#+ weird weirdo freak being eccentric and unusual in public

[specialagentartemis]

Nikola Tesla

Smiljan, Austrian Empire (now Croatia)

1856-1943

Part of my Aro Week series on Reomantic De-prioritization in History.

In high school English class, we were discussing Nikola Tesla (I don’t remember why), and in response to praising his vision and scientific achievements, some boy derisively said, “Didn’t he fall in love with a pigeon?”  I wanted to defend Tesla’s honor.  At the time, I didn’t quite understand why this comment so upset me.  The idea that a reclusive, eccentric man never married and never expressed interest in falling in love with a woman, and instead wrote odes to the beauty of something in the natural world, made him a pervert, somehow, someone worthy of scorn, upset me.  Like okay, yeah, his love for a specific pigeon was unusual, but so what?

Tesla was an ethnic Serb from the Austrian Empire, well-educated and well-respected in his schools but sickly and always socially "off."  He moved to the USA as an adult, and set up a lab in New York City where he experimented with electricity and vastly furthered our knowledge of how it worked and what could be done with it.  He was well-travelled and well-known, and endlessly inventive.  He desired to use electricity and science to make the world better.  Some of this was really good, like radio, wireless energy, and Niagara Falls hydroelectricity.  Some less so, like eugenics.

The more I read about Nikola Tesla’s “weird” habits or articles that start “six freaky facts you didn’t know…” the more obvious it becomes that guy was neurodivergent.  And he’s on record stating that he thought sex would hinder his scientific work, and that he got all the satisfaction he needed from his work, and this seems usually taken to mean that he was straight but made a conscious decision not to get married or have sex for the good of his science.  Which is possible, and it’s also possible that it’s a rationalization of internal feelings of just not wanting it.  Personally, yeah, I think sex and marriage would get in the way of my scientific work, on account of it’s a major time commitment that I don’t want!

Whether or not Tesla “was” aromantic asexual, or whether this was a choice made by him for other reasons, shouldn’t matter. Regardless of his internal feelings of attraction or desire, he gets framed—by his contemporaries, by publications, and by my high school classmates—as a weirdo, a freak, probably a secret pervert of some kind, for being neurodivergent and never wanting sex or marriage.  But those were exactly the reason I felt drawn to him and his story—the reclusive genius who never fell in love, never married but was well-liked by his friends, learned multiple languages, loved pigeons, was unapologetically weird, and invented a whole bunch of cool stuff.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

Please tell me more about Autistic Syd, I thought I was the only one who had this head canon, I just can't place why I do

Hi!! I need to make more Syd gifs but for now, this one works for everything Syd related tbh because I love it.

Okay, I guess this is my excuse to finally write a meta for Syd. :) First off, all of this rambling about my headcanons for them has to come with the giant warning that because we don’t have a ton of information about Syd except through their relationship with Elena, I’m well aware that this is conjecture and hunches and I can’t always point to specific aha! evidence as to why I interpret them the way I do. In some cases it really is as simple and as complicated as ‘I’m on the spectrum and this thing feels like me, ergo Syd seems Autistic too but you won’t exactly find the thing in the diagnostic criteria.’

Okay, so what do we know about Syd? They’re big into social justice, nerdy fandom, and Elena. They’re also not super good at reading nuanced or complicated social cues, a potential Autistic clue. A lot of what we see between them and Elena when conflict arises is that they either expect Elena to know what they mean even when they’re not expressing it very clearly (Benihana’s), or they misunderstand Elena’s behavior and from it draw the wrong conclusion (the cookie, the lockdown). Now, granted, miscommunication happens to neurotypical people too…but it’s definitely an Autistic flag for me, especially when you can see it in Syd compared to Elena, who is also a social justice and fandom nerd, but who trips herself up in other ways (usually anxiety and inexperience).

What about social norms more broadly? We know that Syd is homeschooled, though we don’t know why. It could be their parents’ choice for all kinds of reasons, or it could have been decided that homeschooling would be the best way to educate Syd and/or their brother for reasons having to do with the kids. We don’t know, because we know nothing really about their home life. Either way, Syd is a loveable weirdo but capable of getting along with others, including new people. They may approach socializing in an unconventional way (see Alex and the zombie video), but they clearly make online friends well enough and seem fairly comfortable among groups of people (like Elena’s family).

It’s impossible to tell whether their quirkiness makes homeschooling a good fit for them, or if being homeschooled helped make them quirky. But I’m not willing to rule out the possibility that Syd’s parents chose homeschooling to support their Autistic needs and sensitivities while they were growing up. The reality is, older Autistic kids aren’t always the media cliches you see of people who rock in a corner and don’t respond to others. Everyone’s different, and a lot of us develop strategies to pass as somewhat neurotypical, or as close as we can manage…and especially those of us assigned female at birth (which it seems like Syd was) who are less commonly diagnosed than Autistic boys, we can get really good at it. I spent my entire school career being considered a freak–overenthusiastic, incapable of controlling my emotions and thoughts, different from everyone else in a thousand tiny ways that nobody could have pinpointed but everybody recognized–but nobody ever thought I might be developmentally disabled. I navigated things well enough that I was just ‘weird.’ With a caring and supportive home environment that also doubled as school, Syd might have reached the same place by the time they were sixteen.

Also, while Syd is comfortable around Elena’s family and in public places like the school dance, they seem pretty introverted too. Faced with a party, they’re more likely to dive into a magazine or escape to the balcony as they are to make small talk. Their interactions with Alex, one-on-one, seem much more comfortable, but that may be because they already have the established common ground of Elena that makes it easier for them to engage in conversation. Introversion also does not automatically equal Autism, but being Autistic can look a lot like introversion, in a social context. I hate small talk and tend to be quiet at parties until I find one person I actually want to talk to, and then I tend to be very animated and never shut up. Sound at all like Syd with Alex, once talking to Elena fizzled out?

Something I’ve found to be true in my own experience is that Autistic people, who have to learn social norms that come easily to other people, are capable of seeing them for the arbitrary boundaries they are. The fact that gender is a social construct is something that’s always made perfect sense to me, because as a society we make all the rules up–and the less sense they make to Autistic people, the more aware of that we are. Breaking them is a choice, rather than some kind of defiance of a perfect higher order. In other words, if Syd is Autistic, that might have helped them become as comfortable as they seem to be in their own skin and identity, accepting their nonbinary nature rather than feeling the need to fight it.

Syd definitely fits the Autistic traits of having specific interests and being logically oriented. They’re not especially rigid or obsessive about them, though, that we see. Their reasons for not telling Elena their sexual history before they’re in the hotel together follows Syd’s own internal logic, whether it makes sense to anyone else or not. And they have some intense interests, that span a range of geeky fandoms. But we don’t see any narrow focus and deep well of knowledge about one area. I certainly know from personal experience that fandom can be a special interest, and if we knew more about Syd outside their relationship with Elena, we might learn that they do have one passion that they’ve spent years fixated on. The big ask shows us that they’re creative in an eccentric, enthusiastic way, which always gets my attention for potential spectrum qualities.

We don’t see any obvious sensory issues with Syd. They don’t show any unusual sensitivities to foods or clothing textures, loud noises, etc. They do have a slightly unusual voice, a little flat in tone with less expressiveness, which can be an Autistic trait.

One other trait that codes Syd as Autistic is their relationship to honesty. Unlike Elena, who sometimes lies, Syd is persistently honest. The traits that make them unusual, even ones that might seem unflattering, they are nothing but upfront about. And they’re trusting, taking others at their word as well. After knowing Elena for months and never once hearing about or meeting any of her friends, they completely believe her lie that she’s popular at school, when other people would have been naturally suspicious. This could be because they are young and in love and want to see the good in the world around them…or it could be because they tell the truth and expect the same from everyone else. When you go from ‘likes to believe that people are honest’ to ‘never even considers the possibility of lying as something people could do,’ that’s a significant spectrum quality.

Now, honestly, based solely on what we see of Syd in canon, are they Autistic? It’s kind of impossible to tell for sure. We just don’t know enough about their home life and how they are when they’re not with Elena, to say with total certainty one way or the other. If they are Autistic, they definitely only display mild traits on the show. No repeating words a lot, stimming, avoiding crowds or small talk, etc. But since every Autistic person is different, and lots of spectrum kids grow up with behavioral therapy support now and learn much better coping mechanisms than I did at Syd’s age, it’s entirely possible they could be Autistic even without showing more intense, ‘classic’ signs in their limited screentime.

So personally, I like my headcanon that Syd may be Autistic. Because whether they are or not, they are definitely a giant, wonderful nerd–and the kind of character I would enjoy sharing a common experience like Autism with, when it’s so often portrayed on TV in ways that are hurtful or unrealistic.

tl;dr Syd definitely has some traits that could be read as Autistic; we don’t see them enough to know for sure; I claim them as one of ours anyway because they’re awesome so I say you can too, if you want :)