#and disability positivity queer positivity etc

[faggotry-enjoyer]

earlier today i was like "yknow i love tumblr but it is too much of a time sink" and uninstalled it again. and here i am, crawling back, seeking those little dopamine hits in my endless scroll.

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads // twitter thread      

Wild and Crooked

YA contemporary 

about a girl whose father is in prison for murder, moving back to her hometown

and the son of the murdered man, a boy with cerebral palsy

they unknowingly become friends, until new evidence is found and their small town is thrown into chaos - and they have to find out the truth

lesbian & questioning MCs, no romance,

[rosa-de-bayahibe]

Does anyone know if there are any websites or anything where people share how racist or bipoc friendly a town/city is?

[demontobee]

Good Omens is queering TV/storytelling - part 1: GAZE

I would argue that part of why Good Omens is so refreshingly queer is because it does not cater to the male gaze (which centers around the preferences - aesthetic, romantic, sexual, visual, logical, emotional, political ... - of mainly white men in positions of power):

no oversexualization of groups or types of people: Women or characters that could be read as female presenting are not overly sexualized. In fact, some of them are shown to be grimy, slimy and not sexual at all. All of them are real characters and not just cardboard-cutout on-screen versions of male misogynistic fantasies. They portray real people with real people problems. They are human, or exempt from our categories when portraying angels or demons. There are no overly sexualized bodies in general (as has so far also often been the case with young gay men, PoC, etc.), no fetishization of power imbalances, and not exclusively youthful depiction of love and desire.

sex or sexual behavior is not shown directly (yet): All imagery and symbolism of sex and sexuality is used not to entice the audience but is very intimately played out between characters, which makes it almost uncomfortable to watch (e.g., Aziraphale being tempted to eat meat, Crowley watching Aziraphale eat, the whole gun imagery).

flaunting heteronormativity: Throughout GO but especially GO2, there is very little depiction of heterosexual/romantic couples; most couples are very diverse and no one is making a fuss about it. There is no fetishization of bodies or identities. Just people (and angels and demons) being their beautiful selves (or trying to).

age: Even though Neil Gaiman explained that Crowley and Aziraphale are middle-aged because the actors are, I think it is also queering the idea of romance, love and desire existing mainly within youthful contexts. Male gaze has taught us that young people falling and being in love is what we have to want to see, and any depiction of love that involves people being not exactly young anymore is either part of a fetishized power imbalance (often with an older dude using his power to prey on younger folx) or presents us with marital problems, loss of desire, etc. – all with undertones of decay and patronizing sympathy. Here, however, we get a beautifully crafted, slow-burn, and somehow super realistic love story that centers around beings older than time and presenting as humans in their 50s figuring out how to deal with love. It makes them both innocent and experienced, in a way that is refreshing and heartbreaking and unusual and real.

does not (exclusively) center around romantic/sexual love: I don’t know if this is a gaze point exactly but I feel like male gaze and resulting expectations of what a love story should look like are heavily responsible for our preoccupation with romantic/sexual love in fiction – the “boy gets girl” type of story. And even though, technically, GO seems to focus on a romantic love story in the end, it is also possible to read this relationship but also the whole show as centering around a kind of love that goes beyond the narrow confines of our conditioned boxed-in thinking. It seems to depict a love of humanity and the world and the universe and just the ineffability of existence as a whole.

disability as beautiful and innate to existence: Disability is represented amongst angels by the extremely cool Saraqael and by diversely disabled unnamed angels in the Job minisode. Representation of disability is obviously super important in its own right, but is also queers what we perceive as aesthetically and ontologically "normal". Male gaze teaches us that youth and (physical and mental) health are the desirable standard and everything else is to be seen as a deviance, a mistake. By including disability among the angels, beings that have existed before time and space, the show clearly states that disability is a beautiful and innate part of existence.

gender is optional/obsolete: Characters like Crowley, Muriel and others really undermine the (visual and aesthetic) boundaries of gender and the black-and-white thinking about gender that informs male gaze. Characters cannot be identfied simply as (binary) men or women anymore just by looking at them or by interpreting their personalities or behaviors. Most characters in GO, and especially the more genderqueer ones, display a balance of feminine and masculine traits as well as indiosyncracies that dissolve the gender binary.

Feel free to add your own thoughts on this in the comments or tags!

[the-polls]

For my fellow lovers of pushing buttons. I just wanted to have a post to shout out different poll blogs that I can link to and add to. If you want me to add your blog or shout one out, let me know.

EDIT: I've reached the tag limit and realized there is a link limit so I have a carrd I'm using as a poll directory so continue to let me know of poll blogs! I'll add blogs here as links but there's also a link limit, so the carrd will probably be most up-to-date.

I've crossed out the ones that seem to have been deleted/deactivated, but if it's still there and just changed urls let me know.

General Polls ● the-polls (this blog) ● incognitopolls ● apolladay ● anonymous-polling ● anon-polls-for-you ● justcuriouspolls ● oddpolls ● swarm-of-polls-in-a-trench-coat ● thisthat-ortheother ● yesornopolls ● parttimepolls ● reblogforsamplesize ● whatcha-thinkin ● i-reblog-every-poll-i-see ● augmentedpolls ● polls-drugs-etc ● lamp-polls ● pollforthesoul ● poll-boy ● curiositysavesthecat ● anonpolls ● just-a-blog-for-polls ● yayornaypolls ● pollsforpondering ● themostrandompolls ● poll-position ● anonym-polls ● pollsgalore

NSFW (18+) Polls ● spicypolls

Poll Adjacent ● poll-stats ● seeresultssweep

Identity Specific Polls ● aspecpolls - Aspec ● aro-polls - Aromantic ● asexualpolls - Asexual ● gaypolls - Gay/Lesbian ● lesbianpolls - Lesbian ● mspecpolls - MSpec (Bi, Pan, Omni, etc.) ● transgenderpolls - Transgender ● nonbinary-polls - Nonbinary ● gnc-polls - Gender Non-Conforming ● queer-questions-and-polls - Queer ● queer-polls - Queer ● plurality-polls - plurality / systems ● plurality-polls-2 - plurality / systems

Fandom Polls ● pollsnatural - Supernatural (TV) ● tmapolls - The Magnus Archives (Podcast) ● onepiece-polls - One Piece (Anime/Manga) ● anon-scp-polls - SCP ● middleearth-polls - LOTR, The Hobbit, Tolkien ● bts-polls - BTS (Kpop) ● swiftpolls - Taylor Swift (Singer) ● dragonagepolls - Dragon Age (Game) ● sdv-polls - Stardew Valley (Game) ● tally-polls - Tally Hall (Banad) ● loonathepoll - Loona (Kpop) ● dungeonmeshi-polls - Dungeon Meshi ● animalcrossingopinionpoll - Animal Crossing Character Opinions ● nether-have-i-ever - The game "never have i ever" but for Minecraft

"Do you know..." or "Have you seen/played/etc" Polls ● haveyouseenthismovie-poll - Movies ● haveyouseenthisqueerfilm - Queer Films ● haveyouseenthis90smovie - 90s Movies ● haveyouseenthishorrormovie - Horror Movies ● haveyouseenthisromcom - RomComs ● haveyouseenthismusical - Musicals ● doyouknowthischaracter - Characters ● haveyouheardthispodcast - Podcasts ● doyouknowthisanime - Anime ● do-you-know-this-youtuber - YouTubers ● haveyoureadthisbook-poll - Books ● haveyoureadthistransbook - Trans Books ● haveyoureadthispoem-poll - Poems ● haveyouplayedthisgame - Video Games ● haveyouplayedthisirlgame-poll - IRL Games ● doyouknowthistmntau - TMNT AUs ● doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter - Disabled Characters ● areyouthisidentity-polls - Gender/Sexuality ● haveyouplayedthisttrpg - Tabletop Role-playing Games ● doyouknowthisactor - Actors ● doyouknowa - Names ● fictionalfoodpolls - Would you eat [x] fictional food? ● watchlist-poll - Movie Watchlist

Tournaments ● whoishotteranimepolls ● chuunibyou-showdown ● hotvintagepoll ● vgtrackbracket ● mlmshipbracket ● spicymalepolls (18+) ● which-is-the-very-best ● does-it-like-women ● adaptations-polls

Other ● which-item-poll ● rate-a-spam-bot ● daily-oc-polls ● horrorpolls ● hypothetipolls ● trivia-polls-daily

[qweerhet]

i am very, very much not a fan of how the conversation around “transmascs experiencing body image issues after going on testosterone” has been dominated by “what do you expect, that’s what hormones do, you’re not going to look like your anime twink waifu, don’t transition if that makes you upset”

primarily bc it’s shifting the focus away from the violent policing of men’s bodies under systems of oppression that are causing transmascs to have these sudden onslaughts of body image issues to begin with

like, cis men experience these exact same body image issues

cis queer men are socially punished for not being skinny, pale, hairless, and for balding. like, bears are a counterculture within queer spaces for a reason. fat, balding, hairy, nonwhite, and visibly varsex men are heavily policed in the queer community and the subject of a vast amount of intracommunity violence. they’re excluded from community-building and mutual aid, seen as sexually undesirable, mocked, viewed as predatory and dangerous, and discriminated against systemically.

fuck, straight cis men experience this form of body policing as well. straight cis men are also expected to be skinny, albeit a different kind of skinny, and to only have the “correct” kind of body hair (often mocked for having neckbeards, having body associated with being varsex or a person of color, etc). they experience discrimination and violence for balding, being fat, etc etc etc.

suddenly having a body type that’s subject to violence is dysphoria-inducing. if you were viewed all your life as a skinny white girl, and now all of a sudden you’re viewed as a fat balding dude and read as predatory because of your body/facial hair, you’re going to experience a massive influx of fear, betrayal, and disordered thinking about your body. you are suddenly experiencing a wave of cisnormative body policing, ableism, and often a very different kind of targeted racism than you grew up being subject to--this is a massively fucking destabilizing experience.

pushing the onus of that experience onto individual people reacting badly to it is covering up, and even to some extent doing apologia for, the systemic racism, ableism, and cisnormativity that are shaping the responses to transmascs bodies. like, yes, that’s “just what testosterone does.” but how are you shaping the spaces you are in to react to bodies that are balding, that are fat, that are hairy, that have visibly conflicting sex characteristics, that have signs of disability like “weirdly-kept body hair” and “moving aggressively” and “talking loudly,” how are you making the people around you feel about these traits?

look at the spaces you move through--are they ones that uplift testosterone-dominant and otherwise varsex bodies? do they celebrate deep loud voices and neckbeards and chest hair and big noses and big shoulders and fat bellies and balding in their body positivity? do they view them as socially appropriate, as positive aspects of the space, as sexually desirable, as lovable? if not, then why are you expecting transmascs to view themselves that way?

[vermilionstarlight]

Made because I'm bored on the shitter. No shapeshifting because I know this website and I know my sphere of influence and it'll automatically sweep.

A statistically significant portion of you are transgender / therian / queer / autistic / otherkin weirdo freaks (affectionate) (loving) (I fit almost all of these descriptors wholly or partially)

OVERLY DETAILED ELABORATION BELOW THE CUT:

1. Flying - Top speed of Mach 1. You're immune to the negative effects of G force on your body, low pressure environments, low oxygen, low temperatures, and damage from air resistance.

2. Amphibious - Your swimming is not enhanced (you must learn to swim, same as anyone). Any water inhaled is magically turned into breathable air as it passes through your mouth or nose. You are immune to pressures up to and exceeding that of the Marianas trench, low deep-sea temperatures, and the bends. Wildlife that would otherwise be aggressive or dangerous will simply ignore you, and venom from aquatic or semi-aquatic creatures will not affect you. Basically, you're safe from hazards unless you explicitly attack something.

3. Teleport - You have the ability to place the portals (similar to those from the popular video game Portal) at your choosing, and they can be placed at any point in space that you can see. It can be any 2D shape, so long as it fits within the area of a five m^2 square. You can 'bind' the portal to an object (car, wall, article of clothing, yourself), or you can simply have it freestanding in the air and be stationary relative to the Earth's surface. You can only place two pairs of portals at a time. If you attempt to place a new pair, you must choose an existing pair to remove. If you close or remove a portal while something is passing through it, it shears that thing perfectly in two. You can't open a portal in a position or orientation that would have it intwrsect with a solid object, only liquids, gases, or plasma.

4. Time Loop - You can start a time loop of indefinite length at any time. It resets whenever you wish, or when you die, whichever comes first. You can end the current loop at any time, or begin a new loop with a new start point and reset interval/reset condition at any time. You can only have one 'start point' at any given time.

5. Telepathy - At any time, you can think of a specific person and project a thought, concept, emotion, or sensory experience into their mind. Once you do this, it establishes a connection that the recipient can use to transmit in the same fashion. You can create telepathic "group chats" between people, with a maximum of 10 participants (including you). Any participant can exit the connection at any time.

6. Inventory - When you're touching an object, you can will it into an extra-dimensional space. There are no weight or size limits. You can store singular discrete objects, containers and their contents, and "piles" of objects (like a mound of dirt). You cannot store living organisms, meaning any object put into your storage is 100% sterilized. Non-living organic matter (vegetable matter, meat, bone, dead bacteria) can still be stored. You can mentally access this space at any time, and can get a complete mental inventory of everything stored inside it at any time. Time doesn't pass for anything stored in this space, and qualities like arrangement and temperature are preserved. Whenever you wish, you can retrieve an object from the space, and it appears as it was when you stored it, and in any orientation you wish, so long as it's touching you as it comes out (e.g. it comes out of the space in your palm, at your fingertip, on top of your head, touching your ankle, etc.). If you attempt to retrieve an object in an orientation that would make it intersect with anything solid, the retrieval attempt fails.

7. Invisibility - You can, at any time, choose to switch between being visible and being invisible. This does not affect the way light interacts with you, but instead makes it so that anyone perceiving you will contextualize you as not being there, and never having been there recently. The fact that you are walking around, talking, and interacting with the world around them does not change that you are not there to them. Light still reflects off of you and hits their eyes, but they will simply be unaware of the fact that someone walked into the gas station two minutes ago and is standing in front of them right now. Because the you are not there at that moment, most suspicious activities do not register to anyone perceiving you, because you aren't present to them at that moment, and people that are not present aren't able to do things.

8. Healing - When you touch an organism, you are able to heal it of any given perceived malady, affliction, or harmful effect. This relies on the perception of the one receiving the healing, not on the perception of you, the healer. Cancer, aging, alzheimer's, even relatively "minor" afflictions like male pattern baldness or a mild tendency towards pimples. There's no specific limit, so long as the receiver perceives it to be bad or harmful. This also can heal congenital disorders. Specific afflictions can be targeted, so a "full heal" isn't always necessary. If you want to heal someone of a spinal disorder, but they were also raised Catholic and perceive their sexual desires to be inherently harmful and sinful and in need of removal, you as the healer can choose to only heal the former and not the latter, if you are uncomfortable with that. If somebody wishes to have their hearing damage healed, but they are also a paraplegic and consider that to be an important part of their person-hood that shouldn't be changed, it's possible to target specifically the hearing damage and not the paralysis. This ability is also able to affect mental afflictions, chemical imbalances, and the like. This will change the receiver's mind to be in line with whatever they consider to be "healthy," relative to their perceived affliction. It is not possible to apply healing without the desire of the receiver. Verbal consent is not required, only conscious desire for the affliction to be remedied. It's supernatural bullshit, so there's no gray areas. If they would have said yes to an explicit question of consent, you're able to do it even without verbal consent. If they would have said no, then you aren't able. This is specifically to allow emergency life-saving healing, in the case of someone being unable to explicitly verbally consent. Morally dubious, but generally very helpful. Also, so long as you and nobody you care about are killed instantly (or killed too far away for you to heal in time), you and everyone you care about is immortal for as long as any individual desires.

9. Mind-Reading - You are able to non-consensually probe the mind of anyone you can directly see (television screens do not count, there must be direct sight-line between you and the target). You can see any memories they have, though the clarity and veracity of these memories is context-dependent. You can glean their immediate surface thoughts, and you can perceive through their subjective experience. You aren't immediately made aware of their deepest most subconscious desires, but you can analyze and infer from their thoughts and memories to deduce such things. Unless you're skilled in self-reflection and psychology, it won't be easy to immediately understand their entire person-hood. This may be morally dubious at best, but it can be useful for vigilantism and the like, depending on your moral allowance for such things.

10. Skill Retention - Your brain just works better when it comes to getting better at mundane skills. You are not supernaturally more capable than a normal human, you are just able to rapidly get better at things within normal human limits. Skills come easier to you, and not just things like "playing the piano" or "throwing objects" or something. You also find it easier to improve with critical thinking skills, emotional awareness, general kinesthetic coordination, and other such things. Additionally, you retain these skills far better than a normal person can. You don't easily "get rusty" with any sort of skill unless you go entirely unpracticed for decades. You can learn how to perform advanced acrobatics, go unpracticed for 15 years, then pick it back up at almost the exact same level of technical skill. Some tasks require more than just skill and mental capacity, like sports, and you're granted no special ability to get more physically capable. However, this ability does make it significantly easier to learn how to keep yourself disciplined and stick to a routine, allowing you to become more physically capable anyways. You are the most average superhero ever.

11. Clairsentience - You are able to create a supernatural, intangible "camera" whenever you like. You can perceive sounds and sights through this camera, even if you are physically deaf or blind. Your brain functioning is changed so you're able to adequately process two simultaneous sets of sensory input without biologically blue-screening. You can move the camera around as you please, with no range limit, and it's able to move at speeds up to 0.99c (99% of light speed). You can spy on anything, anywhere, whenever you want. Spy on billionaires, spy on political backroom deals, spy on your asshole neighbor to steal their Dropout password.

12. Animal Speech - You can intuitively communicate with and understand any and all animals. Animals that are solitary and lack much social capacity like tigers, polar bears, and some shark species will mostly make for boring and/or antagonistic conversation, though they'll still be able to transmit and receive basic emotions and concepts (territory, fear, food, bright, dark, baby, sex). More social animals, like many canines and felines, will be far better conversation. They still don't have the complex language capacity of a human, but they'll be more amiable even if they aren't generally able to handle more complex concepts. Very intelligent and social animals like crows, orcas, or elephants will likely be mostly comparable to a full human person in terms of conversation, if not functionally the same. They have generally better language capacity than many other animals, and complex social intelligence.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

heyyyy if i recall correctly, you were once upon a time involved some way in an orgy. was there time for participants to move in and out of the action? i know a couple of people in my local queer/kink groups that are trying to organize one. they’ve invited me! neat! i’d love to attend but idk if it’ll be feasible. i have physical disabilities and my body can’t hold positions/be super active for extended periods. i don’t want to ruin the…etiquette i guess? if i have to take breaks

well it's pretty normal for orgies to have people just hanging out, taking breaks, snacking, etc, but the best way to make sure the orgy you want to attend will be friendly for you is to get in touch with the people who are inviting you and ask.

[interstellarsystem]

Experiences With Being Out as a System

So, our parents know we're a system. It's all good, they understand that when we suddenly speak like someone from London that it's just another guy taking the body for a spin real quick and that they don't need to question it too much.

The thing is... They don't know our names, or anything about us as individuals. We don't have enough open communication with them to actually discuss the inner-workings of the hundreds of little guys in our brain and who they are or what they like, but even if we did, it's not actually important to them. It almost seems like it's swept under the rug.

Our mother said that she doesn't get why she should have to know anyone else when we're all "us". We're all just a collective to her still, a bunch of bits that make up her child, even though she knows we're separate. Her child, the original, isn't here anymore. But the thing is.. some of us want to get to know her and the family individually. Even beyond just being seen as who we actually are, we want to be a part of it aside from being treated as someone who is gone. But it's not a thing they understand despite our explanations of what it means to us, even despite the fact they know the original is dormant and has been for years.

The most anyone in our family knows about us is our mother, and she only knows anyone with a voice similar to Sark as "the american one". She doesn't know that there's even multiple who sound similar to him.

Technically, we're out as a system. Effectively, though... We're still closeted. Though not really because we're staying in it, moreso that we left but it follows us around like a shield within our own household, but it's not shielding us. It's shielding them from us.

Our experience with talking to medical professionals has been hard because of this--sharing bits about ourselves has been scary. It's scarier to show them pictures of our nonhuman headmates and say "that one is me", but it's never actually been bad when we've mustered up the strength to do it. One of them looked at Mal and saw his horns and said he looks like a faun from Greek mythology. Even though he's not, a positive response like that was empowering. That same one said Filigree's hair was cool. Little acknowledgements about who you are when you've tried to be seen before is great.

With our IRL friends, we expected the situation to be similar to our parents. Swept under the rug like a taboo and given weird, uncomfortable looks when spoken about. But it's been completely different.

We get asked who is fronting, we get acknowledged as separate people, hell, we even felt comfortable telling them about our actual fictive identities and letting the ones who wanted to follow this blog (hey guys if you're reading this <3) get access to it. They acknowledge our nonhumanity and nonhuman parts, share things about our sources with us because it reminded them of us, etc. Sometimes, now, because we've been open about it, we get people actually ask "is x fronting" and we say yes and they say "I knew it".

That specific feeling of being recognised even when your outward appearance doesn't change is absolutely amazing. Little manerisms, little ways our voice sounds even when masking accents out in public, even the words we choose to use are tells toward who is actually controlling the body and they pick up on it--even things we might not recognise we even do. Sure, there's hundreds of people in here and people won't know every single one off by heart, but the ones who are out here often are being recognised and that, to me, is amazing and validating to all of us.

I guess the point here is me sharing our experiences, but also.... You will be able to find people who see you for you. You as a system, you as a nonhuman, you as a disabled person, you as a queer person--you'll be able to find your people. And you know, I hope you do soon--because the feeling of being known is great.

[intervex]

What Pride Flags Mean Pt 2: Disability

What do colours on pride flags mean when it comes to disability? Here's what I found!

I assembled a data set of 624 queer & disabled pride flags, containing a total of 2060 colour choices. I tagged each colour choice based on its known meaning(s). There are 41 disability-related tags, with 403 colour choices from 134 different pride flags.

On the left are the names of the tags. To the right of each tag is a series of squares, representing all the pride flag colour choices that were given that tag. The more squares there are, the more pride flags I found which had that meaning.

I then calculated a median colour for each tag. Every colour was converted into okLCH colourspace, where colours are represented with three values: lightness, chroma, and hue. I took the median lightness, median chroma, and median hue, and used those to create the colours on the left (the backgrounds of the tag names).

Detailed results are under the cut, and at the very bottom is a simplified & condensed colour-meaning association list that should be easier to remember & keep track of.

RESULTS

Disability in general came out as purplish blue. I kinda expected it to be blue, but guess more people think of it as purple!

Medicine & madness

Only a single flag - the Crohn's disease flag - had anything positive to say about the medical establishment. The Crohn's flag uses white to represent the doctors/nurses/researchers/etc who help Crohn's patients.

Most often if disability pride flags had something to say about the medical establishment, it was negative. There are five entries under underdiagnosis/misdiagnosis (mostly black/grey), and six for undiagnosed (mostly white).

And nine entries that I tagged with "iatrogenesis" which is the term for when medical intervention causes disease/disability.

The most common form of iatrogenesis was psychological trauma caused by the medical establishment. In particular, psychiatry was most often implicated for this, as seen in the psychpunk, systempunk, and traumatic psych experience flags. These were mostly purple, probably because mad pride is pink/purple.

Also related to mad pride was the psychosis+schizo spectrum, also using purple. (See: psychosis+schizospec flag, schizoaffective flag). Plurality also tended towards magenta but had a large range.

On the flip side of mad pride were flags that talked about mental health/illness as a negative thing. These tended to use blue or green. For example, the HS flag uses blue for "the toll that HS takes on mental health". This chronic pain flag uses a bluish green for how chronic pain messes you up emotionally.

Psychological trauma and dissociation was usually dark - often a dark grey. Red, purple, and teal were all used. The median winds up being a dark purple.

Mood disorders wound up with a median being blue but it had a bunch of subthemes. Red was used for anger & manic episodes. Yellow was also used for manic. Green and teal for panic/anxiety. Blue for depressive. Purple and black used for general negativity.

Neurodivergence

Autism was almost equally split between red (#RedInstead started in 2015 by a Canadian ASAN activist) and yellow (#GoingGold started in 2018 by AutisticUK). These are two prominent colours used as alternatives to the blue of Autism Speaks. I went into this personally inclined to the gold because of the Au=Autism pun, but splitting the difference and being orange actually is kinda nice. Feels inclusive.

Being non-verbal was reddish brown. It overlapped a lot with non-verbal autism but wasn't 100% autistic so I kept it a distinct tag.

ADHD had a bunch of variety. Orange was the most popular colour (7 out of 22) but purple (6) also got used a bunch. Some flags made a distinction between inattentive ADHD & hyperactive, usually with violet for inattentive and orange for hyperactive. But both orange and purple were used for all ADHD types.

Dyslexia was navy blue. Dyscalculia was dark green. Less common learning disabilities/differences which only had one pride flag representing them (e.g. dysorthographia) I lumped into "other learning-disabilities". It also came out orange.

Borderline PD had equal amounts of yellow and blue, yielding a median green because green is in between yellow and blue.

General neurodiversity was green. Yellow and blue also got used. I don't think the blues (like in this dyspraxia flag) in my data set are references to Autism Speaks but I personally would avoid using blue for neurodivergence regardless.

Cognitive difficulties was where I lumped together brain fog and memory problems. These were generally coming from chronic illness flags, like the chronic migraines flag. These were generally grey or greyish and a bit purple.

Sensory & communication disabilities

In @capricorn-0mnikorn's original meanings for the disability pride flag, green is used to represent sensory disabilities. I recently proposed some new meanings for the stripes, but I've felt least sure of my suggestion for the green stripe, so I wanted to find out if existing sensory flags really use green.

Blind & low-viz tended to be black/grey, like this one.

Deaf/deaf/HOH was blue, which is popularly used in Deaf culture (including the deaf flag). Stuttering, which isn't a sensory disability but is a communication disability like deafness, was also blue.

Sensory processing issues, such as auditory processing disorder (flag1, flag2), tended towards the cool greens & teals. This is probably in line with how neurodiversity in general was green.

So it's kind of a mixed result. As I already kinda suspected, it doesn't seem like Deaf/blind folks were really using green. But sensory processing like auditory processing disorder does use it. 🤔

Chronic illnesses

The tag for chronic illness in general was a mix of blue, purple, and red. The median winds up being a pinkish purple.

Chronic pain and chronic fatigue both wound up as bluish purple, but with some notable reds. Autoimmune conditions like lupus were also purple, but a pinkish purple. Epilepsy was purple.

Sleep disorders were also bluish purple, like in this narcolepsy flag. This makes sense to me: there's a connecting theme here of sleep and rest, and bluish purple being considered a colour of the night.

Respiratory conditions were sky blue - probably a reference to air and breathing (e.g. the blue in this long covid flag).

Gastrointestinal conditions such as gastroparesis were generally lime green or chartreuse (the colour between yellow and green). This is probably a reference to bile & gastric juices having these colours.

Reproductive disorders were about half yellow (e.g. this endometriosis flag), about one quarter purple, and one quarter red (e.g. this endometriosis flag). The median wound up being yellow.

Invisible disabilities were usually white, but a bit of teal.

Mobility & physical differences

Low mobility wound up as brown. Red was a common choice, but yellow/brown was more common, such as in this disability flag.

Within the mobility tag, motor coordination/coordination tended to be yellow (e.g. this autism flag), body weakness tended to be green (e.g. this ME/CFS flag).

Physical differences such as deformities also wound up as a warm yellow. There's the red from this congenital amputee flag, and the greenish yellow from this radial dysplasia flag.

Models of disability

I did not include the new proposed meanings for the disability pride flag in this data set. I wanted to see if the proposed meanings are in line with pre-existing flags.

Social model wound up as blue, in line with my proposal. 🩵

Ableism came out as dark grey, with a bit of teal. This includes both fighting ableism and being victims of ableism. If I were to match it to a model of disability, the radical or social models seem most relevant.

Disability visibility & pride came out as yellow. This is in line with yellow being culturally associated with happiness and joy. I consider this to be in line with the affirmation model and my proposal. 💛

Disability caused or amplified by racism/classism came out as dark brown/red, but there also were only four entries (purple/red/brown/black). The black and brown I assume are in reference to the brown skin of POC (e.g. this fibromyalgia flag).

My proposal has red as debility (disability caused by violence). This arguably lines up to the racism/classism, but I think it's kind of weak because of how few disability+racism/etc flags I found. I'm considering this inconclusive.

The economic model showed up as olive (between yellow and green). The economic model was presented as ableist. For example, the bad disabled flag has a green stripe for "being useless/uneconomic" in a context that makes clear that this is a way of "sham[ing], discredit[ing], denigrat[ing] disabled people".

As mentioned at the top, the only pro-medical entry was a single white stripe from the Crohn's flag.

This has me now second guessing the white & green in my original proposal - maybe the medical model should be under the "other models" of the white stripe? 🤔 And change green to something that would more easily include sensory processing disabilities? Like maybe the human rights model? 🤔 IDK, would like feedback! 💚 ***

SIMPLIFIED RESULTS

The feedback I got from @queercripintersex on my analysis of gender/attraction colours is it'd be easier to have results that are clustered around a small set of colours with memorable colour-meaning associations.

So I did another round of clustering to simplify things down. I brought the 41 tags down to a more manageable 18. And I've added how I personally would remember each colour.

White: medical model. White like the lab coats doctors wear.

Off-white: invisible disabilities. Off-white like you're barely visible against a white background.

Grey: confusion (brain fog + un/misdiagnosis). Grey like fog.

Black: blind/low-viz. Black like absence of light.

Dark red: trauma. By this I mean both physical trauma (injury) and psychological trauma. Red like blood.

Dark brown: oppression (ableism/racism/etc). Red like blood plus brown like black/brown skin.

Reddish orange: autism/ADHD spectrum. Orange is opposite of blue on many colour wheels, so is a good option for being the opposite of Autism Speaks. Orange is also used in a lot of safety equipment and the like because of how it catches the eye's attention, and the association with attention -> ADHD.

Orange-ish yellow: reproductive disorders. Gold like the intersex flag.

Yellow-brown: physical disabilities. I don't have a good memory aid here, best I'm coming up is it's like the colour of wood, which is used for making mobility aids like canes but also "wooden" is used to describe some motor coordination impairments. If you have a better way to remember it let me know!

Yellow: positivity (disability pride + mania). Yellow is often associated with happiness.

Yellow-green: gastrointestinal. Like bile and vomit.

Green: neurodiversity. Because these are natural differences and green is associated with nature.

Teal/cyan: negativity (depression/etc, negative aspects of disability). Teal is has the same first three letters as tears, and we say people have the blues.

Blue: communication (Deaf/stuttering/etc). Blue also gets associated with openness and clarity.

Purplish blue: social model. Honestly the way I'll remember this one is that social attraction was a similar colour. Blue is often associated with society, conformity, and tradition.

Bluish purple: disability in general. Indigo is a good colour for not fitting in: we're neither blue nor purple.

Purple: chronic illness (pain/fatigue/etc). Purple is associated with the night and sleep, and chronically ill people need rest.

Pink-purple/magenta: madness. Pink and magenta aren't "real" colours in the sense that there do not exist wavelengths of light that make pink and magenta specifically. Those colours are made by our brains, which seems apt!

(Everything here is Creative Commons Sharealike 4.0, so you're free to reuse and build on my visualizations, tables, etc. Enjoy!)

EDIT (2024-07-24): earlier version of this post incorrectly wrote that the median hue for reproductive disorders was red. It was yellow.

[terror-punk]

The fact that people keep coming onto our posts about minorities being open about who you are where you're safe to (destigmatisation, general rights for stigmatised groups of people) saying things like:

We're being harmful to disabled communities (how?)

We're trying to get people killed (???)

We're a radqueer (we hardly know enough about what that means but a few said it in a derogatory way so I'm still adding it)

We're an "endo cunt" (We're a DID system, but yes we're endo friendly! We're quoigenic! Who would've thought that the blog about how people should be able to define their own identities without harrassment even if people fear your identity is pro endo?)

We're trying to make disorders like psychosis "quirky" or "fun" (Disorders don't have to make your entire life hell 24/7, and society shouldn't be allowed to enforce that idea, it's the point of the post! Acting like disorders make your life only miserable and not worth living is siding with ableism! Disability can suck but we shouldn't have to hide it or be swept under the rug!)

That we're delusional in a derogatory way (we have psychosis so I suppose you're correct but your ableism is showing.)

We don't have psychosis ourselves and are speaking for psychotic people without knowing what it's like?

Is kind of.. Sad. I know this is the "piss on the poor" brand of reading comprehension site, but how did a post about how stigmatised people (queers, disabled people, alterhumans, etc) shouldn't have to hide their identies under a mask of normalcy turn into accusing us of being malicious? We stand by the fact that stigma shouldn't be a thing, and that people with marginalised identities should be allowed to speak and be who they are without judgement. You're kind of just proving to us that the post we wrote is needed, in the end. We and people like us are treated horribly for being public about ourselves and we're not going to sit there and take it, so we're not going anywhere and not shutting up.

We will say the overwhelming majority of responses to the post are positive--some even thankful, and we appreciate those responses a lot. I'm just so confused as to how people got from point a to point b when the literal point of the post is that people shouldn't get hurt just because they're open.

[starshapedspider]

I think something I love abt r&m is whenever characters like morticia is there, no one seems to think she'd like boys n be boy crazy. she'd still be oh so in love with jessica. morticia being a girl does not change that all.

I talk about it enough as it is on the queerness of rick and morty, but they do it so naturally that you can't just deny that it's there. dude bros try so hard to pull a "and they were best friends" on rick and birdperson when it blatantly tells you word for word that rick was hopelessly so in love with birdperson, he had a false image of bp in his head that he'd drop everything (his culture, his people etc) to go on endless journeys and to live a lifetime together no matter what came their way.

and while I'm not the biggest fan of how unity is presented as nonbinary as a nonbinary person myself, they're a prominent transgender character that people try soooo hard to push away and even with my personal reasons, I feel seen by them! i was geniunely so shocked to hear rick, a character so many people present as a womanizer cool dude bro who doesn't give a shit, defend them and say "don't talk to them that way!", it was like a slap in the face but... in a positive way!!!! (When I say shocked, I mean it as in its new for me!!)

there's no way of getting around it whatsoever. you can't just go "b-b-but that's not what the writers meant!" When it's been confirmed so many times by the writers themselves. i know ill sound annoying, but r&m is, undoubtedly, oh so very gay and i think it's beautiful how such a silly show can bring together many talented disabled n queer folks alike even with the awful awful moments it has.

[johannestevans]

the thing about navigating queer spaces is that like... i'm in very different spaces than i was a few years ago, i'm a lot more in-tune with myself, my needs and my limits

being Assigned Dad by my friends and loved ones: fun, delightful, full of affection, sexy even, adds greatly to life's enjoyment

being Assigned Dad by random strangers w whom i do not have a connection: honestly weird, sometimes an overstep of boundaries, often uncomfortable

like there's such a difference between being out w my friends or home and like... being The Dad about being ~responsible~ or getting things done, or making jokes about how i'm being dad-coded when i'm struggling to send an email bc i'm 97 years old, etc

like esp within the constructed family unit of an intimate queer gathering, it's positive in many ways and comes off as very loving, bc so much of it is based in recognising traits of mine and connecting based off them

when strangers assign me dad traits, or treat me as a paternal figure, like

so there's a sort of labour in some queer communities that's often dropped on the shoulders of butches and trans men and mascs - there's the stereotypical DIY and also acting as "muscle" for other queers

but there's also often an expectation that because we're the "men" in the community (whether all of us are men or not), we have to take a position of being steadfast, less outwardly emotional, less demanding, etc. we're sometimes expected to stoically take abuse and act as shields for other members of the community who are supposedly more likely to be targeted by cisheteropatriarchal violence, and it's also sometimes treated as like...

bc of expectations of a certain toxic masculinity, when we do show vulnerability or emotional, when we express desires to be cared for or treated softly, this is sometimes treated as a negative thing, something that makes us less attractive and less desirable, etc

as a gay man and particularly as a really obvious fruit, i'm cognizant that i don't experience this nearly to the extent of many more masculine trans men, mascs, and butches, and esp those who are primarily intimate with women and fems, but i do see it in my communities and i do experience a little of it

and absolutely like. i do position myself on the outside of groups when we're moving as a crew, i do tend to take the front or back of the group, i'm generally more on the lookout than others; i'm also dad-coded in my tendency to keep ppl to a schedule or en route, i'm good (but cold) in a crisis, etc

but idk, like... i'm not a community dad. i'm not everybody's dad.

there's a certain desexualisation that comes with that that i think makes me really uncomfortable? it's a combination of the label being desexualising, this idea of like... if i'm the "dad" in a group, i'm not being viewed as a sexual being in the context of that group, and it's not about whether i actually want to fuck anybody there bc i typically don't, it's more like

the idea of that aspect of my humanity being set aside, because i'm being reduced to my role as caregiver/potential caregiver to the group rather than in my entire being as a member of the same community

and also, yeah, it's the expectation of that sort of caregiving labour where like... i am so happy to help, so much of the time. i will help when and how i am able to. but i'm also physically disabled, have continuous issues w fatigue, etc, and when ppl continuously bring problems to me when they're perfectly capable of being self-reliant, that's really hard for me, i think

esp now i feel like i'm not being pushed into those dad-esque roles in the same way - a friend of mine might sardonically say "thanks, dad" when i'm being particularly rigid about something, but i'm just as likely to get a "thank you, daddy" when i'm either particularly stern or particularly nice, and daddy i think actually is a lot better even though i'm not a daddy

lots of thoughts, lots of feelings.

[jesncin]

In a recent post, you talk about how certain media will have QPOC characters that "feel white." Are you willing to explain more on how that happens? I'm a QPOC person that writes a decent amount of QPOC characters, and it's always interesting seeing other people's takes on how to handle that in stories.

Sure! Most of the time when I say a QPOC character "feels white" is that it lacks intersectionality. Intersectionality is about acknowledging how different marginalized identities manifest in a person, creating a unique experience. Most writers assume QPOC are just "white queer person with a palette change" instead of "we go through similar things but in an entirely different way".

A good example is Heartstopper (A show I like btw!! I can only speak for the tv show and season 1!). It's often incorrectly dismissed as fluff/escapism when it's actually a show that talks directly about marginalization (transphobia, homophobia, etc.) specific to Britain, and some really dark topics come up sometimes. But I was surprised at how little (if not at all?) racism was brought up as something QPOC struggle with. The plot with Tara (a Black girl) and Darcy (a white girl) coming out as a lesbian couple but Tara ended up struggling with the backlash was the perfect opportunity to talk about how she deals with compounded racism, sexism, and homophobia (perhaps even from her own community). But it wasn't brought up at all in that season. I'm sure this gets expanded on in future seasons but it did feel like a huge missed opportunity to me, especially since the show was so open to directly talking about queerphobia. It ends up looking selective about what issues the writer is comfortable talking about.

Intersectionality connects with everything, including joyful stories. A queer paradise to me is a world where we reclaim indigenous queer culture that was suppressed by colonialism, a place where we don't have to cut our cultural ties and end up embracing a westernized version of queer identity, where our language expands to include queer people, where we acknowledge that things like "body positivity" and disability acceptance are inherently linked with racial justice, where we can be whole. In these narratives with QPOC that "feel white", something is always lost. Whether that be culture, language, religion, anything. In She-Ra, the QPOC are just that. We get a dumpling once and a while as "representation" but that's it.

[vaspider]

Intro Post, updated March 1, 2023

I post all asks under the name they were submitted under, and I post them when I feel like answering them. I will never honor a request to answer an ask privately or anonymously. Anon is never turned on. These are hard self-care boundaries. Please block the tag "harassment tag" if you don't want to be subjected to some of the horrible shit I get sent sometimes.

If you like what I do, please consider hiring me, consider buying something from NerdyKeppie (the shop I own with my spouse - we do custom work!), consider buying me a coffee or becoming a Patron or tossing some money in my PayPal tip jar. I am a disabled, queer, fat, Jewish non-binary butch whose entire income is derived from selling Quality Queerwear via our company NerdyKeppie (we also offer patches of all sorts, nerd gear, etc -- if you don’t see it, ask!), Patreon (queer fiction for a dollar) and freelance work.

If asking me to boost a post for you, ask at most once per week, and please don't make that the only way you interact with me, or follow me just to send an ask that I boost your posts. I notice, and I'll end up just blocking you if you make me feel "used." It's gross, y'all. I'm glad to help, but don't use me. It's getting to a point where I'm starting to feel pretty gross about it, and I'm one of the more relaxed ppl about boosting posts, so please don't put me in a position where I feel like I have to stop doing it.

I will not debate my identity or its history with anyone. I am a transmasculine non-binary butch lesbian, a cripple, a dyke, and lots of other things, too. You don't get a vote in that, and if any of those words are words you can't stand to have someone use around you in reference to himself, go ahead and block me. I won't censor my identity for your comfort; I took a long time becoming proud of who I am.

No, I am not an anti or an anti-anti. Literally no one cares about these distinctions outside of Tumblr. Please leave me alone. I am not going to have that conversation. No is a complete sentence.

I’m not interested in interacting with TWERFs, SWERFs, or any sort of exclusionary LGBTQ/queer people. Y'all are exhausting.

Do the work to root out TERF/2nd-wave "man bad woman good" philosophies from your head. Do the work to root out the gendered behavior you were taught. I am not here to raise other people's children.

I am not here to raise other people's children. My daughter is an adult and I am done being responsible for the experiences of a minor. If you read or interact with me, you acknowledge that you chose to do that and I can't control what happens to what I post once I post it on my Tumblr. People will reblog it and I can't control where it ends up. I can only control what I say in my space, which I do.

Curate your own online experiences. If you don't like seeing what I write, then add 'vaspider' to your "filtered content" list and don't bother me about it. Tumblr is a 17+ environment and I am not responsible for you seeing things you don't like. Adults having adult conversations do not need to be filtered for children. This is your notification.

I’ve been Out for over 30 years. I don't tolerate lectures from strangers, especially people half my age, about history I lived through.

I'm transmasc and if you believe transmisandry/transandrophobia aren't "real things," or that transmascs aren't "really oppressed," please just leave me alone. Oppression Olympics are bad, actually.

My immediate family consists of my partners, my adult daughter, and our dogs.

No one in my immediate family is cis or het. I have been called Spider for 20+ years, & now a lot of people call me Mama Spider. Mom is a role, it need not be gendered.

This is a lot shorter than it used to be. I don't really feel like posting paragraphs explaining stuff anymore.

My icon has lore, apparently.

I post all asks and anon is never turned on.

[drop-dead-dropout]

Fuck's a pro shipper?

We've got a new one boys try not to scare em off /j

Okay but seriously, I'm more than happy to explain. I assume that if you're asking this question you're not aware of the proshipper vs antishipper, uh, "conflict", I guess. So, here is what both of those terms mean, to the best of my descriptive abilities:

Antishipper (often just "anti"): someone who vaguely believes that consuming problematic fiction (usually specifically problematic sexual fiction like lolicon or incest) is either a true reflection of them as a person or a corrupting force that will cause them to play out these desires in real life, onto real people. Basically, if you read age gap, you touch real kids in real life or secretly want to.

Proshipper (sometimes "profic"): someone who does not believe the above, and believes that fiction is not the same as reality because it doesn't harm anyone and therefore people should be left alone as long as you have no reason to believe that they would ever do something like that irl. Often hand in hand with things like anti censorship, kink positive, etc, though being a proshipper does not necessarily mean you have a problematic ship or kink yourself (example: me).

You're probably asking this question because you saw me day in my bio that I am a proshipper. I've tried to stay neutral in this initial description, but obviously I probably didn't manage to be completely unbiased considering that I believe myself to be right (most people do) so if you want to ask further questions after this that's perfectly fine. That being said:

Why am I a proshipper?

So, to understand this, let's first look over the issues within both communities— every group has issues, after all.

What problems do proshippers have?:

- sometimes 4chan assholes co-opt the label "proshipper" just because they're lolicons, even though there's good evidence to suggest that they would do or even have done criminal sexual acts in real life, or that they possess actual csam (child sexual abuse material, a term being used in favor of "cp" these days as porn implies consent). Proshipping has nothing to do with the harmful idea that you should be allowed to exploit and abuse real children.

- there are still many gray areas which proshippers themselves don't agree on. For example: I've seen a bunch of arguments about if writing fanfiction of live action shows or movies changes the equation. The general consensus of proshippers is that writing fanfiction of a character played by a child actor is definitely a more delicate situation and should not be sexual as it's inextricably tied to the image of a real child, but there are others who believe differently.

- I'm genuinely struggling to come up with more of these. Um, sometimes lolicons are really shitty people, like in point 1. This isn't SUPER relevant though cause in reality the overlap between predominantly queer or female proshippers and Reddit incels who just wanna jerk off to a petite anime girl is pretty small, though I'm sure it exists somewhere .

Now, what problems do antis have? (Fair warning, this is gonna sound even more "biased" but I hope my logic is still sound from the outside :p):

- I don't have any statistics on this (haven't exactly been many research papers on fandom drama), so you're going to have to trust me when I say that antis are absolutely NOTORIOUS for extreme harassment campaigns. The first time I was exposed to the word "antishipper", it was attached to a story of a former animator committing suicide because antis had gotten them fired by "exposing" their porn alt on Twitter and they could no longer afford medication for their disability. So, hell of an intro!

- their opinions are, in pretty basic ways, not backed by science or even practical common sense. The human brain can distinguish between fiction and reality after around age four or five

and people certainly aren't trying to hand nsfw content to children that age so I think it's safe to say that the people who are reading these things won't be "confused" by them or whatever. Also, even just using your brain and talking to these people, you find out most of them project onto the YOUNGER character.

- they claim to support victims but often simply don't. I won't keep dragging threats into the spotlight because I know there are probably antis who aren't as violent, but it's honestly astonishing to me how often they jump straight to wishing death and terrible things on people, and this has included more than once telling a rape victim they hope they get assaulted again just because they're a proshipper. See, a lot of these "taboo" sexual fantasies like age gap and incest actually themselves stem from a traumatic experience, and any therapist will tell you that fiction is a much healthier way to explore intrusive thoughts and urges than more dangerous coping mechanisms like self harm or substance abuse. And when confronted with this, in my experience and many others', antis will simply ignore that fact or say that the therapist is some sort of evil enabler.

-the general cognitive dissonance of believing an incest fanfiction will make you "forget" that incest is bad vs being fine with horror movies and slashers speaks to a deeper and honestly kind of worrying anti-sex mindset. I'm not sure I'm qualified to tackle this particular topic, but I definitely agree that it's a thing; after all, I have no idea how else those two things could coexist.

Anyways, I'd like to close this off by saying not everyone is as crazy opinionated as I am, I'm just autistic and like talking lol. A lot of people who id as proshippers just have a sort of minding their own business, ship-and-let-ship mentality, and a lot of antis are unfortunately just teenagers who were told proshipper = evil pedophile groomer and thus they put "proship dni" in their bios just cause they don't know and don't really care what it means. It is undeniable that many antis are kids themselves, and that does worry me, because fandom drama (especially Twitter fandom drama) is dangerous and vitriolic and also they're putting extremely serious threats on their digital footprints at the tender age of 14! But whatever, I'm not their parents, that's just my worry. Sorry for rambling this long lol, I wouldn't blame you if you dropped out halfway through but this is basically my summary of this whole thing. Do with this knowledge what you will! Or, you know, don't! I'm not a cop!