I like to imagine Sam's cognitive empathy, and other specific 'quirks', is a sign of either aspd or autism, and like everything mass surveillance, once the thought crosses your mind it's everywhere on your social media feeds. unfortunately, this has only brought my attention to how alien the portrayal of both these conditions actually is.
yes, fandoms have more or less adopted the autism headcanon, but once you look closely, you realize folks tend to portray characters on the spectrum with a degree of infantilism. I'm not just talking about the obvious precious cinnamon roll trope; I mean using #relatable clichés to draw empathy towards an otherwise disliked character in a hyper-critical fandom landscape.
on the more obvious side of things, many creators rely solely on gag scenes of the character stimming, having awkward social interactions, or hyperfixating on niche interests as proof. it's an entertaining but ultimately flat take.
and I can't not mention projection.. while it isn't inherently wrong, I know ND folks find comfort seeing themselves in their favorite characters, it often ends up locking the potential in ooc headcanon land instead of keeping it grounded and hard to dismiss.
meanwhile, sociopathy remains a massive taboo to headcanon. I'd go as far as saying it's perceived as more of an accusation due to the heavy negative connotations surrounding the word.
and while it seems logical that a creator's approach to portraying sociopathy is preceded by heavy research, that usually means going straight to clinical articles while ignoring the lived testimonies of diagnosed people. this places the focus on how others describe sociopaths, rather than what the world looks like through their lens.
this limits the creative output to either an edgy, one-dimensional portrayal or buries the potential entirely, especially since the diagnostic criteria for aspd is extremely stiff and authors are already stuck in 'realism hell' that puts transformative art through the moral grinder.
