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Autistic characters are rarely portrayed in their own right. Instead, they are used as a curiosity in order to teach the neurotypical main character valuable life lessons. The neurodivergent presence becomes a plot device — an obstacle that must be conquered and which facilitates the development of the other characters.

In them she has found something like the coterie to which she’s always wanted to belong, not the popular crowd, rather, the smaller satellite crowd that makes fun of the popular crowd—the outer circle, internally supportive and externally terrifying.