#if you genuinely don't think disability is bad or makes you less of a person why are you so afraid of it?

[nordic-ravens]

if you get offended when someone suggest you might be disabled due to a condition you have, you have ableism to process.

if you get offended when someone thinks you're disabled, you have ableism to process.

if you feel bad about the thought of being seen as disabled, you have ableism to process.

no matter if you're abled or disabled, if you see the words "disabled" and "disability" as offensive, bad, less-than etc. you have (internalized) ableism to process through.

[dovesndecay]

Hey! I saw your post on diet culture and fast food and wanted to know what you mean about "diet culture would rather us starve than admit fast food is an accessible food resource"? Could you elaborate? (sorry for the paraphrase, I'm on mobile.) Thanks!

So, I'm disabled in a number of ways. I struggle really hard with executive function, appetite, sensory issues, and pain/fatigue/brainfog that makes deciding on food, and then following the process of making that food very difficult on a good day.

I've always had food issues -- I've snuck whole mouthfuls of food I could not physically make myself eat into the bathroom to spit it out in the toilet because I'd been told I had to eat it. I've puked from the texture of food. And I've gone hungry because food that was prepared is food I could not eat, for a number of reasons.

I'm also really fucking poor. I cannot work a regular job anymore. Groceries have actively skyrocketed to the point where our household is spending less than HALF of what we should be for the number of people. The difference between buying a bunch of groceries that we may or may not eat before they expire or our tastes for them die and simply purchasing a meal from a fast food joint is literally just the cost of labor -- saving us from expending spoons on deciding, buying ingredients, preparing, cooking, and then eating that food, which I will again stress that we might not actually eat.

There's only so many times you can have Walmart brand chicken nuggets before you physically cannot choke it down again.

Diet culture has a huge focus on eating the "right" kind of foods as well as this weird "self-sufficiency" fetish for cooking that can be fine but has a bad habit of edging into ableism. If you physically cannot cook on a regular basis, for any reason, and you have a lot of fast food meals, you get judged a lot for it. It's labeled "unhealthy" and "lazy". I am often told that I just "haven't found the right recipes" or "cooking hacks". No, man, I'm just fucking disabled.

Personally, I'd label starving as more unhealthy than eating fast food, but people don't like hearing that you aren't willing to swallow whatever gruel society thinks people in poverty deserve to have.

For me, fast food is predictable, safe, filling, often less expensive, convenient, spoons-saving, and it means I will eat. I also just genuinely think a lot of fast food tastes good. Sure, it's not fresh veggies and fruits, but I'm not getting those anyway. When I buy groceries, it's the cheapest items possible which means a lot of frozen foods, packaged pastas, and cereals.

And this isn't even looking at food deserts where grocery stores are few and far between, but fast food chains are everywhere. Even my Louisiana hometown, boasting a population of 10,659 people as of 2020, has a Burger King, McDonald's, Hardee's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Popeyes, and numerous pizza delivery places. Y'know what closed down though? The Piggly Wiggly, one of the more affordable grocery stores -- my grandmother actually worked there during my childhood -- and I don't think the Winn-Dixie is even open there anymore either. So all they've got is a Walmart.

Fast food is an accessible food resource, and diet culture would rather see us starve than acknowledge that.

[actual-changeling]

one thing i really really like about txf is that they aren't afraid to kill off characters.

in most shows, melissa would make a miraculous recovery, mulder probably wouldn't lose both his parents, and there are all the episode-specific characters that are killed simply because

a) it fits right into the plot

b) they can and

c) it adds a layer of realism to it.

if you never kill any of the characters—even minor side characters/npcs—then at some point, the dangers will feel less dangerous, less real, because you know everyone will be fine anyway. but not here.

the stakes ARE real and we are shown and told so over and over again.

scully loses her dad, melissa gets killed in her apartment, mulder's dad is killed, mulder's mom kills herself, there is no miraculous, perfect return of samantha, scully gets cancer, OTHER (returning) characters get sick and die, and the list goes on.

nowadays, way too many people are incapable of consuming anything that isn't 99% "everything will be fine" because processing complex emotions requires complex thinking, and boy are people refusing to develop that skill.

ironic to say, but txf is refreshing in regards to that AND has better representation that most shows and movies being created in recent years. do you know how fucking rare it is to have disabled characters that simply exist? whose disability is right there, it's real, they're not somehow hiding it or trying to make it less obvious.

they are like any other characters, and unless it is in some way relevant to the plot, it's usually not even brought up or mentioned. no misery or inspiration porn, no weird "you're not disabled, you're [insert term that's fucking horrible]", nothing.

even with episodes like gender bender, there is no transphobia, no caricatures, it's treated like any other case with any other people.

you'd expect a lot of ableism in a show about the paranormal since "crazy mentally ill person is a danger to everyone" is a popular trope (disappointing but not surprising), yet as someone who has highly stigmatized disorders—not just in general, specifically in the medical field too—I don't think I have ever felt uncomfortable with any of the cases.

people look back on older shows and start criticizing the language but not only were the terms and concepts named differently and have evolved, i'd rather have a show use "bad" or incorrect language but have genuine, caring representation than someone using all the buzzwords and thinking that makes whatever they do not offensive.

(side note: language moves fast, especially in psychiatry but also in other scientific circles, and the same applies to what i'll loosely call 'community language'. as long as there's good intent and an open ear, i couldn't give less of a fuck if they say transgender, transsexual, or transvestite)

i'm rewatching 'the field where i died' and this episode has one of the best, most accurate portrayals of DID i've seen in probably. ever. is it played up a bit? yeah sure, but it doesn't feel mocking or otherwise disrespectful and it refuses to play into any existing stereotypes.

this post got away from me, but bottom line is that this show is genuinely good in a way few shows are.

[catgirl-catboy]

My hopes for S2 of the total drama reboot:

More Axel screentime! Honestly, I felt like Ripper really should have got voted out that ep because he was less useful to the team and the nerds were already annoyed by him. It felt like they booted her just because she's like Eva in the episode where they voted off Eva.

Julia keeps the bun the entire season

Maybe I'm getting my hopes up, but Priya x Millie? You can have it be one-sided if you want to make Priya x Damien canon. But they had just as much, if not more romantic tension then the canonically queer couple! (not a bad thing, I love Rajbow too!)

Speaking of Rajbow, I DON'T want season two to introduce artificial drama between them. I don't think it would make sense from a character driven perspective, because Bowie knows how to play the game too well for that. I think that in season two, its likely he'd put his relationship on hold to better persue the million.

Emma Villain arc, but like in a sympathetic way. She really wants to win the million and prolonged Chase exposure might cloud her judgement on what she will do to get it.

Nichelle and Julia alliance. Or just any interaction between them. Please. I need to know how she'll react to Julia's true colors.

Speaking of Julia, I want to see her come back next season with a new fake personality. Maybe have her be a fake gamer girl idk. Nobodies buying it.

For Priya and Millie, I want to see them both working on a book TOGETHER next season. Maybe a total drama survival guide?

Less fart jokes from Ripper. More of a personality that does not revolve around fart jokes from Ripper.

MK learns from her mistakes and gets farther in the next season. I want her to pull a Noah.

In between seasons, Damien watches Total Drama and becomes a fan. Maybe he and Priya geek out about it?

This one's never gonna happen but if the writers make my Autistic!Priya headcanon official I would literally die of :DDD

Either vote Caleb off first again, or give him something distinct from Justin and Alejandro. This is silly, but the first thing I thought of is that he dislikes his looks because its hard to make genuine connections with other people when all everyone wants to do is get in his pants.

More humor based around Zee being an amputee. As a physically disabled person, I thought it was hilarious and handled respectfully.

Bowie and Emma don't become friends again, so WAYNE takes over trying to help Emma out with Chase.

What do you want to see next season?? Please tell me in the RBs I'm curious!

[orchidbreezefc]

edgar woe.begone: low empathy, high masking

THESIS: my reading of edgar woe.begone is that he's a low empathy autistic who has no innate intuition for social cues and has had to teach himself everything about social interaction from scratch, which is an interpretation that i think explains a lot about him.

now, i am very critical of edgar as a person. i think he's a less than good person and a bad boyfriend. but let me be VERY clear right off the bat: these symptoms don't make anyone a bad person. these symptoms aren't even bad per se. theyre all disabling symptoms that make social interaction more difficult for the person who has them. like any symptom, they have to be managed and compensated for.

some people under the neurodivergent/mentally ill umbrella, as with any group of people, are bad people. being a bad person flavors one's approach to their mental illness, and mental illness in turn flavors the manner in which they're a bad person. the mental illness isn't what makes you bad, but it does affect how your shittiness manifests.

disclaimers done, a good place to start is the way edgar speaks, especially with jeremy's performance. edgar always sounds very reasonable, approachable, and agreeable, and there is never an ounce of genuine emotion in his voice. he talks like an autistic person with zero innate intuition for social interaction who has taught himself to speak in the way that he's learned will get the best response.

edgar's customer service voice is the only one we hear and likely the only one he uses if he can help it. we know edgar's a tactician, a persuader. why use any other voice than the one he's carefully fine-tuned to make people like him and be receptive to what he's saying? this isn't even necessarily cynical: what do you want him to do, talk in a more uncontrolled, emotional way--that he's not used to managing--that will make people like him less?? what good would that do?

edgar likes control. he's more comfortable when things are in his hands, and only his. propagation definitely factors in here--if [link: my theory] that propagation is what solidified the certainty of edgar's death is true, it's no wonder he wants to control and limit the spread of information. edgar prefers to be in charge of making the plans, ideally alone.

this is part of why mike is perpetually out of the loop, even regarding decisions that concern him--which is pretty damn paternalistic. but there's a more wholesome aspect as well: edgar genuinely thinks he's doing mike a favor.

edgar knows mike has undergone and is undergoing a lot, and that he's terrible with plans and a major blabbermouth. if edgar can take care of a problem without mike having to worry his pretty head and perfect eyebrows about what to do, without knowing it ever existed, isn't that so much better? that's edgar being a good boyfriend, actually. he's helping!

it probably doesn't even occur to edgar how much this limits mike's agency, how much it hurts mike that edgar refuses to let him in, how this puts them on unequal footing, how fucking patronizing it is to not let your boyfriend make his own decisions about his own life. oh, how the tables have tabled since him originally telling mike that keeping the story of woe.begone from him didn't protect him, it impeded his ability to make informed choices.

here's where the low empathy creates problems--edgar doesn't have that innate intuition for how mike's feeling, and he doesn't (effectively) manage or compensate for it, and he definitely doesn't communicate with mike enough to know how he's affected by this shit (avoiding too much information sharing is good, remember?)

and mike certainly isn't going to tell him! mike is a goddamn simp. he's not going to establish boundaries. he's not going to put his foot down and demand better treatment. as if he fucking deserves that in the first place, pshaw. the only time he pushes back is in season 10 when he doesn't remember their relationship, and edgar is deeply shaken.

edgar is devastated to learn he hurt mikey, because he does genuinely adore that man. he would get lasso lessons from michael and rope him the moon if he could. his low empathy and efforts to manage everything himself keep him from realizing that mikey, a hyperempathetic mess who gets sentimental about pens, seriously suffers from being shut out like this.

edgar's thought process must be equally inscrutable to mikey, who just figures it would be asking too much to be an active and equal participant in his own relationship and life. edgar's perfect and great, so if mikey deserved that, he would already be giving it to him. if mikey's unhappy with any part of their relationship, no he isn't. he's lucky he has edgar at all. he's lucky he has anyone.

recall michael's agonized admission that "everything is about rugby, dammit" 10(++++) years and edgar's literal death later. we can only guess at how bad his rugby was, but we do know michael never talked it through with edgar. he tells mike this was him 'letting it go' actually, when the fact that theyre having this conversation at all is proof that he extremely hasn't. this is what 'letting it go' looks like to michael: burying an issue forever and giving up on ever getting closure.

so yes, edgar does authentically deeply love his mikey-bear. unfortunately, if you never establish the communication to bridge the differences between your own methods of operating and that of your partner, love will only get you so far. and the first time around, where it got them was michael fighting back tears in an apartment in latvia over a wound from edgar that he suffered in silence until the day he died.

[soaked-ghost]

lack of soul in undertale being read as a akin to disability makes too much sense to me, as a disabled person.

I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, but there's a very strong 'disabled' sub context and coding with Ink's character now that i think about it. the whole thing about character has a specific condition that limits certain things in their life, and needs to take a specific 'item' in order to regulate themselfs' seems a very obvious disability coding to me at least (talking and his lack of souland vials)

Ink's also often translated as disabled in works too, sometimes positively but other times negatively (like that one drama in 2021 when autistic people in the fandom pointed out how??ableist the fandom tends to be with Ink's character, and oh boy. A lot of people got involved, even Jakei did. It was a shame since people became even more ableist and harrased those people and bullying them off of the fandom..)

anyways..

hellooooo I know I'm responding way to fast but I could care less your ask is wonderful :]

When I can confidently say that soullessness in undertale was intentionally written to be a metaphor for disability, I can't say the same for ink because comyet doesn't even seem to understand what soullessness is like in undertale with how many things don't line up with ink's soullessness and flowey's soullessness -_-

Buuuut. but but. I can totally say that you SHOULD see ink being soulless as him being disabled because that's literally what he is. it's not even a metaphor with ink it's just textual.

Ink has to take his vials (medication) or else he can't function properly and he also often 'shuts down'

And the thing with people being incredibly ableist with ink is still a thing that's happening IN MASS even in the year of our lord 2024

People just genuinely CANNOT let go from the idea that ink being a bad person is not related to his disability. and they CANNOT understand that his soullessness affects *ink* the most than anyone else

But ink being evil just because he has low empathy isn't the only ableist thing about how people talk about him

They also can't seem to understand that ink is a full grown adult for some reason! and comyet (somewhat) encouraged that?! as I remember seeing a post from them a while back saying that ink has the mental capabilities of a 7 year old (if I have to explain why that's bad I don't things you understand what I'm saying at all)

Ink is always regressed to just a 'gremlin' and nothing else! Sometimes other characters literally treat him like an animal like what the fuck!!! That's a GROWN PERSON what is wrong with you all!!!!!!!!!

He's also constantly child coded too! Not only is he always drawn ridiculously small and thin to the point where he resembles an actual kid, but he also sometimes genuinely acts like a toddler and can't seem to grasp basic concepts as if autistic people are just adult sized babies like what!!!! the hell!!!!

[missyblogs]

Because I am On a Ball and it is Rolling, I want to make an additional love offering bc there are like 3 things in the x reader tags and my fellow Sportaskissers deserve more ( I see you, I love you, you are not weird or alone <;;3 ). I present to you:

Sportacus with a chronically suffering and/or disabled significant other

based on my reading of the character from just four episodes from season one, some offhanded comments from the cast, and a little projection on my part so shhhh -Sportacus will never think less of you for not having the strength/ not feeling well enough to exercise. Some days are just a no bones day and he totally gets it ( even if he rarely if ever experiences them himself, thanks elf genes > . > ) He will gently stretch you out if you've been lying in the same spot for too long though ( you wouldn't BELIEVE how quickly legs can cramp... but he does! ) or help you move to avoid bedsores if you need that. Part of what he loves about you is your perseverance in spite of the hand you've been dealt and helping the body he loves so much stay as healthy as possible is as good as any pilates session. You don't need to kill yourself with cardio to make him love you. -Tea, tea and more tea ( and maybe some soup ). Can't keep down your Sportscandy? Catch him boiling all kinds of herbs to settle your gut, keep you hydrated, and get *some* semblance of nutrition in there. Because it's gonna be unsweetened you'll be drinking a lot of white/decaf. Also the man will hunt down your favorite variety at all cost <3 -Do you take an inhaler? do you need to do it upside down to get the meds where they need to go? ( looking at you Sumatriptan nasal spray ), the man will personally lift you and hold you up on the ceiling hook so you can angle your head right for the delivery if you don't have the body strength to hold yourself there

-If you need to lie down somewhere dark and cold to make your pain go away, he'll make sure there's a room just for you. He will check in on you every so often to make sure you're doing all right though, just cause the crystal isn't beeping doesn't mean his favorite person doesn't need some kinda help and he wants to be the first to know when he can! -No standing? no problem! in at least one draft of the official backstory Sportacus built that bad boy himself so if your wheelchair using s/i lives with him or makes regular visits to the airship, he will build a lift in just for you. After all it's your home too!

- If you are having a bad mental health night, it genuinely does not matter whether it's 8:08 or 3 am. Though he may like his sleep, Sportacus will be THERE for you because he wants you to be safe and there is no other person he'd rather stay up for. He knows he can't make you stable or take your trauma away but if his company makes you feel even the slightest bit better it is all worthwhile to him. You two can nap together later <3 - Need a hand? If you need help remembering or administering your medication, your very own hero is to the rescue! No more pricking fingers or navigating stubborn syringes if you don't have the dexterity for it. Sportacus understands the importance of giving your body the tools it needs to help you be your best you. He'll help you keep track of meds, set reminders to take them, and help you with whatever you need to get them into your body!

Above all, regardless of what you feel like or what your body does or doesn't do Sportacus chose you for you, you are not a runner up, you're not a consolation prize, and there is not an ounce of pity in his body when he thinks of you. You are beautiful to him just the way you are, remember that.

[asexual-society]

I needed another ace's opinion on this or I was gonna go crazy. I feel so alone.

My best friend is allo and recently started to go to therapy. His therapist told him something to incinuate that my advice about romantic relationships was less valuable/productive because "our brains work differently" because I'm ace and he isn't.

He's upset that I'm upset about it when I believe this is just benevolent aphobia. I see it the same way as someone telling a straight person not to take advice from a gay person. Am I just making a big deal out of nothing? Why is my opinion less important/applicable because I don't have the same experience as someone else?

I personally don't think an aro or ace person's advice on relationships is less valuable just because our brains work differently or our experiences are different, I mean, for most other topics, asking someone impartial for advice is completely normal, even if you take that person's advice with a pinch of salt because they don't have firsthand knowledge of the situation. I've had my opinions and advice belittled countless times and I know how hurtful it can be, and there are times when someone's opinion on a subject is totally useless because they're not informed about it, but this isn't like asking your friend who can't drive for advice how to parallel park or your American friend about British politics,, culturally and socially we are fed a LOT about relationships all the time for our whole lives, even without firsthand experience, we absorb a lot of information, and that's not even accounting for the things we have actively sought out, or the experiences of aspec people who have been in relationships.

I understand that we might not fully understand how it feels to be allo and want relationships of whatever kind in the same way, but a lot of (not all, I'll grant you) ace and aro people know as much or more about aspects of sex and romance than your average allo purely on the basis of having had to learn about it ourselves, and I think we have incredibly valuable insights into relationships that are generally overlooked by people who take for granted that everyone feels the same way about sex and romance. Maybe my confidence is unearned, but I'm still here giving advice to strangers on the internet, and people keep asking for it, so someone must think my opinion is worthwhile, and if I can't give someone the advice or help a person needs, I'll just say that. The number of allo people who have terrible relationships and then give out terrible advice because of it is crazy, like. genuinely there's some actively dangerous advice being pedaled by allos, I think on average an ace or aro person acting in good faith can give advice of a similar quality to your average allo person's.

By the therapist's same logic you can't trust them with advice about how aspec people are, in fact you can't trust them to give advice about any mental or physical illness or disability they don't experience, which is obviously not how therapy works. Tbh, I'd argue that unless a therapist is aspec themselves or has been given decent training about aspec people, which generally speaking, they aren't (although there are some good ones), anything they have to say with regards to us is even less "valuable or productive" than what an aspec person thinks about relationships.

There will always be aspec people who give terrible advice, and trust me, I have heard some terminally online or just downright ignorant takes, but I've heard just as bad, if not worse from allo people, and acting like we're the problem sucks.

~ mod key

[bougiebutchbitch]

Okay so House and Amber are basically the same person EXCEPT I don't think Amber is a brat, like I'm not sure she is even a sub.

Also can you imagine a 3 way with House Amber and Wilson. Because I can't, I feel like Wilson would literally tear out all his hair because they would just egg each other on into being completely insufferable.

OUI.

House says 'she's me, but needy' but that is BLATANT PROJECTION because House is canonically established over and over again to be the neediest little bitch while Amber is a strong, independant woman.

Don't get me wrong - Amber has her issues, and I loooooove to poke them. She is terrified of 'losing', like House. She struggles to form genuine connections with people, like House. She finds it easier to manipulate or bully people into doing what she wants, than being vulnerable and open with them and giving them a chance to actually grow to know, like, and care for her.... like House.

But whereas House is a hedonistic brat who enjoys poking people until they snap, getting into ridiculous shenanigans just so he can be slapped on the wrist by Mommy Cuddy or Daddy Wilson, and encouraging literally everyone in his life to stand up to him and put him in his place when he goes too far... Amber really doesn't do that.

She and House both crave being in control. But whereas House is kinda shown over and over again to genuinely want authority figures in his life who he can push back against, Amber doesn't get pleasure in having someone holding her leash, so-to-speak. Instead, I think she resents it.

Plus, she obviously values appearances in a way House doesn't - always so very put-together and socially aware, able to Chameleon her way in with almost anyone. I think she'd dislike subbing because even just the appearance of being 'out of control' would be uncomfortable and upsetting to her.

In contrast, House is the sort of guy who acts up all the time, but wants to be broken down until he can be vulnerable. He's scared of showing that vulnerability, yes, but at the same time, he craves it so fucking bad. Subbing in a contained, controlled scene where he could go right back to being his usual asshole self once it was over would probably make him a lot less miserable!

He gets to be loved and taken care of WITHOUT feeling like he has to get defensive about it, as a disabled guy who's very sensitive about other's perception of him as 'helpless'? He gets to be needy and have those needs met without having to play endless manipulative games and making people hate him? Nice!

(...Okay he'd keep playing games with people anyway because it's fun, but still.)

But yeah, there's my essay xoxox Amber and Wilson are Dom4Dom, House is their on-again off-again bratty third who's desperately in love with Wilson but who plays off Amber furiously and makes it his mission to annoy her whenever she's in the same room. Especially when Wilson punishes him for it.

I'm right and you all know it :3c

[femmespoiled]

Oh god. The pillow princess thing is really that deep? I’m not trying to be contentious I’m curious. I think living as a black lesbian in the south has skewed my idea on what things to worry about. I think being offended by pillow princess jokes is a privilege. I don’t have the time. That post isn’t for me I think.

You know, I wasn't going to reply to this, but I'm gonna be honest, I think this is contentious and you know it, also I do think you have the time, you had the time to come here and send me this passive aggressive ask about it, it seems you have plenty of time. You're sitting there and worrying, babes, quit it.

Regardless, the thing is, not everything is for you, first of all, no offence, and this is my blog and I talk about my experiences. You feel free to talk about yours in your blog and I'll make sure to not go criticize you on it, because I can just ignore it, did you know that's also an option? ♥️

I'm honestly in a way pretty self absorbed here so I don't care much about what other people post, I do recommend being like that. And that's probably why some of y'all have to come to my inbox to get my attention like this. Here you go, you have it. Moving on.

As another person of colour, I don't want to invalidate your experience as a person of colour, I'm sure it's hard, really hard, genuinely. In any case, being made fun of and rejected and treated overall like less than and like a problem by my own community and people outside of it doesn't feel like a privilege. The jokes are that people like me are bad partners, selfish, that no one likes us and no one wants us, now tell me, would you enjoy listening to it over and over everywhere you go just for existing? Unsolicited, uninvited? On social media everywhere you go it follows you, just bad comments on you thinly veiled as "jokes"? Because then you can invalidate me for having feelings and tell me I can't take a joke? it can get to you, surely can make you feel bad these "jokes".

I think it's disingenuous for you to use your black and lesbian identities to shut me up with an "I have it so much harder than you, what a privilege you have" when these jokes for sure intersect with the identities you claim to have in ways I've seen clear and I'd be surprised you couldn't see it. I'll go further, as another person of colour I have a little bit of a hard time believing this is a genuine ask from an actual black lesbian and not somebody using being black and a lesbian as a token to shock people and invalidate experiences. The more I'm on Tumblr, the more I doubt some of you people, because it's drama for the sake of drama.

I have a range and intersectionality of other problems with how people treat me, I'm a person of colour, Latina, disabled and lesbian, but when I see somebody talking about something that bothers them, I don't make it about myself to shut them up. Maybe you should reflect on that, because look at where those jokes took you, to a place in which you feel the need to shut me up when I tell you quit with the jokes. It's just another problem, but it's another problem that I personally don't need.

Oh and to end this, I'm allowed to have feelings, and you should think about why this bothers you enough to come tell me all this about it.

[dvasva]

I have a sincere question.

How will not voting for Biden help? Threatening not to hasn't worked to make him do anything to stop this monstrosity and I'm sure Trump will be (however slightly) worse.

I'm just wondering what you're proposing as a solution here? Are you just saying that it's selfish or something to care about how much worse things will get in the us while there's a genocide going on, or is there some alternative to voting for Biden that will actually help because I want to help whatever I can to stop the genocide.

/genuine

I'm gonna be genuine and honest when I say this; at this point, if you don't already dislike Biden and feel the same way I do, I doubt anything I will say will convince you one way or another, and I can tell your question is coming from this fearmongering rhetoric that was born during the 2020 election of 'Vote Blue no matter who', that I didn't agree with back then and I definitely don't agree with now.

I'm gonna level with you right up top, answer your question first, tell you what I think about all of this, even though it's not the most cheery thing. I don't think there's anything that will make things better. I think we are living in a rotting corpse that is like at most 6 months away from exploding from the built up pressure of gasses. I honestly don't know why you even asked me of all people. I can only really support community outreach, community building and mutual aid to mitigate the inevitable harm this whole clusterfuck, either way, will cause to the most vulnerable people, and can only urge you to do the same. We cannot have any political action until people start building community outside of online spaces. That is the biggest flaw of modern leftist political praxis, the lack of community. This is why the college protests are fantastic, because it is a small scale general strike amongst students, with people organizing and providing mutual aid to make organizing easy for the most amount of people possible. That's my solution. Mutual aid.

And, despite how I feel about questions like this, (especially considering aside from a few replies in various posts, and a generally active reblog and tag life about Palestine and Biden, I haven't made any original posts about this and I'm like... a rando with like less than 200 followers, so it's weird that you're coming to me with this question) I will treat this like a genuine question.

That being said, I did vote for Biden in 2020, despite my reservations. So, anything that happened during his presidency puts blood on my hands as much as anything.

I'll kind of start with saying that I am a hispanic, mexican, nonbinary person with a uterus and disabilities from Texas. My current governor is Greg Abbot and a lot of the most heinous conservative bills and debates regarding immigration, police, free speech, lgbt issues, abortion, etc, have taken place in my state where I live, and I am distantly related to Linda Coffee, one of the Roe v. Wade lawyers.

So, I'm not like. Some cishet white guy from Wisconsin who has never seen or witnessed oppression and who doesn't have any stake in any of this, and thinks the edgiest thing I can do is not participate in the system.

I come at this issue from multiple angles, and these are not like... the official political opinions of everyone who has ever agreed with me, this is just mine.

To start with, 1. I'm still voting in local and state elections, and 2. I don't believe in rewarding bad behavior. You said 'Threatening to not vote for him hasn't done anything to change his behavior' and so I'm going to carry through with my threat. Consequences and all that. Not that it really matters what I vote in presidential elections anyways. I live in Texas, a winner take all state. As we have seen multiple times, the popular vote is meaningless, and the only thing that matters is the electoral college. Texas is gerrymandered to all hell, and it's districts are drawn in a way that will always favor republicans. Until our corrupt ass state can finally manage, by some fluke, to vote in a non-republican who is actually willing to redistrict the state and prevent gerrymandering (which they wont do cause they're all chickenshit), all of Texan electoral college votes will go to the Republican candidate. I know we're not supposed to say our vote doesn't matter cause 'every little bit helps' but my vote literally does not matter in a real, tangible, way.

I know a lot of people are scared of having their rights stripped away, sure, but none of you have listened to POC, especially to POC living in southern states. All of this stuff that Trump is threatening? The more police, the border stuff, anti-trans bills, abortion? It's already happening in this country. I don't have abortion rights, I don't have freedom of speech on college campuses, I don't have a right to form a new union, I don't have trans rights, and if the police wanted to, they could pull over anyone in my family and arrest and deport them simply because of the color of their skin, regardless if they're actually an immigrant or not. Cop Cities are popping up around the world, the police is militarized and think it's ok to violently arrest peaceful protesters on college campuses. Meanwhile, the rich keep getting richer. Rafah was invaded last night, tanks placed on the border preventing anyone from leaving into Egypt anymore, and all the while the richest fuckers in this entire country, many of whom have voiced open and intense support for Israel, all met up with their tickets that cost 75k to take pictures in their pretty outfits and ignore the ongoing genocide.

All of this stuff is already happening regardless of who's in charge, and the only difference between Trump and Biden, to be honest? Northern Liberals will actually care about what's happening if Trump is in office. If Trump did everything that Biden did, there would be mass outrage about Palestine from every single Vote Blue No Matter Who person who's around. It's easy to blame the people whose rights have already disappeared for the threat that your rights might disappear as well. This Vote Blue No Matter Who thing is a cry for comfort. It is the people who are not feeling the effects of the crumbling empire we live in crying out, screaming 'Let me feel the comfort for a little bit longer, I don't want to be subjected to the things that others are already subjected to! I just want to be comfortable for a little bit longer!' And I honestly am not interested in voting for white northern comfort just because the other guy is threatening to take that away too.

And you are right. I do think it's selfish to try to focus on your own comfort while ignoring the active genocide of Palestinians, the ethnic cleansing being done with American Money, the thing that puts blood on every taxpayers hands, a true example of Taxation without Representation. Palestine is not the sacrificial lamb that we are entitled to trample over to ensure that we are comfortable. To think so is so monstrously dehumanizing, to say 'I can't focus on that cause I have to worry about me' while actively funding it. That's the biggest catching point for me. We have a responsibility to oppose Biden, to not vote for him and to actively call for him to step down and allow a different person to run, if not dismantling the system entirely, because this blood is on our hands.

Other people have said a lot more clever things about this than me, but Palestinian oppression is directly linked to all oppression around the world. Police in the US train with IOF soldiers, use the same methods on american citizens as IOF use on Palestinian citizens. This is not a case of 'two random countries that have nothing to do with us duke it out'. Israel is acting with the direct and explicit blessing of Joe Biden and the United States Government. He is, even for the standards of Democrats who like to say pretty words while bombing brown people, a warmonger. Like, violently so. Biden is legitimately more dangerous than anyone is giving him credit for, and is actively and openly funding blatant and obvious war crimes. That should honestly get him arrested and tried in an international criminal court.

Anyhow, that's all that from an American perspective. If you wanna really figure out what to do to help, seek out voices who actually know what they're talking about instead.

I recommend Imani Barbarin:

Also, check out my pinned post for ways you can provide a bit of support or learn more about the active ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Especially check out Esims for Gaza. Aid has been inconsistent at best, but if you can't find anything else to do, send esims to help keep Palestine connected to the world.

[psychoticallytrans]

Your argument that TERFs see men as all bad therefore it's a bad ideology doesn't make sense. You could apply this to any oppressor dynamic to say talking about oppression is therefore bad because it marks one group as doing harm.

There's a difference between "This group as a whole is doing harm to another group." and "Everyone in this group is irreparably evil due to their nature." Radical feminism very frequently lands on the latter side. That's a problem.

An example from another perspective. As a disabled person, I don't think abled people are inherently unable to make accommodations for and believe disabled people when they speak up. This means that it's reasonable to hold them accountable when they do not do so. I also don't think that every individual abled person is responsible for all the ableist crap a lot of them spew, or for structural ableism. I recognize that abled people are capable of not being ableist and that they are only responsible for their own behavior. I hold the abled people I care for to a high standard of treating me and my disabled loved ones with respect, and encourage them to advocate for our rights with what influence they have.

Taking the radical feminist attitude towards men and applying it to abled people would leave me with something like this: "Abled people are inherently unable to understand the disabled experience, and are inherently tainted by the hatred of disabled people. They will never be able to remove enough ableism from themselves to interact safely, let alone productively, with disabled people. Disabled people should never form close relationships with abled people, because they will inevitably hurt the disabled people around them. There is no such thing as an abled person honestly working for disability justice. All that say they are are just there to prey on naive disabled people."

That's an incredibly tempting perspective for someone who has been traumatized by ableism. Abled people are ableist, and the ones that are less ableist will almost always be the same ones that respect it if a disabled person tells them to fuck off. So a disabled person who cuts themselves off from as many abled people as they can would be more likely to interact more heavily with particularly ableist abled people, reinforcing the ideas that led them to cut off abled people in general.

Being a tempting reaction to bigotry, however, does not make it right, or fair, or reasonable. It's not fair or reasonable to judge all abled people by their worst actors, and it's not helpful for disability justice. Abled people have always been a part of disability justice, just as much as they have always been a part of structural ableism. Treating the former and the latter the same is unhelpful nonsense. Disabled people have always contributed to structural ableism, often by stepping on other disabled people to get ahead and show that they are different. Disabled people have also always fought for our own rights and dignity. Treating the former and the latter the same is unhelpful nonsense.

Replace all the instances of "abled people" with "men" and "disabled people" with women, and switch other words to fit the new subject as needed. None of the above becomes less true. The fourth paragraph remains just as untrue as it is now.

Radical feminism is an ideology of fear and isolationism. It lashes out at perceived threats while being unable to undermine the structures of power and influence that keep hurting women. It is so, so tempting to traumatized girls and women because it tells those girls and women that all of their fears are true about every single man, and all they have to do to stay safe is stick with other women. It's a terrible way to live. It inclines radical feminists to attack attempts to argue that men and women aren't so different, that people can "cross" from one to the other and that men and women can genuinely understand and love each other. Because if men are not so different than women, if women can be men and men can be women, if it is still true that men are the danger- then women can be dangerous too, and, suddenly, nowhere is safe.

[shivroy]

i just wanted to talk about my decision to start masking again a while ago, because it was pretty much entirely influenced by listening to my peers/folks on here circulating actual information about the pandemic & that it is not fucking over.

i was initially privileged to have believed that hearing about covid less and less as time went on meant that it was really going away, because it was not affecting me or my health. i believed the left-leaning media sources and liberal bubble i was in that told me it was safe again to go out without a mask. but like. safe for WHO?

it's hard for some who have grown used to the "convenience" of not wearing a mask to hear this, but nothing has changed since 2022 - covid hasn't gone away. every time you go out without a mask, there is a legitimate risk you may catch covid and unknowingly spread it to countless others, including disabled individuals for whom this virus can and will have devastating, potentially permanent impacts.

i think it was incredibly important that i heard & absorbed the sentiment that you can begin masking again at any time. yes, YOU! and me! i have started again and you can too! tell your friends! get others masking! i'm genuinely not saying this out of any concern for myself (although i have pretty bad asthma so i don't know WHY i convinced myself that not masking was like... ever fine. i guess it was because everyone in my life and all mainstream liberal media is acting like everything's fine!!! when it's not!), i am saying it for those whose health is more tenuous than my own and as a healthy and able-bodied person it should and will be my responsibility to take measures to protect people who deserve bodily autonomy and safety. this is what a good society does: it protects its most vulnerable. the entire world is not doing this, but we CAN, and it WILL make a difference. if you believe disability rights are human rights: wear a mask.

[sl-ut]

Hii, sorry to bother you. I was just wondering how college! Abby would react or go about her gf explaining to her she's autistic. I totally get it if you don't feel comfortable writing about it, most allistic authors don't in fear of it misrepresenting. I don't take it personal. But if you'd be ok with writing something, I'd be hella looking forward to reading them.

🩷🩷🩷

i just want to preface this by saying that i am not autistic, and i don't mean to offend anyone with my writing, but i also want everyone to feel included in my writing, so i'm giving it my best shot.

more college!abby

she was probably equally surprised and unsurprised. coming from a medical background, she was able to pick up a few things that y/n did on an everyday basis that could be characterized as a symptom of autism, though early on, she didn't want to offend or pressure her into telling her by simply asking, though she definitely kept it in mind when trying to help her through certain issues.

when y/n finally revealed to her that she was, in fact, autistic, abby did her best to not react in any way that might give the impression that she felt either positively or negatively about this news. she wanted her to know that she genuinely didn't care nor did she think any differently of her.

instead, she asked what kinds of things she found helpful when she began to feel overwhelmed or anxious, what kinds of signs to look out for, and how to help her avoid situations that might induce a bit of a reaction from her.

abby would keep fidget toys with her when she knew that y/n would be with her. they're tucked into her bedside table, the console of her car, and even in her backpack just in case. she'll do her best to help her keep on top of her schoolwork to help her avoid any unnecessary stress, and she'll probably even call her dad in order to ask her what kind of habits she could pick up in order to help in whatever way she can.

she definitely doesn't want her to think of it as a disability, either. a lot of the people that i have met with autism have at some point in their lives been a tad embarrassed that they weren't "normal." abby wouldn't stand for this; anyone who tries to make her feel bad about it or thought less of her because of it, she was quick to shut them down and give them hell over it. she makes sure that y/n knows that, while things might be a bit harder for her sometimes, that she could do anything that she put her mind to if she made sure to keep herself on track.

at the same time, she doesn't want to make it seem like she's trying to be her caretaker or like she was taking pity on her. she was a protector at heart, so of course she enjoyed taking care of her in little ways, but she never wants to make her feel like a burden. she's very considerate of how she might not pick up on certain social cues, giving her a second to try before trying to help her out.

at the end of the day, i don't think that this would change the way that abby is within the relationship. of course, she would make changes where necessary, but she has a good enough understanding of how to deal with it and what kind of effects that it has on y/n's life to prevent it from treating her differently.

[the-lincyclopedia]

One of my primary beliefs is that anyone who wants to solve or mitigate a problem should care about correctly understanding the causes of that problem. And I find that often, people prefer to make assumptions about what causes the problem and then get upset when you challenge their assumptions, even when you're right.

I think those of us who are activists have a tendency to notice when people with power and authority make incorrect assumptions about us or about other people they have authority over. We help each other learn to notice this.

We know it happens in health care: We know that doctors often assume that a patient's symptoms are a result of the patient being fat, and that the patient "just needs to lose weight" in order to feel better, even when something entirely different is causing the symptoms. We know that psychiatrists sometimes assume that a woman having interpersonal issues must have borderline personality disorder or bipolar disorder, because obviously those are the right labels for difficult women, when actually she's autistic and the psychiatrist didn't bother to check.

We know it happens with how children are treated: Whether we're activists or not, many of us remember times when our parents or teachers acted like we were breaking rules or causing a scene for no good reason, when actually something was wrong and we were trying to solve the problem/get help/generally cope as best we could, and we just weren't asked why we were acting that way.

But the reason I'm making this post is because we, as activists, are not immune from making bad assumptions either.

So many people on this site, and in many activist spaces I'm in, talk as if every incident of harm (at least, every incident where "the other side" causes harm) involves deliberate malice--often nothing but deliberate malice. There's rarely any public consideration of other potential causes, such as genuine ignorance, competing priorities, differing but legitimate values, being stretched too thin, etc. Even greed sometimes gets left out of the conversation, despite the fact that I'm quite certain that greed is a more common motivator than sadism.

I want to be clear that I'm not making this point to cast the powerful as victims, to argue that they're misunderstood, or to scold you about being nicer to your oppressors. That is not my motivation.

I am making this point because when we assume that someone is motivated by malice and sadism when they're really acting from ignorance, greed, a different set of values, or a lack of time/resources to do things in the way they should be done, we are going to propose the wrong solutions.

A teacher who's not using universal design because they hate disabled kids and want neurodivergent students to suffer needs to be removed from the classroom. A teacher who's not using universal design because they don't know enough about it needs additional training. A teacher who's not using universal design because they're totally overwhelmed by having 35 middle school students in each of six periods throughout the day needs more resources and support. The problems look similar, or even the same, at first, but when you look closer, you see that different causes require different solutions.

Obviously, there are groups whose motivations are a lot less sympathetic than those of an overworked teacher. But even when it comes to, like, execs at health insurance companies, I'm guessing they're more likely to care about making money and be pretty apathetic about the details, rather than cackling gleefully at the thought of driving people to bankruptcy or causing them to suffer and even die for lack of care.

And if we want a more equitable world, I think it's logical and even vital that we know what causes the problems we want to solve, because that affects what the correct solutions are and can guide us in avoiding unintended consequences.

[maxphilippa]

Now do, pray tell, share with us what you would've changed to II?

Oh alright- sure!

- The way Test Tube and Fan acted upon Cabby's files. I really don't like them in S3 other than what they had with Bot (but mostly just because I like Bot). It really felt so awful considering that those are her disability aids and meanwhile it is, somewhat in character for them to act like that (Fan acts before he thinks as shown in s2 when he ran back to the game, and Test Tube has a big sense of justice as shown in S2, considering how she treated Mic since she thought she was the one that made a whole mess), they're supposed to be more mature than before at least by how they act in S3. I think that Fan getting that Cabby needs those files and that she genuinely means good but stuggles would have been a great thing- heck! Fan ACTUALLY listening to Cabby and asking her why she wrote those things, and understanding her! And maybe Test Tube ACTUALLY apologizing to Cabby after Cabby rejoins, because she realizes she was fucking awful to her? Instead of making her feel bad about herself? I think that would make things less shitty on the context of Cabby and understanding her.

- Tissues's condition being treated as a joke is something that I really don't like. Meanwhile yes, I get that S2 characters ARE stereotypes, just more polished and given some more development (the best case of this is Microphone), and that AE was still just some teenagers back then (if I'm not wrong), Tissues was literally the first guy that got voted off and that sucked, and his main personality was his condition. And his condition is somehow even worse in the Fan short? At least on symptomps (I do not know how to write the word), making stuff somewhat more difficult, but he at least somehow got better in the end? He's showing that he's getting back his strenght, but I think that treating his condition on a more serious look and still giving him a personality would have been great. Showing that he is slowly getting better (meaning that he is getting a treatment of sorts) is good. But they can do better.

- Bot's & Cabby's scenes in Ep 14.

Meanwhile I did got the intention of "Bot is still struggling with their identity and Cabby is still struggling in general, which isn't a great combo considering that Cabby does need her disability aids and Bot still doesn't know about themselves at all, not wanting to be written down the same way they were written down by Test Tube and Fan", I would have liked to see Bot ACTUALLY communicating properly with Cabby in the episode and telling her about it directly, instead of making Cabby feel so lost and lying to he4. And the 'Bow' File getting destroyed scene would have been different I think? Instead of that happening, Bot helps Cabby getting to the top, and in the end, the only thing that changes is the color of Bot's file and the info probably.

- "Evil"... Paper & Paper.

Now this is one of the most problematic stuffs with the II writing, the bad representation of DID itself and demonizing mental health. It would be fairly easy to write, with research done and such. I would rename Evil Paper to Looseleaf instead. I would also really not just make him... like that? Paper went through such trauma and it affected him a lot. Looseleaf being more of a self defensive guy yet not violent/murderous one at all would be good, wanting to make sure they're safe and okay. I do not know much about DID myself but, let them be headmmates and actually talk about stuff.

- This is more of a general thing but I personally just really like the scrapped idea of Bot being built by Cobs? Heck! Cobs is supposed to BE the main villain! And all we got was Springy! And that guy isn't even confirmed to be built by Cobs! They're not doing many stuff with Cobs and he's such an interesting character.

- Fans VS Favorites. I do like III as a concept, but most of the S2 characters already had their arcs closed and such and I think it would have been better if they used the underveloped characters instead. To give them more personality and growth instead of just silly little comics and such. I would have liked to see Trophy, Tissues, Cheesy AND Soap getting development other than their main stereotypes!

- Soap's Character.

She is... a very boring character to me, personally. I know that AE has said that they were starting to care about Soap and such but it didn't really felt, like she was getting anywhere? Other than her whole thing being a germaphobe? And her addiction with cleaning? She shows to have a strong character when angry! I would have liked to write her on the chiller end and genuinely have more of a story than whatever she has going on now.

- Nickel's and Suitcase relationship.

I know, I know. This isn't meant to say that what Nickel did to Suitcase wasn't bad. But I think that it would have made more sense if the whole relationship didn't feel so... one sided. In friendship terms. Nickel thinks of Suitcase rather fondly despite her "betrayal", and they were friends in a way. But that's the thing. They don't really feel like friends at all- mostly because meanwhile Nickel does care to an degree for her, he still sucks ass at it, and Suitcase was really only hanging out because of Baseball in a way, and their whole thing is SO complicated that I can even make a long analysis on it.

I would have liked to make them actually like eachother. For them to ACTUALLY be good friends before the inevitable downfall. Nickel being there for Suitcase and (terribly) trying to comfort her. Suitcase actually liking Nickel's company and not feeling scared of him. To make Nickel, someone who's emotionally stupid as shit, be at least more sympathetic, but still having his hatred for Balloon take the best of him. To make them actually hang around without needing Baseball to be around.

Nickel is a complicated character and I do think that AE didn't have him figured it out 'till S3. So that's what I would change about him if I could- make him a bit more balanced. Make his yearning for the good old days make more sense. And maybe having him showing regret earlier on.

- Adding an small post-scene ep 14 s2 in which Microphone actually says hi to Pickle. Not a bad thing rewrite but I think it would have done things end on more of an bittersweet note.

There's more stuff I would have changed that's for sure but those are the main points I can think of!