Autistic Fred headcanon

[cometcrystal]

This is one of my biggest Scooby headcanons, and I wanted to post about it, since I'm autistic myself and I relate a lot to Fred. It's probably the most apparent in SDMI, but I think it's present throughout the entire franchise. Here's some examples of him having traits of autism:

-Face blind: not recognizing Scooby at the airport in the 2002 movie, not recognizing Velma in the Blue Falcon movie

-Meltdowns: has one in SDMI when the Man-Crab kidnaps Daphne

-Special interests: in most Scooby things, Fred is fixated on traps, engineering, and cars

Those are just my biggest observations. I can see smaller, less prominent traits in him in a lot of other stuff, too, and mentioning them all would take me ages. Even in the original series, you could make the argument that he's Masking to appear more """normal""" (imitating the behavior of neurotypical people to fit in and fly under the radar), which is something I often have to do in my day to day life.

[Ark]

I think one of the Scooby podcasts actually brings up the masking thing. They twist it in a way that makes Fred out to be a secret villain or something, but I can see where there's a potential difference from Fred and the others. Often, it's helpful in pushing the mystery forward. The "blood/paint" scene in the very first episode comes to mind. He's often willing to take the first logical step, in a way that emotionally doesn't make sense to the rest of the gang. And yes, the Rube Goldberg traps have always been his style, even way before Mystery Incorporated altered his personality slightly to be even more obsessive about traps and such. He's always had a mechanical mind, and even knew where the plane's spark plugs were in their Jaguaro adventure. That's not common knowledge and you couldn't just Google that back then, either.

[dooscoobert0220]

Ooooo loving this head-canon. I recently discovered I may be on the autism spectrum myself, and your thoughts add up to make a lot of sense.

[Jinkies]

I definitely support this head canon! Especially after rewatching SDMI. The hyper fixation on traps and his difficulty to read social cues, especially in his relationships with others. I saw on tiktok somebody said that this made it easier for mayor jones to manipulate him. And he still was treated better by him than his real parents :( poor Freddie