Autistic Keith

however, i doubt that keith is canonically intended to be autistic (which is okay!), so, yeah, i don’t think that’s where they’re going with him. what likely happened was that they tried to assign “alien”-like traits to keith, but those traits are autistic traits. one of the major autistic forums is called “wrongplanet” because autistic people often feel like they’re from a different planet than allistics. so, probably  just an accident. 

i would honestly appreciate some kind of acknowledgement from the showrunners that the headcanon is valid. i’d forgotten that so many allistics want people like me either dead or cured, whichever works, until i saw all the backlash for the autistic keith headcanon. the only hate anon i’ve ever gotten was someone who was pissed at me for thinking that way, and the most horrifyingly dehumanizing posts i’ve read were from the fallout of the keith vlog. like hey wow i get it you hate us and want us gone, thanks, i’d forgotten!!!! sorry for existing!!!!! 

i know, i know, the showrunners are not obligated to do jack shit, but it’s just a little dream of mine, i guess. 

as for how to introduce it to the series, if they were to go in that direction… since keith already reads as autistic to me (and many other autistic people), i don’t think they’d need to characterize him any differently. he would still be keith, who fidgets when he’s stressed and doesn’t understand social cues. the only thing they’d need to do is acknowledge it out loud. i wouldn’t want allura or coran to be involved, since they are entirely alien. maybe shiro or matt or even lance would pick up on that aspect of who keith is. ideally, keith himself would come to the realization that him being galra doesn’t explain everything about him. 

Keith: I’m sorry, what did you say to me?

Lance: You heard me.

Y’all: How the heck did Keith not realize Krolia was his mother when they look exactly alike?!

pidge and keith are autistic heres my license (im autistic) lets motor boys

keitheth

tracing the cutouts in his gloves 24/7

he never rly grew out of his echolalia but realized it was Embarrassing when he was a teenager so now he keeps his mouth Shut

Bad w faces. (prosopagnosia)

looks in the mirror “who’s that bitch”

social cues ? who.

lance, after making a bad joke: haha thanks, i’ll be here all night folks

keith: why would you stay up all night.

grew up around Cowboy Slang. its comforting to use but

lance heard him call a shopping cart a Buggy and SCREAMED

hi im keith “executive dysfunction” kogane

can and will pace in circles if hes given vague instructions. coran is the worst about this.

coran: alright so just go down to the med bay and clean the healing pods

keith, standing in the med bay: clean them with what. a rag? cleaning fluid? how do i even open them. should i clean the ones in the other room too or just these.

keith meltdowns are real quiet. he clenches his fists and huffs and groans and cries a few angry tears. his face gets really red. will hold his breath until he gets dizzy bc hes so Mad but he cant Move. hypersensitive to touch .

change is EXTREMELY BAD for him but he’s kind of had to learn how to deal bc his life has been shaken up so Many times he litrly cant afford to have a breakdown every time it happens

by the time he leaves voltron hes able to be like “ok this is gonna suck, but its not the end of the world”

pidgeotto

omg ok shes a CHEW MACHINE she LOVES chewing as a stim, she had a lot of gummy necklaces and bracelets at home which she misses Dearly

when she was a baby matt would complain bc everytime he put his hand near her she’d just CHOMP

grinds her teeth when theres nothing to chew it hurts her jaw but thats better than being understimulated

luckily hunk figured out how to make the food goo RLY CHEWY and its completely impractical to Eat bc it takes forever but she Lov it

she programmed her keyboards on the ship to do the BUZZ thing every time she hits a key and its GOOD

do not give her clothes w tags still in them or she will yell

shes trying to figure out if the paladin armor can be altered to be Heavier so it can act as a weighted vest

change is also EXTREMELY BAD for her but lets remember shes significantly younger than keith so her solution cant rly be “get used it” when her family goes missing

shes stubborn at every turn when it comes to finding her dad n brother bc without them/that mission shes what? a fifteen year old lost in a space w a bunch of strangers that are older than her ?? fuckin sucks man.

even tho the other paladins rly are family to her it was still SUCH a relief when she found matt bc he grew up w her n he knows what kind of things overwhelm her, calm her down, etc. she feels way more normal w him around

shes actually pretty physical although she’d deny it, she used to wrestle w matt and run with him while he was doing pt for the garrison

pidge meltdowns are messy. she throws things and Will hit you if you come too close . she needs it Dark and Quiet (lance’s eyemask is perfect n hes happy to lend it to her whenever) and shes usually nonverbal for a while after.

And I also really like the idea that Keith helped Shiro work through some internalized ableism, mostly unintentional, by having him confront questions like ‘why is stimming bad?’, challenging concepts that he had just taken for granted.