#I'd like to add on the majority of people I've had this issue with is cis men that do have at least one kind of marginalisation

[roseredsnow]

Rant.

I don't get Harry Potter fans in general like, you know she's a massive bigot but continue to support her?

That's not the point of this, what pisses me off more than that is their entitlement.

I've posted several times on my cosplay Instagram "If you're making HP content, or promoting it break mutuals with me" and the amount of them that I know have seen it and have just ignored it.

Like no it applies to you too, I don't care if we've roomed together and cosplayed together for a con before. You're planning a slytherin cosplay in a group where you'll be buying new official merch in 2024? Grow up.

I unfollowed him a couple months ago when it was posted about she he followed me just before Christmas and has just now sent a message about a cosplsy I'm doing. No I don't want to talk to you, you talk about human rights but then promote the UK's best known transphobe.

Another guy I messaged before breaking mutuals because he lives local and our cons are small.

I end up blocking him because he kept sending messages when I said I was done.

Then he sent his sister saying "He's just really upset you guys aren't friends anymore, it's unfair" we'd spoke three times in the sane number of years? He doesn't mean shit to me.

Another guy bought hogwarts legacy, posted it on his story and then immediately followed with "I know people she's bad but it's my special interest" (Had literally not mentioned it at any other point that year and trust me he talks a lot).

After I called him out he removed that part defending himself.

If you're gonna have your transphobic, racist, antisemetic media at least own up to it.

[thesovereignsring-if]

Major Update: To move forward is to take a step back.

Hello everyone, it's been a while. I hope you're all doing well. I'd ask that you read this to the end because some major changes will be in the upcoming update.

TLDR: You will need to start a new save file for new update (this weekend) otherwise there will be very noticable issues down the line.

I can't recall the last time I made a post or an update like this and frankly i'm scared to check . I've been struggling with writers block with the end of Chapter 1 and my small bouts of depression did not help one bit, so I had to take a step back and re-examine the narrative. If you ask me what the problem was, i'd say that perhaps I rushed too quickly into the main story, when I needed a little more foundation to stand on. After a few months of deliberation, a solution has been found. And I think everyone will like it. There will be no major rewrite of any sort, I think I would cry if that were the case.

Instead we going going to have a second prologue. This means that Chapter 1 will be inaccessible until the second prologue is complete. I'm very sorry that things have to be this way, but I do no see any other option for the story to continue forward in a satisfying way.

The second prologue will take place a few months after the first prologue during the Grand Festival of Eostre. This will be the first year you'll celebrate without your mother, at the very least you will have your friends and family with you at the time.

What to expect in the first half of Prologue 2:

Up to 13k words of new content.

Spend some time with your family.

Looooreeee & tea.

Meet Lior the Grand Cardinal of the Church of Eostre. The leading religion in Nibelheim.

Choose how to spend your free time at the festival in 2/4 possible routes. Route A: Alberich & Finny, Route B: Sieghardt & Thea.

(The last two routes will be added in the next update: Route C: Lynnette, Erik & Daria/Darius, and Route D: The Empress, King Lugh & Duchess Neaera)

Erik has a younger bastard half-sibling named Daria(f)/Darius(m). ( I will address them as Dara for short.) The final romantic interest, gender selectable. Even if you do not choose Route C, you will meet them later on in the second half of the update.

Fixes + Updates:

Character Creation has been updated and streamlined. (Gender/Pronouns and Sex are separate categories for both adult and child character creations. Attributes chosen during Child Character Creation will be stored as different variables in the event I choose to do anymore flashbacks later on in the story.)

Please note, that choosing after your sex (as an adult) I will assume your character will have the corresponding equipment down there.

Music Credits have been updated.

Minor adjustments to the colour of the UI, if people have any sort of colour theme they wish to see, I'll be more than happy to add them.

That is all for now. I hope the year has been kind to everyone so far. I haven't gone through my inbox yet, but I've seen glimpse of people's support it goes a long way. I sincerely do no think I'd come back if it weren't for the fact that I'd feel like I'd let everyone down. I will be making a patreon post after the first update goes live to talk about the new update and exclusives later.

Thank you for reading and enjoying TSR over the past year. It's means a lot to me and let's hope things will be better moving forward.

See you <3

Lili

[deadbeat-motel]

ᑕᕼEᖇᖇIᗷOᗰᗷ ᗩᑎᗪ ᔕIᖇᑭEᑎTIOᑌᔕ ᖇEᗪEᔕIGᑎ

The last two designs for the main cast. With these two done, I can finally work on miscellaneous characters that I've been eyeing the most.

Again, thoughts below the cut:

My issues with their Original designs:

Sir Pentious:

I thought I would only have one thing to say about him (the unnecessary eyes) since he was my favorite in the entire original cast but having taken a closer look at him for this, I saw a lot of things that bothers me.

Too many eyes. specifically the lower half of his body has too many eyes and it seems detrimental to him. It's kind of painful to think about it since I do not think we ever see those eyes close. Is he just slithering on the ground with those exposed eyes? That's got to be irritating at best and damaged at worst as he continuously slithers on them.

There are eyes on the bowtie and the hat? There are already 4 extra eyes on his hood, so why have even more? I get that the original Pentious design was basically a monsterous amalgamation of eyes but the eye thing could have been scrapped altogether.

While his palette was the least red out of the cast (More so composed of yellows), it still blends in with the rest of the reds.

The claws are an unnecessary repeating design trait (Alastor and Vox notably have them too). I don't think it would've been too big of a difference to just keep his fingers fully black.

The stripes on his suit are too thick. It's called pinstripes for a reason.

I don't like how the hat is shaped to fit the head, It's awkward.

not a point, but I just wanted to say how the blue color palette works really well with him in that last episode.

CherriBomb:

She's not that bad of a design (She's sort of bland in my opinion) but it's the little small details about her that makes her so simple and also so complicated at the same time. There are so many batches of freckles scattered everywhere, little explosion lines on her skirt as well as the X on her chest, the tattoos are a jamble of random loops and bombs, and her tattering doesn't have an easy shape to consistently draw.

The thought process for these two:

Mx. Pentious:

Pentious goes by both Sir/Miss/Mx. but uses she/they pronouns.

Minimized the actual amount of eyes on her, I kept it only to her actual eyes and those on her hood.

Gave her a butterfly-shaped hood. It's nothing deep since it stems from the fact the notches in Sir Pentious' hood almost looked like one to my bad eyesight. I decided to play more into that idea.

I read some posts where people talk about how Sir Pentious should have a snout and while I understand why and fully support people giving him one, I really didn't want to add the snout to this design. It drove me crazy since I'm not a big fan of it. I tried a compromise where her head was shaped more like Phineas.

Kept the tophat but removed its eye and mouth. If I remember correctly, Viv took that from one of her co-workers from the pilot. I decided to just have it as a regular tophat.

It doesn't have all the colors, but her design does have the Neptunic flag.

I'm not sure if this even is a real snake but I based Mx. Pentious' design on this:

CherriBomb:

Scraped most of her features in exchange for a sukeban theme. I personally have zero knowledge about the punk scene in Australia.

A majority of the suggestions I received for her rough draft had something to do with the skirt. I elongated it and gave it a slit in which the magenta from the inside is able to pop out.

Thought it would be a cute detail to have her hair explode if she's angry.

----

Apologies this took too long to be posted, Life got in the way as well as the fact I was feeling shitty about Pentious' first draft. Her skin was an awkward and ugly shade of green and seeing some posts critical of Pentious' design got me to think a little bit more about what direction I'd like to move her redesign.

You could see this in the earlier rough sketches but this was how Pentious' first redesign looked like

[olderthannetfic]

A fandom friend is convinced there's something wrong with me and I must have self-worth issues because normal people with healthy self-esteem and self-image wrote OCs as a kid that were self-inserts. I didn't, I wrote characters who were basically whatever I thought was cool at the time (which changed a lot over the years) and into something weird to add flavor to them. So instead of my Arab, ADHD AFAB self writing Arab ADHD AFAB OCs who shared my interests, I'd have a white autistic guy whose special interest was geology and who also loved basketball (I hate sports), or a black agender kid who had some symptoms of schizoaffective disorder, was really into art and art history and loved sweets. One character would be cool like my dad, always witty and ready to say a cool one liner, and another would be cool like my mom, calm, controlled and never responding to haters. None of them share much in common with me. And my friend is convinced this is a mental health red flag, because normal people and even abnormal people always write OCs who are like themselves, idealized versions of themselves, or otherwise are some degree of self-insert.

The more I think about it, the weirder I feel for not doing this. It feels like I didn't do fandom correctly, but also, maybe she's right? Maybe there is something wrong with not putting myself into my narratives. Why wouldn't I put myself in my fics if I liked myself? It's really unsettling to think about but I think I've realized she might have a point.

Then I thought of you. You've been in fandom way longer than either of us (we're both teenagers, for context) and you know a lot about fandom and psychology. So I figured if anyone could tell me what this says about me, it'd be you. What does it mean if you never wrote any OCs with self-insertion components and just kind of wrote random things instead? Does it mean anything bad?

--

Your friend is a moron.

'Fantasies about self' vs. 'no fantasies about self' is a major division among people. It's not just a page on the asexuality wiki about sex fantasies but an entire axis of interest. Hang around slash/BL fandom in particular and you will find a metric fuckton of people who never self-inserted.

Self inserts make my skin crawl.

It is a feeling of visceral disgust that was always there. How can anyone like that? Don't ask me to. Don't tell me about it. Ew, ew, ew, ew. It's like a mild form of dysphoria it's that bad sometimes.

Tell your friend to stop using Wattpad as the litmus test for normalcy.

Some of us were always more AO3.

[wishful-thinking64]

Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss Rewrite Ideas #02

Hello! Hello! I've come to bring rewrite ideas for both shows once again! People seemed to like the first one and I like coming up with story ideas with and for practically everyone so here are seven more rewrite ideas for Hazbin Hotel & Helluva Boss! ______

#01.) Have Alastor's magic sigils be radio symbols over Vodou symbols as it not only makes way more sense with Alastor being the Radio Demon but to not play into a harmful stereotype about a real life religion.

#02.) On the topic of religion, don't be afraid to add a few more religious figures from the Bible or the Torah! As long as you're being mindful about the material you're pulling from, I really don't see this as much of an issue. People make their own spin on angels, demons, Jesus, and God all the time! But for once, this is where Viv gets cold feet even though she already has Adam & Eve there but not their two main children? Or the reason behind why their parents and everything else exists?? Seriously Viv??? #03.) In any case, if you do add the first two siblings then I suggest having Cain possibly work at the Hotel as some kind of repentance considering he's both the first real Sinner and for the fact that he feels guilt over killing his little brother. #04.) Alright, now for some ideas for Helluva Boss! I feel like we've all grown tired of seeing the, "Two people arranged in a loveless marriage," trope with how often it's been appearing and HB is no stranger to this trope and tries to use it as a way to rectify Stolas' affair with Blitzo.

I mentioned this in my third One Hell of an Unpopular Opinion series but if you want to stick loosely to HB's canon then you'd probably be better off with making Stella a surrogate mother as we still haven't seen her interact with Octavia and there was no real point in having Stolas marry Stella if all he needed to do was secure an heir. Besides I'm pretty sure that's what Paimon did in order to get Stolas as we see no signs that he had a mom growing up with how he was raised by a butler. On the contrary, should you wish to keep Stella as Stolas' wife, I'd recommend going the path not taken. By which I mean, have Stella and Stolas marry because, at one point, they did genuinely love each other but over the years that love dwindled and eventually faded out. Even though they'd be better off parting ways they choose to stay together as Great Horned Owls (the owl that the actual Stolas from the actual Ars Goetia seems to be based off of) and Snow Geese (I refuse to believe she's a swan especially since her brother has ice powers and lives in an ice castle) typically mate for life. From here, I'd have Octavia not be born out of the "necessity" of an heir but rather as a last ditch effort to see if their relationship can be rekindled as many couples in real life think that having a child or children will "fix" their relationship. #05.) Sorry for getting somewhat depressing with that last bit. To make up for it, write a fun chapter about I.M.P. having fun by rewriting Episode #05 of Season #01, The Harvest Moon Festival! A lot of people like The Harvest Moon Festival as it is though the majority agrees that it should've been a Millie centric episode. So have her be the reason they go to the Harvest Moon Festival over Stolas, show her competing in the Pain Games, and have her stand up for her husband due to having enough of her family constantly shit talking him. Overall, have Millie excel at being the bad ass girlboss that HB makes her out to be! #06.) Give Octavia some type of found family or friend group. Have her attend a prestigious private school (I doubt Stella will have her daughter attend a regular public high school) and have her become friends with the school's outcasts. The reason this group could be outcasts is because they actually earned their right to be there by getting good grades while most of the students are probably the offspring of Hell's high ranking officials. But seriously, this girl needs (and deserves) a support system STAT! #07.) Properly explain what it takes to get a soul into Heaven. I don't care if you explain this via The Ten Commandments, trusting that Jesus died for humanity's sins, or by using another set of rules from a different religion that isn't Christianity just be certain that your explanation is clear and concise and makes sense for what you have already pre-established for your rewrite. Don't do what the HH series did by saying, "Yeah, we don't know," because that is genuinely how you lose an audience. You can't have the ENTIRE premise of the show being about wanting Sinners to get into Heaven when HEAVEN doesn't even know what gets a soul there in the first place! ______ Well, those are all of the ideas I've got for now! See ya guys!

[allamericansbitch]

an update ♥️

as some of you may have noticed, I deactivated my inbox a few weeks ago. I had been thinking about doing it for some time but getting this constructive and respectful message showed me that what I was already feeling was affecting other people in the same ways it was affecting me. As I touched on in my response to that message, I didn't like how my own blog was making me feel. I knew that if Taylor did anything, I would get 50+ messages about it and I felt a responsibility to answer every single one to make people feel heard, many of you have been so sweet in letting me know that this blog helped you through something and was a safe space to vent, I never wanted to betray that. But with answering every message comes extensive amounts of repetition and turning a small side note into a major talking point. answering all the messages would make innocent personal complaints look like huge issues when it was never that serious.

One of my lapses in judgment was forgetting that this is a public platform, I know that sounds stupid but answering your messages felt like discussing and shit-talking at a sleepover and I forgot that, instead, it was actually basically out in public into a megaphone for everyone to hear and deal with. That mistake on my part is what inevitably led me to finally close my inbox because, while I myself was dealing with feeling drained and tired of discussing the same topics, I didn't realize that the weight of negativity was spreading to others as well.

Having my inbox closed for a couple weeks was incredibly refreshing for me. Then of course that moment of peace could only last so long lol, 6 different blogs seemed to vocalize their issues with me (some subtly, some not) within a couple of hours so I decided to take a brief hiatus.

Now that I am back, I wanna talk about the changes I'm making to this blog moving forward. I will not be responding to every message I get. Of course this is still a place for y'all to vent and I will be complaining about certain things (once a hater always a hater <3) but the volume at which those things occur will be lesser. Once I've said what I need to say I won't continue to speak on it, and I'll ignore asks that don't add anything to the conversation and just be more selective. I would like to move past constantly talking about Taylor (specifically the details of her personal life/people caring way too much about it), I know it'll be inevitable sometimes but I don't want my blog to erupt with messages every time she does something, like we're holding an emergency press conference about people being weird online. It's just draining and I need to keep it contained because that dam could break very easily. So please don't come to my inbox to just to have me comment on everything, I'd appreciate it.

If you read all of this, ily thank you for taking the time to do so. 🥰

[hainethehero]

People keep saying Ryan changed and learned but he shared a video using a racist term and stereotype for a Haitian religion not that long ago, shared posts from a transphobic account, not to mention all the transphobic, homophobic, racist and generally far right accounts he follows. And he never apologized for the antisemitism or anti-vax things he shared. I think he said some empty words about asking questions which is in itself a bit of a dog whistle. That's not even touching on the casting couch sexual coercion joke that Ryan and Oliver and Kenny made and probably only deleted because somebody pointed out attaching Peter's name to it was a bad idea.

If the majority of buddie stans & toxic bucktommy stans ACTUALLY gave a fck about these issues, they'd be talking about them all the time. Posting links, donating to marginalized communities, etc.

My whole point is that they're only using these issues now, as a means of justifying their hatred of a character from the show because they only want Buck to be with Eddie.

I'd also like to add, if it's the post he shared with the (voudon) tommy & gerrard dolls, yall HAVE TO BE INSANE to be mad at that. The religion is known by many names including voudon, voodoo, obeah etc., although obeah is more associated with Trinidad and voudon with Haiti.

Were the posts he shared transphobic? Or is it likely that he didn't know the accounts were transphobic & just shared a meme/story from them? Y'all act like people are chronically online and know everything about everyone they follow on socmed.

I saw the anti-vax post so that bit is substantiated. He was clearly wrong for that. The anti-vaxx post he shared also compared vaccinations and wearing masks to Nazi Germany which is insensitive and historically incorrect, even inflammatory, but it is not antisemitic. It's an out of pocket comparison, sure. But it certainly isn't antisem. Antisem would be if Ryan posted that he was prejudiced towards Arab, Jewish or Christian people. Thus far, I've not seen him post anything like that.

Also, if people have a problem with the casting couch skit, why is Ryan being the main one persecuted for it, as if Oliver and Kenny weren't a part of it? I know you mentioned them as well, but your ask is clearly mostly focused on what Ryan's done.

And furthermore, Ryan has also been the ONLY ONE to post about the Palestinian genocide, while the rest of the cast has not said a word about it. So, dislike/boycott/protest him as a person sure, but its possible to also recognize what he's done, especially when no one else has had the guts to even share a link, speak out against or donate to Palestinian families.

Furthermore, y'all like to conflate issues and warp them into a whole thing, when it's actually nothing at all. I remember Oliver having to delete X because people were attacking him for queerbaiting. And all of that was on the buddie stans. Y'all have made fandom absolutely joyless and unimaginative because y'all expect your preferred ships to be canon, and go absolutely berserk when they don't. It's annoying and embarrassing.

[graciehart]

hi there!! sorry if this is weird but wanted to get your opinion on something!! believe it or not I've never watched the final season of castle and I know a lot of people say it's a bad season but I finished my season 7 rewatch and I'm wondering whether or not to give s8 a chance lol like is it so annoyingly bad I should just skip it forever or are there still moments that make it worthy of my time? thank you ☺️

hi!! not weird at all, I love that you asked me haha 😊 I also hope you don't mind me publishing this in case anyone has anything they want to add!

the short version of my answer is that yes, I personally think it's worth watching at least once! That said, I am well aware that there are things I might have forgotten about it since I've only seen it once. I'll put my reasoning/other considerations below the cut. Hope this helps!

————————————————————— 💭

Yes is my short answer, but I wanted to say why because there's a lot that goes into it for me (I take this way too seriously 😂)

First, I very generally believe that everything is worth watching at least once. That's just how I usually consume media. I also do my best to always watch things before I give any sort of opinion—for example, there are some things I have an idea about (including Castle season 8), but I felt it was important I personally watch it if I wanted to meaningfully converse about it.

Second, I think there are some moments I do love in season 8! I also know there was at least one episode that I did want to rewatch once seeing it. I'd say if you go into it open-minded (but with reasonable expectations, since it does have its issues), then you might be pleasantly surprised by parts of it 😊

That said, I'd ask what your reasons were for not watching it to begin with (as well as how you feel about season 7, because I feel like that can also be helpful for deciding if you want to watch 8). Because I will say that for me, season 8 was a hard watch since I have an idea of what was going on during that time w/ the cast (and I wasn't even watching the show live!). I also had some major problems with the storyline. Now, I kind of view season 8 as a bonus (meaning I only really acknowledge the parts I like as canon and ignore the existence of the rest 😂) because I think there are some moments I love but also have what I feel are fairly valid issues with other parts (valid meaning I can imagine other ways for the characters to behave that I think are just as plausible).

Anyway, hope that made sense. Feel free to ask/DM/reply if you have any questions/need clarification on any of this!

[ash-rigby]

Hi, I've been following you for a while and I'm a big fan of your writing! I've been writing my own monster/monster adjacent erotica and have considered posting stuff to tumblr, but with the porn ban and the general sketchy position a lot of us trans folks are in nowadays I want to be cautious about it. Do you have any advice for posting erotic short stories to tumblr? Stuff like tagging advice or people to reach out too would be lovely. Thank you and keep up the fantastic work!

-gladtransgendergoblin

Thank you so much! 💜

Well, first of all, the nsfw ban here affects visual depictions of sexual acts (art, photos, videos, gifs etc.), while "other kinds" of adult material (i.e. text/writing) are generally welcome but suggested to use the content label function:

I remember that the guidelines used to explicitly say that erotic writing was allowed and that seems to be gone now but I've been posting erotica here since 2019, following the start of the porn ban, and haven't had any issues (I'd still check the guidelines every now and again for any changes to this policy). I think as long as you add a sexual themes content label to your work and don't include any explicit artwork/pictures, then you should be fine.

As for tagging, I don't know if it helps in any way, but I avoid tagging anything on my blog as ''nsfw''. I don't know why, but I worry that if my blog is full of posts tagged as such then I might get flagged. Which is why I use the "mild and spicy" system to differentiate sfw and nsfw posts. It probably doesn't do anything, but it makes me feel more comfortable so I do it.

Trying to avoid flagging aside, I tend to use very general tags when I post my work; the kind of monster involved, their gender ("monster boy/girlfriend", for example), the major kink involved in the work if applicable etc. And I also attach the "terato", "exophilia", and "monster love/lover" tags. Here's an example from one of my stories:

There's some personal tags as well for OC names and such but you get the gist. I don't bother to tag every little thing that happens in the piece as I save that for the little info blurb at the beginning of each one. Which I recommend doing, by the way. It doesn't have to be as extensive as I do (it can literally be one sentence), but I think people are more likely to read on if they can look at a quick description of what goes on in the story plus a list of the sexual acts featured in it beforehand.

Hopefully this helps in some way! Happy writing!

[theamphibianmen]

Ok it's informational post/disability update time! Everything is under the cut because this gonna be looooooong

I'm officially on my second pair of forearm crutches! These are so much better than the old ones for so many reasons. My old crutches were the Orthostix foldable crutches, full cuff. My new ones are Walkeasy 480s. Both are in black.

I know I'm probably going to piss off some people with this, but if you are a full time crutch user-- which I am not, I'm somewhere between full time and part time*, and if you have the money for Walkeasy (or another brand that charges more), I do not recommend Orthostix.

This is because mine lasted me less than a year. I used them every day for 7+ hours and I just don't think they're built for that. They seem to be for people with temporary injuries who will use them for 2 months and then put them in a closet somewhere. They just couldn't handle my lifestyle.

The way they broke was me folding them to put in the car for a trip and the elastic snapped in the left crutch causing a bunch of the hardware to just. Fall out. This caused the unbroken right crutch to weigh slightly more than the left, and the already not great weight balance of the broken one to be even worse.

Speaking of weight balance, the majority of the weight of my old Orthostix was in the handles. They have this style of handle:

Which is supposedly "ergonomic." I understand what they were going for, but holding them the way they're supposed to be held put my wrists at a 90° angle, like this:

Having your wrist in this position isn't inherently uncomfortable I guess, but if it's already bent like that and you put pressure on it that can hurt. This shape also adds a lot of unnecessary weight to the handles.

My new crutches are definitely heavier, but they don't feel as heavy because the weight is evenly distributed. The handles are simple, basically cylinders with grooves for my fingers to rest in. I can hold my wrist straight with these, which is a godsend when it comes to stability and comfort.

I also had a lot of sizing issues with my first pair. Even on the shortest setting, the space between the cuff and the handles was too long for me, so they were always slightly uncomfortable to use. I terms of height I was also between sizes. I'm "5'7 and most of it is leg. Note that this is less of an issue with the crutches themselves and more another reason they weren't right for me.

The cuffs are also a lot... tighter I think is the best way to describe it? The new cuffs look like this:

Which means they stay on my skinny nerd arms a lot better. For reference here's the cuff of the old ones:

Note that this is after I shrank them with boiling water. I tried to make straps with pleather and velcro but it did not work. At all.

The new ones also have these super cool light reflectors on either end of the handles,

which is great because I'm frequently outside at night and my town doesn't have consistent sidewalks.

The main body/material of the crutches is textured as well, which will be helpful for decorating, and they make barely any noise, which is a breath of fresh air compared to the clicking of the old ones.

Overall, I'd say that my old crutches were a 6/10. Definitely the right idea, but at the end of the day didn't meet my needs, while the new ones are an easy 9/10. The only thing even approximating a complaint I have is that these don't fold, but that feature is what ultimately lead to the old ones breaking. That does come at a cost though: my Walkeasies were about $120, while Orthostix will only run you $70. If you don't have the money for Walkeasy, Orthostix gets the job done. If you do though, I highly recommend them.

*I never leave the house without a mobility aid, and 99.9% of the time it's my crutches. I only walk unaided in small spaces I'm familiar and comfortable with that I know have plenty of platforms for me to push off of and catch myself on. I've heard that full time means you can't walk unassisted at all, and I don't really use my aids around the house (but I would if there were space) so calling myself a full time user feels misleading, but calling myself a part time user feels just as misleading because very few people see me without my mobility aids. If I'm out of the house, which happens nearly every day, I will be using my crutches. So IDK where that puts me. If anyone has a term I can use without upsetting anybody please let me know.

[britishsass]

Wei - MTaS Headcanons

I've seen basically nothing about this guy, so I feel like posting some headcanons about one of my favorite characters in My Time at Sandrock.

Wei has anger issues. (Or, rather, had-- He's gone to seminars and read multiple books about it, as he says when you compliment him on his personality.)

He can be absolutely terrifying if he's upset. (Have you seen what he says if you give him hated gifts? "Are you not afraid someone will put you in your place, going around acting like this?" according to the wiki, holy heck. Dude can be horrifying if you ever do get on his bad side, but he tries his best to make that hard)

He's tried to get away from Yan before. There were lots and lots of incidents with the two of them accidentally moving to the same town and ending up arguing over who moved first, until Wei just sort of... Gave up on trying to escape.

He's got major trust issues. (He mentions his own team was paid off to abandon him in the Periphs, his partner Esmerelda left him because of Yan, etc.)

He liked his dad better. (He mentions how his father tried his best with teaching them, while Yan mentions his mother when sand drawing)

Wei's love of weapons is partially from his time spent in the Periphs, though he enjoyed a nice spar beforehand as well. (He used to win every Showdown at High Noon. He stopped competing after a while because he thought it ruined the fun for others.)

Wei and Yan lived in Portia when they were younger, though most of the Portian residents don't remember them. However, Presley, Higgins probably do, though Higgins was young when he met them and wasn't a fan of either.)

He loves relics, and used to have a nice collection of his own! However, during his stint of being presumed dead, Yan sold all of them.

He has chronic headaches and backaches, though he usually works through them. Fang, Owen, and maybe Mi-an are the only ones he's ever told that to-- mostly because he never thought it was important to mention.

Wei's closest friends in Sandrock are Owen and... yeah, it's just Owen for a long time. Though he appreciates Mi-an and the builder, he's most likely to go to Owen if he needs someone to just talk to.

He doesn't celebrate his birthday. Throughout his life, it was a day of arguing with Yan, so he just. Doesn't care about it being his birthday anymore. It's another day, and if someone celebrates it with him, bully to them! But he's happy to just have a normal day.

He'd like a very normal life already, please, just give him a normal life without Yan ever coming up again.

He loathes it when people call him President, Yan, or anything even vaguely about that.

He doesn't really agree with the Church of the Light (Too interested in relics and the like) but he does understand them.

Feel free to add more if you have any headcanons! I'd love to hear.

[dyrewrites]

Holly Lisle -- Some words

I've just learned that my favorite modern author died last month. I, along with everyone else who subscribed to her newsletter, was aware of her health issues--and how she refused to slow down in spite of them.

So this is not a surprise so much as a gut-punch for the timing. Because I didn't know it was this bad.

I'm going to try not to go on too long...but I might fail (I did).

First I'd like to say that her books helped my husband and I bond on a level I'd never quite bonded with anyone else. She was his favorite too. He introduced me to her, in fact and she was my first fantasy read outside of classics. I've never been good at talking about books to other people but he and I still discuss some of hers.

Her writing workshops helped give me the confidence to start writing again after years of believing myself incapable. She also knocked me out of believing there was no point, as I was raised on the idea that there was only worth doing something if you could make money at it. While her workshops, and newsletters, consistently informed people there was no 'real' money in writing...but she managed to keep herself and her family afloat as the sole provider with it. It took her decades to get there, but she did it, so it was possible. That meant a lot at the time.

I'd also like to say that she wrote some of the best romance and intimacy I've ever read. When none of her books were really about that. It was in there because it was part of life, part of those characters and it felt so natural and beautiful and I have never before (or since) cried reading a sex scene. But she got me with one.

And lastly, if you've been longing for an author who covers more than a binary spectrum of gender roles, or genders or sexuality...she's your gal. She created maybe six or seven different genders for one of her worlds and there are so many words and languages in her books to cover more. It's staggering, honestly.

As for recommendations;

You like female heroes (I think exclusively even)? You've a banquet to pick from.

You like political intrigue? The Secret Texts quadrilogy has you covered.

You like weird magic that breaks worlds and gives a cat thumbs? The Arhel trilogy will delight you.

You want to cry about the power of a sister's love repeatedly while worrying about magic mirrors and dragons? World Gates trilogy.

Desire a space-faring kind of bounty hunter who kicks ass and almost dies a lot? Her name is Cadence Drake.

How about a middle grade book about kids meeting faeries and trying to save their parents? Moon and Sun duology.

All of them tread into dark places, all of them put you at risk of feelings things you didn't know you could, and she is not afraid to kill major characters...so, you know, if you see her listed as "Fantasy Romance" be aware that genres are simplified and there's layers.

Holly Lisle's written so much and she had so much more she wanted to write...and now she won't.

But you can read what's out there, learn who this lovely mind was through her work and maybe add an author too few people have heard of to your shelf.

I've not read all she's written but I've loved all I have and plan to find everything I haven't.

[im-a-king-baby]

Hey, I love ELYN 😭❤️

So my two fave scenes/ moments were the 'keep of the lake house for now' and 'I've been in love with him since' so any commentary will be amazing. Any extra stuff will be amazing so 🪻please 😊

Hiii <3

Gonna put these 3 under a cut because length

“So hold onto that lake house for a while longer,” he says. “Okay?”

Context: i wrote the majority of the first draft of ELYN for Nanowrimo in 2022 (basically a challenge where you write a 50k novel in the month of November) and then I rewrote and edited it over a bunch of months.

So this chapter was actually very similar to the original draft, except that in Draft 1 all of the vote fallout was in one chapter which had the Simon scene first then the Nils scene. In the editing/developing process all the non-Wilhelm characters grew a lot so I knew I wanted to expand Nil's role, and add some more Felice which meant I could bump Simon into his own chapter.

(there was absolutely not meant to be a giant posting gap between the Nils scene and the Simon scene. To be completely honest if I'd known I was going to need that long to finish the fic off I'd probably have chosen to put the gap immediately after the debate because... tension 😈)

The main places where the Simon scene got extended was in the details - Simon's life and career was not well thought through in draft 1 and a lot of the extra length across the whole fic came from building that up - but the lakehouse beat was always there because it was important that Simon's rehab process had to be something he did independent of Wilhelm, so this idea of Wilhelm offering up this house and Simon rejecting it, then clarifying that it's a 'not yet' but hopefully one day when he's in a better place.

Wilhelm's 'I keep thinking about the last time you went to L.A.' was not in the original and was one of those character beats that didn't come to me until months later, but that really pulled together Wilhelm's feelings at that moment and his reluctance to let Simon leave, and that then led really nicely back into Simon saying hang on to the house, because hopefully its not goodbye this time.

“Keira asked what was different about you,” Simon says. “I said: I fell in love with Wilhelm when I was sixteen, and I have been in love with him every day since.”

Okay so this part was possibly the slowest part of the fic to write mostly because I was still figuring out how to articulate this ending which was meant to be optimistic but not magic-wand-everything's-fixed-now. This line in particular came about because I was trying to find where Simon was sitting emotionally and ended up writing a very short therapy in L.A. scene in which Simon dropped this line and I was immediately like 'well, that has to get into the main story.'

It's a nice parallel to Wilhelm's 'I'm never going to stop being in love with him.' in chapter 8, and it highlights that the issues between them have never been a lack of love or not wanting to be together, it's always been these outside forces that they need to break away from.

Also its one of those lines that you write down and then you read it and you're like 'people are gonna quote this one back at me' and its nice when you get that right 😅

And on that theme, your 🪻 is:

“Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking about?” This is the worst part of therapy. “Wilhelm.” Keira’s eyebrows twitch slightly, which is the only reaction he ever gets and means he’s surprised her. “We haven’t spoken much about Wilhelm, not since you asked if you could text him. Are you ready to tell me more about what happened between you?” “You could check the tabloids.” Her ‘you know that’s not what I meant’ look reminds him of Candace, except that she hasn’t figured out how to also convey ‘and I’m disappointed and you’re exhausting and you’d be nothing without me.’ “I’d like to hear it in your own words.” Simon absolutely can’t look at her. “I fell in love with Wilhelm when I was sixteen,” he says. “And I’ve been in love with him every day since. He’s the one I think about every time I sing a love song. Still. I have slept with - I don’t know, hundreds? - of people since I left Sweden and none of it meant anything, compared to him.” “What was it like, seeing him again?” He’d been drinking steadily in the car on the way to the benefit concert so that he’d be able to smile and read a teleprompter and not just stand there staring but it was a close thing. After his performance they’d swept him into a room where he drank champagne and smiled for the cameras. Wilhelm had touched a fingertip to his bare shoulder and Simon had wanted him so badly it hurt in places he’d thought could no longer feel anything. He doesn’t have words for that, except that it was like being in love. “He showed me I could do this,” Simon says instead. “That I could get out. That these systems we were caught up in weren’t infallible.” She frowns very slightly. “Do you think he spoke out against the monarchy for you?” Maybe? He offered once. On a cold night in his ridiculous scarf in so many words that it was Ayub who figured out what he was getting at after he’d walked away. But, no. “He did it for him. Because he needed it. And I did this for me. But there couldn’t be an ‘us’ before. Because of all those things getting in the way. And now… and maybe we both did it a bit for that. For love. Or whatever.”

[starmo]

hey! Big fan of your BTTF fics! I only recently got (back) into BTTF, but it seems you’ve been here for a few years, plus you’re an nsfw author in this fandom, so I was wondering if you might have some insight on why Mammett is practically the only ship with lots of nsfw material? The only straight ships I’ve seen is Marty/Lorraine or Marty/OC. Why no Marty/Jennifer, or George/Lorraine, or even Doc/Clara? I want some nsfw Marty/Jennifer so bad and can’t find it anywhere! Did it ever exist? Was it deleted? Hope you don’t mind the random horny. Just curious and want someone to ask/rant to, one BTTF fan to another :)

Hey there! Thanks for your inquiry! I am so glad to hear that you're a fan of my work! 😄

I actually haven't any clue as to why mammett recieves more attention from NSFW creators. Believe it or not, this surprisingly comes as a shock to me!

Though my allegiance is sworn to mammett (😂), I had been under the impression that it was the least popular of the ships typically associated w/ BTTF, on account of it's... divisiveness? For lack of a better term.

Though, if I were to reckon a guess as to why it's so beloved by degenerates (jk) like myself, I'd say it has just as much to do with the taboo nature of their relationship as hating mammett for it is!

Which is exactly why it doesn't surprise me that one of the only heteronormative ships from BTTF that recieves an abundance of attention is Lorraine x Marty.

Like mammett, Lorraine x Marty involves two individuals whose sexual/romantic relationship would be met with disapproval (because, y'know, incest), which just makes for a fun jaunt when it comes to writing smut fic. The juicier and more depraved, the better!

Aside from that, though there are many other reasons as to why I (and likely many others) are attached to Doc x Marty--I think a major contributing factor to the abundant creation of NSFW mammett fic is the fact that much of what we see of their on-screen interactions (of the physical variety, especially) is interlaced w/ homoerotic subtext, albeit (likely) unintentionally.

That and taking their age gap into account, and the time in which BTTF is set, when homosexuality was still HIGHLY frowned upon, it kind of makes for a deliciously provocative "torrid love affair" type deal.

And, I (personally) am also very much attracted to both Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox (hence why I've so many rarepairs involving their characters 😂) which only adds fuel to the "I want to see them bang" fire.

In summary, Doc and Marty tick off all the boxes for somebody like me (in both a "omg, my otp, I wanna cry, I love them so much!!" type way, and a "I want to see Doc absolutely DESTROY Marty" type way). I imagine people must feel similarly about ships like Lorraine x Marty, George x Marty, etc.

I guess the more canon-typical ships like Jennifer x Marty and Clara x Doc haven't as much allure to NSFW writers on account of the fact that they'e likely considered to be "vanilla"? Though I can only speculate on that.

As for your frustrations in this regard, I completely understand. Scouring the tags on ao3 or similar websites in search of at least just one fic involving a ship you're invested in, only to come up short, is one of the most infuriating things in the world.

I take similar issue w/ trans Marty vs cis Marty fics.

I am one of very few mammett fic writers who solely portray Marty as being trans, and that is largely due to the fact that as a trans man myself, I wanted to see more pre-op trans representation in smut fics; something which was virtually non-existent in the fandom prior to my contributions.

I also like to write smut fic for a wide variety of niche audiences; though some of the things I've written about and or plan to write about in the future aren't necessarily kinks of my own, I still want to offer something else to the fandom aside from the repetative "Doc and Marty have flowery prose gay sex in the garage" fics (not that there's anything wrong w/ those fics, but admittedly after reading about 6 or 7 of them I tend to go "but where's the pizazz??" ..."pizazz" being the nastiest shit you can conceive of, of course, lmao).

To this day one of my all-time favorite fics I've aided in the creation of is the one where Marty is a gas-station attendant and he and Doc end up banging by the dumpster in the back alleyway behind Marty's workplace.

Not only is it deliciously, viscerally filthy, but they (being Doc and Marty) are also still very much themselves; their affection and fondness for one another knows no bounds, and thus doesn't feel out of place even in a fic involving watersports, armpit licking and non-con kink.

Perhaps now that I know there is an audience for it, in the form of, at least, you, I could try my hand at writing some Jennifer x Marty or Clara x Doc fics!

I've only two WIPS as of right now that involve a Jennifer x Marty sex scene (sorta...); that being a fic in which Jennifer is present when an experiment involving some chemicals (of the horny variety) goes awry and Doc is in dire need of uh... relief--and a sequel fic to Nocturnal Emissions that immediately begins with Jennifer eating Marty out.

These are two fics that I hope to complete and upload at some point, but in the meantime, if you're curious (and/or would like to talk more about mammett/BTTF in general) feel free to DM me and I'd be more than happy to share what I've written for these fics w/ you! 😄

[haleigh-sloth]

Do you think Vox and the other vees will play an important role in alastor's arc?

Yes. I explained there, and I also implore you to read this one too.

My post was super long so I'll repeat the Vox part again and add extra points.

Obviously Vox will be an issue. There's a photo of him and Alastor shown together in the finale (Vox's head is torn out but you can see it clearly being him, obviously put there to be noticed).

Alastor--someone who is basically embodying the sin of pride, very full of himself, big ego--took the time to get competitive with Vox. Compared to Sir Pentious who he didn't give enough of a shit to even remember fighting at all, it's definitely important to note that Alastor went on the offensive just to get personal with it and compete at all.

There's an interpersonal conflict there that clearly has a negative hold on Alastor. And I'd very much bet that this interpersonal conflict will be a major obstacle between Alastor and his redemption/acceptance of salvation through the hotel.

The second meta I linked talks about Alastor's redemption and him being clearly set up to hurt Charlie first (the deal he convinced her to make when she was in a dark place and vulnerable--manipulative and not cool lol). I personally am anticipating Vox to have something to do with this.

Alastor caring enough to be competitive against Vox, I'm getting the feeling that the deal he made with Charlie will be when he needs help/something to aid in his beef with Vox.

I think this personal issue with Vox will be the gateway to Alastor betraying/hurting the group of people who

1. he genuinely likes and has put a substantial amount of effort into protecting, and

2. accept him how he is, even when he says their salvation is a lost cause/joke, the group of people who built him a new radio tower to come home to after he had to flee the fight they were counting on him to win.

Alastor lives in the hotel and the hotel is going to work on him, but it won't be truly successful until whatever darkness he's holding onto (this shit with Vox that seems clearly like a revenge ploy of some sort) is dealt with, which is going to be the biggest challenge for his arc before he can join his friends in their redemption.

I don't know about the other Vees with Alastor, only that Valentino is obviously a problem and not someone we're meant to root for. I think Valentino will be more of the main issue for Angel rather than Alastor.

Other things I've noticed on my rewatch of Hazbin Hotel with Vox and Alastor:

Alastor constantly talks in a radio voice. His real voice comes out in sparse moments, usually serious/intimidating moments, or when he's thrown off guard. Vox constantly talks in his real voice and was shown using a static/mic voice when he heard Alastor was back.

Alastor doesn't like showing his face through a screen (his face was made for radio after all), also hates modern technology, while Vox embraces modern technology and is a crowd pleaser (angelic security systems amiright). Alastor hides but he doesn't care about pleasing, Vox bares himself to the world but cares about how he's perceived. They're completely opposite in every way.

So yes it's going to be a big show down, both a physical conflict and interpersonal conflict. I'm sure of it.

[mercifullymad]

Hi there! I was wondering if you had any recommendations for beginner readings about Sanism, anti psychiatry, etc? I've only recently been introduced to these ideas, but they really resonate with me and I'd love to learn more.

Hello, thank you for asking! I'm more than happy to share a list of readings I've found useful and/or important, and glad that you're interested in learning more!

Before I get into the list, one note: I identify as a mad liberationist, rooted in the principles of the Mad Pride movement and the academic (in)discipline of Mad Studies. So I don't have any recommendations that come from a strict anti-psychiatry stance, as I don’t root myself in the anti-psychiatry moment and I simply haven't read much in that tradition. Instead, my readings are mostly rooted in Mad Studies, Mad Pride, the psychiatric survivor/consumer/(ex-)patient movement, Critical Disability Studies, Disability Justice, and Crip Studies.

Without further ado, here are my recommendations (I encourage anyone else to add on in the comments/reblogs—I certainly have not read everything)!

Articles:

Mad Studies – What It Is and Why You Should Care:

“Mad Studies is an area of education, scholarship, and analysis about the experiences, history, culture, political organising, narratives, writings and most importantly, the PEOPLE who identify as: Mad; psychiatric survivors; consumers; service users; mentally ill; patients, neuro-diverse; inmates; disabled -to name a few of the “identity labels” our community may choose to use.”

Mad Studies Network – Shared Principles: From the same website as the above article. The website has many great articles and reading recommendations even though it hasn’t been updated for a couple years.

“We aim to work towards making and preserving space for mad people’s knowledges and histories within the academy and within [mental health] services.”

Mad and Queer Studies: Interconnections and Tensions:

“Mad and Queer Studies have lot of common ground – especially in terms of challenging existing binaries (for example, gay/straight and mad/sane); subverting negative connotations of Queer/Mad; and critiquing prevailing normativities (ways of being ‘normal’).”

A Psychiatric Survivor Studies Manifesto: A critique of Mad Studies and identifying as mad, instead suggesting identification as a psychiatric survivor and psychiatric survivor studies. A good read, especially as someone new to this area exploring your options for self-identification!

“Psychiatric survivors are those who have sought help and have not found it, psychiatric survivors have varying levels of belief in a separation of mind and body. Psychiatric survivors are not reducible to a single category but instead are a force to be reckoned with who have (often dysfunctionally) shut down major oppressive institutions and forced change within medicine multiple times over.”

Against Self Advocacy Part 2: Maddening Autistic Self-Advocacy: From the same writer as the above article.

“Like it or not, mad and anti-psychiatry politics do inform and are part of the history of Autistic politics.”

“The Autistic meltdown, when our bodies rebel because of sensory overload, the issues related to social impairment---many of these things have more similarity with mad politics … But those similarities have intentionally been quieted so as not to make Autistic bodies seem rebellious.”

Mad People Of Colour: A Manifesto:

“We cannot separate our experiences of racialization, madness, and other oppressions. … White people’s experiences of psychiatry are not ‘like colonialism’. Colonialism is like colonialism… Ask yourself whether your goal as a mad activist is to regain the white middle-class privilege you lost when you were psychiatrized.”

Trans Activists, Don’t Throw Mad People Under the Bus!: Article on the shared history and aims of trans and mad people.

“We know that the various psychiatric diagnoses for trans people have not been based in sensitive listening or in any kind of scientific knowledge of etiology, that on the contrary they have been nothing but arbitrary and punitive vehicles for imposing normative expectations of how a person ought to be. We know that psychiatrists and psychologists don’t listen to us, or our communities, don’t know about us, or our communities, and don’t help us, or our communities. Why would we assume things are any different for all the other kinds of people psychiatrists assert dominion over?”

The Buzzfeedification of Mental Health: This article is far from perfect in its analysis, but I think it’s still worth reading for its observations about how the internet structurally reinforces stringent diagnostic categories.

“The danger lies in how we enforce and contextualize these [diagnostic] categories. ... If we cannot commune with each other, relate to each other, love each other, argue with each other, without feeling that we are irreconcilably different because of something endemic to our psyches (you have ADHD, I have BPD, we are not the same), we lessen the chance that we will be able to build actual solidarity, and fight against the structures that cause us all to feel so mentally ill.”

An Introduction to Anti-Black Sanism: Unlike the other articles, this one is an academic article, but it’s too important to leave out.

“The historical and ongoing set of aggressions visited on Black/African people in the Global North is both anti-Black racism and a specific kind of sanism, and we have named this suffering, this particularly perilous mix of oppressions, anti-Black Sanism.”

“Anti-Black Sanism provides a framework that names the injustice, the pain, and seeks to address the historic discrimination, continued overrepresentation of Black/African-identified individuals in the mental health system… Anti-Black Sanism also allows us to join with others in de-centering whiteness in mental health as well as in the ex-patient, survivor, disability, and mad movements.”

The Next Generation of the Mad Movement in New York City Looks Like This:

“Peter Stastny finishes the first panel. As the elder of the group, he’s the self-chosen, pragmatic voice of “What works and what doesn’t work”, having been around and active since the 1980s and watched so many progressive mental health projects become defunded or co-opted or simply slip into obscurity. It’s obvious he wants this project to have a different fate.”

Help-Seeking: Where’s the Help? (tw self-harm and suicide)

“In the context of mental health, particularly intense mental distress associated with self-harm and suicide, asking for help might not only result in the absence of care, it might result in punishment and harm. … Emphasis on seeking [help] ignores not only the availability of help but crucially, the deep pain and frustration of calling for help and having nobody come.”

Un-care-able (tw self-harm and suicide)

“Stigma’ is too general, too mild a word for what is happening here. This is rejection, it is a casting out, it is the designation of ‘un-care-able’. In a sleight of hand so swift as to be both bewildering and dazzling, the more a person who self-harms needs care, the more they prove themselves to be both undeserving of it and unfit for it. Here pain is not evidence of need, and thus a prompt for care – instead, it is the signal for abandonment.”

Toward a Neuroqueer Future: An Interview with Nick Walker: Focused on neurodivergence, but a very good and important read for anyone interested in learning more about non-normative bodyminds.

“A lot of people hear neuro and they think, brain. But the prefix neuro doesn’t mean brain, it means nerve. The neuro in neurodiversity is most usefully understood as a convenient shorthand for the functionality of the whole bodymind and the way the nervous system weaves together cognition and embodiment. So neurodiversity refers to the diversity among minds, or among bodyminds.

In terms of discourse, research, and policy, the pathology paradigm asks, ‘‘What do we do about the problem of these people not being normal,’’ whereas the neurodiversity paradigm asks, ‘‘What do we do about the problem of these people being oppressed, marginalized, and/or poorly served and poorly accommodated by the prevailing culture?’’”

Books:

Unfortunately, I don't have many beginner book recommendations, although this depends on how you’re defining "beginner." If you're new to Mad Studies but not new to reading dense texts about Literary Studies, then La Marr Jurelle Bruce's "How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind" or Therí Pickens' "Black Madness :: Mad Blackness" would be great beginner texts. If you’re well-versed in the study of rhetoric, then other academic books like Margaret Price’s “Mad At School” and M. Remi Yergeau’s “Authoring Autism” can also serve as introductions. But if "beginner" means written for the general public as opposed to an academic audience, then these are the only recs I've got:

Robert McRuer's "Mad in America”: A history of psychiatry care and the psychiatry industry in the U.S. written for a general audience. Great for contextualizing and historicizing the development of U.S. psychiatry.

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s “Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice”: This book does a great job explicitly connecting the Mad Pride and psychiatric survivor movement to broader disability organizing and issues. It is a great recounting of organizing efforts from both Disability Justice and the psychiatric survivor moment, grounded in Piepzna-Samarasinha’s long involvement in both.

Eli Clare’s “Brilliant Imperfection”: An extremely insightful overview of and meditation on the politics of “cure” for physically disabled, chronically ill, and mad people. Also some of my favorite writing on the utilities and harms of diagnosis.

[Textbooks] “Mad Matters” and “The Routledge International Handbook of Mad Studies”: It can be hard to get copies of these books without academic access (or spending a lot of money), but if you can somehow get them, they contain a lot of useful information and history.

[Can’t personally vouch for] James Davies’ “Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created our Mental Health Crisis” and “Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good”: I have not read either of these books, but they are written for a general audience, so probably very explanatory/introductory in their explanation, which might be good if you are coming to this with no prior knowledge. Jamies Davies is probably the most anti-psychiatry-aligned author on this list, too, if you’re specifically looking for writing rooted in that stance. The books seem to be focused critiques of the contemporary psychiatric industry (rather than focusing on the experiences/organizing/culture of mad people, as most of my other recs do).

Finally, I would also suggest checking out collectives/orgs like Project LETS (lots of great posts on their instagram about sanism and mad pride), the Institute for the Development of the Human Arts (IDHA), Recovery in the Bin, the #StopSIM collective, and country or region-specific Mad Pride groups, Hearing Voices groups, and Alternatives to Suicide Groups. So much of this knowledge is created and spread through social networks and transient social media posts rather than in articles and books.