Nick Walker on neuroessentialism in neuroqueer heresies: notes on the neurodiversity paradigm, autistic empowerment, and postnormal possibilities
Those who view neurodiversity through a neuroessentialist lens have an unfortunate tendency to compare and contrast neurotypicality with innate forms of neurodivergence like autism in a way that implicitly assumes autism and neurotypicality to be equally innate and equally intrinsic to a person's being. In the less well-informed discourses on neurodiversity that unfold on social media, for instance, one too often sees people speaking of "the neurotypical brain," as if neurotypicality were a biological destiny that unfolded inevitably from being born with a specific kind of brain.
On a strictly neurobiological level, there's not actually such a thing as a "normal brain" or a "neurotypical brain," any more than there's such a thing as a "male brain," a "heterosexual brain," or an "American brain." Neurotypical people aren't people who all share one distinct type of human brain, they're people whose compliance with prevailing cultural standards of neuronormative performance gains them the privileges that come with being considered "normal" within the dominant culture. Neurotypicality is more a social phenomenon than a biological one.
[...] some people have more innate capacity than others to adapt to the demands of neuronormative performance. But having that capacity isn't the same as being innately neurotypical. If we begin from the premise that neurotypicality is performative in the same sense that heteronormative gender roles are performative, then a newborn infant can't be legitimately considered neurotypical for the same reason a newborn infant can't be legitimately considered a straight cisgender female or a straight cisgender male: newborn infants are obviously not engaged in enacting acquired habits of performance.
Infants are adorable messy little bundles of possibility, and which possibilities become realized and embodied over time depends to a large extent on the nature of the actions that a given individual learns to perform. If the innate predispositions of a given infant are fundamentally incompatible with the demands of neuronormative performance, such that a life of comfortably and convincingly performing neuronormativity isn't within that infant's scope of future possibilities, then we can legitimately say that the infant is neurodivergent-i.e., it has already diverged from the path of neuronormativity, right at the outset.
The reverse, however, doesn't hold true. If the innate predispositions of a given infant are compatible with the demands of neuronormative performance, such that neurotypicality is within that infant's scope of future possibilities, that's not the same as the infant actually being neurotypical yet or being biologically destined for neurotypicality. To say that an infant is innately and "naturally" neurotypical just because it's capable of acclimating to a life of neuronormative performance makes no more sense than saying that the infant is innately and "naturally" a software engineer just because it would be possible to someday teach it to design software.
In other words, it's possible to be born neurodivergent but it's not possible to be born neurotypical.
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i’ve been stuck in season one au land for... well over two years at this point??? and i really thought i’d gotten all of the post-season 4 queliot fix-it fics out of my system in 2019 and 2020 but... lol. it’s 2023 and i’m working on the first chapter of a novel-length fix-it because i’ve had this idea eating my brain for months now and it refuses to let me go until i set it loose on the world like the terrible/wonderful hurt/comfort monster that it is so i guess it’s really true what they say...
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten & Andrew Minyard
Characters: Andrew Minyard, Neil Josten, Mentioned Aaron Minyard - Character, mentioned nicky hemmick, Mary Hatford, Brief Drake Spear, Other Various Foxes Mentioned
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Pre-Canon, brief Post-Canon, brief during canon, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Time Skips, warnings for andrew's past, One Shot, no beta we die like tilda minyard, Dialogue Light, andrew and neil are in denial for a bit, they get over it, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Soulmates
Summary:
Andrew Doe is freshly six years old when he wakes to the sight of his shadow leaving him for the first time. Andrew knows he should be more careful while racing through the house; he doesn’t know these new people after all, but he’s too excited to let a little thing like caution keep him from finally finding someone who loves him. Someone who wants him.
~
Nathaniel Wesninski is four years old the first time his shadow leaves him. He doesn’t notice, but his mother does. She makes a mental note to make sure that neither Nathaniel nor his father ever have the chance to follow Nathaniel’s shadow to his soulmate. One less thing for Nathan to hold over Nathaniel, and thus over Mary, the better.
~~
Twice a year, your shadow leads you towards your soulmate. For Andrew and Neil, this changes surprisingly little.
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New fic!!!
This year I want to challenge myself to write, finish and post at least one fic every month, starting with this one for January!
This fic is based off of a prompt from a book called 5-Minute Daily Writing Prompts by Tarn Wilson (I did not write this in five minutes, I just used the prompt). The prompt I used is:
"Prompt 1: Fantasy, Plot: A woman awakes in the early morning to see her shadow sneaking out the bedroom door. She follows. (Continue the story) The woman sees her shadow holding hands with another unattached shadow. What happens next?"
Go check it out and let me know what you think!
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BOOT TIIIIME
Closeup so you can see the scarring on the leather (kangaroos are wild animals they get fucked up out there boy)
A boy and her (favorite) boots.
Glamour Shots
And then just a cheeky little lineup while we're at it. (I've been putting those Thursdays through their paces)
They fit great. Lot of room in the toe to spread out but the heel locks me in like a Lego. I can't wait to wear them Out In The World.
🤗🍻🥾
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I HAVE DND DICE SOAP IN MY ETSY SHOP NOW!!!!!!!
I have bar soaps with full 7-piece sets of Dungeons and Dragons dice inside them in my shop!! Currently all of these are labeled as clearance and are discounted ($8 instead of $12) because these were my very first batch and have a few minor cosmetic issues like air bubbles and slight seam lines between layers since I was still figuring out how to set them in the molds with dice correctly. I've got the hang of making them without those issues now, but I want to make some bigger batches first before uploading them, so you get the discount version slightly sooner than those!!
You can buy em HERE or in the link at the very top of the post!! I'm really excited because I'm super happy with how my first batch turned out even if I had some ups and downs figuring out how to work with dice!! I hope you guys like em as much as I do!! Reblogs are super appreciated!!
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