DROPS IN THROUGH THE CEILING WITH BOOK RECS.

Changeling, by Delia Sherman, has a protagonist who's a changeling (the stolen human child) in a faeryified version of New York; over the course of the story, the changeling meets her faery counterpart living in the human world, who is clearly, visibly autistic. There are obviously a lot of problems with the idea of autistic people as "inhuman"; the trope dates back to medieval times, when disabled/neuroatypical children of all types were thought to be changelings. Recced with that caveat.

Al Capone Does My Shirts and its sequel Al Capone Shines My Shoes, by Gennifer Choldenko, have an autistic girl living in the mid-1930s; she's the protagonist's older sister, and a lot of the book deals with the family's struggle to find care for her (i.e., to prevent her being sent to a 1930s-era mental hospital). Choldenko's real-life sister Gina is also autistic. Her upcoming novel Chasing Secrets, set in San Francisco in 1900, also features an autistic character (this time an adult woman, a maid).

This is - not as many book recs as I would like to give, and this in no way proves that the depiction of autism in media isn't male-centric; it absolutely is male-centric, and god knows it ought to be about a hundred times better. I have a special affection for Gennifer Choldenko, though, and wanted to rec these three books.

I am about to be sent this link by every friend or family member who has ever heard me talk about New York, and I will thoroughly deserve it.

-Using the small and adorable candles on each table to carefully burn everything in sight (the fake plants on each table; the paper napkins; the bread; the salt.)
-Breaking apart the glowsticks in order to see what was inside, and spilling the glowing liquid all over the tablecloths, fake plants, and paper napkins. Convincing each other it was highly radioactive.
-At the ceremony, receiving several red-and-white flowers to fling at the B'nei Mitzvah once they had officially become an Adult; shredding the flowers and grinding the petals into the newly vacuumed carpet of the synagogue with the heel of your sandal.
-Carefully picking themed music for every person who comes up to light a candle! (Hearing Green Day's "Extraordinary Girl" when my big brother asked me to come up and light the second-to-last candle at his Bar Mitzvah: highlight of sixth grade.)
-Shuffling up with the rest of the B'nei Mitzvah's Hebrew School class to mumble the Morning Kiddush over the wine.
-Dutifully making a disgusted face when you drank your first sip of Manischevitz at the Friday night kiddush the night before.
-Dutifully chuckling with the adults at the B'nei Mitzvah's exaggeratedly disgusted face at their first sip of Manischevitz at the Friday night kiddush the night before.

At the end of the ceremony, as the rest of the congregation does the Aleinu and someone reads out the temple's upcoming community events for the next week, the rabbi takes you to the back by the Ark, puts her hands on your shoulders, and prays a special blessing over you. I was unprepared for this, and when Rabbi Mates-Muchin put her hands on my shoulders, I thought we were doing a football huddle and put my hands on her shoulders. She was very pregnant and I was very nervous.

Also, I wanted the DJs to bring those large inflatable shoes to my party so that I could take off my shoes and walk around in inflatable shoes for the rest of the night, but they said they'd discontinued the inflatable shoes. In favor of, what, the inflatable guitars? What is the world coming to.

It was AMAZING, it was much like standing near the sun for an extended period of time, I walked home with a leftover residue of Inner Purpose and Disdain for Men in my soul.

Mallory honestly- it's so lovely to have female heroes. I didn't get a chance to do the book signing thing (could not buy the book on account of stolen wallet, was too embarrassed to have you sign my Russian textbook), but I lied extensively in order to escape a prior commitment to come to the event and it was absolutely worth it and I will order your book for myself and several of my friends as soon as I can. Thank you for being extremely funny and bright and witty and good. It was really, really wonderful to get to see you in person.

This Ocean Is Full Of Salmon And Not Monsters
Your Mother Works As A Professor At A Respected University And Has Tenure And A High Salary
I Am A Rake, And You Used Me Cruelly, To Push The Fallen Leaves On The Lawn Into A Pile
It's Been Three Months Since We Got Married And Nobody's Committed Suicide At All

The Conservapedia page for the Decemberists has absolutely no mention of "The Bus Mall" and this remains my favorite thing about the Decemberists that has ever been.

To this date, my crowning academic achievement is "Men are from Uranus: Homosexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century."

After that our professor stopped letting us choose our own paper topics.

Honestly I feel like watching when it when I was a Young People was WORSE because now that I'm an adult I have some distance from just how genuinely awful all these Teens are. And am capable of finding them heartwarmingly flawed, instead of Universally Unspeakably Terrible. (WHY DO PEOPLE FIND JUDD NELSON'S CHARACTER CHARMING, HE'S NOT CHARMING, HE'S A HORROR, why yes I am still mad about nobody calling out Jack S.'s behavior in eleventh grade, why do you ask)

I was prepared to like The Breakfast Club, and then I spoilered myself on Wikipedia and learned that Claire gets together with Bender and mysteriously never finished the movie.

"Arrogant, funny boy continually insults, mocks, and overtly sexually harasses girl, who reacts by being super stuck-up and rude in self-defense" was roughly 60% of my high school experience. I did not really feel like having that storyline end "and then the boy MAKES OUT with the girl." It was super insulting. Whoops bye.