#And Lawrence scolds Rei to take care of himself

[vampstel]

I fell asleep. Anyway, here’s an infodump about my two boys (Lawrence + Rei) and their experiences with being neurodivergent. I’ll talk about my other neurodivergent characters a different day :P

Lawrence

He’s autistic. He was diagnosed in his late 20s. He was evaluated once in the late 90s as a preteen but all his behaviours either flew under the radar or were dismissed as quirks.

Sadly got bullied a lot in his school years due to being different but his parents were very supportive (his mother being autistic herself but not being diagnosed either). Thus, he has a lot of trust issues and some trauma he still needs to process.

He’s very blunt and can’t lie to save his life. This has gotten him in trouble many times and most people keep their distance away from him since they deem him rude and intimidating (“but he’s a sweetheart he really is please trust me” - Rei, probably)

He’s absolutely oblivious to nonverbal cues and social cues. Doesn’t understand societal norms and thinks they’re ridiculous. Also, he takes things too literally.

Used to mask as a child to try to fit in but stopped once he got older. He doesn’t give a shit anymore what people think and that’s very cool of him

His special interests are history, music, and cats. He only infodumps when people ask him to but BOY is he passionate when he does. That’s probably the only time you’ll get to see him being expressive otherwise his tone is flat and he looks either bored or angry.

He has sensory issues, has misophonia and can’t handle staying in crowded places. He absolutely despises when people talk too loudly or when voices overlap one another. He gets headaches because of this. He also can’t stand certain tactile textures and food textures. Shoutout to overly crispy food, he hates them with a burning passion.

He regularly stims and isn’t ashamed of it. He mostly stims due to boredom and stress, but occasionally does it when he feels extremely positive emotions. Twirling his hair, drumming his fingers, and spinning anything in his hands are his most common stims. You often see him doing them while he works. I think I mentioned this before but he’s skilled at spinning his conductor’s baton because of this

He’s touch averse but also touch starved which is a great combination that I personally suffer from myself. He gets uncomfortable when strangers touch him but he’s fine with family members and close friends touching him. He is particularly very touchy with Rei and basically makes the raven his weighted blanket or teddy bear at night

When he gets overstimulated, he often leaves the room and isolates himself to try to calm down. If he’s burntout, he takes a few days off work just to indulge in his interests and relax.

Rei

He has ADHD, was diagnosed in his early to mid 20s but is unmedicated because the medications he tried didn’t help him and negatively affected his health. His father, Yuuma, also has ADHD and was diagnosed late in his life. Yuuma is very supportive and helps Rei as much as he can.

He struggled a lot in school, mostly due to deadlines and his workload. He would’ve been top of his class hadn’t it been for the fact he often doesn’t do his homework or projects (and he was a literal delinquent when he was 14 so…)

He had a lot of peculiar hyperfixations and did a lot of hobbies before sticking to art and music. Due to this, he’s got a lot of skills most people don’t know about. Did I ever mention this man was good at fencing?

He suffers a lot with executive dysfunction and burnout. There are days, sometimes even months where he can’t work or do anything and the only thing he can do to cope is to gradually get back into things or just do nothing at all.

He has sensory issues. He has misophonia and gets really bad migraines when it gets triggered. He often has his noise cancelling headphones because of this.

He’s always in a state of overstimulation or understimulation. No inbetween. He’s gotten so used to it that he just rolls with it. Oh yeah, and he forgets to take care of himself. He’s just like me fr fr

He has insomnia because he overthinks a lot. He used to have meds but grew tolerance to it and the other meds he tried only made him oversleep. His current medication is Lawrence. I’m not joking. His brain turns off once he cuddles with his husband at night.

His main hyperfixations are art, music, and the occult. This man can talk about his fixations unprompted and won’t shut up about them at all. He gets really embarrassed about it afterwards and apologizes

He stims a lot to stay focused or grounded. Often pacing around the room (only when he’s alone), bouncing his leg, or spinning/clicking his pens (which pisses Lawrence off to no end which makes Rei do it even more LMAO)

He can’t and never has a schedule. He has a general idea of things he wants to do on a day to day basis, but never sticks to it completely and prefers to have a flexible schedule.

And there you have it. Both my faves are neurodivergent, who would’ve guessed. I don’t talk about them being nd a lot cause it isn’t a big focus in the story but it IS integral to them since you can see their traits and how it affects them. Especially with Lawrence. That poor man can’t take a break.