#Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

[okurightsmatter]

Kami merupakan ahli komuniti Orang Kurang Upaya (OKU) yang terdiri daripada individu OKU, aktivis hak OKU, rakan sepenjagaan dan individu-individu sekutu kepada OKU. Kami amat kecewa sekali dengan kenyataan dan pendirian anda baru-baru ini dalam wawancara profil dengan laman berita atas talian Malaysiakini yang telah diterbitkan pada 22 April 2024 — yang dibawa ke perhatian komuniti OKU kami pada 1 Mei. Suara kami mencerminkan kepelbagaian realiti kehidupan kami..

For more info visit us: https://medium.com/@okurightsmatter.dev/surat-terbuka-kami-perlukan-pemimpin-oku-yang-seiring-bersama-kami-bukan-menentang-suara-kolektif-eabe8ea9b8ad

[fightforthesoulofthecities]

Strategy & Soul Events: 1st Seminar on Trans-National Strategies in Erasing Black Ableism

Trans-National Strategies in Erasing Black Ableism A Krip-Hop Meet-Up Saturday October 26th 10am-2pm Strategy & Soul 3546 Martin Luther King Blvd. LA CA 90008 We so glad to work with our Bus Riders Union Member Pastor Kelvin Sauls to co-host a 1st Annual Krip-Hop Meet up to discuss erasing Black Ableism. Join us as we explore topics like Trans-National Strategies in Erasing Black Ableism,…

[akwyz]

A Decade of Neglect: Ireland's Urgent Need to Improve Disability Transportation Access

"📢 A decade of inaction! 😲 Ireland's Ombudsman slams the 'shameful' 10-year delay in providing crucial transport support for people with disabilities. 🚗🚫 It's time for change, not more reports. #AccessibilityMatters #TimeForChange #DisabilityRights"

One could argue that a country is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. If so, the persistent neglect of people with disabilities in Ireland, especially in the realm of personal transportation, is a disheartening indicator. Despite government commitments, there has been a ten-year delay in providing suitable transport supports for people with disabilities, leaving many individuals…

[covid-safer-hotties]

To My Unmasked Friend in the Fifth Year of COVID - By: Anna Holmes - Published Aug 17, 2024

I’m going to be honest with you, because I love you, and you deserve nothing but honesty. I’m going to try really hard not to be angry while I do it, but it’s probably going to slip out every now and again. But I need you to hear me out, all right?

By now, we’ve talked about my reality. My personal struggle with long COVID, the isolation I live in, why I am so angry all the time.

But let’s talk about you. You just went to a big convention overseas. You got on a plane, got a little gussied up, talked shop with some insiders, geeked out over awards and merch, ate, drank, were merry, left with your social cup and your heart full.

You’re a good person. We wouldn��t be friends otherwise! You’d never dream of tripping a person with a red and white cane, using the r-word, excluding a disabled person from an event because of something they can’t help.

You might even acknowledge that the COVID response from governments and organizations has been ableist and inadequate.

But you didn’t wear a mask.

For whatever reason — you wanted to show off your makeup, it makes you itchy, you believed the messaging that COVID is endemic (what does that actually mean?), you just don’t think about it anymore — you made a choice that actively excludes people like me from participating not only in an event like a convention, but society at large. And yes, it is a choice. Every time you step out into the world without a mask on your face, you have made a decision that your very good reason, whatever it is, supersedes the right of disabled and at-risk people to exist safely in your orbit.

Well, hold on, you say. It’s not any one individual’s fault, it’s the inadequate public health messaging. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

And I have. In the past, I have talked about how it is unconscionable that health authorities have thrown their hands up and rescinded guidance that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prolonged a pandemic that, to hear them tell it, has been bested. It hasn’t. Worst of all, the financial motivation that we all know is driving this premature victory lap isn’t even being fulfilled. Long COVID and other post-COVID complications are costing the global economy one trillion a year. Meanwhile, article after article handwrings about nobody wanting to work anymore, about the sagging college application scene, about declines in military enlistment, and the strain on our healthcare systems.

All of this is very much the fault of our leaders, who have decided the political ramifications of “normalcy” are more important than the health and lives of the 400 million people living with long COVID across the globe, the immunocompromised folks who are increasingly being shut out of every conceivable public space, and the disabled community which has been screaming into the wind about our marginalization since before the virus even hit US soil.

But I want to be very clear. You are helping them do this.

The reality is that we have been living in this deeply flawed landscape of “personal choice”, and you’ve made yours. You’ve opted not to look into how densely clustered cases are. You’ve stopped listening to your friends who have informed themselves. You’ve given yourself permission to put COVID on the back burner. You’ve earned it, right? Four and a half years of trauma?

COVID doesn’t care if you’re tired of being scared or careful or considerate. COVID is not something you can personally overcome by being smart or virtuous or brave. It is a virus which only seeks to infect and replicate, and it is getting very good at those things. While you’ve looked away, my community has been scrambling to avoid variants that skirt immunity and don’t show up on rapid tests until day five-seven. The constant battle has changed since you were last in it. It’s not sufficient anymore to get your shots and test before a big event. You could well be asymptomatic and infectious, or have symptoms and convinced yourself it can’t be COVID because that second line hasn’t popped up.

You have come to the conclusion sometime between 2022 and now that you just have to decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with and live with it. The problem with that is scale. It’s you and everybody else doing that, and a lot of people have decided they are comfortable with a high level of risk. Despite what you’ve been told, you’re not just making that decision for yourself. You are making it for every person you come in contact with.

Think back to the early tense days of 2020. We were told to select a “bubble.” Those people would be our social lifelines, and through those, we could control our exposure.

My bubble is quite small. It includes my husband, my sister, and two friends I see relatively frequently.

My husband goes to work via the bus, and to the grocery store. Every person he comes in contact with there has the potential to infect him, and then he has the potential to pass it along to me. He mitigates this by wearing a well-fitted respirator at all times.

My sister goes to work at a busy public place. She masks when public facing and takes it off in the back office. She goes to restaurants, bars, concerts, hangs out with friends and her own partner unmasked. About 75% of her interactions have the heightened potential to infect her, which she might then bring into my house when she visits me.

My friends do not mask anywhere except my house when asked. They attend concerts, shows, cons, bars.

Obviously, I am in control of whether I wear a mask around these people. And as we approach one million new cases a day, I will be around everyone but my husband. But science is clear: reciprocal masking is more effective at infection control than a single person masking — especially when that single person is trying to protect themselves, not others.

This is settled science. We’ve known this since 2020. It says clearly that the choice you make is not personal- it has implications for everyone you come in contact with.

And being clear — if I could, I’d make everyone wear a mask for their own health. I don’t want people suffering with what I have. But you’ve been told this lie that you can take your risks for yourself, so you feel comfortable going out without a mask. You’ve been told this lie that it’s possible to completely recover from a COVID infection, so you assume that even if you do catch it, that’s what’ll happen to you, despite evidence showing that every body is indelibly changed by an infection, and that risk only grows with each subsequent infection.

And the greatest lie of all — that only the sick or elderly have anything to fear from COVID — has given you unfounded confidence in your own “good” genes or immune system or fitness. You can get long COVID even if you’re in peak form — in fact, may even be more likely to be hit hard.

So you have decided, individually and collectively, that only the sick or elderly should have to take precautions, and you freewheel through life, only to get surprised and dismayed when you bump into COVID in the wild. It’s back, people declare every summer or winter, as though it ever left.

But I want you to really think about the implications of your choice. Besides yourself. Because let’s be honest here, that’s who you’ve been thinking about, right? Your risk. Your comfort. Never mind your bubble, never mind the bubble of everyone you come into contact with, never mind the people like me who are literally hiding from people like you.

You’re not masking at the doctor’s office. You’re not masking at the airport. You’re not masking at the giant superspreader you just attended, and you’re not masking in the bars and restaurants where we know the virus flourishes. And then you’re bringing that exposure back to your family and friends. Back to the grocery store, where you run across people like my husband, shopping for someone who is unsafe to leave the house, or your elderly neighbors, or an immunocompromised employee.

You’re a good person, or you like to think of yourself that way. That’s why when you’re asked to mask, you dismiss it out of hand — because that changed behavior implies that you’ve been doing something wrong.

And my friend, I’m telling this because I love you: you have been. You might have been doing that on faulty information, but be honest with yourself and with me — you’ve heard me begging people to take this seriously. You’ve seen the information I’ve been sharing. You have had the opportunity to seek out the correct information all along, and you have chosen not to.

It isn’t too late to change your view of the risk you’re imposing on the people around you. It’s not too late to push public health to become more effective. It’s not too late to act in solidarity and be the inclusive person you think you are. It’s not too late to take care of yourself.

Ultimately, that’s what I have been screaming myself hoarse about. I don’t want you to end up with what I have. I don’t want you to inadvertently impose that on someone else. And yes, I’ve been angry, because you’ve been advertising your absolute lack of concern with group shots of your naked faces on social media. It doesn’t seem to bother you that I am stuck at home like it’s 2020, except for doctors’ appointments that I literally have to risk my life to go to. You’ve told yourself that it’s not your problem, because only the sick and elderly have to take precautions.

You know better. You can do better. For your community, yourself, and me, do better.

Please. I love you.

Anna

PS. If you’re feeling upset and embarrassed right now, the best thing you can do is take action. Get yourself good masks (the surgicals and cloth ones don’t cut it anymore), donate to mask blocs so others can access good masks, write to your representatives and the President, comment on upcoming CDC guidance, schedule yourself a booster, and talk to your loved ones about doing better, too. The only way we get out of this is with community care. So care.

[drdemonprince]

Do you have any advice on hooking up when being very COVID concious? I want to venture into casual sex a bit more (I've just gotten to the point in working through trauma stuff that I think I can do it healthily - I'm including no conventional sex BDSM in 'sex' here, bc it does Feel like sex to me), but I live with an immunocompromised person and don't want to put them at risk.

I guess what's holding me back at the moment is knowing I'm gonna be asking a lot from partners on just the COVID front (do a NAT test + be in a room with an air purifier before my mask comes off), before I even get to the compatibility thing (I like myself but I'm a fat hairy transmasc who's repulsed by bottoming and mostly stone, so I know I'm an incredibly niche taste), and feeling like it's so unlikely to work out I shouldn't waste time bothering?

Why give up on yourself and on the conscientiousness of potential partners by never asking? I think you and lots of other COVID conscientious hotties are missing out on the chance to get to know one another if you don't put it out into the world that you exist. There are people out there pining away for a hot, fat trans masc stone top who packs a strap and a portable HEPA air filter, I hear from them all the time.

I would recommend making a post to Lex just laying out your interests and then some of your COVID protocols. COVID-Conscious Stone [Verse/Top] Seeks Bottom for Air Purified Fun is definitely gonna get some bites, if your area is anything like mine! I think it's better for you to lay out your COVID safety protocols in the text of your post -- you don't want to have to waste time heavily vetting a ton of incompatible partners.

You should remember that your caring about COVID risk is an ASSET you are offering to compatible partners, not a burdensome ask! The right people will be thrilled to see that there's still others out there who care about COVID and are doing all that's in their power to make socializing & intimacy risk-mitigated. Even people whom you aren't sexually compatible with will feel immense relief just seeing that your post acknowledges COVID as a serious risk. You're helping to normalize necessary conversations and make the entire space more accessible to disabled people just by being there as yourself, with your boundaries and limits.

The same thing goes for you being stone and not enjoying bottoming. Do you know just how many bottoms are out there who want a cute fat masc to top them??? Thousands of them, dog! You are what you are and what you are is fucking GREAT. And a lot of prospective sexual partners out there in the world are not good for YOU. And so you can filter them out and move on to the next prospect rather than thinking of yourself as a product languishing on the shelf. You have a lot to offer, and you'll find people who get you.

[lilliancdoodles]

FitMC quote book (feel free to add on) Inspired by @hepbaestus

"Your ass is grass and Ramon is the weed wacker"

"im not white im olive"

"I know the Geneva Convention is more like a Geneva Suggestion but.."

"im just a silly little bald boy"

"IT MEANS PUSSY?????????"

"if you disable mines you are disrespecting the entire Hispanic community"

“ARE YOU TRYING TO GIRLBOSS GASLIGHT ME?”

"when im cold I don't joke about murdering children, but thats just me"

"Fit it's time to sin with me" -Phil "you're acting like it's the first time" -Fit

"so much sussy Baka activity"

"I broke Jesus's face.."

"Think of me like an American Philza but im bald and a little more fucked up"

"we got spawn camped by tony the fucking tiger"

"I love balls so much"

"im pretty sure if I tried to do puppy eyes I would look like a crack addict"

"Bad, take your shirt off"

"What did kelp stand for again? 'Kill Every Living Person'?"

"I see TNT explosions that are sexy"

"Sneeg, shut up, im doing gay roleplay right now"

"Ill stop shaking my ass ramon, don't drown yourself please"

"I need my gay support slug"

"No one loves lesbians more than fitmc does"

"My sexuality is wario"

"I want to thank my 𝐵𝓇𝒶𝓏𝒾𝓁𝒾𝒶𝓃 𝐵𝑜𝓎𝒻𝓇𝒾𝑒𝓃𝒹"

“The IRS was like ‘We saw you had a new source of income in 2023, care to explain that?’ And I’m like ‘Yeah, gay minecraft roleplay!’”

"Maidenless runt? I HAVE A BRAZILIAN BOYFRIEND BITCH"

"this cave is full of children and I'm god's hungriest Pitbull"

"do emo kids still exist?"

"Pro-wrestling is Hillbilly Shakespeare"

"i'll be a monkey's bare assed uncle"

"Just think about this Phil, in a few days im gonna get my hands on you"

"Hotdogs are gender-fluid in a way"

"guuuuuuurl same"

"I am crazy, and sexually ambiguous enough to do it."

"You know, just... just raw-dogging life with a smooth brain. It's not easy sometimes but someone's gotta do it."

[anghraine]

There's this weird genre of post I've periodically seen that's like "It bothers me that autistic people come onto this site and vent about the pressure to accommodate mainstream social norms that seem unnatural to them, and these people just don't seem to get that mainstream social norms serve a function that makes them right and good, so 'help' consisting of pressuring autistic people into unnatural 24/7 performance is actually great. Really, autistic people need to meet the allistics halfway and accommodate us as well!"

Obviously, these posts aren't phrased this way—the style is usually more patronizingly helpful with a hint of chiding autistic strangers for venting on their own blogs about one of the most basic diagnostic criteria of autism. But the thing that always strikes me about these "helpful" explanations is how incredibly sheltered they seem.

I can't speak for all autistic people. But a lot of treatment for autism has historically been rooted in teaching autistic people to mimic "normal" behavior as much as possible. Success has often been understood less in terms of the strain of this mimicry on autistic people or how viscerally unpleasant it is for an autistic person to perform this way, and more in terms of the comfort of people around us. The less perceptible our symptoms are to other people, the greater the perception of success in most cases, although research increasingly suggests that "social camouflaging" is actively harmful to autistic people no matter how good we seem at it.

Yes, there's a reason for social norms. I know. Many of us know. We have been incessantly told this our entire lives and live under extreme pressure to adapt to the allistic world. We are under vastly more pressure to accommodate the social norms of our communities than most allistic people seem to even remotely grasp. All this "don't label yourself, it's all just a social construction" and "you're high-functioning, though, so-" and "WELL ACTUALLY it is morally incumbent on you to imitate our social norms" only makes this absolute abyss of ignorance seem all the deeper. It feels rather like Protestant proselytizers in the USA who walk up and are like "have you heard about Jesus?!" as if it is remotely possible to live in this country without hearing about Jesus.

Secondly, the idea that the weight of accommodating these different experiences should rest equally on allistic and autistic people is actually pretty grotesque—yes, even if you're talking about autistic people without specifically intellectual disabilities. Where is all this endless understanding and patience for the allistic world we're expected to develop when it comes to accommodating us? Usually completely absent, and even when we do receive some degree of empathy, it still seems incredibly unequal to the demand on us.

But even if that were not the case, the idea that ethically, the people with, you know, autism are under some moral onus to equally accommodate allistic people (especially allistic people who do not have any similar disabilities themselves, which is most of them!) is absurd. Most allistic people are more able to adapt to changing circumstances than autistic people and experience less strain from doing it, they are better and faster at correctly interpreting social situations and emotional cues, and social performance is easier and more natural for them, and they overwhelmingly outnumber autistic people. The logic here just seems absurd.

And thirdly this scary danger of "high functioning" autistic people not trying to accommodate the norms and comfort of allistic people on some broad scale is not happening. Here's one fairly clear discussion that isn't paywalled:

In fact, high-functioning ASD individuals were reported to be more aware of their communication difficulties and were more likely make considerable efforts to adjust their behavior to conventional rules of non-autistic individuals, learning to imitate other non-ASD individuals. Moreover, females reported a higher frequency of camouflaging strategies, suggesting a role of camouflaging in the gender gap of the ASD diagnosis. Although camouflaging strategies can sometimes grant a better level of adjustment, even resulting in a hyper-adaptive behavior, they are also often correlated with negative mental health consequences due to the long-term stress associated with continuous attempts to adapt in day-to-day life.

Seriously, the world being just too easy on autistic people and letting them actually show signs of being autistic (God forbid) without sufficient chiding is not a thing. It's not real in any significant large-scale way; the exact reverse is vastly more common. Annoying autistic people on Tumblr dot com are not a social problem.

[commsroom]

as an extension of how hera reads as trans to me, hera/eiffel resonates with me specifically as a relationship between a trans woman and a cis man. loving hera requires eiffel to decentralize his own perspective in a way that ties into both his overall character arc and the themes of the show.

pop culture is baked into the dna of wolf 359, into eiffel’s worldview, and in how it builds off of a sci-fi savvy audience’s assumptions: common character types, plot beats, or dynamics, why would a real person behave this way? how would a real person react to that? eiffel is the “everyman” who assumes himself to be the default. hera is the “AI who is more human than a lot of humans,” but it doesn’t feel patronizing because it isn’t a learned or moral quality; she is a fundamentally human person who is routinely dehumanized and internalizes that.

eiffel/hera as a romance is compelling to me because there is a narrative precedent for some guy/AI or robot woman relationships in a way i think mirrors some attitudes about trans women: it’s a male power fantasy about a subclass of women, or it’s a cautionary tale, or it’s a deconstruction of a power fantasy that criticizes the way men treat women as subservient, as property. but what does that pop culture landscape mean in the context of desire? If you are a regular person, attracted to a regular person, who really does care for you and wants to do right by you, but is deeply saturated in these expectations? how do you navigate that?

I think that, in itself, is an aspect of communication worth exploring. sometimes you won’t get it. sometimes you can’t. and that’s not irreconcilable, either. it’s something wolf 359 is keenly aware of, and, crucially, always sides with hera on. eiffel screws up. he says insensitive things without meaning to. often, hera will call him out on it, and he will defer to her. in the one case where he notably doesn’t, the show calls attention to it and makes him reflect. it’s not a coincidence that the opening of shut up and listen has eiffel being particularly dismissive of hera - the microaggression of separating her from “men and women” and the insistence on using his preferred title over hers. there are things eiffel has just never considered before, and caring for hera the way he does means he has to consider them. he's never met someone like hera, but media has given him a lot of preconceptions about what people like her might be like.

there’s a whole other discussion to be had about the gender dynamics of wolf 359, even in the ways the show tries to avoid directly addressing them, and how sexual autonomy in particular can’t fully be disentangled from explorations of AI women. i don’t think eiffel fully recognizes what comments like “wind-up girl” imply, and the show is not prepared to reconcile with it, but it’s interesting to me. in the context of transness (and also considering hera’s disability, two things i think need to be discussed together), i think it’s worth discussing how hera’s self image is at odds with the way people perceive her, her disconnect from physicality, how she can’t be touched by conventional means, and the ways in which eiffel and hera manage to bridge that gap.

even the desire for embodiment, and the autonomy and type of intimacy that comes with it, means something different when it’s something she has to fight for, to acquire, to become accustomed to, rather than a circumstance of her birth. i suppose the reason i don’t care for half measures in discussions re: hera and embodiment is also because, to me, it is in many ways symbolically a discussion about medical transition, and the social fear of what’s “lost” in transition, whether or not those things were even desired in the first place.

hera’s relationship with eiffel is unquestionably the most supportive and equal one she has, but there are still privileges, freedoms, and abilities he has that she doesn’t, and he forgets that sometimes. he will never share her experiences, but he can choose to defer to her, to unlearn his pop culture biases and instead recognize the real person in front of him, and to use his own privilege as a shield to advocate for her. the point, to me - what’s meaningful about it - is that love isn’t about inherent understanding, it’s about willingness to listen, and to communicate. and that’s very much at the heart of the show.

[nekropsii]

What a about Caliborn makes him so cool in your opinion?

Go keep track of his progression as an artist alongside his development as a character and think about how these are intrinsically linked. Ponder the fact that he is both at his most obnoxious and at his most amateur when trying to ignore his unique style explicitly brought on by his canonical learning disability and mimic others rather than truly be himself. Consider how his explorations of art are genuinely cool, not a bad thing, and how we get some really neat multimedia stuff out of it.

Caliborn may be a shitty little teenage wretch but the way he is portrayed as an artist and as a disabled person is both really good and very real. It comes from a place of love. His learning disability is handled with a degree of gentle care that you would not really expect from Hussie. The place Caliborn's art style ends up in is so fucking sick and I actually unironically love it. The technique he uses is really interesting. It's intentionally reminiscent of an Etch-a-Sketch, and I'm a little obsessed with it.

This is so fucking good. I mean this seriously. He's right - that is some Pure Art Skill.

I just love the way art is employed as a necessary component of his character arc. It's so neat. You don't see visual cues that intricate too often. Usually it's just in character design, but watching his entire art style and even his medium of choice change several times over is fascinating. You can really tell Hussie had a lot of fun with him. He's also just really, really fucking funny. Just about every sentence that comes out of his mouth is Grade A Absolute Fucking Gold, and I'm honestly obsessed with his dynamic with Dirk. This may get me thrown to the wolves, but I personally think Dirk and Caliborn have way more chemistry than Dirk and Jake. Maybe that's because we actually see Dirk and Caliborn interact on screen... Lmao.

Necessary Topic: I don't know why people hate him so much. Like, I understand hating his misogyny and fatphobia, sure, but those are deliberate character points and not just Hussie-isms. I see people act like Caliborn is indicative of Hussie, as if Homestuck-era Hussie wasn't, like, famously really fucking good at writing female characters and absolutely not a misogynist. Caliborn's a parody of Homestuck Anti-Fans - which is a term we really ought to bring back, god, anti-fans are absolutely still a thing and good lord they're everywhere - who really were just shitty little bigoted haters. Calliope, the opposite side of his coin, was representative of, essentially, "the best kind of Homestuck fan" - an ultimately sweet young teen girl who willingly dedicates almost all of her time to this piece of fiction she loves so, so much, who draws a lot of fan art for the joy of it all, has OCs that don't fit any of the design conventions in Homestuck whom she pairs with the characters in it for innocent fun. Someone who has a lot of theories and analyses, writes a lot of fanfic, and is genuinely just having a lot of fun. Everyone loves Calliope. Even the characters in Homestuck love Calliope. They just think she's the cutest, sweetest little thing they ever did see. Caliborn was the worst kind. He sucks on purpose. No one likes him. He is a total nuisance to characters he is by all means trying to impress. I love them both.

It's also just funny that he's a canonical Intersex Transmasc who is probably Gay and this has, like, no relevance to anything about him, really. So no one really talks about it. Gender Hilarious, Gender Nefarious.

[ichayalovesyou]

Why Do Old-School TV Duos Have SUCH MLM Vibes?!

I think there’s something very specific about the formula and writing style of non-serialized/semi-serialized shows from the 60s to 80s that featured two grown men going on wacky dangerous adventures that makes my gay little literary analysis brain go absolutely off the wall bonkers. I’m trying to figure out why!

I’m writing this on my Trek blog because I don’t think this pattern in people actually shipping these types of relationships the way they do if fandom as we know it wasn’t born via TOS in syndication. That being said! I also think it has to do with the way these shows are designed that makes myself and others OBSESSED with a specific character dynamic that feels (to me) damn near impossible to replicate in modern television. In a way that’s more than just fandom, it’s in the way TV like this was written at the time!

Further explanation under the cut!

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

I think what it usually boils down to is this. There’s a charming protagonist whom without the series could not operate, frequently top billed or the title character! (See: Wild Wild West, Starsky & Hutch) BUT he doesn’t have anyone to play off of! So what do they do pretty much every single time? Give Mr. Idealized Vision of Time-Period Masculinity For Genre a second guy to rhyme with!

See but the other guy has to play opposite but parallel to our hypermasculine protagonist. So what frequently ends up happening is that in order to play off our “normal” guy, even though he’s also a white dude, is that he’s still somehow Other.

They’re always perfect for each other, and they always get into scenarios that would be written, shot and interpreted by conventional audiences as romantic IF either one of those characters were a woman! Especially at the time these shows were made in.

If the one is aggressive, the other is gentle. If the protagonist is violent, his counterpart is intellectual. If the one is stoic, the other is emotional. Which (while one size def doesn’t fit all) usually makes the second guy come off as much more queer-coded (and sometimes other minorities like neurodivergent/disabled etc) than the other because of the traits associated with masculinity vs gayness at the time! Our prime examples in these gifs are Spock, Hutch, Artemus, and also *BJ!

*(M*A*S*H is a bit of a unique case since the show flirts with queerness more openly in ways that people more into the series have explained better than me but I think it still fits the formula I’m discussing.)

Here’s the thing though right? We’ve got two best friends, and the show NEVER really feels right if one of them is missing unless the focus of the story is how A & B operate without each other while trying to find the other one. They stick with and rescue each other unfailingly in scenarios that might destroy a regular friendship.

Hell, there’s often stuff that would emotionally/physically destroy a regular person/character in modern media. But because it’s not serialized they always seem to pull through seemingly through the power of friendship alone or dealing with it off-screen! Emotional consequences? Yuck! (Unless it’s M*A*S*H or Starsky & Hutch, like I said, not monolithic)

Here’s the thing that some people might say throws a wrench into the interpretation I’m discussing. What about the absolutely non-stop parade of conventionally attractive women the main protagonist (and less frequently the supporting man) goes through?

I would reply: how many of those female characters actually emotionally impact our protagonists as characters long term?

The answer is of course, because it’s NOT serialized, almost none! Kirk can watch Edith Keeler get killed by a car accident and still be making eyes at Spock the next episode. Hawkeye can have a “life changing” romance with a Vietnamese humanitarian woman, then share a blanket with BJ next episode like she never existed!

The Doylist explanation of course is not just the fact it wasn’t serialized but also just, constant, blatant 20th century sexism. Which SUCKS!!! As well as not wanting a long term love interest to throw off the character dynamic of our duderagonists. It’s the 20th century tv equivalent of bros before hoes.

However the Watsonian explanation always seems to result in no love interest EVER being more important than what the two protagonists have no matter whether you think they’re queer or not. No attractive woman could make our reputed babe-hound protagonist abandon his buddy. There’s no earnest romance our more queer-coded supporting man doesn’t end (or get ended for him) often for the protagonist’s sake.

Now some of these women are incredibly well written and straight up GOOD matches for our guys. So why wouldn’t they get involved in something long term UNLESS!! They were in love with each other the WHOLE time?

What if protagonist (frequently the babe hound) doesnt know he’s queer, or knows but doesn’t know he’s in love with his bestie, or any number of similar fruity explanations? The supporting man also runs into this explanation but people tend to believe he’s already aware that he’s queer but either also doesn’t know he’s in love or is keeping it to himself because time-period homophobia and/or thinking (probably not unreasonably) that babe hound is straight?

Between the inherent closeness of being narrative foils. The regularly scheduled life or death drama creating sometimes insanely romantic (in the narrative if not a literal sense) drama between the two. The revolving door of weekly women they never seem to get attached to enough to leave one another. The non-serialized nature resulting in sparse personal information/history about the protagonists as a result.

I think between the very NATURE of the way tv shows were written at the time. Plus the way fandom was shaped by a dynamic that has rippled through how media works and is interpreted by fans for decades upon decades. It’s not hard to imagine getting really emotionally invested in the possibility of the protagonists being in love is a fantastic way to enjoy the media!

In conclusion, it’s really fun and easy to go “these bitches gay! Good for them good for them!”

[genderqueerdykes]

i just had the sudden realization due to your blog that it’s okay for me to simply be ugly. I don’t have to be conventionally attractive, or attractive by the standards of an alternative community or by any sort of niche queer circle i can literally just be ugly and that’s okay. and I can also not care <3 idk if i’m ugly or pretty or anything and it doesn’t matter cause it is enough for me to just be.

i’m a disabled person for who body neutrality was huge for learning how to be at peace with my disorders, and body positivity never did anything for me, so it kind of blows my mind that i never really thought of this sooner tbh

anyways thank u!!! i am starting to feel more comfortable in my body thanks to you

YES!!!!!! YES YES YES FUCK YES

you can literally look however the fuck. you do NOT have to cover up ANYTHING on your body, you don't have to hide your natural features, or anything that came from surgery, or even body mods. there's nothing wrong with having features that don't fit into the conventional "norm" of what "looks good"- our bodies come in a million different shapes, naturally. we are not inherently imperfect. we do not have to strive to make our bodies and faces "perfect"

of course! hey you can't always go from one end to the other right away, i think learning body neutrality is a good way to go. it's okay to just be. it's alright. your comfort & autonomy supersedes all of that. i'm okay with being ugly, you're allowed to be okay with it, too.

take care of yourself, this made me smile. really glad tohear you had this realization. take care of yourself, have a good time out there. your body is yours and you deserve to be at peace with just existing in it.

[batboyblog]

I don't know who else to vent about this to but... Every time I see someone say something like "Would you like to speak, Mr president?" when a character on screen audibly, visibly stutters... I want to punch a fucking wall. Holy fuck. People's latent ableism towards people with stutters fucking shows, even if they don't realize it.

Joe Biden has a well known stutter, it's not his age that's making him slip up, as someone with a stutter I can see all the hallmarks when he starts. Just... Fuck. People really don't give a shit, do they? And I feel like I can't say anything because I'll be told I'm overreacting or "it's not that deep".

I can't say I've seen that, yet, I don't watch that much TV tbh, I'm always playing catch up on old shows that went off the air 10-20 years ago, keep meaning to watch Farscape.

any ways, I'm glad I've missed that. I can say that one of the first moments when I really connected with Joe Biden as a solidly good guy was a moment on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. A dad brought his 13 year old son who was a bad stutterer to see Joe speak, and the second the MOMENT! he told Biden, Joe was just in dad mode building the kid up, telling him it was okay, gave him his personal phone number (a thing Biden does a lot) and talking about how he works with stutterers all over the country, still to this day.

and when Joe got the nomination in 2020? he had the kid speak at the Democratic National Convention

and guess what, it happened, again this year, this time in Wisconsin

some people think its small beans, you know, a stutter, who cares, its not a "real" disability, but I can see in the way he rushes to reassure these kids first of all "you're smart" the life long scars it leaves to have everyone assume you're stupid because you can't get the words out right. The strength of the assumption that if you're disabled, if you have a label, that you must be a certain way, stupid, kind of comical, bumbling. And I saw all that in the nasty effort to push him out, but in the end well.

thats the story, a kid with a stutter from Scranton, Pennsylvania, who didn't go to a Ivy League school, went all the way to the very top.

[evergardenwall]

a few things i've been doing and that you should do to help with feelings of anxiety/doom:

1) first, literally, disable notifications from news outlets apps, and stop watching live 24/7 tv news. like. at least, for me, it helps, because this shit triggers so much anxiety in me, and makes me spiral; i much prefer looking up the news from my own volition. even if it is also anxiety-inducing, it is not as overwhelming and i feel like i have some control/can process information better

2) spend time with your loved ones irl. hug them, talk about what you're feeling if this can help, or do an activity together that can distract you! back in april 2022, between the two rounds of the french election, i was having a full mental breakdown, and my mum took me on a day out, visiting local villages and just. getting out of the house and visiting other place and breathing fresh air helped a lot.

3) kind of a followup to 2) but, go on a walk ! pace around, breathe the outside air—i cannot stress it enough, it helps with calming down racing thoughts, at least for me :)

4) if you are having difficulty to eat/have no appetite, please, eat a little something anyway; having an empty stomach does not help. go for something easy to prepare and/or a safe food. i just had a banana and a bowl of cereal for lunch—not the most conventional lunch, i know, but at least, i ate something even though i wasn't feeling hungry and nothing motivated me to eat :')

5) if you are feeling intrusive thoughts, feeling like you are responsible for the outcome of this election, and feeling guilty for not doing enough — please, please, don't guilt-trip yourself. you did what you could. this is something way bigger than us, an accumulation of many things, including structural racism, inequalities in access to voting, the gradual rise of fascism, and the system being deeply flawed, all the harmful shit that stayed from the orange man's first term and which long-term consequences built up to this.

6) please, remember that your vote wasn't worthless. i promise. you did the right thing by getting out of your house, going to the polling station, waiting in line for hours to make your voice heard, and i am deeply thankful you did it. genuinely. and remember that this election was going to be close. i'm not saying that there isn't criticism to be made about people who refused to vote, or voted third party — they have a huge responsibility —, but you, the average person worried about the democracy, who showed up and voted blue? i do not want you to feel like your vote was useless and give up. please.

7) remember that very bad things have happened in the past too, yet we're still here. hang on this fact. we're alive, and we're here.

8) repeat of 2 but: you should hug your loved ones. and i am sending you hugs, too—especially if you're from a vulnerable demographic (a racial minority, LGBTQ+, etc.) 🫂 you are not alone!

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

It is not even that Mlvns are homophobic. I mean, many of the toxic ones are. We’ve all seen them and interacted with them and received hate anons from them. When Noah’s article officially confirming Will’s sexuality dropped during the summer, people were literally tweeting slurs and fantasizing about him being hate-crimed or dying from AIDS. (It’s probably unfair to group Mlvns in with these people, as lots of them weren’t even Mlvns, just bigoted GA members and trolls). But still. It was bleak. There’s a deep darkness within the ST fandom undeniably.

But I’m sure many Mlvns/Byler-antis are the types of people who genuinely have no problem with queer people in real life. When we call them out on their bigotry and homophobia, they get confused and say, “But I have gay friends! How am I homophobic for not liking Byler?” And they mean it 100%. They really do have gay friends. They probably consider themselves allies and yada yada.

The issue is that A) they are deeply heteronormative without realizing it, and B) they simply aren’t the target audience for the show, and as such, they don’t really understand or connect to the themes of the show. The thing is, lots of people, many Milkvans included, are simply normies. Now I love Steve as a character, so this is literally no hate to Steve, but lots of people are Steves. And people who are like Steve: popular, straight, attractive, used to dating the types of people they want, into ‘normal’ interests like sports (not that Steve is hyper into sports, but you know what I mean), likely to go down ‘normal’ paths and live fairly conventional lives like their parents, etc. are simply not the target audience for the show.

Obviously, the show centers on outcasts, nerds, queer characters, characters with disabilities, black characters, etc. Most people recognize this on some level, but they recognize it in more of a general sense like, “Of course the protagonists are nerds/outcasts, just like all the classic 80s teen protagonists. I just love how nostalgic ST is!” And they leave it at that. Because they are normies, they don’t really connect to the themes of the show other than a surface-level, power of friendship sense. They don’t see how Byler is more aligned with the show’s message than Milkvan at this point. They don’t see that the outcast status of most of the characters is more than just a throwaway personality trait… its deeply integral to the point of the show itself and closely connected to the supernatural storyline.

This is because nerd culture is somewhat mainstream now, and lots of “normies” like it too. Star Wars, Marvel, LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. These are all major parts of society and billion dollar franchises, even more so than they were in the 80s. Because of this, people don’t realize that in the context of the world of the show, they wouldn’t have been friends with the Party most likely. It is far more statistically likely that they would’ve rolled with Angela’s friend group or joined Jason’s human hunting squad. Or even if they weren’t outright bullies, it’s far more likely that they would’ve been one of the nameless background characters in Hawkins High, just kind of floating by in a conventionally comfortable existence, entirely oblivious to government lab conspiracies and alternate dimensions. The characters in ST are outcasts in a deeper, existential sense. Society is against them.

And so many people can’t relate, especially to the queer themes. They can’t even see the queer themes. Because the show is not for them. That’s why you see so many baffling takes on the show:

“Will is so whiny all the time, and I don’t like him!”

“Mike was right in the rain fight! S3 is about growing up, and Will was acting like a baby.”

“Tbh I don’t care that much about the Party dynamics. My favorite part of the show is Steve and Dustin being funny together. And my second favorite part is Hopper being a cool action hero.”

“B*lly is overhated! I mean, he’s so hot and misunderstood! He could’ve redeemed himself.”

“I don’t get Byler. It barely seems like Mike and Will are even friends.”

To be clear, it doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy the genre of the show. Being horror/sci-fi, its core fans are a smaller pool of people than, say, fans of The Office or Friends or other popular sitcoms. So the Mlvns who watched it since the beginning probably do have some avant-garde tastes in terms of genre-preferences, since lots of people wouldn’t touch horror with a ten-foot pole. But it does mean they don’t pick up on the themes of the show and the arc of the characters.

(Of course, many newer fans now are just watching it cause it’s popular, regardless of which genres they typically prefer. This opens the show up to lots of people who don’t connect to anything about the show, not just its themes but also its darker content. A lot of newer fans sound like this: “Like, I just love that Mike was in love with El from the day he found her in the woods, and it’s so cute that El is Mike’s superhero, and Eddie is so cool and badass; I wish he could’ve told Chrissy how he felt, and I’m anxiously awaiting S5 to see who Nancy chooses but I hope she chooses Steve… Stancy 4ever!” This is because Stancy is like every other conventionally attractive couple in media).

I’m rambling, but a lot of people are into Milkvan because of their expectations that “pretty boy and pretty girl go together,” and that’s all there is to it. Finn is attractive and Millie is attractive, and they play the protagonists, so of course Mike and El are endgame. Why wouldn’t they be? This is true for the girls who project themselves onto Millie and see Finn/Mike as a dream boyfriend, and it’s true for the guys who project themselves onto Finn and who would want nothing more than to have a cool, superpowered girlfriend.

This is the way of nature. In a normie worldview, there’s no deviation from this path. A lot of fans basically take The Kissing Booth/To All the Boys I Loved Before and slap a sci-fi/horror filter on it, and they think that’s what Stranger Things is. It’s a cool show where kids fight monsters, and there are normal, heterosexual romances like Mlvn to root for, and there’s a badass superhero main character at the center.

Oh, there’s a gay character too? Well, that’s weird. I mean, y’all already have Robin, but whatever. I’m not homophobic! I’m cool with Will being gay… as long as he stays over there. Oh, he’s in love with Mike? Well, that’s even weirder. Why would the writers do that? I suppose that’s fine, as long as it’s just a little crush, and as long as it doesn’t get in the way of “the main storyline” and my OTP. I’m not homophobic, I swear! I have gay friends!

And they do. And they might not actively be against LGBTQ+ people in real life. They may really be telling the truth. But because they are Steves, this is where heteronormativity comes into play and blinds them. Main couples in shows are always straight, so the cool sci-fi, monster show they love must also be. They’re fine with Kevin Kellers, but queer Mike doesn’t fit the box that they allot to gay characters. So Mike must be the straightest character of all time to fight back against “weird delusional Byler theories” that would “come out of nowhere.” It’s not that they’re actively anti-gay; it’s that they are profoundly closed-minded and have a very myopic view of sexuality/storytelling/their favorite characters/their favorite shows. This is very similar to the XO, Kitty situation and people who were upset that Kitty was ‘suddenly’ bi and had a crush on Yuri.

WHAT?! Where did this come from? I thought I was watching a normal rom-com! I was fine with the gay characters on it who were clearly televised from the beginning! But Kitty? No! Kitty’s my self-insert. How can she like girls too? It must be a phase and be “less real” than her male love interests. This isn’t Heartstopper. The same weird energy is present in the ST fandom.

Byler being semi-canon isn’t seen as confirmation of a love triangle; it’s seen as a disruption to the norm and the foregone conclusion that Mike and El will be together forever and get married and have telekinetic children because the show owes that to them for all they’ve been through. “But why is Will inserted into their scenes?” we ask them, begging them to see reason. “Idk, but he should know his place and stop being a homewrecker and go find a new boy to like. Just leave the soulmates alone. Mike has already made clear he’s straight and that Will is nothing more than a friend. He said it in the roller rink!” This is how heteronormativity works.

That’s why Byler endgame will be so important because it will shatter preconceived notions and open people’s eyes to the beautiful tapestry of humanity. And they will see that this powerful, queer, coming-of-age, love story was right there, under their noses, in their “fun sci-fi monster show” this whole time. *Mind Blown*

[deramin2]

Essek constantly gushing about his partner but pointedly not giving his name hits me so hard in the feels.

Two formative childhood experiences for me:

ONE

I was severely, mercilessly bullied as a child at every school I went to even if they're was no overlap of kids, and authority figures either ignored me or directly told me it was my fault. I was socially toxic. Any other kid who publicly associated with me was also targeted for harassment. I was best friends with a girl around the corner but because I was a couple years younger (in itself an invitation for bullying) and a parish, we could never let anyone know we were friends.

I've been told I should be upset at her for this, but it wasn't her fault. It was the other children who made it a fact that she would be harmed by publicly being my friend. She didn't make those rules, we were both just honest that it existed and there was nothing we could do to change that. The best we could do to survive was at least protect her. And that benefited me by actually having a friend.

So if we talked about each other it was"my friend." No names. No acknowledging we knew each other in public. No introductions to other friends. Keeping that divide up was necessary to survival. I had a couple friends on the same freak level as we and we were in fact targeted with additional harassment to get to the other person. It was a legitimate threat to live with. At some point I just stopped thinking it was ever necessary to reveal who my friends or family are unless it's both explicitly relevant and necessary.

TWO

I learned to use the internet in the late 1990s when anonymity was considered a best practice. Don't give out your age, sex, location, or other identifying information. You don't know who is on the other side of that screen or what they will do to you if they know. Sperate your online and offline worlds to protect yourself.

This helped reinforce experience one because clearly adults also acted like those kids and this just normal human behavior no one will ever put a stop to that you need to be on guard for at all times. Build in air gaps so if one of you is compromised it's harder for the perpetrator to get to other people you care about. Defending them through anonymity is a way of showing you love them.

Also since some family are searchable through have state government jobs that right-wing nut jobs chips target them for, I wanted to make sure they couldn't be connected to me as a queer trans disabled person active online. In case something I said led to them being targeted.

(This is correct advice, even though it flies in the face of modern online conventions. There are tons of malicious people on three internet who will target you and anyone you love if they decide to hurt you.)

RESULT

By default, I refer to people by their relationship to me, not their name. My friend, my partner, my parent, my family, someone I know, etc. Often I avoid gendering them to make it even harder to identify them. I have to consciously consider if the person I'm talking to has any reason to know my associate's name. Blacklist everyone, then whitelist exceptions.

I do this even if both people know each other because the specific association feels dangerous. Better to be viewed as acquaintances than a meaningful relationship that changes how either of us could be viewed. It's not even really a judgement on thinking the person is untrustworthy, I just don't want to spend any extra energy thinking about it. It doesn't even feel relevant because my relationship to this person fellas like it conveys more information that actually matters.

ESSEK

Essek knows both he and Caleb are being targeted by powerful people who have shown they will target loved ones to get to them. Additionally, tensions between the Empire and Dynasty are still high and it could very easily compromise how their own sides view them if it's known that they're romantically entangled with someone from the other side. It could also blow each other's cover and make their meeting places more vulnerable to attack. Especially if their enemies know they could hit both of them at once.

It's genuinely dangerous for their connection to be known, so they don't name names. It's not even a matter of whether Bell's Hells would intentionally misuse that information, but what they also could just let slip to the wrong person. It's not really worth the risk when "my partner" is all the information they actually need to understand him.

My guess is that Essek said "Bren" is hiss partner because they already know a Bren sent them to Astrid. And since Caleb no longer uses the name Bren it would be much harder to connect them. It would have caused more questions, more prying, and more risk to give no name for his partner when directly pressed. So he gives a truthful but less dangerous answer. The anonymity is an act of love.

[bioethicists]

responding to this with my shitty redaction because i'm not comfortable posting obvious bait with people's names in them (particularly dead names) but i just wanted to point out the ways in which this ask is prototypical bait written to purposefully generate drama or controversy (idk if this is in a kiwifarms trolling with right wing motives sense or an 'i love drama' person) by trying to appeal to online leftist culture/the fear of being 'problematic'. i see ppl fall for this constantly + i need people to start learning to recognize the signs instead of either engaging or using this as evidence that leftists are stupid/petty/hypocritical (which many of us are, but in much less amusing ways, unfortunately)

the implication that there is a single founder of the "neurodiversity movement" + that evoking this movement at all (which i don't do + i think it's actually pretty evident that my politics are distinct from the much more bioessentialist politics of those who prefer that term, which is part of what led me to conclude that this is a copypasta) is supporting the founder. tracing a broad social concept to a single individual, then disparaging that individual as morally unsound (by evoking other explosive, petty pieces of discourse, like baeddalism + transandrophobia) in order to provoke doubt, fear or anger. demonstrates a hope that leftists will flinch away from anything associated with anyone 'problematic' without applying any critical thinking.

misrepresenting complex events (or fabricating them entirely- idk if these things happened + i simply couldn't care enough to find out) in a way that hits the pressure points of performative activism (she's being mean to an autistic person! other people of color agree with me! this other person is anti physically disabled people!) while also betraying reactionary opinions through language use/implications (claiming to care about 'transandrophobia' yet deadnaming someone? claiming to care about specific events at specific autism conferences but using terms like "severely autistic"? saying you have spoken to "Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, American Indians" lmao did you type this out based on census checkboxes from the 70s?). the author of this ask is clearly not a member of the activist communities they claim to be from because they accidentally slip into the speech conventions + opinions of a kiwifarms/4chan loser who does a lot of hatereading. this one did a good job of hitting the bingo card of divisive intracommunity issues rn- great research skills, bud! put them to better use <3

reframing reactionary beliefs using leftist concepts. this works because many of us do not have a foundational politic outside of "well, i want to be good, so I'm going to support the things that other people i trust say are good". which doesn't make you bad (there is no good or bad! learn this now + quick, if you really want to play a part in building a better world) but it makes you easy to manipulate + unlikely to be capable of meaningful change. notice that the claims this ask is asserting are, at their core, "people make up microaggressions to cause problems when really they could easily suck it up" + "people fake disabilities and being trans for attention". these are reactionary concerns, no matter how artfully they are dressed in social justice language. kiwifarms in particular was very, very good at this- they loved finding the people they stalked to be racist, homophobic, ableist, etc, not because they thought those things were wrong (it was their hobby to be these things!) but because they delighted in identifying hypocrisy, stirring up drama, + destroying people's reputations.

this is hard to explain bcuz i blacked out the names, but if you have a passing familiarity with fascist/reactionary online spaces, particularly the history of kiwifarms, you will know that reactionaries have their own 'pet leftists', just like we have our 'pet fascists' (shapiro, alex jones, tucker carlson, etc). that is, ppl they obsessively follow, harass, + scrutinize + come to believe are representative of everything that we believe. these ppl are rarely ppl who are actually prominent in our online spaces but online reactionaries often believe we are just as obsessed with these people as they are, but as unquestioned paragons of virtue + brilliance. namedropping these ppl is often an accidental tip of the hat, particularly when the ppl aren't on tumblr, haven't been a topic of community discussion for quite some time, or run in a different circle than us (reactionaries don't understand that there are actually thousands of leftist social groups which have very little overlap with some others- pronouns in bio does not mean someone knows or cares about contrapoints, for instance)

tl;dr this ask is a fantastic example of the rhetorical features bait that someone might actually take seriously.