#and I'm sure theoretical geometry is very cool!!!

[sign-from-god-complex]

what do you think the sides big special interests are??? i really like theoretical geometry!!!

I figured I could answer this first before I get to any other autistic side stuff since I already talked about it some in my most recent autistic sides post about the movie night, so this is expanding on that!!! And though the others are a little ambiguous, this one is definitely a human au cause it makes it way easier, haha.

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I love the idea of deceptively intelligent Patton. He doesn’t see it as a big thing that he knows so much about biology, he just likes learning about animals! They’re so interesting! But the others are all lowkey shocked when they find out just how much Patton actually knows.

Patton’s special interest began purely because he had some questions (can cats cry? do dogs know that I love them??) and he didn’t want to bother Logan cause he was busy, so instead he just googled it. And after reading about 3 or 4 articles, Patton only had more questions, so he watches a documentary. And then the first documentary was so pretty and had so many great animals and facts so he watches another one. And another one and another one the next day, and he’s going through resources he found online, and reading books, etc. etc.

There’s just so much to learn! He found information on the body language of cats and the reasons birds migrate and about different animal relationships and tons of other cool things. He brought up a fact he’d learnt casually one day around Logan and it turned into a full-on discussion and for once Patton felt like he and Logan were on equal footing.

Patton engages in his special interest in as many different settings as he possibly can. He started volunteering at the animal shelter whenever he gets the chance, he audits the biology courses at the local university (attends the lectures, does the non-graded work, no credit, paid) and there’s even a little club down at the community centre that he goes to sometimes. And every time he comes back from one of those he has a little smile on his face and though he may be incredibly distracted for the rest of the day, the others know he’s happy.

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Roman’s big special interest I think is definitely Disney (I mean, obvious choice but also we all saw him when Thomas was in a Disney channel episode). He has the entire Disney anthology memorised and they’re always his go-to songs to sing to calm himself down, and on top of that, he has so much of the movies memorised too since he watches them so often. It’s been his special interest for basically as long as he can even remember.

On the occasions where they go to Disneyland Roman is absolutely ecstatic–bouncing around and twirling and jumping and flapping. He points out every little thing like it’s the first time he’s ever been (even though it’s definitely not) and he talks and talks and talks and talks. He knows a little bit about the history of Disney as a studio and all that but generally, his focus is mostly on the actual creating and the content.

However, occasionally Logan or Virgil will say something offhand about Disney–Logan usually a fact he’s learnt and Virgil usually something related to a Disney conspiracy theory video he watched on youtube at 3 in the morning–and neither of them can ever get used to how overwhelming it is to be the centre of Roman’s attention so immediately.

Any mention of Disney is an invitation for Roman to show up and talk to them about it for as long as he possibly can. The others usually don’t mind, but sometimes it’s overwhelming or they have other things they have to be doing, but Roman has low levels of cognitive empathy, so he doesn’t really notice when the person he’s talking to is over the conversation. So they’ll have to occasionally grab one of the other sides for Roman to talk to so they can duck out (quack). Roman doesn’t mind since he knows when it’s Disney he’s running on 200%, plus he still gets to infodump, so that’s good enough for him.

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I really love the idea of Virgil’s big special interest being fashion (cause special interest aren’t predictable and sometimes you end up with things you weren’t necessarily expecting), specifically the history and culture surrounding it. Virge had a passing interest in fashion beforehand—like it was cool in an abstract way, but he didn’t necessarily know that much about it—but one day he fell down a youtube rabbit hole of makeup, beauty and style videos and suddenly it was morning and he had to know the history of 1950s fashion. Those types of videos were all he watched for basically the next couple of days straight.

He found it particularly fascinating because fashion is always a reflection of society at the time, and that wasn’t something he’d really been aware of before, so there was an interesting tie between the most popular styles and the political climate, as well as the traditional male and female roles. Every piece of clothing and fashion subculture had a story behind it and there was just so much more to simple clothing than he’d initially believed. Plus, fashion is all about self-expression, and he did appreciate that aspect of it, even if he was too anxious to ever wear anything more than skinny jeans and a hoodie.

Actually, Virgil did start updating his closet as a result of his special interest. He’d see all of these amazing clothes out in public and he knew he’d never wear them outside of his room, but he’d buy them anyway. So his closet is filled with vintage items and grunge style clothing and a million other things and he’d mix and match outfits by himself but never wear them out. He even actually sewed his hoodie; he’d grabbed a pattern from online and worked on it for ages. It wasn’t perfect by any means, considering it was his first project, but he’d never been more proud of anything he’d made in his life.

Once the others find out about Virge’s special interest and don’t react super negatively, he does get the courage to wear things a little more outside of the expected realm (even if he still hasn’t worked himself up to wearing skirts and dresses, which he really enjoys cause he likes the way the fabrics swish around). And then any compliment on Virgil’s outfit is a gateway to him explaining the purpose of every item of clothing in relation to the way society is/was at the time of its popularity. He’d usually feel a little bad after infodumping on someone, despite the fact that they assured him it was alright, and anyway, they’d do the same.

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Logan’s big special interest is astronomy, which makes him uncharacteristically excited. Logan’s stims are normally very subtle (as I’ve mentioned) tending to be more like things anyone might do, but when he’s talking about the stars you can see his eyes light up and he gets increasingly fidgety, waving his hands around and rubbing back and forth against his skin.

Logan can’t remember exactly how his special interest started, but he knows he’s always been captivated by the sky. Even when he was a kid, he used to sneak out of his room through the window and onto the roof, watching the sun set and the stars appear. He’d gotten some astronomy books from the school library too, wanting to know more about what stars were and hoping to find some constellations if he looked hard enough.

For Logan’s birthday one year they paid about a hundred dollars each to take him up a mountain for a stargazing tour. They were given big fluffy coats to fight the wind chill as they were led up away from the city lights. Logan answered every question the guide asked the group, bouncing up and down a little bit in his seat, and when he was allowed to look through an actual expensive telescope to see Saturn and the moon and all these amazing stars he was actually speechless—just flapping and making happy noises.

Afterwards, they went back to the warmth of the building and the guide provided hot chocolate and Logan genuinely cried, not able to express anything other than, “thank you” over and over again. It was the best gift he’d ever been given and the most magical experience of his life.