For today's Wholesome Sonic and Tails Wednesday, may I present:

Tails having friends doesn't mean he's not autistic, or, How Having Zero Social Skills Will Accidentally Get You Adopted

(It's a little long but we'll get there, I promise)

Okay so I read a comment by someone basically saying that Tails can't be autistic because he has social skills and I? just? can't?

First off, yes, autistic people can have social skills. While it is a common symptom to not understand "normal" social cues, autism is a spectrum, and some autistic people have skills which others don't. Along with that, many autistics have learned to mask and imitate neurotypical behavior because of being bullied/punished when they act differently, or because they're trying so hard to fit in. So that in of itself is not proof someone isn't autistic.

Second, where are you getting that Tails has social skills?

Tails doesn't have social skills. Tails has FRIENDS. There's a difference.

You might ask, "How can someone make friends without having social skills?" Well for starters, I think there are a lot of decent people who are willing to be accepting of people who have a little trouble with social skills.

But the main reason Tails has made so many friends without social skills is that NO OTHER CHARACTER IN THIS WHOLE FRANCHISE HAS ANY. Most of the characters are neurodivergent coded, and even those who aren't still have zero social skills. You're telling me that in a world with Sonic the ADHD king, Knuckles the "a punch in the face is a warning" Echidna, and freaking Shadow, Tails is the one going to have trouble making friends? The entire Sonic the Hedgehog crew has exactly one social skill between them, and generally Amy has it. The characters just understand that people have trouble socializing. Maybe that's why they found each other. In my experience, we "odd" people tend to flock to each other. And once we've formed our weird little groups, who needs social skills?

But to show that Tails has very little social skills (and to prove you don't need them) let's analyze his first interaction with Sonic.

To start with, before meeting Sonic, Tails is just wandering around alone and bullied. Little guy, all alone, can't make a friend to save his life.

And then comes Sonic.

Depending on the version of backstory we're looking at, we have:

Tails spots Sonic, decides he's cool, and starts following him around until he finds his plane, which he then fixes and repaints without asking. Sonic shows up and is like, cool, you can come with.

Stalking will get you adopted, folks

Actual dialogue: "You looked cool, so I followed you, and when I found your plane, I figured I'd fix it up and we could be friends!"

Or Tails being bullied, Sonic runs by and stops it, and then again Tails just starts following him around until Sonic decides he can come with.

And the there's the movie version, where Tails, who's been remotely spying on Sonic for a years, shows up and HITS KNUCKLES WITH A STOLEN POLICE CAR, tells Sonic to jump in, and Sonic does because he's afraid for his life, upon which Tails proceeds to excitedly rant about how excited he is because he's literally meeting his special interest.

Also the version where Tails just falls on Sonic's head:

Does any of this scream "social skills" to you?

And in all these situations Sonic, who has zero social skills himself, just adopts him on the spot because that's just... who he is? This dude just wants to help everyone. Half his friend group have introduced themselves by trying to kill him, but he's willing to make friends anyway. And then those friends become Tails's friends, because he and Sonic give off classic "extrovert adopting an introvert" vibes (I'm not sure that Sonic is actually an "extrovert", but he's def. more open and better at making friends).

TL;DR: Having social skills doesn't make you not autistic, but even if it does, Tails doesn't have social skills, he just has a great big bro and a group of people with even less social skills than him