autistic neil josten headcanons
years of so heavily masking catch up to him during his sophomore year
he didn’t have the room to acknowledge, even just to himself, his dislikes on the run. so suddenly, in this new found peace, he is so incredibly irritable about things he used to be able to manage.
his entire life has been built around change, but suddenly the slightest changes are destabilizing to him. the presence of the freshmen unsettles him. the dorm isn’t exactly the same as it was the year prior. he doesn’t understand what’s expected of a vice captain.
he enjoys stimming with exercise, be it his morning run or playing exy. but you also can find him bouncing on the balls of his feet, bouncing his leg while he’s sitting or getting lost in counting up infinitely in his head
his special interest has been exy since childhood. it was a pretty singular consistent he carried with him, from little league to watching exy matches in shitty motels on the run and reading/printing articles about exy, all the way to diving head first into his special interest to survive the grief of losing his mother. he has coped with a lot using his special interest.
struggles socially. has a really hard time viewing himself as apart of social interactions rather than a bystander analyzing outcomes.
does better in smaller groups. he gets quiet when the entire team (including new foxes) go out together.
meltdowns are incredibly rare for him. that wasn’t something mary allowed growing up, he learned rather young to internalize it all.
he has shutdowns Frequently and tries his damnedest to push past them and keep going because that’s always what was expected of his before. which does, in fact, just make it worse.
because andrew often communicates nonverbally and is generally pretty quiet, it gives neil the room to slowdown and actually sit with his shutdowns sometimes. i think that silent support is what gets neil through the worst of his sophomore year and adjusting to his new normal
