jon's characters
      🤝
being autistic

just a testament to Jons acting ability and character analysis

he's so autistic coded i genuinely think it might be intentional like... he has special interests (his anime, possibly also film since he gets very excited about taping the prank and asks about the budget, indicating knowledge on the subject), he has atypical speech patterns (the way he says "stephanie", the whole section at 0:59,) he's got that socially awkward autistic humor (ie. basically every single line of his in the whole musical), you pointed out his stims here (which yeah there's a lot... the "hands under the armpits" thing is ESPECIALLY a big sign for me because that's a VERY common thing!!! autistic people who initially flapped their hands when excited or nervous, if they get a negative response to it, will often "train themselves out of it" by putting their hands under their armpits to keep them still. it makes sense that richie would do that since he gets bullied, he's probably suppressing a lot of his natural stims which explains why they tend to be more understated "stealth" stims.) it's actually crazy honestly. some of it is stuff that paul does too (he's also quite autistic coded) which makes me think maybe jon himself is just on the spectrum somewhere lol. anyway i love richie!!!!!!

Paul is antisocial and gets uncomfortable viewing people perform.
Richie hyperfixates on anime and fidgets a lot.

No wonder we relate to Jon's characters.

the finger fiddling thing is something paul also does!!!

jon actually said in a live that he himself fiddles with his fingers aswell as Paul! and its a perfect touch to Richie's character aswell

the main npmd characters are all so autistic i love them they’re literally me and my friends

I think I subconsciously noticed him holding his arm but I never realized HOW MUCH he does it, love this comp

odd thing to say but seeing someone else fidgeting on stage is kind of a confidence boost for me, i always get told off for rubbing my fingers or holding my shirt when i’m on stage and i never know where to put my hands

okay but you didn't have the right to make me attracted to fucking Richie of all characters ffs. (Pete doesn't count, i was into him since like If I Loved You) HE'S JUST SO CUTEEE

HOWLING AS A VOCAL STIM YES YES YES

THE ENDING HELP
Richie: gets murdered
I don't think we'll ever have to worry about max ever again! 😁

YOU GET IT!!!! U UNDERSTAND!!!!!!!! hes so me i do all of these

I know a stimmer when I see one and that right there is a stimmer

I'm ngl for the longest time i just thought that was Jon mentally time-traveling back to his hs school self with how often Richie (and just taking from life experience in general i guess) and Paul stimmed

1:16 the way he sneaks always gets me, idk why it’s just rly funny

In one of the freeze frames he was still stimming 🙏

RICHIE CONTENT RICHIE CONTENT WEE WOO WEE WOO

Now their are 2 hatchet field characters played by Jon matenson that are autistic