So I’m sure I’m not the first person to take notice of the fact that so many of the brothers have disabilities or mental illnesses/neurodivergencies. I love the representation. I love these books so much. But there seems to be a line. Because you can certainly tell that these disabilities were written by someone who does not have first hand experience with them and may not even have spoken to someone who has that disability. A couple posts ago I mentioned I am on The Chosen and in it Xcor’s cleft lip plays are HUGE role in how he was treated and thrown away as a child and how he continues to see himself as an adult. And just the way it is described I actually asked a friend of mine who had a cleft lip and pallet to take a look over the passages to get her thoughts. She had said that you could certainly tell that the person who was writing the books didn’t have direct personal experience and using the cleft lip as a horror trope is such a stereotype of the disabled community (and realizing that they call Xcor a monster primarily for his actions but also for his looks) just FEELS wrong. Again don’t misunderstand me I genuinely love this series and plan to continue reading it I just think we should be able to discuss problematic things in the media we enjoy 😅