nico di angelo is autistic af and here’s why
okay so this is something that I never see anywhere and idk why? because it is something that I am absolutely certain of and nothing can convince me otherwise. but I bet that y’all are here for some evidence, so I should probably do that thing.
1) ADHD AND DYSLEXIA. okay, so this isn’t really a proof of autism thing, more something that I would like to make a note of that fits in really well with the whole him being autistic thing. ADHD and dyslexia are very common in people on the autistic spectrum. it’s just one of those things, if you have autism you should get checked for those as well.
2) HAND GESTURES. this one is pretty simple, autistic people use a lot of body gestures and waving hands when they talk, and it’s stated in the very first book that Nico is in that him and Bianca both use their hands a lot to talk. (autism tends to run in families and it would make sense for Bianca to also be autistic, but I have not analysed her nearly as much as Nico, so I couldn’t give commentary on that.)
2.5) THE HAND GESTURES are bought back up again in book five, when it says that Nico was following around hades waving his arms around as he talks. on a related note hand gestures tend to get more wild when talking about things they are very interested in or are important to them (or at least as far as my experience extends) and well, anyone who has read the book will probably agree that Nico was undoubtedly very involved in that conversation
2.75) HAND GESTURES EDITED. okay so it has been brought to my attention that Italian people also use hand gestures a lot, and rather than being autistic this could be more to do with them being Italian, which also fits in with Bianca using them a lot. Thanks people for bringing this to my attention :)
3) STIMMING. this one is not as obvious as others, but when you know what to look for, it becomes pretty apparent. for example, when we first meet Nico Percy describes him as doing a weird sort of dance when he gets excited, which to me sounds a lot like excited stimming. also jumping around?? while yes, Nico does this much less in later books, this isn’t necessarily because he doesn’t want to but rather because he has trained it out of himself, but if I go into that this post would get pretty tragic and much longer pretty quick. so ima leave that alone for now, if you wanna hear more then hit me up in my ask box.
3.5) MORE CASUAL STIMMING is still pretty apparent later in the books, but it is much for tame and less wild. the most prominent of these is Nico twisting his ring. this is like, one of the most common and classic stims. there are actually stim specific rings you can get which are meant for spinning them.
4) SPECIAL INTERESTS. yep you heard it here folks, Nico hardcore has special interests. one word, mythomagic. do you guys remember in book 3 when Nico collected almost the entire mythomagic collection in just one year because he got really into it? because I sure as hell do. also pirates, Nico loves pirates.
5) SOCIAL INTERACTION. oh boy, this one’s a goldmine. Nico is fucking clueless? he has difficulty reading social situations, (often ending in him assuming the worst) he can’t figure out people and what they mean, often takes things very literally, doesn’t know the appropriate anything in social situations, and doesn’t realise how what he says might affect another person because well, he hadn’t intended for it to sound mean, and doesn’t see how it could anger/offend the other person. (see the time when he asked Percy that if Annabeth is so smart then why didn’t she know better than to fall off a cliff) in early books he is overly friendly with people (yes that is the flip side of autistic people being extremely asocial) but when people push that away and see him as annoying, he becomes the Nico we know today, and starts not speaking to people much and thinking out his words a dozen times before saying them. but once again if I go into that this will become depressing af. also something I just remembered, theres an entire scene where he makes a joke and hades cant tell if he’s joking or not, hades make the same joke back and Nico in turn cannot tell if he is joking.
6) PHYSICAL CONTACT. okay, so this doesn’t need much explaining, but a lot of autistic people really don’t like being touched, especially by people they arent 100% comfortable with. sound familiar to you? good.
7) this one is little and kind of hard to explain which is why it doesn’t get a capitalised headline, but there’s this one scene where Jason’s glasses are wonky, and Nico resists the urge to reach out and straighten them. this just reeks of autism to me. there are some things that autistic people just can’t stand, and they often come across as being OCD because of this, a common one is where thing are slightly wonky or askew, or just generally not how they should be. for example, it kills me if people have sleep in their eyes.
im sure that theres a ton of other stuff that im forgetting, but honestly its one am and I have other things to do before sleep so that’s all from me for tonight.
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