found the most cursed autism mom coffee table on marketplace. the amount of effort that must have been put into this blows my mind.
nightmare scenario: your friends come over after school to play yugioh but you have to play in a common space in case your mom decides that your friends are bullying you and you need rescuing.
the only surface available to play on is the autism table.
you try to suggest playing on the floor, but floor time has been banned because your mom thinks that engaging in any behavior that can be seen as autistic means you'll never be able to socialize properly and you'll be a pariah, forever.
so you and your friends sit around the autism table, and they're being so nice. they laugh that "wow this is uncomfortable" laugh and make a whispered comment about how your mom is really something, to put you at ease.
before you can even play a single game, your mom goes into a tirade about how autistic people are people too, even if they're weird and uncomfortable, or they can't do what us normal people can do, and how it's not nice to whisper because autistic people have auditory processing issues so they can't understand you unless you speak slower and at a slighter louder volume than normal!
your mother doesn't realize the power hidden inside of the cards. your friends look from side to side exchanging questioning glances, before they all look at you for approval. you let out a sigh and give them a short nod of the head, and it is done. your mother has been sent to the shadow realm and the autism table has been given up to dark forces as payment.
then you lose every game because it turns out you're a different kind of autistic and you're horrible at deck builders. your friends laugh at how bad you are, but it's good-natured, and one of them offers to take you under her wing and show you the ropes. you spend long nights playing yugioh on the floor with her. your father doesn't ever notice that your mother, or the table, is missing.
over time the two of you—through a shared interest in the magic of the cards—fall in love. you're older now, and you've both become infamous in the underground yugioh scene. the kind of people you hang out with now are always pointing out how autistic you are, but in that sweet affectionate way that makes your heart sing.
and you meet others like you. they're quiet, or brash, or they can't stop talking, or they're sweet, or annoying, or they can't stop moving, or singing, or tapping. you don't get along with all of them, but they all see you for you, and you for them. and through them, you learn darker, more esoteric secrets from the cards.
you still don't know how it happened. but one minute your mentor turned lover turned sister was sitting around the cards, hand in yours, and the next…gone. you can smell the shadow realm in the air; it smells of fermentation and ozone and wilted gardenias.
and that's all you can smell as you start awake, to find yourself in a bed you don't recognize. minute by minute your life—your old life?—is becoming foggier, like someone is smearing grease over the window of your cognition.
was none of it real? was it all just a dream?
the table. the fucking autism table. it glows ominously from the corner of your room, and with a sickening feeling, you notice there's a new puzzle piece embedded in the resin. you walk over to the table—mother doesn't let you crawl any more—and the blood drains from your face as you see your sister's haunting visage rendered on the puzzle piece. she stares with a wordless scream, her hands outstretched. there's a single card on the table, and a knife from the kitchen: [[Exchange]]
you know exactly what has to be done. you steel yourself, grasp the knife in your shaking hand, and walk off towards the chiding voice of your mother wondering why you aren't out of bed yet. your mother apparently never learned the lesson…sisters always know best.
