Keeping on with this month’s theme. Your fave (Mizuno Ami, aka Sailor Mercury) is autistic.
This really shouldn’t even be a surprise.
Ami (or as I grew up knowing her, Amy) is the first fictional character I really imprinted on. I’d had favorites before (Sailor Jupiter for a little while, Tamara from Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, various My Little Ponies, Cheer Bear, Kirsten Larson the American Girl doll) but Ami was more than a favorite. Ami was a lifestyle. She wasn’t exactly like me (she’s a math genius and math was my worst subject; she’s an ace swimmer and I could barely stay afloat as a kid, though in Ami’s name I tried) but her temperament felt familiar and yet also aspirational. She’s very smart and very sweet. She was also the only one of the Inner Senshi that wasn’t totally boy-crazy, and I related to that (sidenote, Ami is probably demisexual).
But in retrospect, I’m pretty sure I latched onto her because I subconsciously recognized behavior patterns in her that were also in me, and those behavior patterns tie into… autism! As I’ve said, I wasn’t diagnosed as a kid (I really should have been) but I definitely latched onto characters that also were undiagnosed but autistic. This is, I think, why I (someone who’s not at all a scientist) relate to a lot of characters who are science-minded: it’s because writers unknowingly write a greater proportion of science-minded characters with autistic traits, because of stereotypes but also because of actual things.
Full story here.