors, like his tendency to rationalize things and then be frustrated that it didn't make the feelings he had for said things go away- like he did with Karai, with his leg injury, etc.

[sorrinslays]

Still black and bruised

One shot

Basically Leo processes his feelings about the death of his pet turtle, Stripe. Donnie is trying to make him feel better

---

This is my iteration of the TMNT franchise which is why it might seem out of character.

(Trigger warning:

-Animal death

-Thoughts of self-harm

-Mild description of animal corpse

-Slight description of overstimulation (I think, I'm not sure what the fuck that is)

-My iteration of the franchise)

[lemontello]

IT THE TURTLES AS HUMANS

[poppitron360]

What makes Leo such and OP character is that, not only can he build these big fucking complex machines, but that he builds them AS A STIM.

He’s just taking bits of things out of his pockets and fiddling with them, and he ends up absent-mindedly making some of the coolest tech ever, stuff that would take me (someone who knows fuck all about machines) probably years of hard work to build.

AS. A. STIM.

A reminder: He does this JUST TO KEEP HIS HANDS BUSY.

I can imagine him showing one of these off to his friends-

Leo: Hey guys look what I made just ‘cause I can’t sit still.

Jason: Leo… that’s a fucking time machine… And it’s functional… wtf??

Leo: Yeah I got bored.

Seriously guys, he’s a fucking genius. He’s a nebulous ball of autism, yes, but he’s a genius.

[aroaceleovaldez]

Another thing re: Nico being autistic-coded, is that we know with his whole “people tend to ostracize me for things beyond my control” thing, only half of that is because he’s a son of Hades.

We know this for sure because of Hazel and other character’s POVs - other characters explicitly describe being inherently uncomfortable around children of Hades/Pluto but being able to ignore that feeling most of the time after hanging around with them awhile. However, most characters don’t describe the same thing with Nico. They’ll get past the spooky part and be perfectly fine with Hazel, or even Nico’s powers, but there’s a second thing about Nico that the other characters - including Hazel herself! - all still register as being unusual.

The interesting thing here is there is another autistic-coded character in the series who describes the exact same phenomenon. Leo. The only difference between Leo and Nico (besides powers) is that Leo is near-constantly masking. He specifically notes that he masks for the sole purpose of making others like him more, because he has difficulties with social situations and feels very strongly that he thinks people wouldn’t like him as much or outright be hostile towards him if he wasn’t masking.

And this lines up with how pre-Nico’s spooky powers other characters tried to avoid him, simply because he was a hyper 10 year old who speaks a completely different social language to them. They’re all ADHD, so it kind of makes sense if someone comes in with a completely different social language it’s gonna throw you off. You can also possibly do some analysis with how Reyna initially felt off-put by Nico until she went on her quest with him and explicitly noted how they have similar body language/habits and went “Oh.” and from then on was totally fine with him.

anyways tl;dr: Nico feeling ostracized isn’t just because he’s a son of Hades but possibly even more because he’s simply autistic and nobody else speaks his social language. Leo experiences the same thing, because he’s also autistic, but to a lesser degree because he’s constantly masking.

[thatkoiboi]

Prop comedy

[hamiltonandpercyjackson]

rereading heroes of olympus HURTS knowing that nico stayed at chb because he knew that he had friends and then RICK KILLS JASON. HIS FIRST TRUE FRIEND SINCR BIANCA DIED. is nico not allowed to be happy

[echo-stimmingrose]

When Jason first gets his glasses, he loses them constantly. He forgets to put them on in the morning, leaves them laying in the bathroom and other random places- (like Leo's room but he has no idea how they got there-). Not to mention the one time multiple times, they flew off of his head while he was flying. This frustrates his friends to no end cause "you gotta be able to see, man."

Annabeth proposes some kind of glasses strap/chain so they stay on him at all times. As a joke, Piper finds a glasses chain straight out of an old librarian's purse, with a bunch of little jewels and charms on it. Jason ends up absolutely loving it. "It jingles when I shake my head!"

A few jokes are made about his "grandpa glasses" but he actually looks frustratingly good in them. Eventually he amasses a collection of different chains for different occasions that he keeps very neatly stored in a little case.

His favorite chain by far though is one that Leo made for him. It has custom charms for each of his closest friends; a yellow lighting bolt for him, a blue lightning bolt for Thalia, a fire for Leo, pink dagger for Piper, water drop for Percy, owl for Annabeth, bear for Frank, gold gem for Hazel, sword for Reyna, and a skull for Nico, all connected by little blue beads the color of his eyes.