@marionline
Tl; dr: There is a fictional clan of vampires that I believe represent neurodiversity.

In the #ttrpg Vampire: The Masquerade, vampires are divided into clans, each with its own traits, powers, weakness, and culture. For example, the Brujah clan are known as rebels, and are great fighters, while the Ventrue clan are mostly politicians and business leaders, and are masters at manipulating people.

One clan is called Malkavian, and the only thing that they all have in common is that they are all insane, suffering from any kind of mental illness. Other than that, they are all different, in appearance, outlook, goals, etc. Because of this, they are generally distrusted, because you can't as easily stereotype them like you can the other clans. Also, many find Malkavians hard to understand, and even when they feel that they do, they likely don't in reality.

One thing that some Malkavians are known for is a certain, uncanny insight. In ancient times they were sometimes regarded as oracles or mad prophets. Even today a select few are trusted enough as advisors. They just seem to see things and know things that others don't, but just as often they see things that aren't there, or 'know' things that aren't true. The trouble is figuring out which is which in each case. Most of the time they are just discounted, ignored, or even ridiculed.

But a lot of the writing about Malkavians makes me think that they were never intended to be representatives of mental illness, but instead of neurodiversity, that the writers of the time simply didn't have the language to express that. They also may have been content to use the issue of mental illness as a metaphor, because of how often neurodiverse people get labeled as such, and are thus ignored, discounted, even abused.

Every vampire clan in the game has a "curse" that they can never be rid of. The Brujah for example are cursed to be easily enraged, representing their continued frustration over abuses of the system. The Ventrue are cursed to only be able to drink the blood of a particular type of person (e.g. virgins), because of how refined their tastes are due to a culture of entitlement. Likewise, the Malkavian "curse" of insanity can never be cured. But is this not a metaphor for how some types of neurodiversity such as autism also cannot be "cured", because they are inherent, just a different way of being? There are some Malkavians who believe that their insanity isn't even a curse at all, but instead their strength. Some others believe that it is merely another way of being, that everyone is "insane" just in different ways. (One book lists a couple dozen different such 'outlooks' that a Malkavian can have, ranging from detailed cosmologies to simply "BLEH!")

I was a fan of this clan from the moment I first heard them described to me. I always thought that it was because they represented a chance to play silly or really strange characters. Yet I always felt a strong identification with them, as have other people that I've known. And this identification mysteriously produced an inclusive kind of camaraderie among us that I have similarly found among my fellow neurodivergents. So the more I think about it, and the more I learn about neurodiversity, the more convinced I become that Malkavians are representatives of neurodiversity; our diversity, our difference from typical society, and our struggles, social, mental and emotional. There is a lot written about them that supports this, but I think that this introduction to the idea is long enough now.

As one Malkavian said, "Remember: 'curse' is 'cures' spelled sideways!"

#vtm #malkavian #NeuroDiversity #ActuallyAutistic