Why do some character tropes just have autistic traits?

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Someone mentioned Death Note on another site and it got me thinking about it for the first time in years. While remembering all of the characters I noticed that the detective guy named L kind of acts like he's autistic, as in he has some very stereotypical traits, and he has the typical "intelligent weirdo" personality people seem to give to characters that are commonly "autistic coded" (my friend referred to L as that). The Fandom wiki page for him describes him as "very intelligent" and "extremely meticulous and analytical", and says he arranges/stacks objects, and does things that are "inappropriate and rude" in public, among other things. It doesn't seem like the creators of Death Note actually intended to make him autistic, and that got me thinking about how many "intelligent but weird" characters unintentionally just end up acting like they have autism.

Why do so many characters that fit this trope just act like they have autism? Why do these characters also usually act in such a stereotypical way? Is it supposed to be humorous that they act like that? I just don't get the appeal or why this is a thing.

They aren't acting autistic and it's not rude. There are a lot of people like that, some very intelligent people lack social intelligence, doesn't mean that they are displaying any autistic traits.

I didn't say there weren't people that are intelligent and lack social intelligence without being autistic, but I'm talking specifically about the fact there's a lot of characters that act like they have noticeably autistic traits, extending beyond just social problems, and where it's not intentional for them to actually be autistic. Sometimes apparent sensory issues and all. I'm just wondering why whenever someone goes to write a character that fits certain tropes, such as an intelligent but quirky character, they often have a lot of autistic traits. Sometimes the autistic traits are even not exactly portrayed in a positive way or are used to be humorous. I don't understand what people find funny about them.

If the characters are not necessarily autistic, I think that you can often call them something like neurodivergent as opposed to neurotypical. I think that often when they make these characters they want them to be smart on topics at the expense of another trait, social skills, which just happens to be the sort of traits of many autistic people, having special interest in subjects. I think that done right it can be better than saying the person is like a robot, but just have traits that they cannot help.

I just recently watched the remake She-Ra series, which included a character who is pretty obsessed with robots a genius, but has a number of problems on the social side that she has trouble understanding social things that she even helps what might be considered the wrong side but connects with one of the most unlikely characters. A big aspect of her finale were people seeing her as selfish and not understanding important things or how she hurts others, before revealing she is very frustrated and aware of that, but actually is trying to do right in the ways she can.

If not actively a writer going in knowing what autistic traits are and giving them, I would like to think that often the writer might know someone like that and put that into the character, maybe ramping them up a bit, and perhaps audiences recognise traits in people they know that are similar. I think this might be especially relevant in regards to anime like Death Note, which as far as I am aware Japan has less of a public understanding of autism, so the traits just get seen as weird quirks.

So my guess are familiarity to people writers or audience that people may know, even if not entirely autistic like.

I think that makes sense. I definitely don't think people are trying to actively make fun of autistic traits or say they're weird, it's just interesting to me that certain characters are given these traits and are often treated certain ways.

In regards to them being ramped up, I think that's what I meant by them sometimes being "stereotypical". It can remind me of when someone does try to write an autistic character and they just ramp up the few common behaviours they've seen autistic people have, so they end up just giving them a very intense and specific special interest, making the character nearly completely oblivious to social norms, and other things. That's also when I usually notice those behaviours are just being treated as weird or as a joke, when things get into "stereotypical" territory.

Also, I should have clarified better in my post so I'm just going to here, but I don't necessarily think these characters are actually autistic just because of the few traits they have, nor that I'm trying to say being "intelligent" is an autistic trait. The most common example to use for there being certain character tropes with these traits just was the one I mentioned before. There's plenty of characters who aren't meant to be intelligent or weird who are commonly given what someone would recognize as autistic traits. That's just the trope that sticks out to me more since they seem to have more exaggerated behaviours and get into more situations where other characters view those traits negatively.

Another possibility is that a lot of Aspies & writers are also high-functioning autistic and "write what they know."

There are a bunch if reasons, I'd assume.
First, it's a trope. Like the hero, the good-hearted but slightly dim sidekick (often with great physical strength), the mysterious femme fatale, etc. - the genius weirdo.

But also, if you're going to write a somewhat aloof character with high intelligence but weird behaviours there's only so many variations. He's smart, so you need to show this through him being very into some niche thing that's coded as field of interest for smart people. Of course, to show just how smart he is, he's excelling at that. Boom, special interest.
You show his extraordinary senses by getting overstimulated, you show his specialness by him not acting like normal people would in certain situations- and there you go, he ends up autistic, purely because of the standard techniques of introducing a character to the audience.

Basically, the character-definition is "smart and not your average (neurotypical) person"