ADHD Hedgehogs

sonic: hey tails, did you see that book I was reading? i think it was called....

(sonic begins to snap his fingers while trying to remember the book)

tails: the arabian nights? i think i saw it on the couch

sonic, happily snaps his fingers: yeah that one! thanks little bro!

coming from someone who snaps their fingers when i keep forgetting stuff :D

Sonic likes to listen to Owl City music when his insomnia decides to show it's ugly face around the corner(plus some of Owl City's song talk about sleep so that's a bonus).

it's absolutely fine to send in headcanons! in fact i always highly encourage it!

for tails in specific? lemme see here!

tails is absolutely on the autism spectrum. i won't go too heavily detailed into that, because i'm not autistic myself and would rather not misrepresent the community, but you cannot tell me that tails does not have autistic vibes.

special interest / hyperfixation is absolutely mechanics and machinery.

he twirls his tails to stim! so it's not uncommon to kinda just find him hovering there, because he was stimming a bit too much. usually he'll come back down if you tell him he's floating.

tails can and will bonk his head on people he likes. especially sonic or cosmo.

feat. adhd jet the hawk hERE WE GO

tails modifies the blue star a bit to give sonic a little jolt when he loses focus on riding

sonic doesn’t appreciate this at first because focusing is hard, but he definitely learns to appreciate it because it causes less crashes

wave notices that sonic’s not crashing like he used to and gets curious

tails begrudgingly shares his tech with her when she explains that jet crashes pretty often too

jet just doesn’t crash during races because hyperfocus To The Maximum

sonic and jet race at one point and both of them lose focus, ignore the jolts, and end up crashing

jet is miffed and upset but sonic is laughing his ass off

but sonic stops laughing when he comes to the realization that they crashed in the exact same way

so sonic begins to question jet and oh boy it doesn’t end with jet just answering

jet avoids all the questions because he doesn’t know the answers + every time he screwed up his father would ask him things like what have you done or why did you do that, followed by you’ve done bad

eventually sonic gets frustrated and starts to shout at him to answer me damnit

and oh boy oh boy sonic’s face when he realizes jet is just about ready to start crying and screaming

so he changes his approach from asking why jet did that or why jet crashed to things like how are you feeling or did this happen before and asking everything he can in a gentle manner to maybe figure things out

eventually sonic just says “jet i’m pretty sure you’ve got adhd too”

“wait. too? what do you mean sonic the hedgehog???” “uh. i’ve got adhd? and i think you do too? because honestly what you’re saying sounds a lot like what i’ve done in the past before i found out the truth.”

most of them were either told by sonic himself, told by tails, or kind of just figured it out on their own (and later confirmed it with one of those two).

i actually do not! i only saw the film one time in theatres, and was so engrossed in it that i didn’t think to keep track of what seemed like adhd-like behaviors and mannerisms

- Classic Sonic is more of a physical stimmer than anything else. always bouncing/running/jumping/etc and he’s extremely fond of the zones that allow him to go really really fast and move a lot.

- Mighty is honestly one of Classic Sonic’s favorite partners (for Sonic Mania content) because he gets it, he really does. he’s less of a stimmer because his adhd isn’t as focus-oriented as Classic’s and more has to do with memory. which means he absolutely sucks at puzzles where he has to remember things because he blinks and blip, gone.

- Movie Sonic is absolutely adhd, and is absolutely all over the place. he has a hard time remembering names (he still calls Tom “Donut Lord” to this day), and maybe abuses his power a little too much to get things like chores and other boring stuff out of the way quickly so he can go back to doing whatever his brain is currently hyperfixated on. usually Maddie is really good at getting him to slow down and do the work properly, because she does it with him and keeps him on task when he’s not zipping around.

- Post-Forces/IDW Sonic is... honestly a little less obvious in his adhd due to other issues presenting themselves (read: trauma from being imprisoned/probably tortured in space, literally the whole zombot arc in the comics please go read those they’re very good, etc), he’s pretty good at making himself focus on what needs to be done and has gotten better (sort of) at staying on task. less liable to get distracted.

- the above of course is kind of worrying to anyone who personally knows Sonic so they’re all worried about what’s going on both in general and with Sonic, they planned on talking to him about it after everything settled down but that didn’t happen

- In Smash tournaments Sonic is more likely to pair up with people who honestly get it in tag-team battles more than he would with someone who doesn’t. so his go-to teammates are often Mario, Luigi, Peach, Link, Pit, Joker, or Samus, & anyone else is literally just he had no other option.

- I say technically because Mario just kinda hid it in Sonic’s suitcase to find when he unpacked it (Peach and Luigi had decided to help him and Tails out when they saw how bad they turned out to be at packing)

- It wasn’t found until like a month later when Tails realized Sonic never actually unpacked his suitcase

- Sonic is so hyped about being in Smash

- He is distinctly less hyped about the paperwork and coming up with a move set

- Which he puts off before remembering it at like midnight one night a few days before it’s due

- He does it right then despite it being almost 1 am so he won’t forget again

- Tails wakes up and helps him out

- Long story short Sonic’s ADHD, the fact that it was 1am, and the fact that he doesn’t exactly write down his moves [note: yeah I know the moves all have names, but I like to think of that as just a game mechanic thing as opposed to an in-universe thing, and it’s not like he actually remembers them even if he does name them] made the process of writing a moveset really hard.

- This is why Sonic’s moveset is pretty much just spin dashing.

- When custom movesets became a thing in Smash 4, Sonic was not happy he had to come up with more moves and fill out more paperwork

- Lukily Mario and Peach stepped in to help him and Tails out, and even brought cookies!

it would honestly depend on how close they are to him! because i imagine him to be a bit more like me, who withdraws when they’re upset/having nightmares because they don’t want to burden others

unfortunately yes :c

absolutely accepted!

though he does get a lot of stimmy enjoyment out of the thicker fur, and the stretchiness of his arms