thistle whistle autistic real...? [mlpg3]

1. whistles 

obviously the most expected coming lol;; thistle whistle often ends her sentences with whistles! they can be of varying range and tone and sometimes she speaks full sentences without whistling at all. this can be observed as a vocal stim, considering she uses whistling as a comforting sensation and embraces this part of herself.

you could also say these are vocal tics as well, which im pretty sure is legit since she has tourettes in canon which makes her even better imo!!

2. antisocial behavior 

not to be confused with 'asocial', which is a hostile avoidance of every and all social interaction, thistle shows many signs of antisocial behavior! although she has a very close friend circle to which she is very talkative and open to, she has shown multiple times that she is anxious and avoidant of meeting new ponies. for example, we can see in "Friends Are Never Far Away" that thistle whistle was very stubborn on the idea of meeting new ponies- no matter if they had wings or not- when starcatcher introduced the idea of the ponyville party. later on, thistle would be the last pony island delight and coconut grove were able to convince to travel through the waterfall, aside from her complaints and protests.

3. misses social cues

although this could be observed as thistle whistle just being honest, we can see throughout multiple points in her appearances where she is often blunt and says things unprovoked. she makes very astute observations and expresses these thoughts, albeit warranted in some cases. we can see in her appearance in "A Very Minty Christmas" that, in the scenes of her assisting minty's air balloon, she is sardonically honest with the status of the flight if not for the feint of heart. multiple points throughout her appearances shows her being very gullible to influence and often switching sides without a second thought. i like to think of this as having stunted social skills and often missing social cues- something very common in asd.

conclusion

in conclusion... she is 100 percent somewhere on the spectrum. if not on one than definitely the other.. the spectrum of best pony, that is. 38) no idea if this was purposeful on the writing team, and i assume not because of the timeframe in which these cartoons were created and the rep at the time was... ATROCIOUS.. but they did a damn good job of coding her as such!! let me know what other ponies (all generations) you headcanon as autistic and why!!