?SAOKI

Let’s start with the sensory processing differences, because I’ve already waxed poetic about Vox being a tactile seeker. The really short version is that he touches everything he can get his hands on, up to and including people, because his nervous system needs more tactile input to be satisfied.

He’s also a vestibular seeker, which refers to movement that engages his sense of balance and spacial awareness. He spins, he jumps, he climbs (or jumps) onto furniture, and sometimes he does things like walk sideways and hop backwards - up stairs. “Standing” with his wires also counts, since the addition of vertical movement gives the vestibular system more to process. Regardless of what he’s doing, he never seems to get dizzy, which is typical of vestibular seekers.

On the other side of the coin we have sensory aversions, which Vox doesn’t explicitly demonstrate. But the rooms where he spends most of his time are markedly different from the rest of Vee Tower: big open spaces with low lighting and cool colors, or else random grids of solid red or blue-white panels. There’s no clutter, minimal decoration, and most of the rooms have aquarium glass instead of windows.

He’s not avoiding visual stimuli, by any means, but he does seem to prefer visually quiet environments; not necessarily dark, but with few patterns and little movement apart from whatever he’s focused on. There could be a few reasons for this, but since he doesn’t seem to have a problem with any specific form of visual stimulus, it’s probably more an issue of how much information he can process at one time.

Vox also limits how much visual input he receives during conversations. He's continually turning his back on and moving behind people while he's talking, and when he does face them, his eye contact is sporadic; sometimes it's unrelenting, other times he's glancing away every few words. Conversely, when someone else is speaking, he generally (though not always) turns towards them and makes fairly steady eye contact.

Again, there are a few possible explanations for this. But given that Vox is also someone who talks with his hands (which can help to organize thoughts and maintain fluent speech), and he can make eye contact just fine when he’s not the one speaking, we can actually narrow it down to a likely answer: neurotypical speech simply takes more cognitive resources than he has available.

Talking to people takes a lot of mental coordination. You’re organizing your thoughts, forming them into words, paying attention to the other person's nonverbal language, processing the sensory input from said language, converting that input into meaning, and monitoring your own behavior, and you’re doing it all in real time. And that’s just the act of talking. If you can’t do all of it at once, something has to give, and the only non-essential part of the process is looking at people.

Understanding other peoples’ speech takes a lot of cognitive work too, but it also uses different parts of the brain. So while some autistic people struggle to make eye contact at any point during a conversation, others can do so if they find one skill or the other easier. Rather ironically, Vox appears to have a harder time speaking than listening.

On the topic of nonverbal language, autistic people tend not to use gestures the same way as allistics. Some use fewer, some use more, and they don't always serve a communicative purpose (that is, they aren’t meant to convey information). Vox very much uses more, and while some of them mimic allistic communication, many don't. They might help him communicate (again, talking with his hands), but they’re often meaningless when matched with what he’s actually saying.

Additionally, some autistic gestures are actually stims (aka self-stimulatory behaviors), and Vox seems to have at least a few of those. The most common is pressing his palms together and/or interlacing his fingers, but other repeated movements include waving his hands, moving them in circles, and tapping his fingers. All of these are general-purpose and can occur at any time, though he tends not to use them in front of a crowd.

He also has what appear to be primarily self-soothing behaviors: he spends a lot of time adjusting his lapels or bowtie when he's trying to compose himself, whether because he’s irritated, flustered, or just in an especially good mood. If he's more on edge he might cross his arms instead, or outright hug himself if he's excited, and he does something similar by dejectedly holding one arm when Alastor rejects his offer (crossing one's arms is a common action, but that doesn’t make it any less of a pattern. Especially given how Vox is with touch in general).

When it comes to other people, Vox obviously has issues with appropriate social touch and respecting personal space, which could be attributed to his tactile seeking behaviors. It could also be a sign of low empathy; he likes touch and physical closeness, and either doesn’t realize or doesn’t care that others might not share in that enjoyment (considering his reaction to Alastor calling him out on it, my money is on him not realizing). Either way, he definitely missed the signs that Alastor was merely tolerating it, and he never seems to notice other people reacting when he touches them (though Alastor, specifically, is so theatrical about disliking touch that if Vox had ever seen him physically interact with anyone, it wouldn’t have been unreasonable to assume that a lack of such a reaction meant it was fine when he did it).

His attitude towards touch aside, Vox does generally appear to have relatively low emotional empathy. Beyond irritation, he isn't emotionally affected by Velvette's studio being wrecked or Valentino's upset over Angel leaving, and even before Alastor gets into his head, it’s implied that he regularly acts without consideration for either of them (such as leaving Velvette behind when he electroports, which seems to be a common occurrence). And that’s his behavior towards people he likes.

On the other hand, he can understand other people’s thoughts and feelings to some extent, even if he mostly uses that knowledge to hurt and manipulate them. So he is capable of cognitive empathy, and probably pretty good at it; he’s not infallible, especially if he’s not given anything to work with, but he can figure people out.

He also demonstrates compassionate empathy (taking action to help others) on multiple occasions: he answers Velvette's summons despite not wanting to deal with Valentino, pays attention to what Val is saying, and offers him something to make him feel better. He leaves out a pen and paper so Val can draw during the Take Over Heaven presentation and gets all of his requested foods "just in case". He's willing to put himself in harm's way to protect the other two. Even if it’s a matter of practicality from his perspective, it’s still a form of caring, and comes from a place of genuine affection.

That being said, Vox has a friend circle of two. He has gotten close to three people in seventy years (and he's known Valentino for around fifty of those years, so it's not just because Alastor traumatized him). He also has a room dedicated entirely to hiding away from the world with his sharks and watching spying on people through screens instead of talking to anyone.

For all that he loves performing and being the center of attention, he doesn't show much desire for one-on-one social interaction. He certainly wants the option, and does enjoy the company of those he's close to, but he also wants to be left alone. And even when he doesn't want to be alone, spending time with someone doesn't mean interacting with them directly. Sometimes it looks like having tea together while they work on separate tasks.

When he does interact directly with people, whether through desire or necessity, Vox is a "take the topic and run with it at full speed until forced to stop" type of guy. He can literally have entire conversations all by himself: when he calls Charlie to "invite" her to his party, she only speaks when she realizes who's calling and right before he hangs up. In the flashback, Vox does all of the talking for nearly a full minute while Alastor makes two remarks (one of which is permission for Vox to keep going). He can have a proper back and forth exchange, and sometimes even wants to (he's disappointed when Alastor refuses to engage with him after surrendering), but his conversations do tend to be one-sided.

I could keep going (full disclosure: I consider everything I’ve said so far to be a general overview). But this is getting long, so I want to wrap up by saying that fictional characters are not diagnosable. Buuut Vox does legitimately meet the behavioral criteria.

He has difficulties with social-emotional reciprocity (the “back and forth” of social interactions, empathy and emotional responsiveness, approach to communication, etc).

He has differences in nonverbal communication.

He has difficulties with developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships (which includes a lack of interest in doing so).

He has “repetitive or stereotyped movements, use of objects, or speech”, aka stimming.

He has sensory processing differences.

He has “highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus” (I don’t need to get into the sharks. Everybody knows about the sharks).

The first three are all required. The latter three come from a cluster of four traits where only two are required. The only trait out of the seven he hasn’t definitively demonstrated is “insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns”. So like.

If you spend any amount of time watching how Vox interacts with his environment, it's quickly apparent that people aren't the only things he touches a lot. He's constantly tapping or drumming his fingers on things, running his hands over surfaces, leaning on furniture, messing with his clothes, and handling objects. If anything is close enough to touch, there's a high chance that he's touching it. If he isn't, he's either talking with his hands or tucking them behind his back (and even then, I've caught him tapping his fingers on his arm).

All of this is sensory seeking behavior, which occurs in people whose nervous systems require a high level of stimulation to meet sensory needs. Specifically, it's tactile seeking, which can also manifest as a strong desire for physical touch. And because it is a need, the sensory seeker will automatically try to satisfy it. Which can cause problems when the thing that satisfies it is something they shouldn't be doing.

For various reasons, tactile seekers often have trouble with personal space and boundaries.

People are less capable of noticing and responding to social cues, and more likely to act on impulse, when they're excited, stressed, or understimulated. These also happen to be the exact states of being that trigger sensory seeking behaviors, because the nervous system is trying to regulate itself.

The desired sensory input activates the brain's reward system, so the seeker may want to do The Thing even if they know they shouldn't.

While sensory seeking can occur on its own, it's more commonly seen alongside autism and ADHD, which have their own impact on impulsivity, social boundaries, and ability to recognize and interpret social cues.

It's also common for sensory seekers to suppress their needs (which leads to a whole different set of problems), or find ways to meet them without being obvious about it. Vox mostly falls into the latter category; while there are moments where he seems to do it without thinking, he tends to be very intentional with social touch, and consciously uses it to direct, influence, and ingratiate himself to others (or at least try).

Interestingly, he also seems to have a sense of boundaries, albeit one that's a little to the left of socially acceptable. While he freely touches strangers and acquaintances, most contact is restricted to the other party's shoulders, arms, and hands. Anything else is normally reserved for the other Vees and Alastor, and even then it's innocent touching; belittling or domineering sometimes, especially during Don't You Forget (Reprise), but never sexually inappropriate.

(Before anyone comes at me about the "Alastor doesn't have a tail" thing, do me a favor: find yourself a nice pair of socks (maybe two if they're ankle cut), roll them up, and tuck them in the back of your pants. Then look in a mirror or put your hand on your lower back. If you can see or feel the socks through your clothes, congratulations! You have successfully completed a non-invasive tail inventory).

It's also worth noting that Vox lets people pull away if they want to. The most commonly cited example being when Alastor does so during Don't You Forget (Reprise), but we also see it when Vox asks where Alastor is during his hotel visit, and Charlie easily steps out of his hold.

To summarize, Vox clearly understands that some touch is acceptable and some isn't, and that what counts as acceptable changes depending on the relationship. While he seems to regard consent as implied unless explicitly withdrawn, he understands that too. He's playing by his own rules, but he is playing.

But then we get to the other side of the coin. Because other people's boundaries aren't the only ones tactile seekers can have trouble with, and Vox's own boundaries around being touched are. Questionable.

We don't know what his limits are with strangers, but people he knows are granted a lot of leeway. To the point where he repeatedly allows unwanted, sexually suggestive contact, with no attempt to avoid or escape it, even from someone who regularly harasses him.

It makes sense that he'd be more permissive with Valentino (though obviously being Val's partner doesn't mean he's obligated to accept unwanted advances). But Katie does it in front of a room full of people, after he'd already turned her down, and he sees her reaching for him. Yet he still doesn't move away from or comment on it. And she's so unhesitatingly wanton, even though he could easily obliterate her if he wanted to, that she clearly knows she can get away with it. All evidence points to this being a common occurrence.

And then there is Alastor, who seems incapable of leaving Vox's screen alone. To put this in perspective, Vox does not touch his own screen. He does grab the corners of his monitor a lot, especially when he's excited or upset. But apart from cleaning it after Angel spits in his face, he only touches the screen itself twice that I can remember, and they're both moments of distress: at the end of Stayed Gone, and after being muted. Even Valentino doesn't usually touch his screen (and when he does it to be a nuisance in Stayed Gone, Vox actually knocks his hand away. Though that might be more a result of his anger over Alastor's return).

Alastor touches Vox's screen no fewer than three times (four if you count a tentacle to the face while they're fighting), and apart from the flashback, they only have two in-person interactions where he isn't tied to a chair. And Vox clearly doesn't like having things jabbed in his face all the time (who would, really), but even when Alastor's staff is resting against his screen, he just stands there until it's pulled away.

So why, exactly, might a tactile seeker struggle even with their own boundaries? Once again, the reasons vary:

Threat detection starts with the nervous system, which is less responsive to touch in tactile seekers. If physical contact fails to register as intrusive or threatening, the urge to avoid it isn't there.

If their current need for sensory input is greater than their discomfort with certain forms of contact, they might accept it or find it settling even if they don't want it.

They might miss social cues and interpret touch as more innocent than it is.

Like anyone else who's been repeatedly forced to accept unwanted touch, they might simply have been conditioned to allow it.

In Vox's case, my guess is that he just doesn't feel threatened. He could obliterate Katie if he wanted to, so her harassment is merely annoying. Valentino is a familiar and primary source of physical contact, so his touch probably registers as safe or steadying. Even Alastor (who should register as a threat) does no damage the one time he goes for Vox's screen in a fight, and Vox only flips him off in response. So at least from Alastor, that particular form of contact seems to be annoying, not threatening.