#BUT IT ISN'T A PUNISHMENT! DISABILITY ISN'T GIVEN TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE DONE BAD THINGS!

[fellowfights]

Y'all non-disabled folk are pissing me off. Actually mouthwashing fans. Someone does not DESERVE disability and disability isn't "karma" or "justice".

[obstinatecondolement]

This got long, but basically my hot takes about disability and prenatal screening.

I think that the thing is that like... we don't actually have the technology to edit the germ line, so high falutin' talk about "What if someone could alter your DNA so you didn't have your disability anymore?" is kind of just pointless high concept sci-fi wank.

What we can actually do in real life is embryo screening and/or selective abortion. And, like, absolute bottom line: no one who doesn't want to be pregnant should be forced to remain pregnant and neither should they be shamed for exercising their bodily autonomy by having an abortion. I don't have a problem with someone aborting a foetus they do not think they could be a good parent to, or for having an abortion for any reason.

But what I have a problem with is when people are strongly pressured to have prenatal screening for genetic and chromosomal conditions done as standard, when it very much doesn't have to be standard, and told implicitly or explicitly that they are bad parents if they don't consent to it.

What I have a problem with is when people who discover their foetus has Down's syndrome are then implicitly or explicitly pressured to abort and are given out of date information about the health impacts of Down's and the life expectency of adults with Down's syndrome, and are never offered the opportunity to meet adults with Down's syndrome to talk about their lives and what they think a parent of a child with Down's syndrome should be aware of.

What I have a problem with is funding for services for disabled people who exist right here and right now being cut and, because of that, parents who chose to carry a disabled foetus to term (as, more importantly, is there now born disabled child) are punished for that choice by a lack of resources and a more hostile world that their child must grow up in. Since they could (and implicitly "should") have made another choice, it is now the fault of the parents if their disabled child grows up to "suffer" from their disability due to societal factors like ableism, poverty, lack of access to necessary care (that isn't provided for free by family, or privately for prohibitive amounts of money that most disabled people cannot afford), lack of access to education and employment, lack of access to public spaces and public life, etc. Because disability is framed as being inherently difficult and undesireable, nothing ever has to be done to change society to make it less difficult or improve the lives of disabled people who have already been born.

"If you could wave a magic wand and your autism would go away, would you do it?" Well, that's irrelevant, because I can't.

"If a genetic marker for autism was found, would you screen your foetus for autism if you were pregnant?" That's more a sensible question, and the answer is that I probably wouldn't, because I figure that children genetically related to me would probably be autistic anyway and I don't think that it would be a problem either way.

Would I have a problem with a prenatal autism screening test existing in the first place? That's a more complicated question and I honestly am not totally sure what my take on all the nuances of that are. If it ever happened, I would have a lot to learn from activists with Down's.

Like, for the record, "What about disabled children being aborted?" is something that anti-choice people throw around a lot and I do not care to be used as a blunt instrument to bludgen the bodily autonomy of pregnant people. But, at the same time, it is also troubling to me when there is a group of people who are underserved and pathologised to the extent that there would be a chance they would all disappear within a couple of generations if they could be screened out of the population before birth.

As far as I know, there are only one or two people with Down's syndrome born in Iceland every year, and that horrifies me. Not because I think abortion is murder (again: it's not), but because of what that means for disabled Icelandic people, and disabled people who might want to emigrate to Iceland, and disabled refugees who may seek asylum there.

Abortion is a personal, private, individual choice, and individuals should not be judged or shamed for making whatever choice they feel is right for them. But if everyone is always making the same choice, then maybe that choice is not entirely uncoerced or uninfluenced. But I think that this is all really complicated and I don't know what all the answers are, so I'm not sure what to do with that to be perfectly honest.

[timeoverload]

Ok I'm sorry about what I said last night. I'm not trying to hurt your feelings or be insensitive so I apologize if it came across that way. You didn't do anything wrong.

I'm just very confused and I guess I should stop worrying about what's going on. Your life is none of my business and I shouldn't try to get involved in anything. I don't know why I keep trying to get answers. I need to accept the fact that you don't want to talk to me or share any information with me. I can't force you to tell me anything. I don't know what you are going through so I shouldn't assume things. I just want to know what is bothering you. I need to stop obsessing about it and I'm sorry for caring too much. It's difficult for me to pretend like I don't.

I'm not sure how to interpret all of the messages you are trying to send me. It seems like you are trying to tell me that I'm evil or that I need to overcome my demons or something. I'm not sure why you would think that I'm evil because I don't think that I am. I don't know if that's what you are trying to say or not.

I'm not sure what demons I need to overcome at this point. I know I'm a lot better than I used to be. I don't really enjoy being sober but I still am so that should count for something. I'm sorry for having the desire to smoke weed to manage my physical pain and anxiety. I don't think having that desire makes me a bad person but I still haven't been doing it since I can't anyway. I also have moved past my previous relationship and I'm mostly content on my own. I do struggle with some stuff but it's mostly due to my physical limitations and I'm learning how to live with my disabilities. I literally can't help the fact that I'm bipolar and it's a disease that I have to live with for the rest of my life. I'm trying really hard to manage it and I'm a lot better at dealing with it than I did when I was younger. I'm doing my best to overcome the anhedonia that I've been experiencing for a while and I don't feel like I should be punished for it because unfortunately that's just a symptom of my mental illness. I shouldn't have said anything bad about my brother either because depression is a very serious condition and I know that. I'm also sorry for being anxious about things and that's another thing I have to try to manage forever. I'm sorry if that bothers you. Also, I have to remind people that my brain isn't structured like everyone else's because it didn't fully develop and that's not my fault. I can't change the fact that I'm different.

I'm actively trying so hard to get out of a toxic work environment on my own. I'm not expecting anyone to fix shit for me and I'm not totally helpless. I know I don't lack self-efficacy. I have gotten out of a lot of bad situations on my own. I deal with a lot of problems by myself. I know sometimes I talk about not having a lot of motivation but I still accomplish more than you think. Sometimes it makes it easier to do things after I vent about it. I have actually gotten a lot of shit done today. I'm a lot stronger than people might perceive me to be. I have literally never been in a situation like this before so I think I'm handling things pretty well given the circumstances. The past couple years have been tough for me.

I also don't think I'm wrong for wanting to spend time with people on a physical level. I don't think I'm wrong for not wanting to spend all of my time in my room and wanting to get out and experience things with people. I don't think I'm wrong for being depressed about not being able to do that. I'm only human and that's a normal thing for a human to desire. I'm sure my serotonin levels would be a lot higher if I could actually be around the people I care about. I don't want to have shallow connections or friendships. That's another reason I didn't want to go to that party last night because I don't feel a deep connection with those people. I do feel a deep connection to the people who read my blog though and it really sucks that everything has to continue to be a secret. I'm tired of all of the rules.

Life is short and I want to be able to enjoy the time that I have instead of wasting it by myself. How long do I have to work on myself and be alone before I'm deemed worthy of human interaction? This sucks and I feel like I have been alone long enough.

I don't have to share anything with you but I choose to because I want you to be a part of my life. I can't force you to reciprocate that even though I wish you could. I should be able to be open about stuff without it being used against me. I should be able to talk about the things that I'm concerned about. Communication is very important in a healthy relationship. I want to have a normal relationship so badly. A lot of disagreements and misunderstandings could be avoided if we could just talk about stuff. I really just want to get along and not argue about anything. I don't even know if you are actually mad at me but I'm not sure what to think right now.

I decided that I should just refrain from posting personal things for a while. I'm not in the mood to continue sharing my feelings at the moment. I'm not trying to "get back" at you for anything but it doesn't seem fair to continue to pour my heart out to you all the time if you can't respond with words. I also don't want to offend you anymore because I feel like I do a lot of the time. I don't want to create any more problems. I just can't continue doing this right now and I spend a lot of time writing stuff. I'm just going to be quiet for a while unless I have something to say that's important. I appreciate you all for putting up with me and listening to me. I love you all.

I love you Maxwell. I really hope we can work things out someday because that would make me extremely happy. I'm looking forward to the day that we can actually have a conversation. I appreciate you and thank you for everything. 💖

[monty-glasses-roxy]

@maxwaspace

Sure!

It's the trope of disability being a punishment, that the people that are disabled or become disabled are bad people and/or deserve it. The entire game centres around Gregory being hunted down by animatronics and then disabling them in different ways because of that.

Basically, causing each animatronic to be disabled except for Freddy is justified by the fact they're the antagonists of the game that are trying to kill you.

Disability in real life is just a normal thing that happens to anyone, regardless of what they've done or what their morals are. But in media, disability is more often something the villains have, again, because they're bad and deserve it, or the disability made them into villains.

So Gregory disables the animatronics because they're trying to kill him. Only the animatronics that are trying to kill you are disabled. They're even worse in Ruin, with Roxy possibly only attacking you because she's been disabled, given she's still hunting Gregory and can't see who you are. Monty apparently loses most cognitive function with his legs too and he gets electrocuted in water.

And this is without factoring the issues with Sunny and Moon's representation as dissociative identity disorder. One personality is good, while the other one wants you dead is a really big trope that demonises mental disability too so like...

Yeah there's not a lot in the game for the animatronics that isn't ableist ngl

Oh yeah last night I realised that Security Breach is not just quietly ableist, but the entire fucking game is one giant ableist trope. Insane.

[i-love-hobbies]

The biggest criticism Lilith's redemption arc gets and Eda's biggest strength

(ft. me getting completely side tracked and wanting a Hooty redemption arc)

Ok, so firstly I wanna talk about real life and then say how it was done in the owl house.

I hate the words "Everyone should get what they deserve." Cause firstly this never happens, secondly, the words are very vague and it opens a window of miscommunication and thirdly, cause in Lilith's case they are focused at, she needs to be hurt in order to change.

There are even people that have said that they are looking forward to watching Lilith suffer (I don't know if I've said it on the internet but I was one of them.)

Revenge has been proven to not make people feel better. And a lot of therapists usually say you need to forgive people. That doesn't mean fix the relationship, it means try to stop wishing they get hurt. Cause the feeling is only hurting you.

Also it's a normal human feeling to be angry, so no I'm not calling people monsters for this. And forgiveness is a hard process that takes a lot of work, but it usually isn't helped by hurting others.

The words people usually use to defend this sentence are:

"Consequences change people's minds or at the very least make them scared of doing it again."

Ok so how about we use this sentence instead, it's short enough and the main mission now is keeping ourselves safe Instead of it being hurting someone, you're still wishing it but it's not the main goal, it's a secondary one.

Well, cause it immediately shows two issues both statements have.

Firstly a friendship with someone that wants to hurt you but is scared of doing so is not a healthy one, cause they'll just try to be sneaky. You can only do it with people that aren't close to you like how the authorities do it towards criminals.

Secondly punishments rarely change people's minds. They've never worked on me, especially when you attack my identity, cause this way you make it even worse. And expecting that you can change someone usually means you're about to fail.

"But we can't get rid of punishments, people will hurt us."

I'm not saying we should. I'm saying our main goal should be our safety and hurting them may happen but it shouldn't be important.

Or better yet:

"Building healthy boundaries to the point where you're not getting hurt anymore, but not going overboard."

Examples:

- You have a friend you see Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. But on Wednesdays, after work, they usually are very ignorant of your feelings and sometimes joke at your expense. So you stop going out at Wednesdays.

They might never ask why you did it and that's ok, cause you're not getting hurt anymore.

But usually they do ask why? You explain to them the issue with respect, don't call them names.

Some people will change after this and you can get rid of the boundary later on.

Other people may acknowledge this and say it's a good idea, cause they are overwhelmed, but never change.

Other other people may start hurting you even more. You build the boundaries even more, sometimes to the point you cut them out of your life, even if they weren't hurting you intentionally.

Which is completely ok if you can't maintain contact without being hurt.

- Eda's handling of Gwendolyn's cures is another good one. She never called her names or anything. She just made sure that Gwen can't hurt her anymore. Cause it wasn't only the cures. Eda's feelings were always getting ignored. She literally couldn't talk with her about anything other than the curse. Her emotions were getting neglected.

- Eda's handling of Tibbles is also an interesting example.

At first after the scamming she just left him. She couldn't see how he could hurt her.

And in episode 14 she killed him. Cause he showed that he would do anything to murder her dump kids and knew their address. Almost same story with Adegast.

Yes murder in this extreme cases can be a healthy boundary.

Lilith's relationships with the owl fam

King:

King didn't know Lilith was living with them and knows about her neglect.

Luz:

Luz would only stand up for others never for herself which is very unhealthy. I don't know if she forgave Lilith, but I can see her not mentioning it if she hasn't and playing along as a teacher.

"The real mystery is how she can be both so smart and yet so wrong at the same time. Academics, am I right?"

The closest one to her she has roasted like this, is her mentor, who firstly makes people feel safe.

"EDA, You're embarrassing me Infront of my crew." - Raine, after thirty years of not seeing her.

Secondly, she was being a jerk, she was teaching Luz about cards while she was begging for magic lessons and was not getting it for weeks.

"Cards, the paper rectangles that old people think are fun."

Heck, she might even be scared of Lilith. She almost got killed.

So far I don't have a reason to think she likes her. She hasn't really talked with her or about her much.

Eda:

Eda has already shown that she can handle conflicts in relationships. Like in episode 9, where she got Luz into Hexside and everything I already said.

I made an entire post about Eda being too emotional and I still stand by it, but serious situations that have to do with relationships, she usually is very rational and good at handling them. Probably because of the curse making her afraid of her anger and countless people attacking her.

At the beginning of the series Eda probably was expecting that the worst case scenario would be for Lilith to catch her and if Lilith isn't given the time to realise what she did, she'd be killed and best case scenario Lilith changes.

Episode 5, where Lilith burned down her wanted posters, episode 8 where Lilith was gonna get her straight in the coven instead of arresting her, episode 11, where Lilith said she wanted for Eda to join on her own and episode 17, where they played grudgby.

Proved to her even more that Lilith cares a lot for her and maybe she will change.

Then episode 18 happened and King wanting hugs and Luz's "Let me die!" Suddenly the worst case scenario became not her dieing but her dieing and the trauma the kids will experience. The fact that they won't have her in their lifes.

Lilith says "Then why were you so easy to curse?!?" This does not sound like "I accidentally did this and I'm sorry." No, Eda thought Lilith did this on purpose. And now her kids might get killed by her own sister cause she was too naive to trust her.

From now on I don't think she was trying to kill her cause Lilith isn't dangerous without raw power like Adegast and Tibbles, but to disable her is a possibility.

To add to this Eda wasn't rational almost throughout the entire finale. She probably didn't pick up on the line "If you would just let me explain." Just like she didn't question why Lilith was thrown in a cage.

Then she learns that Lilith commited treason together with her kids and started feeling like she doesn't know the full story, but Lilith is still a caring person. So she jumps Infront of the beam to save both Lilith and King.

Afterwards Lilith shares the curse and has nowhere to go if she gets kicked out so there is no reason to believe that she would hurt them physically.

I know in a post I said I don't think she fully processed the situation with Lilith. But now I think I was only half right.

She didn't fully process how much she was hurt but she understood Lilith's situation. Forgave her as soon as possible, not immediately. But that doesn't mean she rebuilded the relationship as soon as she forgave her.

First of, the forgiveness part happened after episode 1. The entire episode she was guilt tripping her, which I don't think was helping the situation. It makes Lilith more emotional which then makes it harder for her to face reality.

I'm not calling Eda a bad person for this but I do think it was a mistake.

What wasn't a mistake but a good thing is Eda wasn't the one to listen to her problems, it was Hooty. Cause her emotional health matters too and standing in one room with her sister is challenging.

And now I'm wondering does Eda know about how Lilith was treated by both the coven and their parents.

Eda calling Lilith a tool, seems to me more of them competing with each other rather than the recent events. Also Lilith forcing her rules without saying why they are there.

I'm glad the episode ended with them switching roles, where Lilith is now more powerful. Though I'm pretty sure the roles are getting switched again.

So what about the rebuilding of the relationship or should I say trust.

Well they didn't show us much, but I think the trust isn't fully back.

Cause she has only been proving that she can be physically trusted like when she saved King's life.

Eda never opens up, which is unhealthy. But in this case it's a healthy boundary, cause King did it and he got Lilith projecting onto him.

Lilith isn't good at being mentally supportive and still has bad habits.

Lulu and Hootsifer

Hooty helping Lilith was something, she really needed and didn't take for granted, cause the only one to ever even consider this is Eda.

They are buddies that look out for each other. I wouldn't say they talk a lot about feelings as they have no idea how to do that, but there are examples where they do.

Like "What kind of a witch am I?" and Hooty's letter.

Her letter for Hooty, was supportive, but ignored the issue of Hooty always being in people's personal space.

Which led to Hooty drugging Eda, kidnapping three children and almost killing said kids when his plans didn't work the way he wanted. He also ate the letter for King.

I want a Hooty redemption arc, now!

[anyoldfandom]

Sorry for all the notif spam I've been going through your blog but. Bobo talk and someone actually pointing out how weird his character is in the show, especially given his backstory. And I am so sorry for this length I'll delete it if you want. But Bobo in the show makes me SO mad bc he's comedy relief in execution and insane potential in theory.

Not only is he one of two EVOs at Providence but when people talk to Rex even when they know he's an EVO, they still see him as human. Bobo will always have the appearance of something nonhuman, he will always be seen on the street as lesser than. He's either a non-sapient animal or a mutant, to a stranger.

But his setup is INSANE, especially in relation to Rex. If his backstory IS true, and he does remember his past life, then he has a lot of experience seeing sick and injured kids in hospitals, and cheering them up. And now he is sapient, unable to do that anymore full-time (which, also assuming that the implications that his "Bobo time" is him sneaking off to help out at children's hospitals still, bc that's what the little puppet show implied, suggests that that's a job he enjoys doing and probably enjoyed in the past), and he's free to just...do whatever. Treated like a monster by humans, not allowed near the kids he was trained, likely raised to work with, he causes mayhem bc haha funny thing for him to do. And then he's captured by Providence, escapes, and then is caught again, and then ends up meeting another child. A child who is an EVO like him, who is nearly killed, and who is now put in a situation where he is constantly having medical tests done on him and examinations for his health.

It's so. The setup is so there. Of Bobo feeling familiarity and compassion for a child locked away in sterile white rooms to be monitored by doctors. Only this kid isn't a patient to be treated with kindness. Bobo remembers what they tried to do to him even if Rex doesn't. Bobo might not be able to go back to hospitals, but he can do his best to help this kid, who desperatly needs it (and also could be a good reason why he's sometimes there when Holiday is examining Rex, even when he has no logical reason to be besides hanging out with the kid - if he empathized with Rex and understood how scary it could be for kids to be stuck and have to sit through dozens of tests, even if Holiday is doing her best to make him comfortable). And it would do so well to give his open breaking of the rules and encouraging and assisting Rex in escaping justice - he's not just hanging out with the kid, being a general bad influence in Providence's eyes, he's using his position to help Rex understand how to break the rules. They need Rex's enthusiastic consent to cure people, and caging, killing, or even just seperaring him from his first friend could make him refuse to help - just like they rarely punish Rex beyond yelling and once getting grounded, instead trying to keep him in Providence by providing him shiny new toys (which is also why I think they gave Rex a new room after Ep 1 - for fear that VK would entice him over or make him start doubting Providence, give him something distracting).

But, back to Bobo - it also can explain the initial hostility he has to Six in the series that he doesn't really have to Holiday, beyond initial dislike of Six bc of Six being implied to be the one to initially catch him. We the viewers see everything, but the only thing Bobo has seen is Six initially bringing Rex in and being cagey/protective of him, and him fighting for Rex by saying that he's a cure (and we have no idea how much of that he saw, since we only actually SEE him there are the end). He knows Six doesn't want Rex dead, but he thinks it's because Six sees him as a cure and nothing else - which doesn't Six doesn't help by being as stiff and hard to read as well. Six.

(Also, going off of your disability Genrex thoughts, Bobo having a disability too, bc there's something to be read into someone no longer being able to do the old job they love and instead doing as close to it as they can out of a genuine wish to help someone else. Especially another disabled kid.)

bobo is a very interesting character to me because he does not feel like he fits in the setting of generator rex. he and rex are the only evos who work for providence and while rex has the excuse of being super special and different, bobo seemingly just has a job bc it's more convenient for providence to have him on their side and rex likes him

there are times where rex acts kind of like he feels alone in the world, like when he tells circe he's never met anyone like her before (evo like him) and there are moments when ppl talk shit about rex for being an evo and everyone kind of just ignores bobo? and if they don't ignore bobo they ignore the fact that he's an evo?

iirc also bobo is the only character who used to be a regular animal and became more humanlike from going evo, if we believe that the backstory presented in "robo bobo" is true. and when rex cures everyone in the last episode all of the incurables are cured too EXCEPT FOR BOBO

he shares a room with rex even after white expands rex's living space. why do they share a room? do they share a room because they want to share a room? why? they both complain about the other being so stinky. why do they share a room

the more i think about bobo the more questions i have which sucks because no one should think about bobo this hard. i love the guy. he's so confusing

[castielcommunism]

#op say more about this rampant bio-essentialism 👀

i have a couple posts here that give some other examples, but in general, spn views morality as biologically determined to the exclusion of basically all else.

like just to give some examples off the dome:

the souls of every supernatural creature (PRESUMABLY INCLUDING CHILDREN) are existentially stained with their monstrosity and condemn them to an afterlife in Purgatory, a Hell-adjacent dimension that is full of violence and endless suffering

People who lose their soul while still alive turn "bad" and seemingly lose the ability to feel things like shame, guilt, compassion, and empathy, even if they felt all those things before and had no inclinations towards violence or cruelty

the ONLY way to get into Heaven (the least shitty dimension of the bunch) is to be a pureblooded human. There are several jokes made about evil people getting into Heaven so long as they're devout, so ethical behaviour isn't a pre-requisite for entry into Heaven, only having a human soul is, which is a thing nobody has any control over.

the BMOL takes the show's premise to its logical conclusion, which is that the only way to have a "civil" and "safe" society is to proactively kill every supernatural creature and person in the country, even if they haven't harmed anyone or done anything bad

the best way to become a powerful witch is to be born with an innate magical ability, and if you aren't, no amount of training or experience will make up for that

the show frequently equates criminal activity with the presence of the supernatural (who are, as previously established, eternally damned to be evil), which is particularly vile given that it's set in the United States

multiple references to hunting being akin to "pest control", implying that hunting is an apolitical job that is simply about killing some annoying creature terrorising the local population

Crowley becoming addicted to human blood because it will "cure" him of his demon-ness, which he is then also punished and mocked for

take a look at this fucking post

On top of all this, the show's rampant racism (appropriation of Indigenous history and culture, the horrific treatment of Black characters like Gordon, the FUCKING RACIST TRUCK EPISODE, that episode where a Black woman is a dog and also a mistress to some white guy which is framed as taboo and wrong, more examples I'm forgetting) and ableism (Bobby's disabled plotline where he's "fixed" at the end, the frequent use of asylums as a shooting location, the Honey Cas plotline and constant jokes about Cas being stupid and/or a child, frequent comments and jokes about mental illness as a form of supernatural affliction, most notably with Sam, etc) form a rotten foundation where criminal behaviour and "evilness" is inscribed on the body and determines how you will be judged in the afterlife.

Just to go back to the Crowley example for a moment - it appears contradictory on the surface. Because being human is an admirable goal in the logic of spn, right? It's the only way to be a good person. So why is his addiction framed as a pathetic joke that ultimately leads to his downfall? And why is it framed as an addiction to begin with, as opposed to a medical treatment that will help him get better? And the answer is because he's trying to be something he's not (ie, human). This "addiction" is doomed from the outset. No amount of chemicals or positive thinking or good behaviour will allow you to escape the biological prison you are trapped it. Fellow trans people, raise your hand if this sounds familiar to you!

Now this blood treatment works with Dean, but that's because demon-hood is only temporarily imposed on him - he is "fundamentally" still human, partially by virtue of being the main character. This is where the show gets a bit muddied with its lore, because it establishes that demons are human souls tortured in Hell, but it's also this pseudo-medical condition you can force onto people. But still, the logic is clear - being a supernatural creature is biologically encoded and inalterable, and once you become "bad", it's near-impossible to turn back.

So biological determinism is one of the fundamental parts of Supernatural, and also informs how the audience is supposed to view the brothers - as heroic white vigilantes who keep America's suburbs safe from the intrusion of deviant people in society.

I know cas taking on sam’s hell trauma is supposed to be symbolic of him accepting some form of penance for his sins or whatever but in the context of the show’s rampant bio-essentialism it’s one of the more baffling things to happen on spn. trauma is actually just a condition you can pass on to other people like a hot potato