#“I am disabled please communicate with me negative I wish to communicate with you

[yeetoscope]

This is how I will tell people I have autism.

[cardnompfs]

With how things are doing in the community i do admit i have been feeling uncomfortable with how things going

But before anyone ask, No i am not leaving or deleting my blog-

I think this is enough negativity for the week honestly, We've entered a new month and I don't want it to be rough either.

I will recommend that it probably best to move on from the situation and ignore it, It sucks that it happened overall but i don't wanna waste my energy on it and i would believe you folks would rather not either. So it's better to move on and ignore this further since it's not going anywhere anyhow

And with the recent harassment the community gotten with anons sending death threats i can recommend you lots to report and/or block the anon whose sent these to the staff. Or if it's keep happening then disable the anonymous asks, even if some lurkers might not like it. It's better for your own mental health

If anyone wanna like talk to someone do feel free to chat, with me or someone you like or admire. You aren't alone in this afterall

Please stay safe though, I wish you all the best, That is all..!

[neon-moon-beam]

Addressing Ableism In The Submas Fandom And Its Impact Again

The fact that I know multiple neurodivergent people who have bad feelings arise from seeing any content, including official, of Warden Ingo due to an influx people turning the Submas fandom into an ableist playground in the wake of PLA speaks volumes.

Before I continue, I want to stress: I am not calling anyone in particular out.

Unknowingly making ableist content does not make you a bad person. Everyone still has things to learn, everyone has room for change and growth. Self-education and critical thinking are very important here (and everywhere). A desire to correct a mistake, change, and grow from it is better all around than digging your heels in and refusing to budge or listen.

I am not responsible for bad faith interpretations or other potential misinterpretations of me addressing these issues that have personally affected friends, acquaintances, and myself, should people choose to make these interpretations.

I am also not responsible for the reading comprehension or critical thinking skills of others. If you don’t read the entire post and choose to be reactionary towards it, including making assumptions about what was said or putting words in my mouth, I am not at fault.

Bl*nkshippers are not welcome on my content.

I can't begin to forgive the contingency of the fandom that made neurodivergent people feel unwelcome and alienated in their own space, and made them wonder if other Submas fans, or even people in general, even see them as human.

Given that it’s widely accepted that Ingo and Emmet are autistic-coded characters, the fandom could have been a safer and enjoyable space for neurodivergent (but especially autistic) people. It could have even been a refuge for people upset by the uncertainty we were left with due to PLA being incomplete. Instead, a large contingency of fans took one look at Submas and went "how sad/unhinged/angsty can I make the train blorbos?" and decided disability, trauma, and mental illness were acceptable to use as props.

To the people who have been doing things along these lines (but with especially Emmet!);  this tells neurodivergent people that you think they're unhinged, will hurt others if given an opening to do so, and portraying Ingo and/or Emmet as never having been human, turned into something nonhuman (as in Submas is singled out as nonhuman, and NOT in something like a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon AU or other AU where everyone is not human), or otherwise being not in control of their own actions is telling neurodivergent people that you don't even see them as human. And yes, you can be sending this message even if you yourself are neurodivergent!

Because of all this, I now know multiple people who do not want to see any content involving Warden Ingo, or PLA at all due to the negative association from the fandom, and even some who have stopped engaging with Submas in varying degrees.

I've made it very clear in other posts that I don't like how fandom is on tumblr for many reasons and that I do not consider myself part of the Submas fandom. But the Submas fandom has further turned me off to fandom as a whole, and I currently do not wish to engage with PLA content outside of making reassurance posts compiling evidence Ingo will or has gone home.

My roommate barely posts Submas art anymore because the pervasive ableism got to be too much. This is saying something considering she’s the author of the Submas primer many people, probably including many of those making ableist content, reblogged. She’s also the author of a post detailing Submas as autistic-coded characters. She’s been alienated from a community that she had provided a ton of research for! Please think about that for a second.

Other people don’t want to see Submas interacting with certain characters ever again (namely Volo), because of the ableist content created around their interactions, or even ships.

And if you’ve been around since at least PLA, you may have noticed that there are a few people who frequently posted about Submas as well as the ableism, who haven’t engaged with Submas content in a long time.

Fandom shouldn’t become an alienating or even hostile space for people who just want wholesome or comforting content, or simply want to see characters they like or even find representation in NOT being treated as ableist puppets or being so ooc with angst and ableism they’ve essentially become the artist or writer’s OCs. But unfortunately that's the track the Submas fandom seems to frequently head down in the wake of PLA.

If you’d like more info about the ableism that has been going on in Submas fan content, there is a list of posts here, but this is by no means exhaustive.

This is a post I previously referenced in one of my posts about the ableism about the issue of making Emmet violent and traumatized for entertainment purposes and why it’s problematic to use trauma as a prop.

And here is a post I made (with my roommate’s addition) addressing the issue of people thinking ableist portrayals aren’t harmful or don’t have an impact on real people.

And if you’re going to continue to make ableist content of Submas (or any other fandom) without any regard as to how your work impacts others, then there isn’t much anyone can do. But don’t be surprised if people choose not to engage with you or your content.

Thank you for your consideration.

[thecutecoresys]

Hello! I wouldn't call myself an anti, I'm more or less just morbidly curious about your community but would never personally join it based on my own standing on a lot of what you guys accept, though I don't think a lot of what you guys are doing is really that harmful to others so I don't really? Hate the community? Idk. I just have a question I wished to ask as I'm curious, answer if you want you can tell me to fuck off as well.

Mainly I'm just curious on what made you decide to become a radqueer, and perhaps how you figured out what you're experiencing is a 'transid'. I myself am a part of a system so I do feel more connected with some basic transid's I won't lie, but I really don't grasp trans disabilities or mental illnesses in the slightest, why would you want something like that? Not to be rude just extremely curious. Or trans races or ethnicities.

Have a good day! I am sending this out to multiple people, I enjoy hearing multiple perspectives.

F; Anya, Curly, Jimmy Honestly we only really got into the radqueer community when our partner kind of became hyperfixated on it. We were very anti and thought transids were just an excuse for people to be racist and abelist but as he read me some transid's some alters of ours started heavily latching to them and finding comfort in the labels. Our opinions on radqueer do tend to vary from alter to alter though. Some alters, like our Swansea for example, think it is kind of stupid. Our collective stance on it is the same as our stance on shipping though: Who the fuck cares? If it isn't hurting anyone then what is the problem? ALSO there are many reasons someone may identify with transids. The obvious answer would be they want to but for some transids like in our experience (which of course is not universal) some of our alters identify as TransRaped even if we had those experiences bodily. It gives us a sense of power over that experience. It's weird but it has heavily aided in our healing over it. Another example is how we identify as TransWheelchairUser, we are quite possibly going to be an ambulatory wheelchair user in the future and to cope with that harsh reality we are taking the fear and negativity away by just accepting it as a positive and looked forward to experience. Not every transid we have it explainable though. Take Strawberrycremescentian for example; We just want to smell like strawberry's and cream! Or GlitterBodic; We just want our blood to be glittery! Some ids are just for fun! To be honest; as an alter I don't get it that much but as I said: It's not hurting anyone. If one of us wants to go by PermaStoner or TransHarmed then so be it. I really enjoyed this question tbh please don't feel afraid to ask for clarification or anything :)

[torchickentacos]

ok this has actually been bothering me for a while. Note that everythign I say is my own opinion and while I do think what I have to say holds merit, I do not claim to be an expert in any field I am mentioning here and if you see innacuracies in my statement, feel free to kindly let me know in a reblog and I'll reblog the corrected version. When we discuss ai art, (usage of the word art being left to open ended interpretation and debate since that isn't my point at all), I wish we could kind of section off the areas of artificial intelliegence we're actually talking about and SAY ai ART or ai WRITING instead of ai as a whole (though I understand its shorthand usage, that leads to conflation of it as a whole). Because AI, while very questionable in its usages right now, is more than art and writing.

AI is the screen reader I use in classes to help me read. AI is eye trackers people use for computers when they're immobile. AI is google add-ons that block certain things for visually sensitive people like epileptics. AI is medical pattern collecting and identifying in at-risk populations (which does have implications which I will mention more later). AI is auto captioning services, though they kind of suck half the time and give you very funny but innacurate youtube subtitles (shoutout to 'palkia you son of a bitch', though I think it's edited). It's voice commands for devices for people with limited hand mobility.

I am NOT an AI bootlicker asskisser whatever. I have opinions on ai art and artist ownership, but here's the thing: we can't condemn the term ai in its entirety when it's been such a huge acessibility thing. We can't immediately see someone use the word ai and immediately put them down as a crypto finance nft ai art bro. because GOD i hate nft bro ai whatever nonsense, the people who steal artist's work to put through their algorithms and create copies of it, but ai is also used for so much more and I feel like the current climate around ai is very pinpointed negatively at one aspect of it, but brings down other helpful aspects of it in the process of pointing out the very valid flaws with it. So, if someone skims this and sees me saying 'hey, can we please use some nuance here', I'm just waiting for the 'why are you on their side, ai is terrible, it steals from artists' or 'why do you hate ai, stop being a sjw whateverthefuck' thing when my entire point here is that we need to be able to separate what we're actually talking about here in a meaningful way. You can condemn negative parts of ai that are genuinely concerning for creative folk everywhere WHICH I FUCKING AGREE WITH while also saying that we need to be mindful of the fact that AI also means screen readers, translators, epileptic flash blocker add-ons, and so many other things, and by condemning anyone who uses ai as a whole you are bringing down SO many people with that in the area of effect of your sweeping statements.

TLDR the internet is doing that 'you're either with us or against us' thing and as usual it's marginalized communities, disabled people this time, being used as talking points and what-ifs on both sides instead of our actual input being valued as people who do use other forms of ai.

And we can talk about aspects of accessibility and medical ai in a nuanced way, too. there's definite data collecting implications in medical use of ai and machine learning. There's definite demographic collection and pattern recognition that can be used by medical professionals to misattribute things with more of a focus on data and statistics rather than on how medical statistics are skewed by sociological factors. (for instance, are southern 'people of walmart' rednecks all fat, or is it more in line with impoverished rural communities and food deserts leading to a link in demographic and weight?) There's negativity and hesitation and issues in all branches of AI and this isn't saying medical use AI is perfect because honestly, I'd argue there's more to be worried about with that than creatively used ai. BUT my point stands: you cannot use the term AI as an immediate marker for who's a bad person for supporting it and who isn't, because they very well may support ai as accessibility and condemn ai as an art tool.

[thewomanwholaughed]

I am 25+ and have been roleplaying on tumblr since 2013.

I'm Dollgendered Transfeminine and my pronouns are Doll/Dolls. You may refer to me as Fifi or Doll-mun.

Won't interact with Genderbent characters / blogs with Genderbend themes.

I do not own any of the characters, regions, objects and mythos. These are all owned by DC Comics.

Nothing Joker does, feels, or thinks reflects my personal opinions and beliefs in any way.

Blog covers a variety of triggering topics, all of which will be tagged. If something isn't tagged, or you have a request for something to be tagged: please let me know.

Practices hard/soft blocking. I curate my experience, I hope you do too!

Note:

Allow me to preface this by saying that I in no way advocate for any negative stereotypes. I am a disabled trans woman with a fondness for Joker as a fictional character and villain. The lack of LGBTQA+ positive media is a serious problem and even if things get better it’ll take a lot more effort for LGBTQA+ characters to become so normalized that there won’t be a problem making them a villain or explicitly maliciously evil.

I know that Trans people have been portrayed as the butt of the joke or straight-up malicious in a lot of media, and various harmful stereotypes attached to it. The pick-up in the bar, the deranged serial killer, and so on. I am by no means trying to say that I agree with these takes by writing and roleplaying Joker. But just because someone is LGBTQA+ doesn’t make them a good person, nor should you attack them on the fact that they do belong to that community.

I wanted to play with the various Joker origin stories that often have the same narrative to them: ‘All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.’ I took a spin on this and made the Joker a Transwoman who went through the experience of trying to live in a society that does not accept her, stacking problem after problem against her till she snaps and becomes the Joker. How the various problems Trans people face such as healthcare, familial and romantic relationship problems, not being able to find work/getting fired, losing your home, sexual assault, and murder; can create a monster that doesn’t just lay down and take it.

I am not saying that Joker is in the right for doing what she does, and I am not saying that she’s in the wrong either, as the entire point of Joker’s character regardless of which take we’re talking about is that it’s a person who was driven to the brink and snapped. I simply wished to explore a different narrative that may come off as distasteful to some, but is a reality for a lot of people.

The joker I portrayed is just like the others in comics, video games, cartoons, and movies. A murdering psychopath with a penchant for humor and gags, everything circus or clown-themed. The only thing that changes is her Origin story; she still wants Batman dead, and she still wants to cause mayhem and chaos while giving people a good laugh. Her being Trans is part of the character as she stopped caring about the law and the people around her and takes what she wants, but it does not define her. She remains the Joker with the same twisted humor and mentality.

If this bothers you, please spare yourself and don’t follow/interact. There is plenty of positive LGBTQA+ media and portrayals out there, I simply wanted to indulge in a darker take. I hope that one day, Trans and Queer folk are so normalized in society and in media that we don’t have to feel upset anymore about how we are portrayed. That it’s alright to have an LGBTQA+ villain who is a villain not because they’re queer but because they’re evil; for all those out there who like villains, myself included. 

So please do not consider my Joker to be similar to any other form of media Joker and interact with an open mind if you take that step!

Q: Joker X Harley Quinn how does that work? A: This is dependent on the writers. My Joker is not abusive/manipulative towards Harley, should they be in a relationship. There is an aspect of feminism to my portrayal, and it'd defeat the purpose if Joker started behaving that way towards Harley.

Besides, Harley has come very far as a character that Joker's presence is absolutely not necessary for her as a character. So I am open to various takes their relationship might be. Be that they are just two clown themed individuals, that they did go through the Arkham song and dance, or that Joker is just a different universe's Joker so there is no direct relation.

Q: Your Joker is disabled, what exactly does that entail? A: This kind of ties in with my notice from above in that Joker is not more or less of a villain because she's disabled, and it has nothing to do with the old (and frankly disgusting) trope of Villains having visible disabilities. It's just that I as a disabled individual myself wish to write something I can personally relate to.

That said; Joker can be beaten up in a fight despite her disability. There is no reason to hold back because of them, as she will not hold back either. Joker is an ambulatory wheelchair user. Her wheelchair is heavily modified in both appearance and function to keep up with her antics. And in a dangerous situation will be abandoned if necessary. Her cane functions as several things at once. Part of her attire, a blunt weapon, and a tool to help her walk.

And just because she does lots of antics doesn't mean she doesn't suffer from pain for behaving in this manner. If Joker escapes, then she might just need a few weeks due to a lack of spoons and plenty of pain/discomfort in her legs. That's one way to get her off the streets. But it won't stop her from being a menace.

[streetlightsthatguideyouhome]

Okay, WTF is up with these “actually ADHD/OCD/etc.” tags???

Trust me, I get the defensiveness. The idea of someone who isn’t disadvantaged pretending to be in order to have access to tools/accommodations/etc that they don’t need is infuriating.

I will happily rant about the people without ADHD who take ADHD meds as “study drugs”. And despite my best efforts to be understanding towards the small percentage of people with ADHD who sell their prescriptions, I can’t help but resent how their actions negatively impact the rest of us.

And is it annoying when people say stupid shit like using the disorders’ names like adjectives? (“I’m so ADHD today”)

Yes.

Is it annoying when people - both those with and without the disabilities in question - perpetuate harmful or just plain irritating stereotypes?

Yes. (Like, seriously guys, can we stop using variations of the “Hey, look, a squirrel!” when trying to explain our executive functioning to non-ADHDers? Please?!)

Do any of us have the right to decide here on Tumblr who does or doesn’t “actually” have that lived experience?

Hell no.

After all, who the hell am I to tell you that you don’t “actually have _________”?!

Think about how you would feel if someone told you that you don’t “really” have _____ as if ______ is a club that you’re not cool enough to join.

Just because you’re not speaking to them face to face doesn’t mean that the post wasn’t written by another real, living, breathing, feeling human being.

Be kind.

Edit: 

Thank you for the feedback in the comments. I’m a sporadic Tumblr user so I haven’t been able to witness the changes/growth in the online communities in the same way as a consistent, frequent user.  

So your comments have definitely helped me understand the use of the “actually tags” better. I do appreciate how and why we would want the ability to filter out posts that are not the kind that we’re looking for. 

I remember how frustrated and hurt and betrayed I felt after reading a piece that ADDitude had posted on Facebook several years ago written by a woman listing all of the frustrations she had with her husband with ADHD. Even worse, the comments had become a place for everyone and their dog to bitch about the people in their lives with ADHD. 

Were the feelings behind the venting - disappointment, confusion, frustration, resentment, hurt, exhaustion, mortification, etc. - all real and valid? 

Yes. 

Do I want her and others like her to have resources and support that help them better understand and communicate with us? 

Totally. 

Did ADDitude make it clear that they prioritized the lived experience of friends/family/teachers/etc. over those of us with ADHD by failing to manage and organize their content in a way that supports both audiences? 

Absolutely.

I can’t count the number of times that I’ve shared that I have ADHD with someone and been told some variation of “Really? I would never have guessed/known.”  

As if I should be proud of “being able” to pass. Or, worse, that they doubt I “actually” have ADHD because I don’t look or act like what they think ADHD looks or acts like.

We live our lives with people constantly questioning our diagnoses & abilities, our experiences, and our feelings. So I just wish and wonder if we could have found a better tag than “actually ______.” 

[codename-adler]

Dear Tumblr toxicity,

Hi. Adler here. We need to talk.

- TW: mental health issues, depression, bipolar disorder, self-harm, homophobia, transphobia, coming out, xenophobia, islamophobia, racism, implied sexual content, rape, non-con, addictions, abuse, parental negligence, depictions of violence, swearing (please message me kindly if I forget anything)

- What prompted this message: The release of Skam France S7 teaser (emphasis on teaser, will get into that below)

- Where I’m coming from: I will talk from the pov of a white, cis and queer 22-years-old woman (she/her); this is the pov that affects my experiences and the opinions I will share below; but my message comes from a place of deep hurt, and love

- What this is about: My goal is to share a recurring experience that has hurt me in order to spread a message of awareness, maturity, peace and love

- Central content: Skam France, Skam Wtfock, and Skam/remakes in general

From now on I will assume people have enough information for me to talk about the topics without explaining every plotline/character. There are plenty of wiki pages to help you out and I will gladly answer any (respectful) questions asked if a plothole bothers your comprehension of my message. I’m only making these assumptions in order to alleviate the text.

January 9th, 2021.

The francetv slash YouTube channel releases an unexpected teaser video for an equally unexpected seventh season Skam France. The video features Tiffany, a white, cis female teenager, going into labour from denial pregnancy just after winning what appears to be a gymnastics championship. Overall, the video and its release are very dramatic.

The character of Tiffany, also called Tiff, was previously seen on season 6 of Skam France as a bully who persecuted the main character, Lola, both at school and on social media. Outside of this characterization, nothing is known about her. It is majorly accepted that Tiff is not a liked character; she rather poses as one of the antagonists of Lola’s arc.

Now you know the details of what happened, in the most objectively possible way. 

Now I’ll speak for myself.

Before I went digging around for people’s reaction, here is what I initially thought of this video.

1) Shock: I thought Skam France was over, so... Big, big shock.

2) Excitement: I hold this web series very close to my heart. It has gotten me through depressive episodes, anxiety attacks, coming out to my best friend. To see this new development? It couldn’t bring me more joy.

3) Curiosity: I recognized Tiff immediately. I was intrigued as to what would happen to her to set off a new season in true Skam Fr fashion. As soon as she started gripping her stomach, I knew she was pregnant and wasn’t aware of it. Big, big surprise here again.

4) Numbness/Overthinking: As I stared at my screen, motionless, my mind went off. What did it mean? How did she not know? Who is the father? Do we know him? Will the baby survive? Where are the other characters? Will Lamifex be present? What? How? When? Why? Who?

5) Disappointment: No, I did not like Tiff one bit in S6. Yes, I sincerely wished for a season on either Jo (ambiguous and funny teenage girl, cis + white), Sekou (seemingly neurodivergent teenage boy, cis + black), and my favorite, Max (mysterious and grave teenage boy, trans + white) So why Tiff? It felt to me like a missed opportunity, but I did not lose hope.

So, these were the five stages of my emotional process. And then I made the terrible mistake to go look for the fans’ reaction. I didn’t even look at the YT comments, I didn’t go on Instagram, I went directly here on Tumblr. Why? I’m still asking myself that. From S1 to S6 of Skam Fr, I kept my love for the show to myself and only looked at ig and video edits. I tried once, and only once, to look it up on Tumblr, and was greeted by fervent agressivity, disrespect and hate. Why did I ever forget that after watching the S7 teaser? I still don’t know.

The reactions on this platform were wild. People are furious (I get that). People are disappointed (I get that). People are anxious (I get that). People are also verbally agressive, insensitive, hateful, disrespectful and bullies. I don’t get that.

Comments along the lines of “What she gonna do with a fucking baby?”, “Are we gonna watch the baby do nothing all fucking season?”, “Wowwww, teenage pregnancy, so new and relatable!” (note the sarcasm made in the comment here), “Who gives a shit about Tiff?”, etc. 

And then all the mistakes Skam Fr ever made flooded back onto the feed. The wlw misrepresentation, the whitewashing, the overdramatization, the dubious sex scenes between minors, all of it.

Let’s take a break here. Do I condone these mistakes? Nope. Am I a white-bully apologist? Nope. Did I forget every horrible action Tiff has made in the past? Nope. She manipulated a whole school against Lola, she profited from Lola’s mother’s death, she bullied her, harrassed her, pushed her deeper into mental distress. Tiff was a despicable character that I never once liked. The way she was played by the actress made it clear that Tiff was not intended to be a good guy. If I could replace her as the main of S7, I would, in a heartbeat. I’d choose, as I said, Jo, Sekou or Max.

Skam France deeply lacks diversity and made mistakes when attempting to diverse the issues represented. This is not an opinion, it’s a fact. 

Poc representation is very, very low. Only one season has a woc of Islam beliefs as mc (Imane, S4) with poc entourage/family. Only 2 other characters not related to Imane were poc (Sekou and Sarah, S1-S2). These 2 characters were very in the background and served to further the mc’s plotline, they had no real content. (I am not a poc, and so my opinion does not matter here. If you are not poc, your “opinions” don’t matter here, this point is not for you to debate. These are facts.)

While I do not particularly find the wlw representation bad, I do understand how it hurts/bothers other queer women. From my perspective, the bar was very low regarding my expectations of the Lola/Maya pair (none of them died *yay* they had a happy ending *yay* they were not typically overfeminized or overmasculinized *yay* Lola  and Maya were respectful of each other, understood each other, accepted each other with all their flaws and their beauty *yay* I truly believed in their love and it gave me confidence and hope *yay* I ould really go on but this is not my main point so I’ll stop here) Regardless of my opinion on Mayla, I understand that to some queer women, it was bothering/hurtful. (If you are anything other than a woman / wlw, this point is not for you to debate. Keep your “opinions” to yourself, it does not matter here. These are facts.)

Like every remake of the original Skam where the S4 was given to Sana/Imane, the Muslim community was not represented at its best, at its most beautiful and respectfully. The character of Imane, although she is my favorite girl of the series, was not portrayed in a way that respected the majority of the Muslim community. (If you are anything other than Muslim, this point is not for you to debate. Our opinions do not matter here. These are facts.)

And so the same goes for the portrayal of sexual assault and child pronography in S2, of mental illness and homophobia in S3, of disabilities in S5, of addiction, transphobia, self-harm and neurodivergence in S6. Again, if you are not part of these communities, your opinions do not matter on these issues. These are facts that are not up for debate.

In other words, Skam France, as well as the original Skam, Skam Wtfock, Skam España, and probably all the others I haven’t watched in their entirety, are NOT perfect shows. They (maybe) tried their best to portray issues of the younger generations that are ugly, shameful, taboo, hard-to-swallow-pills. Of course they made mistakes. Of course they have to be held accountable. Of course they can and should do better. Of course it must be spoken about.

Here is my problem.

The so-called “fans” shamelessly SHITTING on the WHOLE show because of ONE TEASER TRAILER. (btw, this is where I get angry)

I am not talking about the fans making fun of the show and this season’s premise like “Better MCs than Tiff for S7: a romance between the car that almost hit Lucas S3 and the car that hit Arthur S5, or the school’s nurse, or Imane’s dad, or Elu’s rabbit” (that shit’s funny and I’d watch all of these).Or the joke about Wtfock and Skam Fr shaking hands while signing the same contract to disappoint the fans with white MCs (it’s funny cuz it’s trueeeee).

I am not talking about the fans criticizing the producers’ choice of Tiff as MC. There is a difference between shitting on issues and adressing/discussing them. I WANT to talk about how this season’s issue would have been so much better if a woc, specifically a black woman, had been the MC, because black women and doctors are a whole different level of issue than white women and doctors. Add on top of that an unplanned teenage pregnancy? It would have been IMMACULATE. I WANT to talk which wlw couple was better represented, Mayla or Croana/Crisana, and why is that. I WANT to talk about disabilities in black and poc communities. I WANT to talk about headcanons, AUs, to rectify the missed marks. I WANT to talk about our takes on seasons about Max, Sekou and Jo, instead of Tiff’s.

I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT YOUR SHITTY, NEGATIVE, UNHELPFUL, HURTFUL COMMENTS.

Just because the protagonist is white, doesn’t give you ANY right to dismiss the issue that is unplanned teenage pregnancy. This is a problem that affects countries WORLDWIDE. Do you know how many deaths are related to minors giving birth? Do you know how many babies die at birth from these pregnancies? Do you have any idea the trauma it puts you through, to go into labor without even knowing you were pregnant in the first place, and then giving birth, and then having to care for a defensless human being? The dilemma of keeping it, or giving it away? The fear that lives in every person able to give birth, that one day they’ll become pregnant, because society turns sych a shameful look to that? No matter your ethnicity, your gender identity, your sexuality, your political stance or whatever shit you bring up to justify your disgraceful and downright degrading comments, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SAY THAT A MINOR GIVING BIRTH IS NOT AN ISSUE. 

You think the topic has been covered plenty before? Yeah, because shows like “16 and pregnant” and “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant!” are such good examples and show the reality with such an objective point of view! 

Bullshit. Teenage pregnancy is still a taboo, it still kills, and people are still morons about it. 

“Well I guess everybody is secretly pregnant now!” No, Jessica, but you wouldn’t know about it, would you? Because I wouldn’t tell you shit if you were my “friend” and I was going through it. The whole message of all the Skams is not that it presents super relatable issues of teenagers, although it is a big topic of the show. They present some issues that affect the youth in an authentic light, but that’s not it.

Tous les gens que tu rencontres mènent un combat dont tu ignores tout. 

Sois indulgente. Toujours. x x x

//

Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

Be kind. Always. x x x

THAT’S THE MESSAGE. THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THE SHOW.

And you all missed it.

All of you making dead baby jokes and death threats, degrading people who give birth, shaming teenagers for their pregnancies... Listen to yourselves.

“Well she deserves it, she was such a bitch!” No, Michael, you shit stick. Let’s rewind a bit for you, yeah? It was a GOD DAMN TEASER. We literally know nothing! Nothing at all! Why are y’all getting mad when we saw 3:25 minutes representing a whole ass season! Listen to yourselves. Y’all judge so fast for people pretending to love Skam and its authenticity and its motto.

You say Tiff is irredeemable?

Emma cheated on her boyfriend.

Manon lied and manipulated her friends.

Lucas was homophobic and prejudiced agaisnt mentally ill people.

Imane was homophobic too and went behind her friends’ back to get what she wanted.

Arthur cheated on his girlfriend too.

Lola dragged Elliot down with her in her addiction, lied, was verbally abusive, etc.

ALL THE MAINS ARE PROBLEMATIC.

Any guess why?

BECAUSE THEY ARE TEENAGERS. THEY ARE STILL GROWING AND LEARNING.

Yet we still loved them all. 

So don’t you dare tell me that Tiff deserves this, that her baby deserves to die, that teenage motherhood is irrelevant. Motherhood is not a curse in the first place, nor is it something to wish to inflict upon anyone. Motherhood is different for every single person and nobody except the person living with it can have an opinion on that. We don’t even know if the baby survived, for God’s sake!

There is no excuse for this kind of behavior..

It makes me so angry. Women are discriminated against in a fandom I thought was safe, again and again and again. 

I have to stop here because, well, this is just too much. There is much wrong with Skam (the original AND all the remakes), but there is even more wrong with the fans. I’m done.

You don’t support the show anymore? Fine, then don’t watch it! If I really am wrong, the number of viewers will go down and the show will die, just like you wished. There is no need to be vicious about it. 

I hope y’all are proud of your misogyny. 

Sincerely,

Adler.

[hell-is-a-teenage-girll]

LDR

There are people who will be happy about this. And I know people and so do I understand why the traveling ban is made.

But I just need some love from our tumblrcommunity.

They just decided to close the travel to and from belgium 

My love was gonna come to Belgium in February. Now probably this isn’t gonna happen, as the information about long distance couples isn’t fully clear (yet) I know alot of people with long distance are having a hard time. And trust me I understand why they decide this. I am not some kinda person who is like FUCK THE RULES, FUCK COVID, No I really understand it all, but from a human point of view.. it’s.. ugh

I’m just upset because.. My life already was alot like quarantine before. it’s been like that for years. I’ve been ill for over 10 years.

And I’m doing worse and worse, and tbh seeing her was a light for me. And to just not be alone while being in pain, makes a world of a difference. 

I’m not just a “healthy” person who was used to going outside and doing what I want. And I can understand how difficult it must be for the people who used to be able.

I used to go outside and do things maybe once a week or once in 2 weeks. We’d go to flea markets or parks. That already fell away.

I am stuck inside, which drives me insane. I am always locked between walls, if it was summer I’d have a less hard time because feeling the sun, the warmth (which works like a natural painkiller even) is my most favorite and cherished thing in life. right now it’s winter. all I can do is sit inside, which hurts, I can lay down, which also hurts.

I try to keep busy and maybe organize or clean, from which I will suffer the next day. I can not work, I am disabled even if it’s not visible.

I’m not saying when my girlfriend is here the pain disappears, I wish.

But it helps, she holds me through it, she lays with me, she helps me, she sometimes even picks me up literally, her presence makes it all a bit more .. I don’t know the word.

And before you tell me that every one suffers from this, I know.

But please keep in mind I am in pain 24/7. I already have NO option of going outside because being high risk, in the cold I can not do anything because my body can’t handle it. My littlest amount of freedom fell through as well. And now so does my one sparkle in life.

I don’t want pity, and I really don’t need negative comments, neither does S.

 I will block you at first glance of a negative ask, because I know some of y’all were just waiting for this, but message me, I won’t even read it further as soon as I see it’s a negative one, as I am not asking for pity, or rage against the rules, I am just here to vent.

I just needed to vent in the place I feel at home, in our little community here.Because sometimes, I’m really tired.

[saucerfulofsins]

Starting with @softgrantaire’s post yesterday, I have been seeing a lot of discussion surrounding the place of trans people in hockey fandom on Tumblr. Parts of his original post and the discussion emanating from it is undeniably necessary, and I do think that continuing the discussion on better representation benefits everybody in fandom. However, to me, some of the assumptions made are troublesome. I have spent a long time thinking on this, I have discussed this with some friends, and I do not think I can stay quiet because I really, really think that this discussion has become very black/white while nuance is 100% necessary in this case. I am also not seeking to attack anybody—feelings of discomfort are entirely valid and I will never say something else. However, if we are talking about being critical of fandom, I do think it is important to start with ourselves and look at where our discomfort comes from rather than only holding other people accountable.

To start, I need to address the persistent use of “terf.” Terf does not mean “excluding trans people from any given space,” which is how I currently see it being used. Terf means “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” and denotates a specific kind of transphobia that seeks to claim trans men are women, and trans women are men.  Subsequently, they feel that trans women have no space in female spaces (e.g. they believe trans women should use men’s bathrooms). A terf would thus never say that a trans man does not belong in a female space, because a terf believes that trans men are women and therefore do belong there.

In fact, I have not seen anybody deny that trans men exist. In the discussion trans men are treated as men—which is only valid, given the fact that they are. A trans man has no reason to demand different rights from a female community than a cis man (I will get back to this later). A trans man (who in this context is someone who fills a male societal role/passes) has the same societal privileges a cis man does. This is inherent to being male.

This is also one of my main issues with the initial post: “trans men” are persistently differentiated from “men.” The demand is not to promote equality, it is a call for women to allow trans men into their space. And yes, I understand that transgender men are marginalized—but so are BIPOC men, and so are gay men, and so are disabled men. So if you are striving for equality on that level, wording is certainly something to consider—because currently, the argument, to me, sounds like “trans men are different from cis men” when to many FtM, a large part of being transgender is not wanting to be differentiated. In fact, the women who want a safe space for themselves on Tumblr don’t exclude trans men because they are trans, they exclude trans men because they are men.

The trans/men differentiation seems to promote misunderstanding and a black-and-white thinking: either trans/men are accepted in fandom, or they are not. A fandom is safe to all, or it is not. A fandom caters to all, or it does not. That is not how a fandom works, however—and it never has.

This leads me on to my second major point: Both the initial post and subsequent responses discuss “hockeyblr” as a single community when in fact it comprises many different people with many different interests and reasons. To give some examples: they support different teams and/or players, they do not ship or they ship player/player and/or player/self-insert, they primarily focus on the fandom side or on the hockey side, and so forth.

Thus. Can fandom-as-whole be more inclusive? Absolutely. Is it good to reflect on why you make the choices you make (e.g. someone writing skinny white cis female self-inserts as opposed to including BIPOC, different bodies and different genders; someone writing male/male; someone writing mpreg or genderswap). At the same time, however, I think it is so fucking important to primarily keep toxic hockey culture accountable for your discomfort. Both trans and female fans’ primary discomfort germinates from that, not from interaction with each other. But trans discomfort and female discomfort are not the same, particularly if we are discussing trans men.

Subsequently—I believe that it is okay if someone wants to run a blog that does seek a female audience and does revolve around that. Women do deserve a safe space; if they wish to keep to a corner of the fandom which is female-only, there is no reason for men to demand access to that side of fandom. Different groups can exist side-by-side. Not everything is for everybody.

I also think that men who wish to see more inclusivity in fic need to reflect on why women need to write more gnc/nb/transgender fic. I do not think this is transphobic; it has nothing to do with a “dislike of or prejudice against transgender people.” There is no inherent negative attitude, merely a group of women writing what they want to read. And subsequently, for me, this maps onto the general fandom rule of “if you want to read it, and it doesn’t exist, write it yourself.” This is even more true if you discuss something as complex as gender identity; while it may be possible to write a fic not entirely focused on gender, gender is often still a big part of a romantic relationship and it (unfortunately) certainly is a large part in how society treats different people. Moreover, this would have been a different argument if people were writing for money and refusing to write transgender characters for no good reason, but the vast majority (if not all) of hockeyblr’s writers do so for free, in their spare time, for their own fun.

So absolutely, yes, educate people on trans experiences. Yes, make people aware that there are more experiences beside cis female/male or cis male/male. Discuss the issues of representation that exist within fic, whether that is self-insert or mlm, whether it is gender-related or ethnicity-related or anything else. And absolutely, yes, acting like all of hockey Tumblr is female-only is shitty as all fuck because it most certainly is not, and there is absolutely ZERO need for it to be: any and all people whose interests fit with the fandom should feel welcome in the fandom-at-large regardless of gender, sexuality, or amount of societal oppression they face, and be supported in these aspects. At the same time, however, there is no true reason for anybody to demand that all of the fandom is safe to them, particularly if we are discussing gender; women who want to hockey blogs for only a female audience should be free to do so, the same way someone who wants to only discuss two players being gay for each other should be.

Anyway. Please accept and respect each other. Fandom is perceived shittily enough as it is; to talk and discuss these matters is of vital importance, but please also respect peoples’ individual wishes  and needs when Tumblr is large enough for all of us to exist, find our communities within hockeyblr, and be happy.

[p4radox99]

“Coming out as vegan/animal rights activist is much more special than coming out as LGBTQ+” are you fucking kidding me you deluded old hag, honestly, I’ve seen a few of her videos circulating and what she spews is disgusting, but this.. are you kidding me, it’s a fucking joke.

No one ever got thrown out by their family for being vegan (not for real at least). No one got burned, beaten and tortured and certainly no one has ever been KILLED in premeditated strikes, for being a vegan animal rights activist, unlike queer people who all over the world experience hardships due to their sexuality - something out of their control - Some risk their lives to get to live a decent life with the person they love and others are miserable because, ancient laws and misinterpretations of religious texts, prevent them from being who they are and being with the person they want to be with.

Being vegan is great. It’s good for the planet and if you find that your life is fuller and happier because of your CHOICE to not eat meat, then I am truly happy for you and I wish you all the best in this world. But it is nothing compared to what it means to be LGBTQ+, this is life and death depending on where you are. Wanting animals to be treated fairly and actually doing something in an attempt to get them that fair treatment is amazing, but the treatment you are so adamantly trying to save the animals from is what members of the queer community has gone through, are going through and will go through in their lifetime, due to their inability or unwillingness to hide who they are and who they love.

So please educate yourself and stop spreading misinformation and negative sentiments to children that listen to you. Be a positive force in their lives, teach them acceptance of all shapes and sizes, be it dietary choices, sexuality, skin color, gender, disability, weight or anything that makes you inherently different in the eyes of society.

The two things discussed in this video can’t be compared and shouldn’t. You shouldn’t compare your life, struggles, choices or accomplishments to other people, it is the fastest way to be unhappy. Focus on what you want and achieve it, then it won’t matter that the neighbor did this or your sibling did that, because you are happy and you are happy for them because they achieved something they wanted to do.

[azuradreaming]

A Silent Voice: Naoka and Shoko’s Scene

Part 3 of my review of A Silent Voice is here! Technically 3.1, because this particularly one I had so much I want to talk about.

There was a scene where Naoka lashed out at Shoko blaming her for everything (for broken friendships between elementary school friends, for Shoya treating her coldly, etc) and being sick of her depressing state. She went as far as saying Shoko didn’t bother to understand her. Didn’t bother to try to talk to her.

When I first watched the movie, my first impression of Naoka and this scene was negative. I remember thinking “What a bitch. She didn’t even bother to acknowledge what she did wrong at the end.”

But now that I am watching the movie again and thinking about it. I realized Naoka was right about one thing. Shoko actually never made the first move to talk to anyone. Yes, we have seen people being friendly and introducing themselves to her on the first day. And yes, we have seen Shoko approach the group, but all she ever said was “When you want to talk to me, please use this notebook.”

What are a bunch of young children supposed to say? If someone said that to you, will you be able to think of anything? You could argue that Well she can’t hear, so they should try to interact with her like ask what’s her favorite color? Favorite hobby? Favorite show?

Then, why can’t Shoko do the same? Why can’t she take that initiative to communicate with them? She could have written What’s your favorite color? What’s your favorite hobby? What’s your favorite show? She could have made that same exact effort on her side.

Instead, she sat there and waited. And waited some more. She continued to wait for someone to talk to her as the gap between her and the rest of the class continued to become bigger and bigger to the point where she became disliked and outcast by both the class and herself which led to the bullying. The class outcasted her, but at the same time, she outcasted herself too.

Communication and friendship is a two way street, not one. Yes, the class didn’t bother trying to talk to her, but Shoko didn’t either. And the more difference they see in her and the more leeway they see the teachers give her, the more unjust they felt, thus the negative towards her grows as she continues to not communicate. Shoko is letting her disability hold her down. She let it overtake her, consume her, depress her. She is letting that wall between her and the class grow taller and thicker where one with that kind of mindset can never climb over it nor break through the other side.

Naoka had every right to say what she said to Shoko. I just wish there was a more solid scene where we see the two actually make up, instead of Shoko finally making that attempt to overcome her disability and make up with everyone including Naoka and then time-skipping to where the two are now friends.

Please look forward to the next half of part 3 where I talk about what this scene reminds me of. Coming out tomorrow.

There won’t be Song of the Post this time.

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

MomDad I need some advice . When I have a bad brain day ( Don’t know what is going on . Is it trauma due to my past or something else ? Who knows ? Not me ) I am very tired , I don’t speak or only very little ( speaking is very hard and draining during those days ) , and any kind of sound or movement strongly piss me off ( someone breathing loudly or putting a plate on the table ) . How do I deal with it ? I try my hardest to stay calm and polite but it’s obvious I’m angry .

okay so this is just my gut instinct here, but my whatever-the-autistic-version-of-gaydar-is is going off like crazy right now. going nonverbal/semi-verbal under stress and both being very sensitive to sensory input and reacting to sensory overload with the urge to have a meltdown positively screams autism.

as i said, what you’re describing is sensory overload. it’s when everything is Just Too Much and all of the noise and light becomes so overwhelming it fills you with feelings like pain, anger, even panic, and you just can’t cope even though it’s “just” regular sounds. if you had nothing going on but this one thing i might suggest misophonia, which is a condition where you’re extremely sensitive to small but annoying sounds like breathing or tapping or clicking.

but put together with having trouble speaking and having ‘bad brain days’, i really feel like you’re an undiagnosed autistic. 

there is, obviously, a LOT to be said on that topic, and i don’t have to spoons to go over it all, so i’m going to recommend that you please go through my autism tag to read what i’ve previously said and reblogged, which will cover a lot and probably be extremely informative. however, there are a couple things i’d like to say to you directly.

firstly, i really hope that you don’t find this to be devastating or terrible, because despite what many awful people will say, i don’t believe that autism is an inherently bad thing. it’s not a disease, it’s not a mental illness, we simply have brains that run on a different operating system, and that’s okay. yes, it causes us problems, but that doesn’t mean we need to be “cured” and it certainly doesn’t give anyone the right to treat us like shit. we are every bit as human and as valuable as anyone else. it’s a disability, yes, but ‘disability’ isn’t a bad word.

secondly, you are going to run into a lot of stuff and people who will tell you that you “can’t” be autistic, for this or that uninformed reason. there are people who think only little white boys can be autistic, or that people who can speak or hold down a job or have friends “can’t” be autistic. if you don’t have a perfect checklist of stereotypical traits, you may not be able to get an official diagnosis from a allistic (non-autistic) doctor who is working off very outdated information.

however, i and many others don’t believe you need an official diagnosis, not unless it’s important you get one for the sake of getting government accommodations or things like that. you can self-diagnose as autistic and be valid, just go and do your homework first.

please go through my whole autism tag, but this is specifically my autism traits tag, which you can check out to compare yourself to lists of autistic traits that have been put together by real autistic people, not allistic doctors. if i’m right, i think you’ll have the same moment of realization that i did a few years ago when i came across those posts and started putting together the pieces that made my life suddenly make sense.

for me, realizing i’m autistic has been unquestionably a good thing. that doesn’t mean you can’t have some negative feelings about it, that you can’t sometimes just wish you were normal. but we are what we are, and it’s so much better to find pride in that than to feel like something’s wrong with you. nothing is wrong with you, you’re just the way you are, and the way you are makes sense.

going semi-/nonverbal is okay, you don’t need to “fix” that. look into alternative methods of communication, like texting or sign language. look into ways of dealing with sensory overload that help to minimize the negative input, such as earplugs or headphones or sunglasses. stimming can also help you deal with negative feelings.

this is probably a whole lot to throw at you at once, but please think about it, and feel free to ask more questions too. take care, dear. 

[irageneveart]

there are so many things a 16 years old person should be doing beside throwing hate, BUT HERE YOU ARE BEING A BRAT

@bfmyers I really can't take this anymore, are you really that full of hypocrisy to scream TOXIC left and right while you yourself use your free time to only spread hate? I don’t usually do this and I try to stay away from useless discourse but you're just kicking on my nerves way too much

under the cut cause boy I have a lot to say. (really, it’s long. I needed to point out everything)

I'm going to kindly tell you to fuck off artists' backs.

you have 0 fucking knowledge of what you're talking about yet you're making callouts and worse, people agree! the same people who supported the artists before by reblogging and liking their art are now shitting on them and "ihh no more reblogs from them" only because you write a lengthy shit in which not only that you threaten a human being, you don't even know how to argue. a link to a picture and screaming "toxic" ISN'T A GODDAMN ARGUMENT

people of this community, PLEASE use your fucking brains and don't bow your head to what every nameless kid has to say. you don't have to believe me either, just use your fucking brain and heart and do the decision making yourself

Now, you did a callout post on @dbd-omija pointing out how toxic they are!!! omg gasp animal death? abuse?? HOW IS THAT pOsSIbLe

where have you been until now because this is a horror community:

in the TCM universe inbreeding is mentioned multiple times

in the Halloween movies Michael kills two dogs and eats one of them

omija clearly stated they went with the 1978-2018 timeline BUT NO YOU KEPT SCREAMING BECAUSE HOW DARE THEY SAY SOMETHING AGAINST YOU

on that matter: in the halloween movies Michael's cult makes him rape his niece, in another movie Laurie, before jumping to what it seemed her death, kisses Michael's mask lips. GASP, when will you sue the directors?

after he escaped, Max literally slaughtered every living creature in that farm. put the DBD devs on your "I need to sue them cause I have something to say against this horror game!!!" list

If there’s something I can agree with you on, it’s about tags. Yes, these are triggers, yes tagging is important, but let’s not forget that being in this community IS about being surrounded by triggers. out of courtesy sure, we should tag our stuff accordingly, but to go all out to say “omija, if you’re reading this, i’m going to pee in your mouth.” HOW. IS. THIS. ACCEPTED?! HOW

HOW THE FUCK PEOPLE WHO REBLOGGED THAT CALLOUT THOUGHT YES THIS IS GOOD?!!?!

now you said that Omija's making all of these seem cute and that’s the real problem. this is where you are sooo wrong and let me explain:

a round head doesn't instantly make everything cute. there are many many details that the human eye perceives as cute, things that artists go to when they want their art to be seen as cute. from the color chosen to the way their eyes and mouths are drawn, to the very line work they’re using. yes, shapes count too, but this is not the case and we should get out of our tiny box and see the big picture. Their comics are not meant to be cute, actually much respect to them for being brave enough to approach well known subjects that are not explored. But that’s it. If YOU see it as cute then it’s your problem really. Art and fiction is prone to interpretation

If anything, how much cute stuff we have in the community should be the anomaly, not that someone draws anxious Bubba

omija's Amanda and Bubba art is problematic! someone asks why, you: because is toxic!!!

really? I actually think that, given their individual personalities, omija portraits the ship’s dynamic really well. Amanda is not dealing well with her feelings and with humans and Bubba has problems understanding things in general. they are two deranged people finding a way to cope and to accept another human presence nearby. "Amanda is picking on a disabled person how can you say it's well!!!!" let me remind you that his entire family is picking on his disabilities and the fact that he loves but also FEARS his family is a big theme in Leatherface's story and personality

Also, another argument of yours was about “the power play” and how that’s problematic. I’m...honestly surprised you even thought of this argument because the entire slasher fandom, the movies, everything slasher related IS BASED ON POWER PLAY. Have you read what they wrote for Laurie/Michael to say the ship is based on power play and it’s wrong? No, me neither, cause I don’t care, but you seem to care enough to vomit about it. Go read some things and tell me how problematic the writing is, you need to call out writers too after all

Btw, surprise! I don't ship neither of the mentioned ships, but I can use my brain enough to see what omija does is actually well made and well thought, sick, weird in some instances, but well thought. kudos to you artist. I can also see those who ship Laurie and Michael are still nice people

But just like you and many others I have my own morals (do you now? Exposing yourself like that to NSFW content while so many people are scared for their life because of people like you? hmmmm) and I can’t really stand explicit pedophilia. I’ve read so many books or seen so many movies where it was mentioned, it’s a trigger factor, it’s taboo, therefore is normal to be used in darker works. It all depends on the circumstances and the way it is presented, cause it’s a piece of fiction. Nobody attacked George R. R. Martin for the controversial things he had written in his books right? I wonder why

Because, another surprise, fiction is different than reality and only this argument alone should be enough, but some monkey brains out there will come to scream at me how fiction affects reality. Someone who writes a murder mystery isn’t actually killing people when they put pen to paper. People who play shooter games do not wish to shoot people in real life. Someone who writes about rape will not welcome the rapist in their arms nor do they wish to rape someone. So on, it’s simple, again, we just need to use our brains.

If you have bullying-related or a family related or any thing related trauma and you see a Michael/Laurie fic or Quentin/Freddy or whatever other ships or subjects you have seen around, and decide to click on it, and then you have a negative reaction, that fiction is not harming you. Your unresolved trauma is harming you. Your decision to read something when you know it triggers you is harming you. The past actions of yourself and those who inflicted harm upon you are harming you. All of those things – your trauma, your real-life bullies, your actions – are real, and have the ability to harm you. (the italic bits are from @dracfics who said it better than I ever could put in words. Thank you)

next on your "who am I going to shit on today" is @renlvbon

not gonna lie, for the omija callout I read everything searching to see whenever you are right or not. I don’t personally know either of the artists but I could read enough to see you’re just a self entitled person with something to say regarding everything. for ren's callout I simply skipped after I saw your argument.

you're not doing gods' work by opening people's' eyes that they can or should portray the characters the way they are, disabled and gross. no, you're just picking on someone's art style

Can we stop this toxic nonsense???

don't get me wrong, I agree that we shouldn't make them supermodels and we shouldn't erase what they are, fucking ugly and gross killers, but saying people who don't draw them a certain way are cowards or calling them out or whatever else shit is TOXIC and ANNOYING. We all change them more or less, we have to because none of us are the original creators! We’re just thirsty people making them to be what we want and what we imagine because they’re fucking fiction

I’ve seen people agreeing with you saying the artist should consider real people with disabilities or on the heavier side (“like me” they pointed out). I’m so sorry if this comes out as rude but if you search or need validation in a horror community that’s not a good thing at all! Body positivity and a healthy approach to disabilities should. not. be. searched. in. a. horror. community or any community on tumblr for that matter. You want some positivity on that? In a real case scenario with them we all would die, no matter how you look like

Going back to the artists, some people don't have experience/ are insecure/ are uncomfortable drawing body hair or fat bodies or whatever. That doesn’t make them fatphobic or whatever shit I saw you writing in your tags.

Drawing a black character less than the color YOU think is good? Have you ever tried to color skin? There are so many ways to do it, there are so so many colors you combine and you play around with + lighting and shading that alters everything. and yeah maybe some people pick a different color, a lighter one, or a more yellow one than they should for asiatic people, or whatever. but these tones are NOT easy to get well (you can always put a brown color down and to call it a day, but maybe people won’t want that. They don’t want to be disrespectful, exactly cause there are predators like you that don’t know how to help, only how to fucking scream). Or maybe they simply don’t know how. Every artist has their own range of comfort zone, be it about subject - composition - colors - etc. I don’t do well with neon colors for example, it happens. Hell even the screen you’re using alters the colors

How about giving actual tips, support and explanations instead of rude call outs? And don’t come at me with the “color picker” shit cause color picker from a real life photo is hell and if you don’t know some color theory your art is going to look dull and lifeless regardless

The only time I can agree that whitewashing is wrong is when white-supremacy, nazi and other ugly shits like these are coming into the topic. But it’s not the case here

some young artists don't have the skill to draw certain body shapes, or body hair, or even a non-anime face. some others think putting a scar on the character’s face make them 'uglier' and ‘scarier’ and for them that's enough AND THAT'S ALRIGHT

drawing something that's supposed to be ugly but still having anatomy and proportions and a functionable mouth or eyes placement or whatever ISN'T EASY. ofc, you can go all out if that's what you want, but personally I want things to still be working because at the end of the day every single one of them is human. I'm not drawing dark fantasy in this fandom, I'm drawing slashers

NO ONE IS DRAWING FOR YOU. NO ONE IS USING THEIR SKILL TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD. art and writing, especially when is made in the free time of the creator, is made FOR THEMSELVES. If there are people enjoying it? Yay, that’s a win, but no one expects everybody on this planet to like what they’re doing. We’re getting back to that golden rule, DON’T LIKE: MOVE THE FUCK ON/ BLOCK AND LIVE YOUR LIFE. EASY. no one uses these unnecessary callouts for anything, if you have something to say do so kindly, if you can’t, just vent to your friends

So now let’s wrap it up cause IDK how many of you even make it through this point

can we fucking stop making young artists and writers cowards for drawing or writing how they can and however they fucking want? Please and thank you

this shit going on with "the best artist/writer for x y z character" or "conventionally drawing ugly Bubba uwu" will just destroy the confidence of whoever wants to keep drawing or writing or joining the fandom. There’s no competition who draws Bubba the ugliest nor who writes Michael the best. if you can do things a certain way, do it, and let the rest draw and write whatever they can WITHOUT FEARING THEY'RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

now I'm waiting for your very "well" argumented reply but I hope you'll understand that what you're doing is TOXIC and you should stop or at least change your way to address things. You’re talking to other human beings, not a void when you can throw any random thought you have in the morning. I don't care about you to be honest, but there are so many people out there following your words mindlessly and the creators are suffering and it's not fair.

don't forget to tell me to go kill myself. have a nice day

[arthropoda-artistry]

I don’t generally like discourse but I have thoughts I wanna get in writing, but first understand that my opinions are not etched in stone and, while they are based in personal experience, I am genuinely willing to change my mind if someone can compellingly argue against my positions and/or explain how my opinion might hurt them. I am not trying to control anyone’s thoughts, only get my own in order. Disclaimer aside, I have been thinking about truscum. As a transgender man, they’ve been in the community since “otherkin is inherently transphobic” was a discourse, and I acknowledge that dysphoria is painful and being transgender is extremely difficult in a large part due to our bodies. I am firmly agnostic about dysphoria - if you say you’re transgender I will believe you because when I was thirteen all I wanted was for someone, anyone, to believe I was a boy, and that desperation is a dangerous tool for abusers.

But being transgender is not the only experience that is made harder because of the body someone inhabits. I was thinking earlier, as an autistic hard of hearing person, the discourse around how transgenderism is medicalized reminds me eerily of how insistent some Deaf people are about how being Deaf is not the same as being disabled. Deaf and hard of hearing people, at least those I know and have read about, don’t want Deafness to be only medicalized because we don’t view it as inherently negative. Deaf culture exists, and, although I use a hearing aid and function similarly to a hearing person most of the time, in my mind the way I understand those people who argue that being Deaf isn’t a disability is that they believe that to claim hearing loss is a disability is to claim that their culture is invalid, that all disability requires fixing.

But not all disability requires fixing. Not all disabled people want a cure. Not all disabled people even know that they’re disabled (I’m thinking of my brother here). Disability also has a culture, this much I’ve learned from group homes and hospitals to special ed services to the Boston Center For Independent Living. We focus more on limitations and on differences than the general public does. We are forced to accept the bizarre reactions people have when they discover you’re disabled, the pitying and inspiration we create within abled people by merely being.

From what I understand about truscum, they believe that to be transgender someone must have dysphoria. Gender Dysphoria is a medical issue - it’s in my medical history records - and is treated the way medical issues are, by doctors who believe they know what your body needs more than you do. The other side believes that the stigmatized nature of transgenderism in our society is what causes so much of the mental health issues in transgender people, and we should accept that some people are okay with their bodies but still wish to publicly identify as a different gender than the one typically assigned to their sex.

The truth is, whether we like it or not, hearing people view being Deaf as a disability. That is probably not going to change much, because a lot of deafening conditions are also disabling, and because people like the conceptions they already have. Deaf = disabled in many able people’s minds. We have to live with that, and the solution that best helps the most people is to try to have the message out there that a) being disabled is not inherently a tragedy, and b) medical intervention should be allowed only with the consent person whose body the intervention is happening to.

Transgender people with dysphoria need medical intervention, this is true. And, in my experience, in attempting to survive as a hard of hearing person, I needed medical intervention for that also. Getting a hearing aid was a lot easier than getting a prescription for testosterone, and I believe that is entirely the fault of transphobia and the pisspoor insurance system America has. But many hard of hearing people prefer to live within Deaf/signing communities, and don’t want their existence medicalized. Likewise, many nonbinary and transgender people, for many reasons, don’t want irreversible medical intervention done to their bodies in order to be viewed as their gender. Any and all of these experiences are valid and deserve respect and recognition within their communities, especially because the general able cisgender public stigmatizes us all regardless of what we do.

Bodily autonomy is important. The medicalization of bodies, however, should be an opt-in, not inherent to any experience, because medical procedures can be traumatic, and so canbeing refused medical procedures. I don’t know what I’m saying but these are my thoughts on the whole transgender truscum shebang. Sorry if I made no sense or used logical fallacies, please let me know.

[politicalprof]

A letter to my former student:

This is going to be a long post, and I realize almost no one will actually bother to read it. But I need to say it. So let’s begin.

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Recently, I had a Twitter exchange with a former student. He’s a really good guy; I like him a lot, and always have. Our interactions are positive and respectful. He’s a veteran of the Persian Gulf War who has gone on to be a teacher, an administrator, and a coach at at a high school. He has been a servant to the nation and the community and deserves nothing but respect for that.

In the course of our exchange, he volunteered the following comment:

“and, please understand that it is possible to be a conservative without being a supporter of our president - in fact, I've been waiting for a while to cast a vote for someone I actually favored as opposed to against someone I do not!”

What follows is my response:

Of course it it possible to be a conservative without being a supporter of our president -- in theory. In theory, there might be a credible conservative alternative to Donald Trump who might advance a conservative political agenda that you might agree with.

But we don’t live in the world of “in theory.” We live in this world, at this time. And the conservative politics you wish to support no longer exists. Rather, conservatism in its American sense -- belief in limited government, support for independent businesses, a confidence in the rights and capacity of the individual to make choices for themselves and to live with the consequences of those choices (at least in matters not related to abortion rights, which American conservatives do not seem to trust women to exercise) -- has been dying for at least 30 years. Modern conservatism is a mere shadow of its former self, and there is no evidence that there is a credible conservative core inside the Republican Party around which a contemporary conservative movement that looks like the older one might form.

My concern with your impulse to vote against candidates you don’t like (Democrats, I presume) is with the unchallengeable fact that Donald Trump and his enablers now constitute an existential threat to the survival of American democracy itself. Voting for Trump OR his Republican enablers makes one complicit in advancing that threat. Indeed, so long as no serious challenger to Trump and his enablers emerges from within the Republican Party, there is no moral or ethical way to support the party’s candidates -- at least for federal office. (Federalism still allows the possibility of credible Republican choices at the state and local level, at least in some regions.)

I can’t possibly describe all the ways Trump and his enablers have made the Republican Party an existential threat to American democracy. I will focus on five: 1) Trump’s demonization of the media; 2) Trump’s demonization of the weak and defenseless in society; 3) Trump’s demand for the prosecution of his political opponents; 4) Trump’s delegitimation of elections; and 5) Trump’s delegitimation of the rule of law.

Please note that none of these topics has anything to do with daily disputes about regular political issues. I am not addressing the wrong-headedness of Trump’s actions that have undermined NATO. I am not focusing on the stupidity of his unconcern about global climate change, or about his failures in healthcare reform, or his appointment of federal judges. I might critique all of those things, but those are the stuff of ordinary politics. Rather, I am focusing on forces that pull democracies apart. Supporting Trump -- and his Republican allies today -- constitutes a threat to the American republic.

--1. The demonization of the media. OK: all presidents dislike the press. Some, like Nixon, hated the press. But they all seemed to understand that the press was part of the system. They (mostly) all seemed to understand that the often antagonistic relationship between the press and the politicians was a key component of a functioning democracy. They seemed to understand that, as Justice Black put it in his concurrence in NY Times v United States (the Pentagon Papers case), “In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”

Donald Trump does not believe this. In fact, he has openly stated as much, telling 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl, “You know why I do it? [Attack the press?] I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.” In other words, Donald Trump is engaged in an open, unrestrained effort to undermine the press in order to serve his own power and advance his own agenda. 

In undermining the possibility of a free, critical press Trump is damaging the prospects that any future American people will believe that the press can do the job it needs to do. Once all media is framed as partisan, the notion of information, of facts, dies. And no future president will face constraint by a free press either: what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Trump will not be the last president to rely on the “lyin’ media” frame if Trump manages to convince the American people that no one should believe the press, however imperfect it may be.

Notably, no significant part of the Republican party or its leaders are challenging Trump’s attacks on the media in any meaningful way. They are, if anything, promoting it. As a consequence, supporting either Trump or his Republican enablers threatens a linchpin of American democracy. It cannot be justified.

--2. The demonization of the weak and the vulnerable: The savageness with which Donald Trump treats his targets is remarkable. It has been a long time coming, of course: recall the infamous scenes in which Tea Party activists mocked a homeless veteran for seeking help during the 2010 midterms. But Trump seems to delight, indeed to positively revel, in punching downwards. Like most bullies, Trump focuses on people who can’t really fight back as he spews bile, hate, and mockery at them. His targets don’t just include minorities and immigrants, of course, but disabled persons, people -- usually women -- Trump decides aren’t attractive, victims of natural disasters, and, of course, even war heroes/prisoners/soldiers killed in combat serving the United States.

Please note that the research here is clear: when presidents demonize one group or other, many in the president’s audience end up hating the targeted groups more than they were already predisposed to. In other words, when presidents attack, public opinion measurably shifts in ways that reflect and amplify the president’s rhetoric. 

Trump’s disgusting, hate-filled rhetoric harms the vulnerable and marginalized in society in ways that you and I, who are after all middle class white guys, simply cannot understand -- even as we can empathize with them. And so long as no serious Republican challenger emerges to resist Trump’s vile perversion of our politics, so long as Republican doctrine -- not just Trump’s -- is to serve the powerful and afflict the afflicted, then supporting Republicans, at least at the federal level, is immoral. It also erodes the promise of the American civic experiment to discover if people of different races and creeds and ideas and histories can live together in some semblance of freedom.

--3. The demand for the prosecution of political opponents: Politics is a blood sport, and at least in elections it is zero-sum. My win is your loss. Yet most democracies manage to survive because a norm develops that win or lose, we have to respect others’ rights to participate, advocate their policies, and promote their points of view. Opponents are not enemies. They are competitors.

There has been an undeniable trend over the last 30 years to shift the language of political competition from “opponents” to “enemies.” Not all this shift has been concocted by Republicans, or by Trump, by any means. But Trump is the first president in modern US history to respond to political opponents by insisting that they need to be imprisoned for crimes against the nation. He is the first to systematically incite his supporters to openly chant for the jailing of a political opponent. He is the first since Richard Nixon to demand that the law enforcement agencies of the United States serve his partisan political agenda by investigating his opponents for crimes that they have already been cleared of.

This is the stuff that happens in crackpot countries. Newly-installed dictators purge their opponents, using the levers of power to confirm their authority. But in so doing, they make the stakes of any moment of political transition extraordinarily high: the game literally becomes all or nothing, since the consequences of losing can mean imprisonment. And since the stakes are so high, so is the conflict: no one can afford to lose, so they fight it out to the last breath.

“Lock her up” isn’t funny. It isn’t cute. Weaponizing law enforcement for political ends has profound consequences for the stability of democracy.

Trump’s claims that Hillary Clinton and other opponents ought to be imprisoned undermines confidence in the possibility of peaceful transitions of power in the United States. Until I see evidence that anyone on the Republican side is fighting back against Trump’s gross abuse of federal power, supporting him or the party that enables his abuses undermines the possibility of democratic governance as such.

--4. The deligitimation of elections: No one likes to lose. And gerrymandering, and manipulated vote counts, and other forms of voter suppression have been an unfortunate part of our political life since the Republic was formed.

But Trump has exceeded any other president in his all out assault on the norms of electoral politics. He claims he won the popular vote in 2016 ... once you discount the 3,000,000+ votes cast by illegal aliens. Against all evidence he continues to assert that in-person voter fraud is vast -- but only in those elections that he and his party members lose. In 2018 he described legally-prescribed recounts as efforts to “steal” the elections from his team.

All this, meanwhile, is happening when it is clear that the majority of vote shenanigans in the US are perpetrated by Republicans: North Carolina’s Voter ID law was overturned for its explicit racial bias, while both North Carolina’s and Pennsylvania’s Congressional districts were declared unconstitutionally gerrymandered. (Pennsylvania’s redrawn districts produced a balanced outcome; North Carolina’s were not redrawn due to time concerns, and Republicans in North Carolina perpetuated their 10-3 majority in Congressional seats despite the fact that Democrats in North Carolina got 100,000 more votes statewide than Republicans did.) And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the closing of vote stations in minority dominant districts, the purging of voter rolls, and the like -- all of which have been shown to be disproportionately burdensome on people of color.

Given that NO Republican leaders AT ALL have in any way challenged any of this, the entire Republican party is culpable in undermining American democracy as manifested in the need for free and fair elections. There is simply no way to vote for Republicans and also vote for the protection of properly run, properly managed elections. Voting for Republicans today is to support the undermining of free and fair elections in the United States.

--5. The delegitimation of the rule of law: Criticism is one thing. It is unpleasant, but it is fundamentally healthy. But demonization is another thing altogether. Asserting that law enforcement agencies are corrupt -- without evidence -- is corrosive to political legitimacy.

Trump, of course, is engaged in the systematic delegitmation of the rule of law. His understanding of the law is that it should serve his interests and his political purposes. His understanding of any investigation he doesn’t like is that it is a witch hunt.

This, too, is the enterprise of dictators. If the law only works for the powerful, who at the same time insist that they are victims of the law, then democracy cannot function.

And again, the actual Republican party, the one that actually exists right now, has wholly abetted this abuse. They have cravenly cowed to Trump’s rhetoric for fear of facing his tweets, the talking parrots at FOX News, and the hordes of Trumpizoidal maniacs who are likely to show up in primary elections. Lindsay Graham prosecuted the Clinton impeachment for charges ultimately derived from the fact that Bill Clinton lied about getting a blowjob from a woman who was not his wife. Today, he insists that campaign finance payoffs running to hundreds of thousands of dollars illegally spent as part of a scheme to protect a presidential candidate’s election chances are no big deal -- merely lies told to protect the candidate’s family. The hypocrisy would stagger ... at any other time than this one.

Voting for Republicans today inevitably means supporting the subversion of the rule of law. It means supporting the erosion of American democracy.

At this point, Trump apologists usually offer some version of the comment, “both sides do it.” Well, no they don’t. Not to anything close to this scale. Not organized at the very top of the political system, where now the Trump reelection team is being completely integrated with the RNC’s fundraising operation -- for the first time in US history. (The grift is about to get vastly bigger than anyone can even fantasize.) 

America is in trouble. It is time to recalibrate “voting against people you don’t like.” It is time to kill the modern Republican Party. It’s the only way to bring it back to life.