#Representations of the Intellectual

[diaryofaphilosopher]

An intellectual is like a shipwrecked person who learns how to live in a certain sense with the land, not on it, not like Robinson Crusoe whose goal is to colonize his little island, but more like Marco Polo, whose sense of the marvelous never fails him, and who is always a traveler, a provisional guest, not a freeloader, conqueror, or raider.

— Edward W. Said, Representations of the Intellectual.

Follow Diary of a Philosopher for more quotes!

[philosophika]

Books of the Week

Representations of the Intellectual by Edward W. Said ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ You Dreamed of Empires by Álvaro Enrigue ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

*I only share 4 and 5-star books

[biracy]

[Text ID: Nothing in my view is more reprehensible than those habits of mind in the intellectual that induce avoidance, that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You do not want to appear too political; you are afraid of seeming controversial; you need the approval of a boss or an authority figure; you want to keep a reputation for being balanced, objective, moderate; your hope is to be asked back, to consult, to be on a board or prestigious committee, and so to remain within the responsible mainstream; someday you hope to get an honorary degree, a big prize, perhaps even an ambassadorship.

For an intellectual these habits are corrupting par excellence. If anything can denature, neutralize, and finally kill a passionate intellectual life it is the internalization of such habits.

End ID]

Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual

[octochamaeleon]

“Trans people have the most beautiful minds!”

-Avro Amethyst

[cripplecharacters]

Writing Profoundly Intellectually Disabled Characters

[Plain Text: Writing Profoundly Intellectually Disabled Characters]

While there is a glaring lack of intellectually disabled characters - except maybe big, physically strong, white men who can’t “tell right from wrong” or have a personality - in all sorts of media, specifically profoundly intellectually disabled characters are next to non-existent, with the existing ones being used more often as plot devices rather than portrayed as human beings.

This does make a degree (and not more) of sense considering that 85% of ID people have it mild, 10% moderate, 3.5% severe and only 1.5% has profound ID, the larger group inevitably gets more representation (which doesn’t make it good, but it does exist). However, it hopefully doesn’t need explaining that minorities deserve to be represented too (...and represented well), so this is what this post will be about.

Please don’t treat this as your only source on writing a character like this (even though I’m willing to bet it’s the only one like this, at least on tumblr), do your research and always check other sources.

Also, for clarity: intellectual disability isn't an umberalla term for "mental/brain disability". It's a specific, singular diagnosis that used to be known as "mental [r slur]". It's not the same as brain damage, autism, dementia, dyslexia, and anything else that's not specifically "intellectual disability". It's something that you are either born with or acquire early in life.

How do I Include Them in the Story?

[Plain Text: How do I include them in the story?]

A profoundly ID person will spend the majority of their time either at home or in some sort of care facility since they will require 24/7 help. The easiest role to put them in is probably a family member of another character. I've mentioned on this blog before that the "ID characters always end up as the annoying younger sibling" thing is overdone, but none of these necessarily have to be true for this suggestion to work (especially not the "annoying" part).

A non-ID character could have an intellectually disabled older sibling, twin, cousin, uncle/aunt, the sibling of a grandparent, etc. Seriously - a severely disabled person can be an adult, or even an elder. Just not as a parent, since a profoundly disabled person can't consent (a lot of ID people very much can, but this is the one disability where your level of functioning is baked into the exact diagnosis - profound ID comes with the inability to consent/understand the consequences enough to consent).

"They're a family member" is basically the easiest "excuse" to include a profoundly intellectually disabled in a story (and, as a bonus, you don't have to figure out how the other character would react to meeting them for the first time, since they probably knew each other for a long time already).

If your story isn't about the profoundly disabled character and instead just features them as a character, it would be much easier to not make the other character their primary caregiver. It's simply a ton of work and the character wouldn't have time for fighting dragons and whatnot - it'd be easier to have the abled character spend time with the disabled character at home (or care facility; you can very much visit someone in one) hanging out rather than actually doing the caregiving part.

Outside of a home and a care facility, there are also day care programs that some people might attend. This is the rarest solution out of the three mainly because of financial reasons, but also these resources aren’t as common for people who can’t walk, learn self-care, etc. Going to one takes time (the profoundly disabled person isn’t gonna walk there by themselves) and probably requires a specialized van (that you can bring a wheelchair in, which is incredibly expensive). Most day care programs are focused on people who are moderately or severely ID at most. One made for profoundly ID people would require 1:1 aides, which generally means the programs are much smaller for logistical reasons, but also even more expensive. For most people, too expensive without funding. Basically, this is an option, but you have to consider your character’s financial situation and/or what kind of financial support do disabled people get where they live.

Another way is having the disabled character in some sort of high position - in real life there were quite a few cases of profoundly and severely intellectually disabled royalty. Depending on the place and time there might have been pressure to not let the public see them, but this wasn't always the case. The biggest example of the latter was probably Emperor An of Jin (the first Jin, Eastern one) who was, as his title suggests, crowned at some point. He didn’t actually rule (his uncle did) but yes, you can have a severely disabled person as the head of a monarchy, it’s not without precedent.

In fiction you can do whatever you want anyway when it comes to ableism, you can have it be there, or you can have it not be there - and if it does exist then there are still different kinds of ableism you can portray that aren't the "literally killing-the-disabled-baby/hiding-them-in-some-dungeon level of eugenics" kind. Maybe a rich family who cares about their image would actually be unable to shut up about their kid to show how "saint-like" they are for caring for the disabled - it is unfortunately realistic, and can be a potential way to have the character exist in public, not ignore ableism, and also not go the aforementioned literally-just-murder route that writers usually do to show an ableist family.

Characterization

[Plain Text: Characterization]

Warning; the bar here is somewhere in the Earth's inner core. If your character has a single characteristic beyond aggressive/loud/unmanageable*, they're automatically at the top of most complex fictional representation of severely/profoundly ID characters. Congrats.

* - Some people are those things but, unsurprisingly, they're other things too. A lot of profoundly ID people can actually be completely quiet - you notice people who are loud because they're loud.

As with literally every character, you need to figure out what they like and not like. This can be quite literally anything, but try to think of the basic stuff. Do they have something they really enjoy eating (and conversely - something they refuse to eat)? Do they have some sort of comfort toy or object they don't want anyone touching (and maybe showing them playing with it with a different character could be a way to show how much they trust them)? In more modern settings, do they have a favorite show they always bug everyone to put on? Are they really clingy or do they hate physical contact (again, maybe they only enjoy it from a specific character)?

Another characterization could be comfort objects. A lot of profoundly ID people are autistic (which I'll touch on later) and will have an object that they bring everywhere the same way that non-ID autistic people might. There's nothing really specific here, just another layer of "this character is a Person". Maybe they have a blanket they really enjoy chewing because the texture feels good or some sort of plushie they like to throw around because it makes a sound they find funny. Lots of options. Maybe they have a personal “tell” to let others know they want their comfort object brought to them.

Keep in mind, you have to show this all in non-verbal manner. A profoundly ID person is probably not using any sort of AAC device (the most robust one I remember seeing right now was a low-tech one with "yes" and "no", but there are probably ones who operate on a larger amount of singular words). This is basically another opportunity for characterization - what do they do when they're happy - laugh, flap their arms, make sounds? - and when they're upset - scream, hit themselves, make different sounds? Obviously, you'd have to take other disabilities into account (e.g. many profoundly ID people won't move much, some might not be able to make much audible sound, etc.) but almost anything helps.

This brings us to…

Communication

[Plain Text: Communication]

An important thing (concept?) I'll throw here is "total communication", which can mean different things in different contexts, but here I'll use it to mean "using everything you can to communicate with someone who cannot do so in a ‘traditional’ way".

Communication can be categorized as having two sides; expressive and receptive. For most intellectually disabled people in general, receptive skills tend to be significantly higher than expressive ones, though there are specific disorders where it’s reversed or equal. As mentioned before, most profoundly ID people won’t speak orally, won’t use sign language, and won’t use AAC (though out of all three, AAC is the most likely one). Some might say single words, but that’s about it. It’s not a “physically mute but can write perfectly grammatically correct sentences” situation, it’s more of a “[single noun]” one, if anything. Receptive skills however are pretty decent (in comparison) and they would probably understand their name, the name/title of their carer(s), names of things they see every day, events they have some frame of reference to (e.g. if they grew up Christian, they would probably know what Christmas is), etc. Your other characters could (and should) talk to them like they can understand, even if they don’t catch everything or even most of it. I say a lot of “probably” there, but the people who can’t do so usually have other comorbidities, which I’ll mention later.

To go back to expressive communication, eye pointing can be used to figure out what the character wants. A change in breathing can be used to tell that a character got stressed. Throwing an object can be used as a hint that the character wants to play. Maybe them reaching towards person A means they want to eat, but reaching towards person B means they want them to sing a song for them. Maybe them making a particular face means they just had a seizure and need to be comforted. Whatever their "tells" like this might be, other characters who know them would probably be able to tell more-or-less what's going on - you don't have to go really in-depth, especially if it's a minor character, but figuring out the ways your character communicates with others will make it feel more like a person and not a Disabled Lamp (“if you can replace a disabled character with a lamp or a sick dog, they’re not a character”).

If you read some of these and go "that's a thing that a child would do" then you're not necessarily wrong. A profoundly ID adult might enjoy activities that primarily kids partake in. This is, I can't stress this enough, not the same as "mentally being a child". Otherwise, a whole bunch of adults on this very website would be "mental middle schoolers" based on the shows that they watch - but they're obviously not. A profoundly ID adult doesn't have the "mind of a baby" if their favorite game is throwing a toy, they have the mind of a profoundly intellectually disabled adult. Sometimes people assume that since ID people aren't mentally [incorrect age], they always "act their [actual] age" and essentially end up downplaying how much some people's ID affects them, when the point is that no matter what you do, you are your age. An ID character who is 26 years, incontinent, constantly puts their hand in their mouth, can't speak, whatever, is mentally 26 years old the same way that they would be if they had a wife and a mortgage.

For the last thing from this section I'll circle back to the assumption that all severely/profoundly ID people are loud, aggressive, etc. - as I said, some of them are (just like abled people). The thing is, this is not always an unreasonable response to being unable to communicate with the people who are caring for you. If you had a pressure sore but couldn't explain it to anyone you'd be pissed off and screaming too. That's an extreme example, but still applies. If someone is severely stressed out (for an abled person, this might be inheriting a ton of debt, for a profoundly ID person it can be a change in daily routine), they can lash out. It's an unpleasant but very much human reaction to have, even if what's behind the ID person's behavior is significantly different from what an average abled person might consider "a good reason".

So I guess my advice is, try to show some empathy to the character, even if they genuinely are loud and/or aggressive. Intellectually disabled people - including the profoundly disabled ones - aren't some alien species that is just mean and hates their caregivers for no reason, some just can't process their feelings the way an abled person might because of their disability. That's not to say that caregivers aren't allowed to feel frustrated - because they are - but that very severely disabled people aren't purposefully evil. As mentioned in the earlier parts, all behavior has a cause, just like for literally everyone. So if the character is being "unmanageable": maybe they aren't some cursed burden, maybe they're just stressed out of their mind and now someone they don't know that well is trying to do *something* to them, which they can't figure out because of their disability affecting their receptive language skills.

Resources and What to Keep in Mind

[Plain Text: Resources and What to Keep in Mind]

Some resources you might read about ID can be potentially misleading. Even if you specifically look for causes of the profound severity of intellectual disability, you will get results for mild ID. That's mainly because people with mild ID make up >85% of intellectually disabled people and those with profound ID make like 1%, so they're a minority in a minority.

Basically:

Down syndrome is a very unlikely cause. It's always listed as the main genetic cause of ID, but that's only true for mild and moderate severities. If you choose any of the common causes of ID make sure it actually has the symptoms you're looking for.

Most profoundly ID people will have either severe brain damage early in life (and this can come with cerebral palsy), cephalic disorders (e.g. microcephaly), genetic conditions that you've never heard of (e.g. Pallister-Killian or Emanuel syndromes, 3p deletion), genetic conditions that you've never heard of for a very understandable reason (e.g. X-linked intellectual disability-limb spasticity-retinal dystrophy-arginine vasopressin deficiency… there are hundreds named in this way), or just have it without a known cause. The last one happens much more often than people tend to assume.

For a reason I'll probably discover at some point, most disorders and syndromes that come with ID are said to have "autistic-like features" rather than being "comorbid with autism". In practice, it's the same thing. Your character is probably autistic.

In the same way, a lot of practical resources will assume that ID = moderate ID (since most mildly affected need no or minimal support, and severely/profoundly disabled ones are a small minority) so pay attention if you're looking at the right things. If it's talking about having a job, travelling alone, etc., then you got clickbaited.

Another subsection here will be comorbidities because there are a lot of them. I’ll mention the biggest ones.

Brain damage is the most common one (except autism) and can vary a lot. There is barely anything I can say about this one, it’s an enormous spectrum that for some people causes disability and for others barely affects their symptoms. Cerebral palsy, especially quadriplegic, is seen a lot and might affect the character’s mobility a lot. Some people might be unable to breathe or swallow and need a breathing or feeding tube.

Deafness and blindness are comorbid with a surprising amount of causes of ID. The thing is, you could take advice for deaf/blind characters as-in for a character that has both (e.g.) glaucoma and mild ID and not change much, but this doesn’t really work for a character who’s profoundly disabled like this. The situation that can happen here is that it’s not actually known if the person is or isn’t deaf or blind because they can’t tell you. As mentioned earlier, some people will have absent receptive communication skills. How do you verify if they’re deaf or just not reactive to language? Some people won’t react to even extremely loud sounds, even if they can hear them perfectly well (besides, a lot of deaf people can still hear some). Same for verifying if they are blind - obviously, sometimes there’s something visual going on, but often there isn’t. Especially since the main causes of both blindness and deafness will be brain-based, not ear- or eye-based. Another character not being sure if the disabled character is blind or just very uninterested in visual stimuli is a possibility, especially with less advanced medicine.  This is also why you might see those weird statistics of "between 5-90% of people with [condition] are deaf" kind.

Mobility is almost always severely affected. Some are fully mobile, but that’s simply not common. The average person will be unable to walk independently. It’s not always a muscle or nerve problem (though it absolutely can be), it’s mostly an issue of coordination. Because of this (and understanding physical space), operating a wheelchair (...successfully) might be impossible. This doesn’t mean you should just drop your character in a hospital wheelchair for them to get wheeled around because they will probably need a wheelchair that will actually support them - a headrest, ability to tilt, a harness, all that. This could be done with a powerchair (they can have controls on the back for a second person to operate), a manual wheelchair, or an adaptive stroller.

Now for resources;

One good resource I can recommend is SBSK (which I shared before), to my knowledge this is the only place that interviews severely and profoundly ID people (+their families) and the interviewer is great at actually interacting with many of them. 

Most resources on the practical things only ever talk about caregivers (who are very important) but completely ignore the actual person being cared for which IMO kinda defeats the point.

Good luck writing!

mod Sasza

[crunchycrystals]

pjo s2 has the opportunity to make such a good comment on ableism in gen z. like as someone who was in high school hearing the r slur or “sped” or “acoustic” used so casually in so many places, i would actually break down crying if they got matt sloan to call tyson like “sped” and then see annabeth absolutely wreck his shit. i’d cheer so hard. the heroes of this story are disabled, the point of the original series was to create neurodivergent representation for kids, and it feels so so so necessary.

[zebulontheplanet]

I’ve seen people get really upset with people over the fact that they have their diagnoses and issues in their pinned posts here on tumblr.

Their reasoning is usually that “no one has to know all that” or “you’re just setting yourself up for being trolled on” which to me, is just bullshit.

Yes, no one is inclined to know your medical history. If you’d like to keep it a secret and keep your medical history to yourself then go ahead! Go you for doing that. That is your preference for doing that and you’re amazing.

However, I start to have a problem when you blame the person for them being trolled on, or them having people harass them on the internet. No one deserves to have people call them names on the internet just for simply being open about their diagnoses and conditions. You are worth being talked about. You are worth sharing your experiences with your diagnoses.

Me, as a person with conditions that aren’t really talked about, like intellectual disability and higher support needs autism, it is VERY important to me that more people are aware about what people like me go through, and that more of OUR voices get out there. I love seeing people’s conditions and issues in their pinned posts because then I can relate to them! I can say “hey this person experiences similar things that I do. That’s awesome!” Representation is so so important and it isn’t bad.

If you don’t want to share about yourself then fine, but don’t be mean to someone who’s open about it. They aren’t asking for anything just for being open.

[rambles-of-mental-illness]

A flag for fragile X syndrome (requested/suggested) with assistance from @dragoncxv360. Information under cut

What is Fragile X Syndrome?

Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) is a genetic disorder that affects how the brain develops. It can make learning, talking, and socializing harder for some people. It's the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and happens because of a change (mutation) in the FMR1 gene on the X chromosome.

Why is it called Fragile X?

Under a microscope, the X chromosome in people with this condition looks "fragile" or broken, which is where the name comes from!

What does FXS do?

People with Fragile X might have: - Trouble learning (some have mild difficulties, others need more help) - Speech delays (talking later than other kids) - Anxiety & shyness (especially in social situations) - Sensory issues (loud sounds, bright lights, certain textures might feel overwhelming) - Hyperactivity or impulsiveness (kind of like ADHD) - Autism-like traits (repetitive behaviors, avoiding eye contact, social struggles)

What causes it?

A section of the FMR1 gene (which helps brain cells work properly) repeats too many times and turns off. This stops the body from making a protein called FMRP, which is important for brain development.

A parent can be a carrier (having a smaller mutation) and not show symptoms but still pass it on to their kids.

Is there a cure?

Nope, but there are ways to help! - Speech & behavioral therapy can improve communication. - Special education support helps with learning. - Medications can help with anxiety, hyperactivity, or mood regulation.

How do you know if someone has it?

Doctors can do a genetic test to check for the Fragile X mutation.

Fragile X Syndrome is a neurodivergent disability.

[bybdolan]

honestly what makes gaylorism as a lens through which one analyzes her work so compelling is that it views taylor's lyrics as deeply intertextual in a way that for once transcends her own body of work. i think a lot of analysis of taylor's lyrics revolves around HER as a person and her life and her previous output, whereas gaylors will look at a performance outfit or a lyric and link it back to some niche queer artwork from the 1970s. and it's honestly super cool and expands the taylor swift canon in a very interesting way

[diaryofaphilosopher]

The intellectual is an individual endowed with a faculty for representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for, a public. And this role has an edge to it, and cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.

— Edward W. Said, Representations of the Intellectual.

Follow Diary of a Philosopher for more quotes!

[hans-garden]

there is a deeply pervasive tendency to classify movies about intellectual disability as being about autism instead to the point that even academic papers get it wrong. like at some point it has turned into flat-out erasure of intellectual disability in cinema.

[niggadiffusion]

The Crowned King

He sits still—center of the storm,

a throne not of gold, but of pages turned,

of lessons burned into marrow,

of stories inked in midnight and marrow-deep hues.

Royal blue drapes his shoulders, heavy as history,

deep red pools beneath him—

not spilled, but poured, ancestral offerings

of wisdom and war, of love and loss.

The crown ain't just metal,

it's the weight of knowing—

of walking through fire and coming out forged,

of bending but never breaking,

of holding the world in calloused hands

and still finding grace in the grip.

Each book stacked beneath him a stone in his temple,

each word a brick laid by those who came before—

the griots, the rebels, the poets, the kings

who never needed a throne to prove their rule.

Gold glints in the flicker of candlelight,

his gaze distant but present—

seeing forward, seeing back,

seeing himself in the echoes.

They call him a king, but he just calls it survival.

They call it a crown, but he knows it’s a torch.

And so he sits—black ink on bound pages,

writing his own name into legend.

[sandboxworld]

Julianne Moore’s ‘Freckleface Strawberry’ Banned by the Department of Defense

I am stunned. The idea of banning books at any level is something I cannot support—period. But when it comes to children’s books? The very thought is outrageous and deeply troubling. It feels as though we are teetering on the edge of a dystopian reality, eerily reminiscent of the world depicted in Ray Bradbury’s classic novel Fahrenheit 451, where books are outlawed and knowledge is…

[cripplecharacters]

Howdy! I’m working on a story with a side character who has mild to moderate intellectual disability from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

The character really likes dinosaurs and I was considering having the character buy presents for his family members all with dinosaurs because that’s what makes him happy. But I was wondering if this would perpetuate harmful stereotypes? Any insight wanted thank you!

I was also wondering about writing his speech and how his family talk to him. I’m assuming they use simplified language? But I’m not sure what that looks like in general conversation.

Hey!

If it's not presented as child-like or "stupid" by the narrative, I have no problem with it - seems realistic to me. I know a person from who attended SPED with me who did basically the same thing (except not dinosaurs specifically and with more or less everyone rather than just family members). I also appreciate an intellectually disabled character that's shown to have some deeper characterization to them, so that's cool to see.

Speech/language/verbality is a more complicated thing. It's a really broad spectrum in the context of intellectual disability. Some people will have it essentially unaffected - either because their ID is mild, or they have a specific disorder, like Williams Syndrome, where language doesn't tend to be affected much - and some have it be very obvious. To my understanding FASD doesn't specifically affect language abilities more than 'regular' intellectual disability.

If your character has mild ID, there's a chance his linguistic skills won't affect the dialogue 90% of the time. You can have him ask another character for clarification on what they said, for example, or ask them to reword a run-on sentence because he got lost 2 clauses ago. He might have poorer intuition when it comes to pronouncing an ambiguous word for the first time (for example, not noticing the pattern that the word is built on and breaking the syllables up incorrectly). He could have a particular tone of voice (most commonly: monotone) that you could mention in the dialogue tags. But things like incorrect basic grammar or misunderstanding everyday words are not a feature of mild ID (on its own at least).

Many people with mild ID aren't "obviously ID" to most people, and that includes speech. Others can often tell something is different, but in my experience it's often chalked up to autism, [insert a random developmental condition that person happens to know], or even poor hearing (some people might talk very loudly, which is what HoH/deaf people are often stereotyped as) since the average person seems to assume that a person with intellectual disability wouldn't be able to talk at all, or they don't even consider the possibility that a person with ID could exist near them (as opposed to being in an institution).

As for how people talk to him, that's a completely separate thing. You could have a situation where a mildly ID character knows someone and they have completely normal dialogue, but then the other character learns about the other's ID, and they suddenly turn to babytalk. Is this appropriate; no, the disabled character could clearly hold the conversation previously, is this realistic; absolutely.

However, yes, your character could need other people to alter how they speak to him, especially if his ID is more severe than just mild (and as always: it's not infantilization to have your needs met). Here you have some of the most common and realistic options of what happens (I'll use much simpler sentence examples than what would actually need to be simplified for the sake of clarity):

The bare minimum. This is what happens when someone is kinda trying, but not really. Maybe they don't have the patience, maybe they just didn't think about it too much. Either way, the disabled character doesn't get the full picture and is effectively left out of the conversation. E.g.: "Oh, yesterday Zainab and I went to the club and met up with her boyfriend and his annoying older brother, we wanted to grab some drinks there, but they were just so overpriced." = "I went out yesterday."

The "don't worry about it :)". Pretty much what it says. The other character decides that the disabled character doesn't actually need to hear that; they decide that it's irrelevant for them. E.g.: "Ever since her rent increased my mother has been doing nothing but worrying sick, and she won't even let me help her out." = "Don't worry about it."

The actual simplified version. The gold standard of simplifying something is actually making the person understand what you are talking about without leaving out information, or leaving out as little as possible. Depending on the actual text, it might not always be possible (you can only get so far in simplifying scientific subjects, for example), but in terms of regular conversation you can probably accurately simplify the vast majority of things being said. An example I like to use is English Wikipedia vs Simple English Wikipedia, some of the main features are shorter sentences, more commonly used words (when appropriate), and they use fewer pronouns in favor of repeating nouns. It's not perfect, but I think it illustrates what I mean by "simplification vs baby talk".

To figure out how his family speaks to him, you need to think about who they are as people and what's their relationship to him. An impatient person might just wave their hand and keep talking even if the character asks for clarification, while someone else might automatically switch how they speak when he enters the room to make him feel included. It's also a great way to show-don't-tell what the family dynamics are towards the disabled character.

Some of the posts about ID and language speech: 1, 2.

Hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[papenathys]

One of the things I find particularly interesting about the rise of cozy or "queernorm" fantasy books in the past couple of years is when authors want to specifically focus on one kind of oppression, while eradicating the rest from their fantasy universe.

This is NOT referring to some authors who don't want to overstep with alternate histories or queer stories. For example, I don't mind that Andrew Joseph White mainly portrayed the lives of white transmasculine folks in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, a horror fantasy novel which is set in Victorian England, without his mentioning the plight of people of color, especially colonized subjects, probably living through the same harrowing cult-like medical experimentation and loss of bodily autonomy as the central white British characters did (and probably worse, because of race, colonisation and class differences). That is actually okay with me, because that is not his story to tell. This is not so much erasure, as discretion about choosing what you can write about, with tact and responsibility.

However, as for the Bridgerton-style rise of alternate fantasy or "diverse" historical romances, I notice that I often come across books where people use neopronouns and everyone is ok with gay marriage, and racism is also eradicated from the world (not just legally, but socio-culturally) but like.....upper class cis women are still somehow the most oppressed faction of all, and are getting bartered into arranged marriages with dukes and nobles.

And this bothers me to some degree, because it seems to contradict how the structures of oppression are interlinked, and how these structures depend on each other to keep functioning stably.

Take for example, marriage and capitalism. Like, you're telling me in your queernorm universe, people are okay with same-sex relationships and marriage. This implies, at least on a very simplified level, that society has overcome its prejudices (or never had any, to begin with) against

a) romantic relationships that do not replicate heteronormativity, or domestic structures.

b) alliances with high chances of non-traditional family structures, in terms of procreation, kinship and offspring. in simpler terms, more possibility of living together (not marriage), or alternately, child-free marriage, poly relationships, commune systems etc.

c) individuals with non-normative marginalized genders.

This would ideally imply that there is no need for women's bodies to be used as capital, and they are no longer dehumanized, used as material goods (in their roles as wives and mothers, in terms of labor and sexual service) and that society is chill with any type of union, even outside of institutionally sanctioned marriages.

However, instead, for necessary conflict, there is *still* intense and often violent social pressures upon women to get married and reproduce in these queernorm books. Why. Like let's just take a moment. Why. If the heteropatriarchy has been dismantled, or at least isn't so rigorously adhered to as in the real world, why is there one isolated axis of oppression that persists in this case (by isolated, I don't mean for individuals, I mean only applicable to one marginalized group)?

I feel like I'm not doing a great job explaining this, but you guys know what I mean right?

Note: I also know that historically upper class women were cordoned off from participating in labor, and often their duties were relegated to childbirth and upholding traditional marriage, while lower-class/caste women were expected to be the bread earners and participate in labor with the male members of their family. But again, let us consider the context of this diverse society and see how that system holds up. Why? Is the functionality of this queernorm society still contingent to the rules of capitalism?

[cryptosexologist]

ran out of tags while rambling about steven universe so it just kinda ends mid-thought. ughhhhh