#ableism cw

[fictionkinfessions]

"Anonymous asked: lol love how many people get angry when you tell them to go to therapy, which is not ableist btw. [words]"

OP is middle / upper class and never had to struggle to get consistent health care. Hell, OP is probably unaware there are other tax brackets to exist in. Extra hell, OP probably never had to pay for health care at all because their parents do that so they have no idea how much it costs beyond 'free because it just happens for me so of course that's how it works for everyone else'.

Anyways, sorry to anyone who shared their IP address.

Connie / mod party cat

[bogcreacher]

What's up with Kestrel's name? Why doesn't he have a suffix?

The warrior name Kestrel was given is Half-face. His friends do not call him that because, y’know, it’s horrible - they call him Kestrel after his apprentice name, Kestrelpaw

[tsams-confessions]

We're coming off anon with this one boys. It's long and I apologize but it's been weighing on my mind for quite some time.

There are three things people tend to know me for in this fandom. My art, my fanfics, or my thread on TSBS server. Said thread is a place where I talk about the psychological aspects of the show, as well as do character analyses and sometimes even analyze entire lore uploads for the kicks and giggles. I'm a psychology major, I also have ASPD. I made the thread so I could talk about Eclipse, who at the time I suspected had the same disorder I do and which was later confirmed less than a week after I made the thread. Since then Ruin has also been confirmed as an ASPD haver, which I personally deeply enjoy. It's fun for me to talk about my disorder and relate it to the show since ASPD is really hard to understand. 99% of people are inherently capable of empathy, and about 2% of that 98% lose that ability during childhood. So it's understandably not a very well-understood disorder. It's also a very scary and dark disorder, and I can say that honestly because I live with it. Due to this fact, it tends to be villainized in media, and I am very refreshed by the fact that TSAMS does a good job of not making their ASPD havers raving lunatics with a thirst for blood. 

Anyways, that's just background information. So far I haven't met very many weirdos about ASPD in this fandom. Almost everyone is very chill with the fact that I am a sociopath and I haven't received a ton of weird comments about it. It's a relief since I deal with a lot of open stigma and harassment irl because I refuse to pretend to be something I'm not. However, there was an instance in my thread when I was actively talking about ASPD, and a new member decided to. . . I don't even know. It was creepy and weird, and really uncomfortable. They basically told me that I'm 'too nice of a person to be a sociopath' and that they could tell that I wasn't a sociopath because they see the good in people. They also said that they were surprised that there are sociopathic people and inferred that sociopaths are pretending, whatever that means. They kept going to keep making weird and stigmatized comments about the disorder, as well as continuing to compliment me in a very unnerving way. I think about it a lot because it was very uncomfortable to be interrupted like that in the middle of talking about ASPD. There was the new mod online and participating in the conversation, but they didn't say anything to the person who was actively making me uncomfortable, even though I expressed such in the chat. 

I deal with a lot of stigma and ableism in my day-to-day life, where people tell me that I can't be a sociopath because of really stupid shit. Like the fact, I get along with people or want to help people in the medical field. Or the time-tried 'but you're a woman' comments. I don't understand why the mod kinda just left me to fend for myself and ignored the person causing issues, and while I don't hold it against them, I do have anxiety about this situation repeating itself in the future. It's not easy to talk about a disorder that the average person could not even dream of understanding, and it's even harder when people who don't know you are trying to tell you that your disorder is fake based on flimsy reasoning. It's really invalidating of the actual hellscape I had to survive to be able to even turn 18, and it rakes up my anxiety to a 10 just at the thought of it. There's not a lot of safe spaces for someone to talk about having a dark disorder, and even less for something as rare and misunderstood as ASPD. It's hard enough as it is being a high-functioning sociopath, and I just needed to rant, I suppose. Haha, could make it a "tl;dr even I get offended sometimes."

Anyway, not dropping names, but it wasn't a private matter. Nor am I upset with the mods, it's just a thing that happened that I think about a lot because it's a very rare thing for me to be offended. Glad that the majority of this fandom that I've interacted with has been willing to hear me out ASPD, but I just worry about having a repeat situation like this. It's a very sad thing to witness in this fandom that talks about inclusivity. We can't pick and choose our disorders, and where there are canon sociopaths in the show one would think the fans would try to be a little more educated on the disorder (not directed towards anyone and I appreciate the people who are willing to ask me things about it instead of making assumptions).

.

[dathen]

We’re so used to the sexual reading of the entire book of Dracula, which takes the sensuality of the early chapters and jams everything that follows it into the same metaphor no matter how poorly it fits, but I feel the segment we’re approaching works much better with a lens of chronic illness and disease.

Vampire legends are inextricably intertwined with disease. Many of them are said to have been birthed by burying victims of disease too soon, who later seem to rise from the dead. But what’s more is that Stoker and his family have deep-seated trauma over disease: his mother had to flee her hometown at the age of 14 because of a horrific cholera epidemic, and Stoker himself was bedridden as a child from an illness that no one could identify.

Found this quote from Irish Historian Mary McGarry:

Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him, and he supplemented this using his own historic research of Sligo’s epidemic. Scratching beneath the surface (of this essay), I found parallels with Dracula. [For instance,] Charlotte says cholera enters port towns having traveled by ship, and can travel overland as a mist—just like Dracula, who infects people with his unknown contagion.

I bring this up because a lot of academic analysis insists that Lucy sleepwalking is proof of her being the Slutty Woman archetype that needs to be punished. This suggested symbolism is hilarious when put next to the text saying she inherited it from her father, but I’d like to suggest a different angle from the lens of disease suggested earlier:

Lucy’s sleepwalking is a condition that predates Dracula but makes her an easy target for him to prey on. Through the lens of disease symbolism, she now is someone with chronic illness or disability who is especially vulnerable to infectious disease. This becomes a cross-section of Stoker’s trauma regarding disease: his own mystery illness and his mother fleeing a plague.

To wind down my rambles with a bit of a soapbox, I feel this adds a very poignant layer to the struggle to keep Lucy alive. The COVID pandemic showed a horrifying level of casual ableism vs disabled and immunodeficient individuals, shrugging off their vulnerability and even their deaths with “well COVID only kills them.” There’s something deeply gratifying at seeing the way everyone around Lucy fights to the bitter end to protect her and refuses to just give her up to Dracula, whether it’s Mina physically chasing him away or the suitor squad pouring their blood into her veins or Van Helsing desperately searching for cures. The vulnerable deserve no less than this. They’re not acceptable casualties.

[glitchdollmemoria]

please can we stop describing bigots as delusional. please. im so fucking tired. someone being sucked into a hate group surrounded by others who believe minorities should be oppressed and encouraging them to believe in conspiracy theories that the rest of the group believes, is fundamentally different from someone having a mental illness that causes delusions.

delusions, by definition, cannot be explained by things like cultural background - such as having a belief constantly reinforced by intentional attempts to rationalize it for the sake of maintaining power over minorities. yes, someone can be both delusional and a bigot, and yes conspiracy theories can feed into delusions, but the two are not fucking synonymous.

i did not spend my teen years convinced that i was being stalked by demons just to hear so many of you people equate my disability with incel behavior and genocidal propaganda. stop reinforcing harmful connotations about mental health struggles.

[probablybadrpgideas]

THINGS I AM UNREASONABLY ANNOYED ABOUT BY GAME SYSTEM

D&D: Please put a disclaimer that you are not a universal system. Every time I see someone try to do a political mystery game in D&D, I take 3d10 psychic damage and have to make a death saving throw.

Pathfinder: Look. If i wanted to play a game about fighting Cthulhu there is an extremely famous game specifically designed around doing that. Literally no-one is ever going to say "Wow, I want to play a Cthulhu themed game! Time to stat up a musical halfling from a magical fantasy land!".

Chronicles Of Darkness: Just admit no-one uses any of your rules. You have Social Door Rules and Integrity Conditions and Corruption Levels and I bet at most 50% of COD players could tell me which of those I made up. Just admit people aren't dressing up as Alucard The Bringer Of Shadows because they want to sit down and do calculus.

World Of Darkness: You know that old guy who's still doing his job even though he is way too old to do it any more, but he's now an institution so you can't get rid of him? Like that. The 90s called and they want literally everything about this back.

Call Of Cthulhu: I appreciate the commitment to authenticity, but maybe stop hiring actual disgraced mental asylum directors from the 1920s to design your sanity system?

GURPS: Look. Look. Listen. We both know that you just want to write history textbooks. These are history textbooks with a few stat blocks begrudgingly put in. If you just give me a book on early Chinese history I will read it and go "ah, very interesting!". You don't need to put in a list of character choices. We're all nerds. We'll read them. Live your best life.

Powered By The Apocalypse: I actually can't think of anything wrong with PBTA. That's not a bit, this is literally the perfect system. Take notes everyone else.

Mutants and Masterminds/Heroes System: Your systems have probably the most customizable character creation in the world and you both just make reskins of the Justice League over and over again. Maybe we only need one "thinly veiled copyrighted characters" setting? You can fight over it once you decipher your combat mechanics.

FATE: Ok I won't lie, I have no idea how the fuck FATE works. I have read the rules repeatedly and played three games and I still have no idea what invoking an aspect means. I don't know why. I grasped the rules of fucking Nobilis but this one just psychologically eludes me. This is more a problem with me I guess, but I'm still annoyed.

Warhammer 40k: Have you considered spending less on avocado toast? Then you might be able to afford to charge less for things?

Exalted: Apart from the lore, the setting, the mechanics, the metaplot, the character creation and the dodgy narrative implications, I can't think of anything to improve here.

[a-totally-reasonable-username]

I do not want to be sick. I am sick and want to be taken seriously. There's a difference.

[beaft]

@staff i am begging you to start vetting the ads on your site

[lostamber]

[tabby-shieldmaiden]

Watching a bunch of Patricia Taxxon videos all at once does something to your brain.

[fictionkinfessions]

A long (I apologize for the length) response to https://www.tumblr.com/fictionkinfessions/748773698635513856/ive-seen-enough-asks-on-here-about-the-topic-so?source=share

Aka "get therapy systems" anon.

1) Please don't tell us what to do. Some of us are already in therapy. Some of us have trauma surrounding therapy. Sure it's not normal... FOR YOU. That's dangerous and abelist thinking. It's comparable to saying neruodivergent people need to be in corrective therapy because they're "not normal." (Which is a disgusting thought process! And we here are already in therapy!)

2) We can kin whomever we want and have as many kins as we want. For copinglinks, there might be a plethora of characters helping cope with things in life. For systems, we all have our own exposure to media at varying levels. And for spiritual kin, time is not linear and someone can have infinite number of kins. But we have more important topics to touch on and I'd be happy to get into that later.

3) How would you like it if we told YOU to get therapy? Because coming into a safe space for people who ARE systems and HAVE many kins, seems insane to us here in this system.

4) You're correct in the fact that ADHD, Autism and CPTSD can cause dissociative episodes but guess what? DID and OSDD are caused by repetitive traumatic experience in childhood. Which did you know? Being neurdodivergent and not getting your needs met due to lack of communication/understand and overstimulation (amongst other various factors) can be considered traumatic? Especially to children? It sounds like you've done BARE BONES research into dissociative disorders and have made assumptions based on research into neurodivergency. (And we are a nerurodivergent system so we've had to pay attention to the differences and sort things out in therapy!)

5) Final note from a system (THAT'S OVER 30 BTW), don't ever get upset over systems with over 100 alters because that system might just have a low split tolerance or has experienced a lot of different traumatic events and need a lot of extra support.

SO TLDR; instead of coming into a safe space and being an asshole, show compassion to people who have clearly GONE THROUGH IT. Kindness and understanding helps heal more than harsh words. I hope you have a lovely day and learn a lot more that will help open your mind further in the future.

x

[sonicattos]

i want you guys to know it’s a hot topic to call abuse “narcissism”

if you’re wondering why this is disgusting: narcissism is a personality disorder. and vilifying such a thing is extremely harmful and stigmatizes people who struggle with such a thing, which is also extremely ableist and dangerous. call it what it is. it’s abuse. verbal and emotional abuse. manipulation. belittling.

you don’t even have to be a ‘narcissist’ to be this way. abusive people exist. sorry you need to dehumanize them by labeling them as with a mental disorder (which shouldn’t be dehumanizing to have) because you can’t deal with the fact that human beings can become awful people. but don’t wrap others into this.

i do not have narcissism myself, but as someone within cluster b i too am affected. i have abusive people in my life that yes, have selfish tendencies, but wouldn’t call “narcissistic” because thats not how that works. again. i call it what it is. it’s abuse. full stop. stop armchair diagnosing for sympathy points.

[jadenvargen]

ok my demons have been exorcised we can resume regularly scheduled programming

[dathen]

“Feminist” academia’s reaction to Mina’s devotion in today’s Dracula update is such a perfect example of why intersectionality is vital in feminism. It derides Mina’s loyalty to Jonathan, and chalks her not letting his disability deter her from marrying him up to mindlessly falling into serving the patriarchy bla bla bla

Not a thought spared for what this could mean for disabled people—that loyalty through sickness and trauma is beautiful and romantic, or the worth of love that isn’t conditional on someone being able-bodied. No reflection on why “she should have dumped him because he’s not good enough for her anymore” might be harmful.

Not only that, but later we’re going to see how this unconditional love through sickness and in health is fully mutual. While this book was by no means pro-feminist, treating its moments of beauty re: disability as being backwards and oppressive is not the way to dismantle that.

[voidoftheotherside]

Happy autism awareness and acceptance month!

Unfriendly reminder that if you are advocating for autism to not be considered disabled you are advocating for the removal of supports many of us need to function and stay alive! It is by definition a disability, and you should be listening to medium and high support needs autistic people more!

[egotisticalmachine]

saw a post that was essentially like "actually the concepts of [cluster B disorder] abuse arent ableist because we do have abusive behaviors that we need to unlearn and so thats why our disorders are stigmatized" mf ive BEEN unlearning them. ive been teaching myself how to be less manipulative since i was in high school, and im still putting in the effort to improve but ive changed a whole damn lot from the kid i used to be. and just because someone exhibits some unhealthy behaviors does not mean theyre abusive. there is a difference between causing harm to others sometimes and being outright abusive. everyone hurts others on occasion. everyone has unhealthy and toxic behavior patterns they need to unlearn. thats not fucking unique to cluster B disorders.

i am not excusing people who ARE abusive and whose abuse DOES tie in with their cluster B symptoms, but im also not putting up with the fucking idea that its somehow all of our fault that other people want to assume were all heartless shitty irredeemable monsters. personality disorders are chronic and incurable but people with them can still improve and be kind, even if they make occasional mistakes just like how everyone else makes mistakes.

it is not ableism to call out abusive behavior and make the person responsible face consequences, thats entirely correct. it is not ableism to say that people need to put in effort to overcome harmful behavior patterns, also completely correct.

what IS ableism is assuming that everyone who struggles with cluster B symptoms is automatically a full blown abuser, and sweeping aside the progress that so many of us have worked so damn hard to make, just because YOU dont think that progress is good enough. i dont care if you also have a cluster B disorder, its still ableism. some of us have worked hard to be good people and dont fucking appreciate having that effort spit on. and if you feel that your toxic behaviors tread into the territory of being abusive, that is not my fucking problem just because we have the same or similar disorders.

and what ELSE is ableism is the fucking fact that people with cluster B disorders struggle so much to find any resources to improve our toxic behaviors because psych professionals see us as inherently horrible and everything written about our disorders revolves around how others can cope with being around us, how to heal from us, how to spot us, how to manipulate us before we can manipulate them. THAT is fucking ableism. a lack of resources because others are so hellbent on hating and blaming and hurting us. how are we supposed to even be expected to improve when nobody is willing to help us? and yet we do. despite everything there are those of us who improve. and its not fucking acknowledged.

because i value my blood pressure, im blocking anyone who wants to try arguing with me or putting words in my mouth.