the author hasn't specially said "dojae is autistic" but the very specific ways dojae interacts with the world is very akin to some common autistic behaviours & experiences. which means, yeah, it's not official but it's 'something along those lines'. i'm also 1000% agreeing with OP that dojae is autistic. i'm autistic, and i find myself relating to the very specific way he analyses the world around him, his way of needing total verbal clarity, and his disconnect/difficulty with social situations allistic people seem just just intuit. it can be very frustrating.
people,I want to clarify that many of the people I love most in the world are autistic, so Im not "attacking" anyone. I dont think all autistic traits are negative. There are qualities autistic people have that I WISH ,most neurotypicals had. In my family there are a few adults that have undiagnosed autism, and kids with diagnosed autism. Many people diagnosed now would not have been years ago. However,we are still here, misunderstood and I think it's great that characters like us(head cannon or not) are being represented because it should lead to more understanding. We are not all the same but we are all deserving of love.
I understand sorry for being defensive I work with d autistic children and adults and it irks me to see people misuse the label. Or even just the work paranoia as an attack is pretty fucked up thing to say. But I know representation matters and wanting to find an identifying characteristics is understandable
this topic became so toxic so quickly. first and foremost, not all autistic people have the same behaviors. there's a variety of behaviors, and they're not always present. secondly, many of the people online stating they're "professionals that work with autistic patients" are both lying and/or have & perpetrate harmful information about autism. that's not to say there aren't honest people that do help the autism community, but if we're talking ABA, that's widely considered a form of torture, much like conversion "therapy." it's always these ABA "professionals" that try to convince low needs autistic adults that they aren't really autistic, and that we're all self-diagnosed (which wouldn't be a sin to begin with) bc of a "fad," and when anyone defends themself with having a professional diagnosis, they're told all the screening was wrong. so maybe, just maybe, autistic people can relate to characters that might not canonically be autistic while having some behaviors that align with commonly identified behaviors. but also, given that there are millions of characters, maybe more than one can be autistic? is that really so shocking and upsetting? relating to non-malicious traits is harmless. why relegate us to relating to only abed nadir, doctor murphy, and lawyer woo?
anyway. @Willow it's possible! that's a very interesting condition.
There are challenges and also benefits to dating autistic people but it takes done adjustments from both parties. I love how this story illustrates that.