There's been very few autistic reps in media, I find, and some of them aren't entirely flattering, tbh. But I made this thread to talk about the ones we like and celebrate.
There's a couple of examples I can give:
Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty). Smartest man in the universe, canonically autistic, seems like a mean, bitter drunk who abuses everyone around him at first glance, but it turns out he's actually a very sensitive person, too sensitive even. His attempts to push people away are motivated by the fact he cares about people too much to the point it hurts him. I actually find him very relatable in that regard.
Hitori Gotoh (Bocchi the Rock). Not canonically confirmed as autistic, but there's A LOT of traits; Socially anxious, struggles to make friends, wears the same clothing every day, has visible "meltdowns" during stressful situations (represented by some very humorous and creative animation, including moments where she's LITERALLY melting down!!), often tends to have wandering and tangential thoughts.
Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory/Young Sheldon). I don't know if he's canonically confirmed as autistic either, but again, lots of traits. He's highly intelligent, tends to fixate on smaller details, is socially inept and tends to obsess over things
Rikka Takanashi (Love, Chunibyo and Other Delusions). Again, not canonically confirmed autistic but has a lot of traits. Has trouble discerning what's considered socially appropriate at times, talks in a very rigid fashion and struggles to make friends, very narrow range of interests and hobbies etc.
The majority of kuudere archetype characters in various anime often display a lot of autistic traits such as difficulty expressing or understanding social cues.
Of course, there's also the usual I should mention, such as Patience and the main character of Dinosaur (I've not seen it, but I've heard things)
Does anyone else have any other examples
