popular fiction

Happy Valentine's Day!

I have a pathetic affection for this holiday. Sure, it's a grossly problematic event dedicated to perpetuating the cultural ideal of heterosexual monogamy via capitalistic consumption. But—thanks to social conditioning too relentless and insidious for me to resist—I'm actually a sucker for the popular idea of romantic love. As sheepish as I am to admit it, a holiday dedicated to the idea of "love" (minus the focus on material consumption) is actually okay by me. And of course there is an infinite variety of different kinds of love and relationships to celebrate today: altruistic love for one's fellow human beings, kinship relationships, friendships, platonic romance, self-love, et cetera.

In this case, I'm going to invoke the ideas I brought up in a previous post about "finding autism" in popular fiction, and dedicate a little Valentine's love to a few fictional ladies who might be on the spectrum.