i love t dogs gautsim (gull autism)
π the long established term among my birding compatriots for such a thing is "gulltism" and yeah Toya is diagnosable.
but yeah, as far as I've seen Toya being autistic is a pretty common headcanon, I assume because of his difficulties expressing and understanding emotions and his naivety, general relationship to structures like rules, etc... I do ascribe to it myself, but imo it gets a bit nuanced since The Way He Is is also pretty influenced by a sheltered and emotionally impoverished upbringing... not that I think those things are uncommon among autistic individuals, and I equally don't think it's uncommon for someone's autistic traits to be moderately inextricable from the parts of them that have formed due to trauma, since autism affects so much of how you experience the world (autism and cptsd comorbidity vortex intensifies). a corollary to that is that I also dislike what I feel is the infantilization of Toya I sometimes see, which goes hand in hand with how people infantilize autistic people. just because he's naive or sheltered or inexperienced doesn't mean he's childlike or plainly timid. Because we also see regularly that he's intelligent and strong-willed and open to calling people he cares about on their shit or doing things that scare him, etc.
In general I'd like to see depictions of autism which focus on more than just quirkiness or odd interests - especially ones that include common physiological comorbidities - so let me share my non-exhaustive list of other things which I ascribe to an autistic Toya, on varying levels of "based in canon" to "I straight up just made this one up":
Really poor interoception. that is, he sucks at recognizing his body's signals and interpreting what they mean. eg, if he is hungry, hot, cold, anxious, needs to pee, is otherwise uncomfortable, etc. i think eventually he develops routines to help manage this because even if he can't always rely on intuition he can at least follow a checklist... once he can accept it's okay to need that.
Depersonalization and derealization: goes with the above, and the fact that he generally carries a lot of stress without ever having developed actual robust coping mechanisms for it. He has likewise not suddenly developed the ability to perfectly communicate his needs and trust they will be met with kindness and understanding, even if consciously he knows he's with safe people. that just will take time and exposure. in general he sometimes struggles to feel like he's a person in some fundamental way that everyone else is, and in specifically a birdsquad context he spends a lot of time trying to imagine himself as at least an animal - that sometimes comforts him, but is also complicated because he at the same time feels he's been mostly 'caged'/denied that basal nature
Hypermobility: one of my favourite personal Toya hcs... I can't for the life of me find the specific citation but I swear Toya is canonically very flexible. if it's just fanon then whatever, I still claim it. of course flexibility is about training one's muscles and hypermobility is about connective tissue structure, but I think both can apply to him too and interact in interesting ways. It also adds a pretty compelling angle to why playing the piano and violin so intensively would have been particularly traumatic for him, since hypermobility can easily lead to a lot of pain and injury in the hands, and I doubt he was able to understand/communicate his needs there, let alone have them respected.
GI issues: I don't have too much to say about this one besides that they're pretty common in people who have sensory sensitivities, don't understand their bodily needs well, and carry a lot of poorly managed stress. gestures vaguely at all of the above. IBS irritable bad squad.
Birding is a pretty good hobby for autistic people. it's kind of the ultimate pattern recognition and information organization activity. and it's always socially acceptable to interrupt a conversation with another birder to point out a bird. it's helped me a lot in becoming comfortably social with strangers and bonding with people who appreciate weirdness and lack of normal social skills (well, I think toya is a very social and polite person but definitely a little odd with it). may toya find connection and enrich his life in this way.
hopefully it's coherent! I wrote half of this at 4 am because I am suddenly in New Zealand and my body doesn't know what time it is anymore (delightfully pertinent side note: I saw some new gulls today called tarΔpunga yay yay). toya's very cute love of gulls is well established so I have hijacked your ask to talk about the other ways in which autism affects his character more significantly haha. thank you <3
