#ableist things I've seen in a while seriously

[suncaptor]

Also I just think it's fundamentally ableist to assume whether or not someone is a child or not and deserves to be infantilised based on their degree of neurodevelopmental capability to do things such as walk or talk. to be real.

[ominous-feychild]

Guys I literally JUST realized a thing about my autism/masking/alexithymia. I noticed there was an alexithymia tag here on tumblr and when I investigated, there was this one post listing these symptoms:

and I just--

I've had these exact, MAJOR struggles through my whole life for one.

But for two, and what's really interesting in my opinion...

Yesterday, I was having a video call with my mom. I've been off of some medications that I'm supposed to be taking because of financial issues, so my mental is NOT in a great place and I've had NO spoons for the past month. But while on call with her, she seriously, unironically, asked me if I thought I really needed the meds. Because, apparently, I "wasn't acting like I needed them" or something like that. And I'm sure I don't need to explain why that pissed me tf off.

But, like... at the time, the closest thing I could come up with for an answer was that "I have no spoons and no energy to do anything"; "I lived 17 years without meds, I kind-of know how to fake it"; and "I haven't had much socializing lately, so I have enough Social Energy™ to fake being okay right now."

Now that I'm not being put on the spot and after reading that post, I'm slowly figuring out that I've always done this. I mean, I've obviously always struggled to describe my own emotions and need to analyze my physical reactions to figure them out, but like. I'm just now starting to realize that I've really struggled to describe exactly how I'm "feeling bad" or, in fact, that I am feeling bad at all.

I mean, again, considering the alexithymia, that last part is a given. But it's kinda putting into perspective exactly how I've always had to understand "I don't have the energy to do anything" or "it's incredibly difficult to do anything" or "something deep inside of me feels Wrong™ and I can neither address nor identify it". I'd just passively have those "feelings" and struggle to continue life despite them.

It brings back thoughts of my struggles with masking, and how I was never diagnosed with autism as a child. Looking back, it should've been incredibly obvious. I had SO many of the tell-tale signs. But I guess it wasn't today, and there wasn't anywhere near as much awareness of what those signs were... but really. Textbook.

I'm sure my masking made it more difficult to recognize the signs as I got older. Hell, I even read over different "autism diagnosis checklist"s countless times, thinking to myself "oh wow it's a lot like me!... exceeeeeptttt--" and moved on from there.

I keep digressing. My point is, since discovering my autism and how it was hidden by masking, I've always wondered where my mask ends and where I begin. Most of the time, I feel like I feel nothing, even when I'm not depressed. I've been told I don't show my emotions, like when I'm happy (aka my chest is light and I feel free). That, or people can't tell when I like/dislike them (though that's partially a trauma thing). Other times, I've been told I'm smiling when I didn't even realize I was happy, much less that I was actually smiling. Some people have told me I'm incredibly easy to read, that my emotions show very clearly. But how can they when I feel like I feel nothing?

Which leads me back to what I said earlier, my conversation with my mother. How she asked if I actually need my meds because "I don't seem like I do". I guess I kind-of understand now, why she might've seen it that way. Do most people always show signs of how they actually feel? And how does the fact that I "don't feel" effect what I show?

I've wondered about that for a while. How much of how I act is because I was trained to, one way or another? How much of the emotion I show is because I learned to? Do I even show the emotions I feel? I really can't know because the people I know irl, who would better be able to tell me how I act, aren't understanding of any of these things. My older sister is lowkey ableist and thinks she sees the grand plan of the universe, my mother is too "pull yourself up by the bootstraps!!!" to accept Spoon Theory or mental health struggles, and just about everyone else in my life comes and goes as quickly as the wind.

Anyhow, this was a long rant that I've kinda had half-formed thoughts about for a while. Thanks for reading, hopefully this can help or entertain whoever stumbles upon this?

[sophieinwonderland]

Words You Can't Use (According to Language Police)

System: System is a medical term that only applies to DID systems and can only be used by them. Ignore Internal Family Systems therapy, or top DID specialists referring to some voices in psychotic disorders as parts of a system. Only dissociative disorders!

Multiple: This came from the multiplicity community, and the only way to be multiple is to have a dissociative disorder. (No! Don't look at the boundary with normality in the ICD-11)

Plural: This means the same thing as multiple. Still can't use it.

Alter: A medical term that only applies to DID systems.

Headmate: Means the same thing as alter, and you can't have a headmate unless you have DID. But also, DID systems can't use this because it's not a medical term. (I've seriously seen someone attacking the Plural Association for using the word headmate instead of alter. Oh, wait. That was the same system claiming endogenic is offensive. That tracks!)

Introject: This is a medical term with a specific meaning that can only apply to DID systems. It's not like introjection is a common psychological process, and any headmate created through introjection would logically be considered an introject.

Fictive and factive: Non-traumagenic systems can't use this because it means the same thing as introject and non-traumagenic systems can't have introjects. But also, traumagenic systems can't use it because it was coined by endogenic systems.

Tulpa: You can't use this because its etymology is derived from another language, and anything with a foreign origin is apparently appropriation.

Thoughtform: This is also related to the tulpa, and you can't use it either. Try something more invalidating like "imaginary friend."

Imagian plural: Psych! Actually, we decided that if you identify your headmate as imaginary friend but call yourself plural, you're comparing alters to imaginary friends which is super ableist.

Spiritual plural: We also decided that literally every culture that ever experienced nonpathological possession states is closed, and identifying any of your headmates as being spiritual is racist. We don't know who it's racist against, but it's against someone. Trust us.

Sysmed: This uses the same suffix as transmeds, and It's actually transphobic for transgender systems to compare how a hate group has harmed them through an ideology that pathologizes all transness to how another has harmed them through an ideology that pathologizes all multiplicity. It's the same way it would be homophobic for other groups to use the "phobic" suffix. Oh... wait...

Natural: By calling something natural, you're inherently calling everyone else's experiences unnatural, which sounds bad. Why do you think disabled people are unnatural? Don't think about the fact that nature in psychology generally refers to genetics and the more common opposite in this context would be more akin to "environmental."

Endogenic: Well.... umm... you see... it sounds kind of like iatrogenic... or maybe endogenous... and endogenous is a common word used to refer to something internal... and there was some debate about whether DID was endogenous or exogenous... so that's why other groups can't use the word, and using the word makes you ableist? And... umm... Freud?

It's funny how anti-endos keep insisting that literally every word is harmful, and demand we take their assertions super seriously when they claim that all they want is for us to change the language we use.

If you still think this language discourse is legitimate and in good faith, you haven't been paying attention.

If anti-endos feel we're not taking their criticisms seriously... it's because we're not.

It's because when every term is treated as contentious, it becomes obvious that you don't care about language as much you care about using attacks on language to silence speech.

I have said for a while that the attacks on terms like "tulpa" and others aren't in good faith. That we would be attacked no matter what terms we use because anti-endos hate us for what we are, and only target our language as an excuse to spread hate against us.

I have said for a while that nothing would satisfy them.

I sincerely hope that most people watching these latest attacks play out can see the truth in this now.

The endogenic and plural community is done apologizing for our existence, and we're done apologizing for the language we use.

[yarameijer]

Hi, I've been reading accidental reversal and I really like your 'what if' scenarios with tenma and the gang, and I've had a fic idea I've been considering for a while that I'd appreciate your input on

I've really gotten attached to the idea of a Deaf Tenma, making the decision not to go to a Deaf School (The only Deaf school in Japan that I can find is Meisei Gakuen, which is located in tokyo, which is extremely close to if not the same city where Raimon is) so that he can play for the soccer team that inspired him, only to find the whole fifth sector mess going on.

naturally, he starts the whole revolution, because hes putting the quality of his education on the line to play for raimon, and he isn't about to let that sacrifice for nothing.

tsurugi notices straight away, and when he goes home he immediately starts learning JSL, because first of all he is Not ableist (for obvious reasons), and second is because if he's going to be monologuing at this kid, he's going to make sure he can be understood (he ends up being to go to interpreter when aoi/shinsuke isn't there)

shunsuke asks aoi to teach him and they bond

endou is surprisingly good at JSL when he picks it up (good with his hands + has a very expressive face), kidou, not so much (obscured face, not very expressive anyways)

due to the tension among the team in the first few games, it takes a good chunk of raimon an embarrassingly long time to realize that he isn't just wearing earbuds, and that he doesn't just have an odd accent, and that him looking directly at peoples mouths isn't just a quirk (shindou/kirino/sangoku being like 'How did you not realize? it's so obvious, we've just been learning independently')

also because I've noticed a trend in the show that these kids sure do like to monologue on the soccer field, and I think it's funny if they keep getting interrupted by a kid that just, does not seem to care (its difficult to lip read from a distance, they won't always be facing him, and it seems like a bad idea to wear hearing aids while playing a sport where kids can whip up fire tornadoes, because the average cost of a pair of hearing aids is approximately $4000, or ¥592,560)

anyways it's just an idea I've been considering

Whoa, I love that idea? It sounds so great! I’m a huge fan of rewriting the old story with just enough of a spin to give it a new flavor, and this one’s super interesting. Kinda reminds me of an idea I had at some point in which Tenma is mute and uses sign language. Also lmao Tenma pulling the revolution because ‘’I did NOT sacrifice my education just to get stuck with this crap’’ sounds like such a Tenma move, ngl.

Also yes, Raimon is located in Inazuma Town which is somewhere in Tokyo, it’s on the wiki if you want to check it out!

Okay so I’m not sure what exactly you wanted my input on, so I’m just gonna ramble! Feel free to send me another ask or comment if you wanted something more specific. Anyway, some things that immediately come to mind when I think about this:

1) One of the reasons Tsurugi takes his JSL lessons so seriously could be because Tenma reminds him of his brother. It’s not the same situation but in a way they’re both dealing with disabilities and Tsurugi has seen firsthand how hard it can be for Yuuichi, so he’s a bit softer towards Tenma because of that.

2) Depending on how much of a little shit you want Tenma to be: imagine him turning off his hearing aids at comedic moments, like when someone starts gushing about Fifth Sector’s goals. Tenma just nope’s straight out of that one. Or, although this might be a bit later when he’s more comfortable with the team, him turning off his hearing aids when someone starts scolding him. Absolute power move. They don’t even need to know he does it, maybe someone eventually finds out, cue comedic moment.

3) Since you mentioned accents… Tenma’s from Okinawa and as far as I could find, Okinawans have at least a bit of an accent. Deaf people are also known to learn how to speak by copying the lip movements of the people around them… so if Tenma grew up on Okinawa, it could be assumed he’s grown up speaking Okinawan Japanese and has the accent to match. I imagine non-deaf Tenma would have worked out most of his accent after he moved to Okinawa town so as to not stand out, but deaf Tenma would have had a harder time doing so/might not have even realized he had an accent in the first place. (There is a difference between Okinawan Japanese, which is a Japanese dialect, and the Okinawan language, which is a whole other language altogether and only a few people speak it (mostly the elderly) because it stems from a period before Okinawa was Japanese territory, so if you make use of this idea, maybe look into that a bit. It’s a bit of a complicated situation but I think it could really add something to the characters). This does depend a little on whether Tenma was born deaf or not, I think (that would also influence his lip reading/sign language skills - was he born deaf or has he only been deaf for a few years?)

4) Find subtle ways to mention it throughout the story instead of using full paragraphs. I like comparing it to writing someone who wears glasses. Small details are glasses getting fogged up when going from the outside cold into a warm room, or when drinking tea. Smudges on glasses that annoy the character. Pushing them up when they slip down their nose. These are all small, subtle actions that add a lot to the story and ‘remind’ readers of this detail without putting too much focus on it - you could try and do the same thing with Tenma’s deafness: lip reading is really difficult so Tenma might misunderstand or ask for clarification, or little habits he has (like you mentioned, watching people’s mouths rather than their eyes).

Anyway, I’d definitely recommend doing research on writing deaf characters because it’s very easy to accidentally make a mistake and come off as disrespectful. I’ve read a story or two in which there was so much focus on a character being deaf that it seemed to be their only character trait, and not only does that take away from the story, but it’s also not a good representation. Being deaf is not a defining character trait; it’s just part of their character, like wearing glasses or having asthma. An important thing that should be acknowledged but not constantly mentioned/made to be the center of their life and character.

Some questions that immediately popped into my head:

1. Was Tenma born deaf or did he lose his hearing?

2. Does he shout or say the name of hissatsu techniques? Would he even bother with that?

3. In fact would he even bother trying to learn the names of hissatsu techniques (since they can be super weird + it’s during a match and he’s not wearing hearing aids, so these both make it hard to lip read) and instead just come up with names for them himself? Imagine him referring to Sangoku’s Fence of Gaia as ‘’the rock thing’’ or Kami no Takuto as ‘’Shindou-senpai’s lightshow’’.

4. Does the entire team learn sign language (and how good are they at it), or does Tenma speak and lip read more with certain members of the team and use sign language with others?

Of course the amount of detail you put into it all depends on how long you want the story to be! I hope this is sort of what you wanted, and again, feel free to ask something else if this isn’t what you hoped for.

And in case you decide to write the story, best of luck!

[xerith-42]

Stop blaming characters for bad writers

Seriously, stop fucking doing this. While this is a post that could certainly be applicable to MANY fandoms, I'm mainly directing this whole rant at my target audience which is mentally ill minecraft obsessed freaks.

If a character is written badly, gets badly fumbled by the creator, or has the ball dropped in regards to their arc in some way, a lot of people will blame the character, as if they're a real conscious person making these decisions. When they aren't. They're a block man literally being controlled by two people who just aren't very good writers and one or both of them are incredibly sexist, kind of racist, ableist, and just bad writers in general.

Yeah, Laurance does some pretty shitty things through out Season 2 of MCD, actively crossing lines he wouldn't have previously crossed. We as fans can cope by saying something something calling, or just saying Laurance is a bad abusive person, but the reality is that the writers wanted to force the series to fit a specific vision and as a result were willing to do anything to get the series to that point. In order to make Aaron the most favorable suitor for Aphmau, her previous suitors need to be out of the picture, or clearly inferior options.

Garroth suffered the out of the picture, being mostly absent outside of a few cutscenes here and there until episode 81 of season 2, but episode 81 is the culmination of the writers goals to make Aarmau happen. By the time Garroth has returned to the series, the damage has already been done. He's not getting the life he wants. And Laurance is written out of the picture as well, but only after being shown to be inferior because Jesson were pushing an agenda.

Laurance didn't deteriorate as a person due to neglect of his physical and mental well being after a severely traumatic experience. He deteriorated as a character because the writers stopped giving as much of a shit about him and instead were using the series as self indulgent fanfiction of alternate versions of themselves. That's not Laurance's fault.

And this applies to any character who was completely fumbled in MyStreet due to this similar focus on wish fulfillment from the writers. Jess has stated that the relationship between Aphmau and Aaron in Phoenix Drop High is reflective of her relationship with Jason, we all know this. This means that any characters who come off as total fucking creeps in that series (namely Gene), are not actually acting on the whims of their own autonomy or desires as characters. They are acting in service of telling a predetermined story that they are retroactively being added into for author fulfillment.

In this regard I fully support fandom cope and say that you should rewrite your little guys to your hearts content. But if you're going to criticize these characters for their actions, don't criticize them. They didn't do anything wrong. All characters are just puppets in service of the story or themes a writer is trying to push. If a character acts in an objectively terrible way, especially a way that isn't in line with their previous characterizations, that is a failing of the writers, not the character.

And I feel like largely a lot of us can and frequently do this. We're actively criticizing Jesson for being terrible low-key bigoted writers all the god damn time, it's like half of the content here. But when we get into character discourse I feel like some people cling onto bad actions of the canon too closely and I've seen more than a few posts presume some pretty terrible interpretations of characters based on these actions. Obviously Laurance is a character I and a lot of others are fixated on so a lot of discourse revolves around him, and it was seeing some... interesting takes on him that prompted me to start writing this post.

But this happens to everyone. Quite personally based on the character I was shown in MyStreet, it feels really weird that Garroth would make an insensitive comment about his brother's weight. Yeah siblings poke fun at each other and often cross lines, but if that was something Zane was seriously insecure about (which it seems like he might be) then it does make Garroth come off as a really insensitive brother, which just doesn't gel with how hard he tries to bond with Zane despite their tense relationship. And I don't think Garroth should be criticized for making those comments.

Whoever wrote those lines (Jess and/or Jason) should be criticized for writing a scene where a character is mocked by their older sibling over a physical insecurity even if said sibling would not normally do that. It's not Travis' fault that Jesson never decided to give him more of a character beyond "funny pervy guy" that's not funny in every anime they've watched until Season 5 of MyStreet. It's unfair to try and say Travis should be scrutinized for his borderline sexual harassment of some characters when it's not his fault that happened, he was written by writers who don't think this sort of behavior isn't all that bad if they make it out for comedy and punch him in the face.

And god dammit it's not Laurance's fault that his jealousy became the most prevalent emotion he felt. Laurance has always been a character to give into his vices and yet fight against them at the same time, it's what makes him compelling. If they were going to pull on those vices in order to make him a less appealing love interest, he never had a chance to really be his own character after a certain point. Because at a certain point in Season 2, Jesson stopped caring about the character they had been writing for over a hundred episodes at that point. They just wanted to canonize their self insert ship and were willing to do anything to get it.

Laurance isn't an abusive angry person who would have killed Aphmau if they got together. He's a flawed character being handled by incredibly flawed writers who are prone to making some of the worst decisions you have ever seen a creator make in regards to their character writing. He was caught in the crossfire of the adoration he received from a very dedicated fanbase, and the creator who would rather pretend he and his previous arc didn't exist for the sake of her fun. It's not Laurance's fault his arc was stilted, jerked around, and ultimately ended with him completely face planting. And yet still reliably dragging his bloodied body up at just the slightest glimmer of hope (Void Paradox).

It's deeply poetic and tragic that I can describe his character in universe and in the meta-textual sense that way, but we should never blame Laurance, or Aaron, or any other characters for things being like this.

They didn't write the show. Jess and Jason did.

[reasonsforhope]

Let's get some good shit done: 9/26/23

In the name of encouraging each other, supporting each other, and reminding us all how many ways there are to help - how much each of us can make a difference -

Reply or comment (or add in the tags if you’d prefer) with something you did recently to help the environment, your community, or people who need it. Big or small.

<3

Here’s my version. It's been an unusually good couple weeks I think!

Got certified in CPR and first aid (this was to apply for some jobs but I'm still really glad I did it in general)

Started to once again actually honor my damn commitment to wearing masks in stores and the like (slipped over the summer unfortunately)

Researched soil rehabilitation to teach stuff to my mom

Got my mom to start raking dead leaves onto all the (many, many) bare patches in our backyard. Other steps to follow. Soon the yard is gonna be so much healthier! (I hope!)

Relatedly, stopped my mom from accidentally killing all her herb plants by leaving them somewhere with insufficient sun (nobody ever tell my mom I post about this shit lmao)

About to start applying for some care work jobs (cross your fingers for me)

Called my representatives to tell them not to vote for KOSA, on privacy/human rights reasons

Got "smudging ceremony" instructions cut from a business book by a white and non-Indigenous author, now replaced with smoke cleansing. If I'm very lucky my explanatory lil essay will get the author to make the switch in their own business as well

Actually I think I removed smudging from two different books in the past month? (I'm a book editor for context) So that's always good

Removed some ableist language from those books while I was at it. This kind of thing doesn't always come up, but it's always really nice when I get to actually help fix this stuff

Honestly, one of the things that makes me really heartened and feel hopeful about the future is the way I've seen things shift re: sensitivity edits. When I started working in publishing (less than 10 years ago!), I had to carefully count and ration all of my sensitivity comments/notes to make sure they were taken seriously and that none of my bosses or coworkers got pissed at me

Now, I literally advertise sensitivity edits as one of my specialties up front, I regularly get actively thanked and praised specifically for those notes, and I don't have to hold back at all (tho I do ofc still write them very politely)

We still have a ways to go, but there really has been so much of a change in attitudes on this front, writ large

Anyway, essay over - tell me about the cool things you all did!

[maxarat]

Rick Riordan is a cishet white goyische man. We knew this. But you can see this in his writing, no matter when. Yeah, he's grown, but he didn't grow astronomically.

In this post I'll be talking about how history, women, queer people, and POC are handled in Rick Riordan's YA novels. I'm Jew-ish, very queer, and was socialized as a girl, but I'm white so POC tell me if I overstep or get anything wrong and feel free to add!

Also this is long af, way longer than I intended, so under the cut it goes!

The Pact and Wars

I think I've talked about this before (cannot find the post) but the way history is handled is so racist and antisemitic. Wars are not because of their real reasons, but instead conflict. WWII is made to be because Hades, Zeus, Poisiedon, and their kids had another spat, instead of the fascism and racism that really caused it. The Civil War, instead of being about racism, was made to be about a fight between the romans and greeks. The wars we see in series have no connection to real world events, why couldn't the old ones be the same? It also deminshes the accomplishments of real people. For example, Harriet Tubman is said to be a daughter of Hermes. To me, this says a black disabled woman can't do great things without great blood in a world where that exists

Annabeth

Annabeth is a girl boss, and this would be great, if her writer wasn't a cishet man. Being strong is equated to being mean, physically and verbally. When she thinks Rachel likes Percy, a guy she isn't even dating, she gets pissy at them for even hanging out! She constantly demeans Percy and hits people who anger her, including Percy, and this is treated as cute and quirky. And then her trauma is dismissed and diminished by a boy who went through similar treatment. Sorry Percy also was hurt by who his author is, but it makes things worse with Annabeth's portrayal. Also she once says people don't take her seriously because she's blonde. During HoO. With Piper and Hazel right there

The Hunters

The Hunters of Artemis, in mythology, are a group of women and sometimes men who joined Artemis to escape the deeply misogynistic culture at the time, and there are sapphic undertones to much of their myths! In the books, they're portrayed as man hating, romance hating, and functionally aroace. Hippolytus is completely ignored. Zoë is constantly talking down to Percy without giving him a chance and makes probably the dumbest decision by choosing Bianca for the quest in Titan's Course. Jo and Emmie were kicked out for finding love. I'm aroace. I love aroace rep. I'm overly weary of (cis white) men. But the way the Hunters are written is so similar to how angry anti-SJW youtube saw feminists

Nico

Nico is forcibly outed in one book and in the next gets a boyfriend with literally no personality or relationship with him up to that point. The drawbacks of shadow travel so clearly align with disability. He's also obviously depressed and deeply traumatized. Yet Will gives him no medical autonomy, something we disabled folk have to deal with all the time that's really very ableist. I love Nico, but the way he's portrayed just isn't great

Sadie and Carter

Sadie and Carter are biracial and look wildly different. This is good representation from what I've heard, but not how it's different or some incidental stuff. Carter, the boy, has dark skin and dark, coily hair, while Sadie, the girl, has pale skin, striaght blond hair, and pale eyes. This plays into colorism where darker people are seen as more masculine, as does Carver being the host to the god of war. Sadie is also a young girl who's put into a relationship with a god who kinda bullied her at the start. Carver is also in a relationship with a person who was hostile, but she gets better so I'll let is slide

Leo

Leo is latino, and stereotypical at that. Je is constantly flirting with everyone and looked down upon. As a Leo who is not an astronomical Leo, he deserves better especially when you consider c//leo

Piper

"I'm not like other girls" girl who's hailed as absolutely gorgeous. She was born on a rez that didn't exist at the time which just goes to show the lack of research. Her eyes are kaleidoscope, which is a trait none of her siblings, or her mom, have. She's cut off from her culture enough to not know the significance of feathers but has plenty of memories of her grandfather who lived on the rez. Also, she's a cleptomaniac. I love Piper, I like how she's representation for a person who was cut off from her culture and longs to know it despite living with her bio family because I and a few friends are the same, but Piper is still a stereotype. I also feel like the veganism plays into the whole spiritual nature stereotype, but I'm not sure so don't quote me

Frank

The only confirmed greco-roman demigod without dyslexia is also East Asian. I think the stereotyping is obvious it doesn't help that the only two Asian characters before him, Ethan and Drew, were antagonists. He was infantalized while fat and then had a magic glow up for... no reason, really, but that matters less here. Also he's dating a seventh grader as a tenth grader basically and I'm trying to not spoil stuff but the end of the Tyrant's Tomb is bullshit from a lore perspective imo

Hazel

She's a black girl whose parents both had very dark eyes and hair, yet her eyes are gold and her hair is paler than her skin, and both of those last two are described as looking like foods. Again, she is the age of a 7th grader. See Frank. And this may be the fandom's fault, but it seems she's always either infantalized or adultified from what I've seen

Will

All we know about Will Solace in BoO is that he's attracted to men and a medic son of Apollo. I bet you didn't remember he was at the Battle of Manhattan or that he's counselor because all his siblings died. And that's a lot of kids. Also he calls Nico nicknames he doesn't like. See Nico for further criticism of Will

Alex

Alex is called the adjective form of a slur multiple times. I could talk about how the grammar of that sucks, but *gesturs vaguely.* She gets transphobia from nearly everyone and disowned. I thought fantasy was supposed to be escapist, personally

Other stuff

Samirah is a hijabi, but we see under her scarf at least once and that feels really disrespectful, especially considering how observant she is of other stuff. Only women or close family (brothers, direct descendants, or direct ancestors) can see a hijabi's hair. Even if Magnus, Hearth, and Blitz are like family that usually isn't enough. She should have gotten a regular valkyrie's cloak imo. Some stuff feels off about Hearth but I'm not D/deaf so I'll hold my tongue on that as I'm not sure. Lavinia could use more yiddishisms in her speech and I'm curious to know what sect she was if her rabbi wasn't cool with her being a lesbian, but they do exist so *shrug.* There's probably something I missed with Reyna and Hylla, I feel like there is, but I can't remeber so it just gets an honorary mention

@afrolatinozuko

[melkormajere]

Disabled characters in fantasy and why the entire bullshit surrounding the ableistic arguments about disabilities in fantasy. Where people think that mobility devices in gaming could 'easily' be 'fixed' with magic and why it is incredibly frustrating.

OR What Raistlin Majere means to me as a disabled person. a Rant.

Why Raistlin Majere (And other disabled characters are important in fantasy). There's been a lot of discussion of accessibility devices being used in games. Talking about how it's 'lazy because magic can fix everything'. We would not have any of Dragonlance if it wasn't for Raistlin Majere. He is a canonically disabled mage, who was kinda (was) a jerk. He was very nuanced and important. Basic mage needs and 'spellslots' are an important part of fantasy. Much like our human bodies that require rest and nourishment, fantasy doesn't eliminate that. Raistlin Majere went to become a real mage and had to go through excruitating trials to prove he was capable of wearing his mage robes. During all of that he did some BAD things, and he offered his body to a even worse mage to help him. The Mage drained him regulary. Raistlin already was born disabled. His own self loathing against his able bodied brother was interesting, and while I could write tons about that too, that isn't what this is about entirely because there's more than that. He often felt left out, tired and rather useless and magic was what gave him 'strength'. Due to multiple things that happened to him he wanted to challenge the gods themselves and become the most powerful mage. (There's a lot more to this but for simplifying we are going with this). This is also not me condoning using disability as a 'punishment', but Raistlin already was disabled and was further pained when doing his mage trial. I've seen arguments about how gods/temples would help anyone disabled and therefore disabilities wouldn't work. Someone took a tiny bit of pity (ugh) on him and offered him something to help ease his pain, let's just call it medication for simplicity sake again. That was the most charity, even the most powerful clerics couldn't heal him or help him, whether in childhood or adulthood. Eventually he almost completely healed himself but was still very much dealing with various forms of pain, whether emotional etc. He is known as the most powerful wizard on krynn.

If we take all of that away we take away an incredibly interesting character whose disabilities helped elevate the games in which he was played in. When you work together you can accomplish so much more. When his friends were actual friends they accomplished so much together they seriously did. Yet due to his abbrasive personality he was rarely praised for the war of the lance until much later. Even his title of "hero of the lance" always seemed to come with talks about him being rather shitty until later. Throughout Dragonlance as a series (beyond the core novels) we have a lot of disabled characters and throughout the years as humans become more aware of how to write disabled characters differently we have gotten a lot more out of them and a lot more of them each providing such interesting parts to these beloved books. At an even simpler level we have gollum/smeagol, another canonical disabled charater who was kinda dick too. However without him, Frodo may not have been able to actually destroy the ring at all, and if we go even deeper into Tolkien's lore we can discover more disabled characters whether titled as such or not that seemed to be a reflection of what he experience during the war and coming back. Disabilities exist in fantasy and in the real world, and some of us chose to create characters with disabilites, and I'd really much like to believe that we can get along because the world is already inaccessible enough. Let your players use various modes of accessability if needed/wanted. Erasing these beautiful and nuanced characters would erase so much of what makes fantasy so incredible and accepting. It's always been such a mostly accepting genre, it's a way to fantasize and sometimes it's nice even in a regular day to fantasize what a beautifully crafted accessability device might look like. So rather than argue online for hours for "why disability makes no sense in fantasy" could we change it to " I am capable of creativity and inclusion". It's your fantasy game, so you get to be beautifully creative.

However, if you REALLY would take away disabilities in game because it's your fantasy game then say bye to

Raistlin Majere

Frodo -Gollum

Toph

John Silver

Captain Hook

Your random peg legged pirate

Your eye patch

Geordi La Forge

Vader

Luke

Furiosa

Matt Murdock

Professor X

Deadpool

Kanan Jarrus

Steven Strange

Bucky Barnes

War Machine

Elijah Price (And so so many more this is the lazy amount because I am SO FUCKING FED UP OF PEOPLE NOT BEING INCLUSIVE IN DND SPACES AND ONLINE) Brought to you by an angry disabled person. (I love you take good care of yourselves, also this is nuanced and not entirely encompassing all my thoughts nor does it have to be your view as a disabled person. I love you be good to yourself today please.)

[paperstorm]

That phone conversation between TK and Owen in 3x15 always melts me. When I first joined the fandom I was stunned by how much Owen was hated. It seriously seems like the man can't so much as breathe without people hating on him. And it's so strange to me because most of the things people seem to hate him for amount to him being a man displaying very real symptoms of PTSD and repressed trauma. I see it with TK as well but Owen out of all the characters is the one that people just seem to make up reasons to hate. It's sad actually when you think about how important a character like Owen is. A man with severe PTSD who is just trying to live with the symptoms and the damage that it has caused in his life all the while trying to be the best mentor and captain he can be to his team as well as be the best father he can be to the son he loves more than anything else. I remember people saying they wanted TK to change his last name simply to spite Owen and I just thought what show are these people watching that they think TK would ever hate his dad that much?! Or that Owen had ever done anything to deserve that?

I personally like Owen a lot! He isn't my favourite character but I like him a lot and I really like that they've made him complicated and given him flaws rather than making him the infallible hero. I think they've done generally a good job of showing that he has PTSD from multiple traumatic incidents and that it effects so many aspects of his life, as of course it would. I love that they've shown him understanding that he wasn't a good father for a long time and being so intentional about becoming a better one.

But you know what's interesting about fandom spaces is I feel like sometimes the Streisand effect is very real and very prominent. I haven't been in this fandom since the very beginning but I have been here for almost two years and while I have definitely seen some Owen hate, I have seen far more of people talking about the existence of Owen hate than I've seen of the hate itself. I do think more of it happens on twitter, because more haterism in general happens on twitter because the culture breeds it more. But as with most instances of people being rude about characters in this fandom, I genuinely believe the vast majority of people don't share those opinions and the handful who do are just really really noisy about it, and then the opinions permeate more through the action of everyone (including me lol) talking about them. I probably need to get better at keeping my side of the street clean and just loving characters even louder in response to people being nasty. Especially since a lot of the time the nasty opinions have either racist or ableist undertones that can and have hurt real people in this fandom.

[aroaceconfessions]

I keep seeing the same confessions on here that basically boil down to "You think YOU have it bad? well actually WE have it worse!!! WE are ACTUALLY OPPRESSED by people like YOU" and i think that these posts, while obviously fueled by strong emotions of feeling as if they are being ignored or erased, are missing the bigger picture of us all being oppressed from many different angles. For example: Sex/Romance repulsed aros and aces are facing intense mistreatment from allo people. They get called sex negative and freaks and are told "everyone likes sex/romance" "You're a heartless monster if you don't love!" "you'll find the right person who will fix you" "it sounds like a medical disorder" and a plethera of sexist, ableist, and other such things. This caused Repulsed aro and aces to separate themselves. They begin to actively show hatred for these things besides repulsion because they are constantly being forced upon them and told they are wrong. which then leads to the idea that anyone who doesn't feel this way is actively against them and part of the group that's hurting them. This of course isn't the case but this leads into the problem that Sex/romance favorable (not positive. Positive/negative and favorable/repulsed are two separate things) have within the community, which is being told they aren't actually ace or aro for being favorable/wanting romance and sex. Now this is very obviously wrong. it pushes actual ace and aro people out of their own community and isolates them. It doesn't help that this can also be used against them in terms of allos using them as a talking point and excuse to erase aromantic and asexual characters by completely misunderstanding sex/romance favorable and identities that have the chance of feeling sexual/romantic attraction (such as Grey or Demi) and this isn't a fault of these identities but it is often attributed to them and they are made to be "part of the problem" when they themselves are the ones facing the same problem as everyone else in the community, which is erasure and their identities not being taken seriously.

Idk i think there's a larger conversation to be had here about how a specific oppression of one part of the community had lad to a wider oppression coming from within the community against it's own memebers when in reality the ones who are really causing all the problems are the amatonormative allo society that doesn't care about any part of our community in the grand scheme of things. And yes, both groups should be allowed to express how their specific mistreatment hurts them and the figuration with that but attacking one part isn't going to make allos take anyone more seriously.

sorry this is long I've just seen an influx of submissions to this account that are like this and I think everyone needs to slow down, take a deep breath, and just think about why such infighting is happening before joining in on it. The truth is we are all facing the same oppression, no one group is the cause of said oppression, we are all just being hurt in different ways and we should help each other rather than add to that hurt.

[cyvonix]

Cyv Reads Homestuck - The Final Wrapup

This is my last post for the main comic, covering all of Act 6 Act 6 as well as Act 7.

God I feel like I have so much to say but no way to properly put it into a neat little bow so it might be a little more like me just rambling passionately. Hey that's like the perfect allegory for Homestuck.

Anyway if you just want the TL;DR for how I'm feeling overall, I feel it should almost go without saying I fucking loved this story. I can say with complete certainty that it has been a landmark in media I've consumed and will assuredly alter the way I consume things moving forward. In the several months it's taken me to finish, I've grown so attached to this story and these characters, and despite any qualms I may have with it (and trust me, there are plenty) I think it is a wonderfully creative and excellent piece of art that I'm going to continue loving for a long time. It does so many things I've never seen a work like this do before, and it takes advantage of its format in so many masterful ways that it ends up a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of so many styles and mediums that makes it truly stand on its own as something special. As I prepare to read the continuation of the official content and assuredly follow various fan adventures, fan projects, art, music and all of these amazing things that have spawned from this, I just want to make it as clear as possible: I cannot overstate the positive impact this weird little webcomic has had on me.

So that's that. I think now I probably wanna get a bit more into the nitty gritty stuff and delve into some of my more specific opinions. Here's the problem: I have a fuck ton. Seriously, if I were to properly articulate all the thoughts I have on this work, we would be here all god damn day and I would get tired of typing and you would get tired of scrolling. So I'm just gonna kind of go with the flow and go where my brain wants to go with this post. I figure I should probably get some complaints out of the way first, because I don't wanna end this on a sour note, but I do wanna mention them, because Homestuck does certainly have its problems:

Pretty obviously, the early comic was entrenched in a 2000s edgy forum culture that made it a little cringe to read sometimes. The ableist language that was liberally used as well as pretty distasteful jokes pertaining to race and sexuality make some of these early sections age a bit like milk. Fortunately, this takes a massive dip after around Act 4, but it still lingers a while after, and it obviously didn't ruin anything for me and isn't like, EGREGIOUS, but it still makes me think like man I wish this stuff wasn't here because it adds nothing and feels so out of place in the current day.

Speaking of race, and specifically racial representation, oops! There's none! I know, I know, I know. "Aracial". And that's all well and good in theory, but it's pretty obvious that Hussie wrote these characters from a decidedly white perspective and as a result that's just naturally how they read, despite any excuse he used to try making for it. And that in itself isn't some massive problem, just a note on the authorial bias at play. But then the only ones who don't read as white? The violent one who uses broken, obviously uninformed AAVE, and the japanese schoolgirl who speaks in bad japanese and wears cute little stereotypical outfits and is constantly sexualized. All I'm saying is, come on man, we can do better.

Hey look we reached the part where I rant about the dancestors. I mean what do I even have to say. Why did they even exist ??? Meenah is the only one who ended up being interesting in any meaningful way, and I guess Aranea even though I didn't feel particularly positive about her and her place in the story even after everything had happened. The rest were less interesting than the original 12, less funny than the original 12, and way more annoying and surface-level than the original 12. Seemingly on purpose. So I thought oh ok, this story hasn't let me down with this kinda stuff yet, so let's give it the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this is for some bigger reason, maybe it's essential that they're in the story for later, maybe we'll get some actual development and I'll turn around on them. I was wrong to do so. They're nothing. They are nothing characters. Even what seemed like it should've been something - Kurloz working with Gamzee - just kinda never got elaborated on and faded into the background. So then. Why. Why are they here? Why do they exist? Why did you make me spend hours meeting them? Genuinely felt like a total waste of time and you could take out that entire section from the story and lose effectively nothing. Worst part of the comic by far.

The pacing of this story can be rough. And I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this point, because reading this archivally and knowing it was updated serially in small bursts over time, it makes total sense and I honestly excuse it for the most part. Buuuut that doesn't mean it's not noticeable sometimes that the comic will go through dry spells that can sorta be slogs to get through, and then follow with most breakneck pace you could imagine immediately after, and is always undulating between these two modes. Eh.

Those are really the only big negative things I have to say. Well, sorta. I think the rest will mostly be positive, but I... hm. I think that... ok let's talk about the ending.

First of all, Act 7. Wow. just holy shit. I've jokingly been calling Homestuck a shonen anime since like Act 4 but ???? god DAMN dude that was fucking incredible. Never would I expect actual, traditional animation from a Homestuck flash, and it was so satisfying as a final animation. That being said, I feel a bit... conflicted about the context surrounding the ending? For the record, the actual ending itself, like the last moments of the comic, I think are lovely and thematically feel super appropriate. Seeing Caliborn basically transform into Lord English is that one final time loop after a series of hundreds of time loops, finally finishing itself off. And all the while, the kids break the cycle. No more loops of destruction and rebirth and destrucion again. They won, not in the sense that they beat the big bad guy and saved the day, but in a much more poignant way; they stopped this whole fucking thing from ever happening again. I genuinely do love it. It feels appropriately existential for Homestuck, but not quite cynical. It's an ending of death and rebirth. Hopeful at its core.

I think there are a few reasons I feel a little odd about it. First is that, just tbh, I think we were introducing way too many characters way too fucking late. I mean we basically just met Davepetasprite, who is a fucking joy btw, and then BAM ending. This means that most of these later additions to the cast don't get to have much impact on the ensuing events, and even if they do, it's not as emotionally resonant as these other characters we've had plenty of time to learn about and grow to love. I would never insinuate Homestuck should be EVEN LONGER, but it does feel a bit like just throwing the fandom a few last bones to be like here! Write some fics about these peeps! But I would've wanted more actual in-universe development and narrative relevance, otherwise I just don't get a whole lot from it.

The other thing that just feels a little... idk, odd? is that I just still have no fucking clue what Vriska did to LE with the weapon, or even like, what happened to LE or Vriska. I guess maybe they're both going to die anyway because of alt-Calliope basically ripping apart this entire continuity with the black hole, but I don't know that for sure. And since Act 7 was only the single flash, I don't feel like I have much to even go on in terms of theorizing about it. The credits did like, a liiiittle more in that department I guess?? (btw those were adorable and I loved them a lot) But even then it feels like even THOSE are opening new questions as much as answering old ones. Is Vriska who Terezi is looking for? Otherwise why is Terezi the one venturing out there? Can they just come and go as they please despite the black hole? There are so many things that are completely unanswered.

I guess my main point is that the ending just felt really abrupt, cutting off a lot of plotlines that I thought were actually gonna go somewhere, and inconclusive. And maybe it's meant to be. In fact I'm almost certain it's meant to be. But the problem lies in that it does not feel inconclusive in a "up to your interpretation" way, but more in a "literally not concluded" way. Like it wasn't actually finished telling its story. I'll put it this way: the ending feels like a big awesome season finale, but not a series finale. And I know that the post-canon sequel content exists, but it seems like the fans and those works themselves distance themselves so much from the original comic that it makes it seem like that feeling wasn't the intention, so it's just really strange.

So much for not having any more negative things to say lol. Sorry. But all in all I do still largely enjoy what I got from this ending, I just hate that it feels like it was cut short or something.

Let's balance all that out by talking about some cool shit!!! I'm just gonna spitball some of my favorite things about this comic, whether in this reading section or just overall:

The art is so good!! All of Act 6 Act 6, especially the last several updates, is so immaculately rendered. I can see why this basically became *the* Homestuck style moving forward, because it's just so pleasing to look at and captures the characters in a great way. Speaking outside of specifically this section and more generally, I adore how loose Homestuck is with its art. Hussie seemed to just pick and choose whatever style would properly represent the events at hand, and it ends up being so awesome in a way that's unbound by things like staying on-model or being consistent because it's just pure expression. Plus, the constant guest art is fuckin amazing, not only because most of it is genuinely incredible in its own right, but also because Homestuck is such a wildly community-driven experience that it only feels natural to let other talented artists make their own mark on the story. It started early on and continued being a thing all the way until the end and I love love love that.

The metatextual elements of this story are so fascinating to me. Unfortunately this is one of those things I thought was gonna be expanded on a bit more by the end, but what's there is still great. I like that it goes so far beyond "fourth wall" jokes and nods to the audience. The way the characters directly interact with the narrator, the story structure, and even the website itself, is so much more interesting. Beyond being simply fun, it manages to raise so many interesting questions about the very art of fiction. What authorship means, the responsibilities of it, the follies of poor authorship, the interaction between an audience and fictional characters, the way character voice can be used to convey tone, all this and so many more things are tackled as actual in-universe concepts that can be materially tinkered with to varying results. I could genuinely write other entire posts about the way this story discusses a lot of meta concepts.

The way this comic uses its medium to its advantage is unparalleled. I just always appreciate when a story is so thoroughly connected to its medium that it would become something else if adapted, and this is certainly one of those stories. The way that the style of narrative prompt itself can convey something about what you're reading, the banners and menus being shifted, changed, obscured, and otherwise altered to add an entire new element to the experience of reading the story, the colors of the website, the way characters and items aren't necessarily bound to the frame of the panel, the way the very act of clicking on a link to go to the next page is made to be a central part of the experience, ALL OF IT... I can't call it anything other than masterful. (Ok I'm sorry to throw yet another complaint in here but I was fully expected A6A6A6 to continue this trend and basically be a huge amalgam of all these website-bending tricks we'd come to know so I was a liiiiittle disappointed when it was just a youtube video).

The character writing, often times, is phenomenal. Even from the beginning, the way character voice was so strong was impressive and fun, but as I got later into Act 6, and especially A6A6, some of the long-running character traits, flaws, and storylines finally came to a cathartic close in mostly really great ways. Some obvious highlights: Dave, in too many ways to count tbh, whether it's him grappling with destiny/heroism/things of that nature, realizing he's not straight, coming to terms with his bro's treatment of him, reconnecting to his authentic interests, so many things about Dave are so insanely amazingly done. Of course Dirk is an interesting character as well, with many questions brought up concerning mortality, control, self-loathing, and other pretty heavy stuff. Hooray for alt-Vriska getting some justice lmao. Her and alt-Terezi finally finding peace in themselves and comfort in each other in the afterlife is like almost too beautiful to not make me wanna cry. Again, like with the meta stuff, I could write entire posts about various characters and the awesome ways they're written, but I'll leave it here for now.

I think... maybe that's all I have for now. Maybe. I have a multitude of thoughts, big and small, and there was absolutely 0 chance I was gonna fit them all in here or even remember all of them. But there you have it.

Hey would you look at that. Homestuck's good!

Not perfect, as I feel I've made perfectly obvious. But good. Full of passion. Full of care. An exceptional work of art and a unique phenomenon that will likely never be replicated. I'm so, so happy to have finally experienced it. So that's me signing off on my very last liveblog post for the original comic... Damn. Thanks to the people who've been so interested in seeing me take this journey and those of you who have contributed to the discussion, it definitely made it more special for me and I appreciate it.

Thanks For Playing <3

.........

For those of you wondering, no, this liveblog as a whole isn't necessarily over. I know the post-canon content (still don't understand why it's even called that) is contentious for many, and I feel like I've seen opinions ranging from people saying it's some of the best stuff released for Homestuck, all the way to saying it literally ruined the whole thing for them because of how bad it is. So clearly, this is some controversial shit I'm about to get into. But yes, I am indeed, getting into it. I'm going to keep this liveblog going, and at the very least, I'm going to get through the Epilogues, and what is currently released of Beyond Canon. If I really find it as atrocious as some people seem to, I guess no promises that I will continue reading and posting about it after that. But I gotta know. I need to see for myself and come to my own conclusions. And I'm taking you all with me.

Cyv Reads The Homestuck Epilogues coming to a theatre near you some time soon.

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

Hamlet......the eternal blorbo......character meme pls (also i7 trigger if you'd like)

OKAY. i was at school all day but here we go

(did gaku already here)

hamlet:

gah. hamlet. one of the most famous blorbos of all time. the thing about him is that he's not only tragic and well written, he's also, like, funny? relatable? the college-educated prince i think would have been someone much harder to connect to in shakespeare's time— definitely not impossible, and he's written as someone you can connect to, but still— but in this day and age the world is FULL of depressed college students, and hamlet's genuinely charming. i recoil at adaptations that frame him as a clear asshole (apart from immortal ros&guil performances that are clearly just having some fun with him) because while you can say 'oh, he killed those people, he mistreated ophelia, he caused the problems' and all that, you can and should sympathize with him, and a performance where you get to enjoy every moment of his being onstage is a good one; he makes a kind of sharp-tongued joke that an audience should be able to laugh at. i'm sad about him, too, but the tragedies that REALLY make me sad tend not to be hamlet-brand; what draws me to him is just like. his energy. and his tragic fall is done very well (of course it is, it's one of the most well-liked plays of all time)

tenn:

compared to hamlet tenn isn't as much of an all timer but on god. i'm obsessed with him. stream hidden region mv right now.

i always get hyped whenever a character is a collection of archetypes i've never seen before and on god. tenn. nice guy who acts like an asshole who acts nice. his layers. but that's such an oversimplification too... i want to dissect him. he's so stubbornly self sacrificial my boy LET PEOPLE HELP YOU. not me tho i wont help u i'll hit u with a baseball bat for being ableist to riku . but he's really good

ryuu:

RYUUUUUUU i tend to like the characters who are like... weird and complicated and really unique concepts and ryuu is not that like he DOES have complexity + every idolish7 character also has a cool twist that takes them beyond an archetype (i think every) . but i do love him he's just like. lovable. like how could u look at ryuu and NOT like him. i also really like when he gets mad like when he scares yaopapa or REALLY GOOD SCENE the times he like. very seriously and calmly, at a very mentally low state, gets antagonized by ryou and just. verbally eviscerates him. they make really good foils because he's everything ryou's not: he's down to earth, he deeply cares for people and isn't afraid to show it, and he understands himself. he's got moments of anxiety and self doubt, but he's managed to build himself up from that as trigger's grown closer. ik other fans like him when he's dumb/oblivious, i tend not to laugh as much at those moments (though some are iconic) bc i really like him as someone who like. knows what he's about. he's also kind of the touma of trigger; when i first met trigger, they were antagonistic and tenn and gaku were always bickering, so i saw them as villains, and ryuu was the member that endeared me to himself first (pretty much as soon as he stepped onscreen lol)

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

5, 9, 14, 16 for the Disability Pride asks!

Hello!

Disability Asks~

5 and 9 I have answered already, so I'll do the next unanswered questions, 13 and 4 <3

4. do you know any disabled people irl? what about online?

Yes! Both in person and online I know disabled people. Most of the people I know are neurodivergent, but I do know a few physically disabled people <3. There are also some disabled people in the writeblr community that I've interacted with, and there's also the post I made at the beginning of the month encouraging disabled writers to promote their stuff.

13. whats the most Abled Person Thing someone has said to you?

In response to my adhd and autism, I have been told everything from "have you tried using a planner?" to "make alarms and reminders on your phone!" and "have you tried yoga/meditation?" to "but you do so well at school/work!". about the planner thing: buddy. friend. if you think for a second that writing something down on a piece of paper is going to make me remember- DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THAT MY ADHD BRAIN FORGETTING THINGS WOULD STILL BE A PROBLEM?

but I think the one that takes the cake is "you don't look autistic." oh, sorry Karen, let me just draw a puzzle piece on my forehead and cosplay Sheldon from Big Bang Theory. Note my sarcasm (ooh shocker I can be sarcastic). Autism doesn't have a look, dumbass. People of all shapes, sizes, colors, sexualities and genders have it. And if you think you can spot autism just by looking at someone, that's incredibly ableist and just plain stupid.

14. has there ever been a time where you felt solidarity/community with another disabled person in a situation with you?

any time I'm with my in person friends and we're not hiding our disabilites. One of my closest friends is also autistic/adhd, plus some chronic conditions. I swear whenever I'm with them it's like ableist society doesn't exist for a minute. We support each other's special interests and even scream with each other about them, and it is the most freeing thing ever.

And of course disability pride month. Such a freeing and wonderful feeling to connect with and talk with people who know how it feels and we're all trying to help ourselves and each other learn some self love and acceptance, while also fighting to get some human rights. It's amazing to have a wholeass community of disabled people in my pocket.

16. free space to talk about whatever disability issue or experience you want !

You know what? I'm still angry from what I talked about for number 7 earlier, when I talked about the portrayal of personality/mood disorders in media, and I feel like talking about autism in mainstream movies/books/tv shows.

CW talking about the ableist and harmful dogshit that is autistic representation in media, and hate organizations like Autism Speaks. Also a lot of me venting and yelling angrily because this shit pisses me off so much. Also there's a lot of screaming in caps, if that kind of thing makes you upset. Autism Speaks gets it's own content warning because it's that bad

Not only is there a lack of representation, the majority of representation we do get is... shall we say... terrible and very not good. I'm looking at Sia's Music (MOST ABLEIST SHIT I HAVE EVER SEEN IT SHOULD'VE BEEN CATEGORIZED AS A HORROR MOVIE), Rain Man, The Good Doctor, Big Bang Theory, etc etc.

Here's the issue: most, if not all of autistic characters in media (at least mainstream media) are the exact same thing, just slightly to the left, and not even in a good way. These characters all rely very heavily on the exact same sereotypes, and half the time these characters are treated like props and plot devices, and not even treated or shown as human. (I'M LOOKING AT YOU SIA). It should be noted that real people falling into stereotypes isn't bad, the problem is when the entertainment industry sees those as the only traits of an autistic person, and there's no diversity in the very short list of canonically autistic characters.

And the worst part? The writers/directors/producers of the media got all of the research for their autistic characters from terrible sources that are ableist hate organizations. Good Doctor and Sia's Music both got their research from the hate organization Autism Speaks, which is notorious for spreading misinformation and hate, and it shows in how the autistic characters are written and treated (and they're not even sorry for it).

Side note: Don't believe that AS is violently ableist and a hate organization? Go find one of their ads promoting the idea that autism is caused by the mom taking medications during pregnancy (which is not true at all, no scientific evidence to back that up in the slightest). Look at one of their fundraising campaigns to 'find a cure' (we autistics don't need a cure, and they just use the money to get out of taxes and line their own pockets anyway). Go find a recording of their 'I am Autism' ads from the late 2000's (the ad is so horrible it's banned pretty much everywhere and only poor quality recordings of it exist, AND IT'S SOME OF THE MOST VIOLENTLY ABLEIST SHIT TOWARDS AUTISTICS I'VE EVER SEEN). <- Trigger warning for all of that shit because it's very disturbing and extremely ableist.

so the entertainment industry gives us little to no autistic characters, gets their research for their autistic characters from Autism Speaks and other such ableist organizations, use autism as the butt of jokes or view those traits as 'not human' behavior, have the characters fall into the exact same stereotypes and character types (super smart, literal child or childlike, poor thing, can't socialize at all, obsessed with math or science, etc etc), AND THEN! On top of all that they expect the autism community to be grateful that they were even granted any representation in the first place, despite how dogshit said representation is.

It gives society the wrong idea about us, infantilizes and glorifies autism, feeds hate organizations, hurts us, hurts the people that love us, push harmful stereotypes, and all around makes it harder to be autistic in this world. It's some of the worst ableism I have ever witnessed and it's just plain hurtful.

I kind of went off there, but I honestly don't care because this is a huge issue that should be talked about more, and the entertainment industry needs to be held accountable for it, because it causes real damage to autistic people in real life.

I'm going to end this on a more positive note: I'm trying to get into more indie/less mainstream media, and the representation is better it's so refreshing and nice. I'm also pouring all of my love into my own autistic characters, and it helps to release some of my anger about mainstream media rep.

Thanks @girlcalledwhatsername !

[mdhwrites]

What are your thoughts on Willow x Hunter?

I… don't care? They're fine. Cute enough, they have something to bond over, both good to each other and exceptionally boring as a couple. They're almost the same person even except one likes lifting weights and plants while the other likes sci-fi and actually matters to the story.

I do not get the hype I guess is what I'm saying. Not that I'm entirely surprised either. It was finally a ship for Willow that wouldn't get you accused of enabling abuse or evil like Boschlow would (seriously people, what the fuck? I don't like the ship but you all need to learn to breathe.) or just all alone like Willuz or Amillow would. For Hunter it was an even bigger reprieve. The show finally told you "Ship them" with a scene without it either breaking up Lumity or being with the CANONICAL LESBIAN.

Seriously, I will not drop that they tie his character arc, effectively starting it three times over, with three different girls and that would be bad without one of them being AMITY. Because each one really does get that "This could be the start of a friendship or a romance" moment with Hunter and that makes me roll my eyes some.

So yeah, they're the safe option. They're the show approved option with no conflict between them, little contrast and it does a good job of entirely making you forget that while Willow questionably worked out before the show (we actually have nothing to go off of one way or another), Hunter almost certainly did. Because child soldier.

Going into that goes into everything that's a mess about Willow though and how much the writers just do not care about her.

So instead, I actually want to talk about two of the complaints about Huntlow that I just think are… The complaint has a purpose but its target is wrong.

"Huntlow stole time from the show."

I actually severely disagree with this. After all, Hunter was always going to get time and his arc is already rushed, to the point where it doesn't really have a middle. It just starts a few times like mentioned above, then Hollow Mind forces a climax on it and we get a little bit of resolution. That was always going to happen because it was a well established as part of the story.

The only question was with who and… Well, Willow was the choice the writers made and they made it for the sake of Huntlow over narrative. And that's the problem. Your complaint is that Hunter's arc is not good and the unfortunate consequence is that giving the arc more focus would have meant Willow just… Not being in S2. Not in a meaningful way because Willow always has to have an excuse from another character to exist.

And the time Huntlow did take? Effectively none. Because they allow Hunter to just consume Gus' role as closest person to Willow, all the Huntlow moments actually get to flow naturally because they have one personal, one on one conversation and then just know EVERYTHING about each other so the rest of it is just glances, blushes, etc. that take no time and you can just move on from.

It's really fucking bad writing but hey! Part for the course.

"It's ableist."

I think the argument for it, what little I've seen, is… dumb. And puts way more importance and impact on the two's magical handicaps WAY more than the show literally ever did. And again, the complaint is kind of missing the real problem.

Eda's curse was an AMAZING disability allegory. Unlike so many shows where the dude in a wheelchair is actually in a SUPER WHEELCHAIR SO HE CAN KICK BUTT LIKE ANYONE EL-

No. Eda was genuinely held back by the curse. She didn't let it hold her back though. She instead took her medicine, watched out for the things that may trigger her and the curse, etc. like that. It wasn't a super power but it also didn't stop her from being an exceptional person. From living the life she wanted. As someone struggling with disability myself due to anxiety and depression… That's what I want.

I don't want characters being super powered from it is not. Or being cured. And Eda gets a super saiyan form, Gus takes out a fucking coven head and Flapjack DIES and their sacrifice gives Hunter magic. The cure to his disability (and I know this was not the intention since Hunter was dying from other things but it still matters) is another person's LIFE.

When I can say for myself that my number one goal in life is not to be a burden for others due to my jacked up brain.

So… I would say people are right to say this gets borderline offensive to disabled people but it's REALLY not Huntlow's problem.

Huntlow's problems really are about the show's problems. The problems inherent to these two characters. But, as I've shown in this blog even, for being able to say SO MUCH about the two characters… There's really not a lot to say about the ship. It's there, it's cute, they don't do anything that would make people hate it outside of… I dunno, being straight? At least there is a positive straight couple in the show that isn't dead.

It's a mess but only because the show is a mess. But it's hardly one worth actually throwing a fit over.

[nyxzee]

i debated putting this on my art blog but as a point i've been vocal about this shit since it happened and i'm still fucking livid about it all despite how fucking long ago it was. this is going to be linked in my pinned posts so as a heads up, warning for all types of abuse, self harm (including a detailed description), suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, overdose mentions, intense mental health shit, ableist narratives and gore along with mistreatment from the fandom

hi, i'm nyx, this blog used to be called emeridan and my old main was bardofmotherfuck - i was one of the gamzee fans who was sent gore, the wish i kill myself, and other abuse for identifying with gamzee. this wasn't a "oh lol funny clown he's goofy like me" i identify with him due to abuse trauma, due to being an addict and mentally ill. because i was hurt deeply by religion and losing my faith caused me to fall into bad fucking shit. to slightly minor extents i identify due to the friendship and romantic issues he had, fuck gamzee makara even had me, a then 20something realize i was bisexual and nonbinary! to a more intense one i identify with him because his agency was taken away and he was made a slave to other peoples horrific intentions - which isn't fun as i hope you'd imagine. i used to have a tag for the vent art i did involving the makara line (blood, gore, abuse all in this tag as you'd expect someone with severe trauma to have in vent art)

i'm not unique in this. there are a lot of gamzee fans who dealt with this. it was a huge fucking issue, it happened on msparp too, to the extent they posted about it happening because it was so fucking frequent. there are multiple gamzee fans i used to follow on tumblr who were sent the same and worse shit. i'm not mentioning them because even to the ones still into homestuck content, this shit was traumatic. i'm a petty bitch so as a protest i only drew gamzee for a while! (just in case these are the real time posts from my main: 1, 2), i have this account from 2015 here, i have this mentioned again here. this fandom abuse has been established well for me, it started 9 months into my homestuck art centric blog after all!

i'm still here in spite of people wanting me to kill myself. honestly despite being petty and boastful in still being here about it when it happened i wasn't actually feeling like that in real life. shocking i know. i had an intense cutting period due to it, i'm still scared of having my submit open, i still want to vomit whenever i get an email that anyone's sent me anything. i've seriously considered suicide a lotta times because i was so frequently told i was in the wrong, i've still got methods in mind and whenever i take my regular medication for the chronic pain shit i think things would be better if i flat out just took everything and didn't wake up ever again. a lotta it is real life trauma, but i used and still use homestuck (and especially gamzee) to help with that.

i talk about it whenever i see a brief chance to, i just haven't screamed loudly in a while that this abuse happened. i find screaming that i'm hurt exhausting and i'm still pretty sure someone will end up giving me shit - and for what i'm doing in this fucking post i'm damn fucking sure i've painted a target on myself again. but i don't care. i am who i am, i've been through all the shit life has thrown (and continues to throw) at me.

@ardenttheories posted a thing that includes a message i sent on twitter (on anon of course because i was scared) in this post here. blog's inactive, i dunno anything about ardent and that isn't the point of this. i'm just proving i've been here for a long fucking time and i've seen some fucking horrors. the message was one i sent on twitter and it looks like the op has deleted their account so i can't prove this but i think i've shown that this isn't a thing i've pulled outta my ass because i'm one of the bitter old fans who hates the current team and wants to lie to hurt them.

i actually don't know anyone aside from james roach being involved and the fact kate was asked to rejoin the team. this is mentioned here by sarah who, was in fact part of this problem but of course that doesn't matter because gamzee fans are pigshit (no tag because i don't wanna waste anything on that drivel!). here's a casual reminder of what exactly the pigshit comment is referring to.

i don't think the trauma of gamzee fans trumps the trauma the team got. trauma and fandom abuse is bad all round. it's not fun, it's gross and painful and people who send abuse are fucking monsters. however, the team was a big part in sending a giant fuck you to the trauma gamzee fans have gotten. that's what the problem is here, that's what this whole post has been leading to. i'm not writing this as a call to cancel homestuck^2 - i'm writing this because i want some acknowledgement on what happened to us. as i said, i'm still here despite the abuse, hopes i'd kill myself and the want to kill myself so i'm making a point of saying something.

the issues in the fandom of team members didn't start with the hs^2 team, it had a nice jumpstart from shelby cragg. i refuse to link any of the accounts who have posted accounts of this as i don't want to get people who dealt with her more stress and the only other person who mentions it isn't someone i want to link any traffic towards. google 'shelby cragg gamzee hate' and you'll find it. she used to tag horrific shit on gamzee fans artwork. fans who had in fact, been sent gore and harassment. she used to post about how great abusive ships were, how actual abuse victims (specifically the gamzee fan ones!) should feel about gam/rezi, how stupid gamzee fans were and directly bait and switch gamzee fans who she'd directly told to call her out if she fucked up by telling them they were random people who had no right to call her out. she had an abuse survivor friend so of course, the wrong abuse survivors didn't matter.

her co-authoring the serendipity gospels which while not official canon had become fandom canon. purples and teals of course work together on alternia after they grow up! gamzee was a total abusive nut case whose personality was either lol druggie or abusive monster and terezi was his victim, gamzee was a bunch of things in this fanfic and it's still looked to as the greatest fanfic in fandom history. as anything shelby touched involving gamzee his portrayal in it was racist, ableist and was always abusive in some way to any character he was placed with. i'm not here to talk about the person who wrote it with her or whatever work she's doing now with her non homestuck content. my point is the fanfiction was bad and it became fanon legend.

gamzee fans have been out crying that we have endured severe trauma that made us relate to gamzee. we weren't there for the ableist shit shelby made out of his character. there are different types of fans for his character, but i hope i've made a point that i'm referring to the people like me. the ones who were directly targeted because of our mental illnesses and abuse history. the ones who monsters wanted to kill.

homestuck proper ended on a bad note for gamzee fans. we had no conclusion, we had nothing. in the end after everything we were left with absolutely nothing but people filling in the blanks to say we likely deserved it because we liked this fucking awful clown. we got nothing for what happened to us. we just had to blindly accept we were hated and people wanted us dead for identifying with a fictional character.

then the epilogue's happened. then homestuck^2. then pesterquest. it bought this hate for us back front and center. the team hated us, hated a character who helped us get through shit no one should have had to endure.

like shelby did, they brutalized his character, and i'm damn fucking sure those cunts know what happened to us. we screamed, and screamed and SCREAMED that we were suffering but they boiled it down to "oh they just like that abusive man! let me make him more abusive" - the portrayal of gamzee in the new work is nothing but someone constantly spitting in our faces. the album of the team's string of bullshit should give you an idea on how the rest of this is gonna go.

the epilogue portrayal of gamzee went into the shit we'd had enough already, it turned a character who helped people cope become a gross dystopian version of our fucking abusers!!! the shit we'd endured from the fandom and our real life trauma was the butt of every fucking joke. there was no conclusion to his actual arc in it, there was no happy resolution for us, but there was a shout out to us. we got our moment of acknowledgment! they turned something that had helped real life abuse survivors, mentally ill people, addicts and victims of religious trauma - a fictional character who people wanted us dead over - into our abusers, into the worst things we'd dealt with, into a fucking mockery of our abuse. ALL of our abuse. all of our trauma. all we'd been through.

homestuck^2 did this further. they were parading the mockery of our abuse to the fullest extent they could think to do. i couldn't get past gamzee's death. but i know they've continued to hate us. i know they can't wait for us to end up killing ourselves so they can piss on our graves.

i have a review of pesterquest here, it's not complete. i couldn't finish the game fully. rose's story caused a self harm relapse and a huge hope i'd be brave enough to take the fucking overdose and end it all. i didn't go into how much gamzee's route broke me. i couldn't. i gained something outta it though! my left pinky and index fingers often lose feeling and i'm unable to use them unless i rigorously shake my hand for five minutes because i burnt my arm as badly as i could. i have cigarette burns all over my wrist, it looks like an octopus scarred me with every arm of its on one side and like someone made an attempt to burn down to my bone with something far bigger than a cigarette on the other. it wasn't something other than a cigarette, but it was a few cigarettes in the same spot. it was burning until i snuffed it out, relighting and burning down again until i'd finished the cigarette, lighting another and repeating. i did this until i felt like i'd earned my right to be alive again.

i need you to understand i'm disabled due to severe pain. i have fibromyalgia that was undiagnosed and untreated since i was 15. i'm 30 now. i've been suffering chronic headaches since i was 11. i've had my lip ripped open. i have ganglion cysts that make bending my wrist in the slightest hurt. i tore both rotator cuffs severely 10 years ago, my wrists are hypermobile and hurt constantly. my dominant arm sufferers from tendonitis. my jaw is so fucked i can't open it fully some days and it always makes a horrific pop outta alignment when i yawn. i've spent at least 10 years sleeping on a couch instead of on a bed as i either didn't have a bed or the one i had was so busted it made sleep impossible, as such my back and neck are a fucking nightmare stream of nonstop pain. i have back trauma from a car accident as a kid. i've strangled myself a few times with cords to try numb the pain out, i've been physically abused to the point i nearly died, i've been sexually assaulted multiple times, i've been violently ill from attempted overdoses or allergies. my point is, i know pain. it's the oldest companion i have and i'm tired of having it.

the continued burning i did to myself from that night however, surpassed any of those individual incidents. it eclipsed the regular intense agony i'm in daily for a solid month. the emotional turmoil of a life like mine had led to this. i'd found fiction to hide in, i'd found a character who so perfectly captured all of this trauma, all of this pain, all of this shit i've had to fucking deal with. i've had people try and take him away, i've had monsters try and get me to take the plunge and kill myself. i thought i was largely numb to bad gamzee interpretation and could move past all this hurt. it turns out i wasn't numb and this shit would continue to hurt. but it wasn't just a random ignorant idiot this time round, it was official. it was the team digging my grave and getting ready to throw shit on top of my corpse. that hurts in a unique way.

i don't do homestuck^2 now or ever. i refuse to finish pesterquest. i do my best to ignore the additional trauma the original team was aiming for. i viciously ignore and deny the shit they pull now. i quietly hiss to friends that some disgusting and ignorant cunt said the dumbest fucking shit that makes me want to scream until my vocal cords snap. i see the odd snapshot of what mutilation is happening to a comic that frankly saved my life in so many ways. i don't look in the gamzee tag as someone will have tagged the mutilated hs^2 version in there and that will do nothing but hurt. i don't enjoy being irritated by the snapshots i've seen. i want noting more than a fucking retcon where hs^2 and pesterquest are removed and we were left with the snapchat panels as the finale of homestuck.

in a more petty sense i want a personalized apology from everyone involved in the project, tattoo "i'm a dumb cunt" to their forehead, write an essay as long as homestuck's entire transcript about why they're sorry for what they did. i want the fans who rejoice in the mangled mess that gamzee is in hs^2 to shut the fuck up and delete their blogs. i want the amount of money the kickstarter for hiveswap raised deposited into my paypal account weekly. i want my therapy sessions paid for until i die. i want them to pay for private health care so i can stop physically hurting. what i want is illogical and those are frivolous things off the top of my head. they're stupid and petty and a complete fantasy.

what i really want though, is something that seems like it's a million times more impossible than a weekly deposit of $2485506. i want some fucking acknowledgment of this shit having happened. i've laid out my personal history with this shit, but it's not a personal "here's the essay nyx wrote about how much gamzee hate has fucked them up - it's totally worse than what the homestuck^2 team went through - gamzee hate is a bannable offense as such on every site due to it" that i want. i've burnt down to my bones on how much this shit has hurt me and in truth, i think i'm largely writing this for myself so i can at least say i said something. i wasn't a coward. i stood up and shouted at the void that gamzee fans have been badly abused.

the truth is: i want the abuse gamzee fans went through, the harassment, the gore, the threats and the physical abuse some of us have endured recognized. i'm not trying to overshadow the harassment the team got. but i'm saying the personalized attacks on us were unjustified. the mockery of the abuse we received from real life abusers and the abuse we were sent online for liking gamzee makara. they knew what they were doing. they did it to mock us. they did it to hurt us because we were the wrong kinda victim. we weren't their warped view of the canon and we interpreted, saw, identified, found comfort and loved a character who they disliked. our real life trauma and circumstance wasn't what they saw in gamzee and we had the fucking nerve to see ourselves in a character who can't be replicated in any other media. we were the ones in the wrong. we're the wrong victims. the wrong fans. the pigshit.

i've been writing this for over four hours now and i think i've exhausted how much i can say this stuff. it's been painful and i've ripped myself open to say this all but i think i'm doing the right thing. i'll second guess my way for the rest of my life, i'll overthink everything i do every time because i'm the wrong sorta victim. overall, in a sense i don't care anymore. i'm not numb by any means, i'm not saying i don't care as a bravado this time. i'm saying that i'm not letting you motherfucking cunts put me in the darkest place i've ever fucking been again. i'm not relapsing and losing more use of my hand. i know what kind of people the team are, i know the ignorance and venomous victim blaming and hate in people who hate gamzee fans. over all my final point is this:

it's unfair. why was this shit justifiable. why do we get ignored when we're hurt severely. why don't we matter. why can't our method of coping with homestuck be accepted like everyone else's. why are we the wrong ones. why did we deserve this. why was the fandom abuse towards us a good funny thing.

why the fuck do you hate us so much?

[dazzling-dollyz]

List of reasons why I hate TERFS as a cis woman, and vile shit I've seen them say and do:

And mind you, this is a LONG list.

Claiming they "protect real women and feminism" while actively harrassing and attacking both trans women (when feminism has ALWAYS been trans inclusive) AS WELL AS attacking any cis woman who doesn't fit into their imagined perception of a woman (taking photos of random women and accusing them of being trans just cuz they have body hair, a stronger jawline, broader shoulders, etc...as if plenty of cis women didn't have those things)

Being ableist as shit, constantly calling trans ppl mentally ill and disturbed, calling them narcissists when they talk about their experiences and using things like autism statistics to imply they're 'unsound' somehow - which a.) hurts autistic people everywhere, including the autistic cis women y'all claim you protect, b.) Goes to show how worthless you see disabled people as (again, including the cis disabled women you claim to protect), and C.) Goes to show how far you're willing to go to dehumanize someone

Speaking of disability, there was an article about how a woman with POTS was harrassed out of a public bathroom cuz transphobes accused her of being trans 🙃🙃 a cis woman. Just because she didn't look like a Barbie to them, I guess.

Once someone brought up how some women can't have kids because they don't have eggs or uteruses and terfs reblogged that shit saying 'are you sure they're a woman then' - as if there weren't PLENTY of women who a.) don't want kids and have no desire to bear children, B.) Are infertile so they can't have kids even if they want to, C.) Had to remove their uteruses for health related (or personal) reasons, or D.) Can't have kids because of health risks - once again hurting the cis women y'all claim to protect

On that note - I have seen SO many terfs and radfems undoing all the progress feminism has done by reducing us women to our biology - saying shit like "REAL women have UTERUSES and BOOBS and OVARIES and CAN BIRTH and they don't have ANY facial hair or strong jawlines and if you do have those it's obvious that you're a disgusting man".

I've also seen them UNIRONICALLY say shit like "women are twice as small as men!!" And "women are weaker and less intelligent than men" and "men have biological advantages in everything" - while still somehow acting like they're being feminist

Screenshotting posts of trans people literally doing their own thing like making jokes amongst themselves and bullying them, implying that they're "sick and disturbed" (i saw some saying this about trans ppl who were making jokes about Puss in Boots. Seriously. Literally cuz they were just making the "i'm glad your top surgery went well!" "I'm a communist" memes. One even pulled up autism statistics to further '''prove''' they were disturbed somehow. For fucking MEMES.)

In general they constantly talk bad about people for no fucking reason and even hijack posts just to shit on trans people unprompted (even though they LOVE to claim 'trans people FORCE us to talk about them!!")

I was reading a comic about the fetishization of Asian culture and Asian women and a terf decided to use it as an excuse to talk shit about trans people - even when trans people were NOT MENTIONED AT ALL. The creator rightfully responded saying 'hey, stop this, don't hijack my post to spread hate" which I commend them for

I also saw a Tiktok stitch where a girl was saying you're 'not doing good in life if you wear a backpack as an adult' and another girl stitched it saying 'hi, complain about something that matters' and terfs, unprompted, were reblogging saying shit like "does anyone notice??? 👀👀 so no one's gonna say it??? 👀👀 that's a MAN" at...idk which of the girls honestly. But it was so fucking ridiculous to see

ACCUSING TRANS PEOPLE FOR ROE V WADE GETTING OVERTURNED. AS IF THERE WERE ANY TRANS PPL IN THE FUCKING SUPREME COURT.

Constantly tearing down SWs for no fucking reason because women aren't allowed to make decisions about their own sexuality I guess

Calling YOUNG BOYS EVIL for fucking doing shit ALL CHILDREN DO. saying shit like they're "irredeemable and disgusting". Literal CHILDREN. ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

Talking about a trans man in a very disgusting sexualizing way when he spoke of getting top surgery - talking about how 'pretty his lovely breasts were' - and that if they were invited to the party celebrating the top surgery they would purposefully give everyone those gummy bear candies that give you diarrhea.

Basically, I hate TERFS because they act like total jerks not just to trans people, but to anyone they THINK is trans, and as they claim to "protect real women", they actively hurt both trans and cis women - and EVERYONE, for that matter - with their rhetoric.

They're genuinely some of the most vile and toxic people I have ever seen, aside from maga chuds.

They act like they're feminists when they're really just closet conservatives. People who do the shit terfs do will NEVER be real feminists.

And as a cis woman, I fucking hate TERFs.