#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,…

[somelazyassartist]

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[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…

[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.

[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.

[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."

[leebrontide]

I ever tell y'all about the South African nun I used to work with?

She's the only nun I have ever personally known. No idea how good of an example she is. I'm guessing she's an outlier in many respects.

She had a masters in social work, and worked very hard at the addiction counseling center I used to work with. All her paycheck went to supporting the order. She was, indeed, a bit severe for my taste sometimes. I guess she followed the stereotype in that way.

But I was under the distinct impression she joined the order to help protect her from retribution for her anti-apartheid activism. Don't get me wrong, she was a big fan of Jesus, but she also used to sneak out of the convent when she was young to go clubbing. The met the Pope in jeans.

When I decided to be a good ally to deaf folks by being honest when I couldn't make out what someone was saying (lol. That was a learning experience) she was the first person to offer to tutor me in ASL. (First of 4. Turns out I'm kinda deaf.)

She was AGGRESSIVELY pro queer. Like if someone said something homophobic in her presence they were IN FOR IT.

And one time, she was called in for jury duty, and she was gone for over a month. Which, to be fucking honest, was a massive pain in the ass for the rest of us, who had to cover her work. At the end she came back, looking absolutely smug. Apparently they'd put her holy but on a jury looking to convict a young trans woman of something that, if you listened to anybody but the cops, she was obviously being framed for.

The prosecution pushed hard. Several jurors were willing to convict.

But this sweet, holy troll not only gave her entire paycheck from her work to the convent, her entire living came from her order. Which meant, out of the whole jury, she was the only one who could sit there in deliberation indefinitely without loosing a cent. And she sat her ass down and argued and protested and refused to budge until this girl was officially not guilty.

None of us were irritated for her being gone so long.

She didn't always know the right words, and she didn't understand everything, but she knew the main thing- take people at their word, and trust that they know their experiences and their selves better than you do. And she was always very kind about asking me questions that might irritate.

The final thing that won her my heart tho, actually came after I was fired from that job for, frankly, being disabled. Which you'd think would be illegal but since the manager had kindly offered me what looked like a good deal, to let me go contract instead of salary, for more flexible hours, they'd talked me into signing away many of my worker's protections. So, they could get away with it.

And this nun marched right into my boss's boss's office and blasted her with the full force of her catholic guilt beam. Or however that works. I don't know. I'm not Catholic. Boss-boss was reportedly in tears. As frankly she should be! Ableism in a therapy setting is a special level of evil. Common, but still evil.

I have no point, I was just thinking fondly of her this evening, and how sometimes your allies aren't where you expect them to be.

[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.

[chaifootsteps]

As an asexual person, when it comes to fictional characters being headcanoned or confirmed as ace, you kind of develop an instinctual “is this meant to be a legitimate portrayal or does the creator/fan just want an excuse to not consider them desirable/sexual?” reaction. You see the latter a lot when it comes to autistic/disabled/non-conventional characters in general so that’s genuinely how asexual Mammon feels to me too. Acting like Bee had an epic takedown on him for saying he’s just mad no one wanted to fuck him just adds to that.

In Viv's case, she takes the guesswork right out of it. It's absolutely an attempt to not consider them desirable/sexual.

[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!”

[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.

[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!