#it says a lot about how you view disabled people and like. our place in the world and society

[snapcracklepop-myjoints]

i do not care how well written that disabled main character is if you do not have a single visibly disabled extra in the background.

[cookinguptales]

Can I ask you to do a post about Disney & disability please? You mentioned it and I’d love to know more!

Well, my notifications can't get any messier, so why not?

This post got very, very long because I ended up talking about a lot of the accessibility solutions in detail (and... ranting about how accessibility at Universal was so bad that I got physically injured there) so I'm putting it under a cut for you.

To preface this, I have mobility issues (as well as a lot of food intolerances/allergies) and general chronic illness, my sister is Deaf, and I have friends who regularly attend the park with autistic family members with high support needs. These are the disabilities I have experience with, so while I've heard a bit about others (such as portable descriptive devices for visitors with visual impairments) I can't speak as much about those accommodations.

I have also traveled quite a bit, mostly as a disabled adult. I can work from anywhere and my family enjoys traveling, so I've been very lucky in this regard. I also used to live in central Florida, not too far from Disney, and benefited from their FL resident rates.

So I'm coming at this from a person who has a lot of experience traveling while disabled and a fair amount of experience going to WDW, though I haven't been nearly as often since I moved out of Florida.

(Good fucking riddance.)

So know that I am speaking from experience when I say I have never, without exception, been to a single place half as accessible as Walt Disney World. It is literally the reason my family would go there; it was one of the only places we could all safely go together. One of the only places I've been on earth that even approached their level of thoughtful accommodations is Barcelona, which apparently did significant renovations throughout the city in order to prepare for the 1992 Paralympics.

(Hey, if anyone is reading this from Barcelona: I teared up the first time I used one of your curb cuts in my wheelchair, just so you know.)

Going through those parks in a wheelchair is a breeze, though you will probably have to fight a lot of clueless parents with strollers who are hellbent on using resources intended for wheelchair-users and then glaring at you when you try to use them yourself. Level ground, spacious sidewalks, accessible transportation, well-kept gradual ramps, roomy buildings, lots of accessible restrooms, alternate entrances at many rides for wheelchair users, special wheelchair rows in movie theaters that we're loaded into first, accessible queues in most rides designed or renovated in the last fifteen years, special viewing areas for shows/parades/fireworks so you don't end up staring at able-bodied butts for a half hour...

Like, structurally-speaking, the parks are very easy to get around in if you're a wheelchair user. That was built in and you can see a lot of very mindful design choices. As far as the rides go, most of their rides actually have special cars that you can load into while still in a wheelchair. They're pretty neat. I can transfer, but that means often leaving my wheelchair and/or cane with a cast member during the ride. They are always, without fail, waiting for me on the other side of the ride, no matter how far the exit is from the entrance. I have never once had a problem with this. A cast member will be there to put my assistive devices in my hand before I even have to think about getting up. Guaranteed.

Wheelchair users always used to be able to skip the line, but there was unfortunately a problem with able-bodied people pretending to be disabled to skip lines (because god forbid they not have access to a single thing we have to make our lives livable) so now there's a system where if you cannot wait in a line, they'll basically give you a special time to come back that's equivalent to the length of the line. Which feels fair to me as someone who often cannot be in even an accessible line for extended periods. (I have problems with sunlight, heat, and often need emergency food or restroom.)

More important than all this, though, is the fact that cast members are impeccably well-trained in all of this. Any disabled person can tell you that the most accessible design on earth isn't worth shit if the people working there aren't well-trained. (More on this later, when I take a giant shit on Universal Studios.) But Disney trains their employees, many of whom are disabled themselves, incredibly well.

Every employee will know where the accessible entrances are. Every employee will know the procedure for getting a return time. Every employee will know about first-aid centers, and every employee will know where the quiet areas are for people with sensory issues. Every time you make a reservation for a meal, hotel room, transportation, etc. they will ask for all accessibility needs and they'll be ready for you.

Every waiter you have will be incredibly careful and knowledgeable when it comes to special dietary needs, and chefs will often come out to discuss them with you. They often have specific menus for different dietary needs, and they are scrupulous when it comes to allergens. I have a few intolerances that suck and allergies that could kill me and I have always felt very safe in their hands. This ranges from fancy sit-down restaurants to quick service burger places.

And -- honestly, I have just always been treated with respect. I know that sounds like a low bar, but most people do fail to clear it. Disney has their employees very well-trained on how to interact with disabled guests. People speak directly to me, never to the able-bodied people over my head. They never treat me like I'm a child. They never ask invasive questions or make uncomfortable jokes. They never, ever get impatient with my accessibility needs.

The few times I have misjudged things and have injured myself or gotten extremely ill, they were professional and caring as they provided much-needed first-aid. It's kind of embarrassing to be doted on by a costumed character while you wait for a doctor to come help you sit up again, but also kind of endearing, I'll admit.

They also, in addition to captioning all videos in the park, have some of the best sign language interpreters in the world, bar none. They're very personal and professional, they're easy to reserve, they will always be in a visible place during shows, and they're incredible performers as well as being very technically proficient. In addition to the professional interpreters, many cast members, performers, and characters can sign as well.

In addition to that, and this brings me to my next point, you'll meet a lot of disabled employees throughout the park. In front-facing positions. Deaf employees, employees using mobility aids, etc. They're well-known to hire disabled people and treat them well. This is. Fuck, this is incredibly rare, I say as someone who was never able to find a job in Florida with my health conditions. It's the moral thing to do to hire disabled people, but also -- selfishly, there's something so heartening and normalizing about seeing people who look like you working at the park. I'm happy every single time.

I have a little less personal experience when it comes to accessibility for neurodivergence, despite being neurodivergent myself, but I've been told that Disney is very, very accommodating for people on the spectrum. A lot is done to lessen crowding, waiting, sensory overload, etc. for autistic guests. Cast members are usually super good at this; finding designated quiet areas, helping autistic guests avoid more crowded areas, keeping them out of long lines, making sure they have access to any particular experiences that are special to them, etc.

For folks who need help from their group, whether that's an autistic child who needs to be with a parent or a disabled adult who needs someone to push their wheelchair or anything else, Disney has a rider switch-off model. In other words, if you're there with both of your able-bodied parents, for example, and you need one of them to be with you at all times and you don't want to be on the ride yourself, Disney will allow one person to go on the ride while the other waits for them to finish, then will allow the second person to go on without any additional wait. This makes sure that everyone in the family gets equal access without leaving disabled people alone. (Which... can be a very shitty feeling, I assure you.)

I know that Disney has also pioneered a lot of assistive technology. The accessible rides, obviously, which can be ridiculously cool (like Toy Story Midway Mania has an accessible car with alternative "guns" for people with dexterity limitations so they can play the carnival games as well) but also handheld assistive devices for visually impaired guests, etc. Like they are literally inventing new forms of accessibility technology, which is so cool.

And honestly, I'm always learning about new ways they assist disabled guests. I've stayed in Disney's accessible hotel rooms before (they're very nice!) but I don't like to swim so I've never been in the pools. But even just this week, someone told me that Disney has pool lifts for disabled guests, which I had never even considered. That's so cool.

The best part about accessibility at Disney is that in some ways it's very casual. A lot of their design decisions are so intuitive that you never even notice how accessible the parks are until you go somewhere where that's... not the case.

Like -- just so you don't assume that any of these things are industry standard, let me tell you about the two times I went to Universal, a park very close to Disney. I went there once for an event and once with my family.

The first time I went was for an event at the opening of the Harry Potter park. (This was before JKR made her most appalling views public, to be clear.) It... was frustrating. Guests asked if there would be food and drink available for people with special dietary restrictions (such as sugar-free butterbeer) and were pretty much told that no, that was not something they were interested in pursuing. It became very obvious very quickly that the park itself was so narrow that it only barely fulfilled ADA standards -- when empty. We were told that JKR had actually specifically insisted that it feel "cramped". Which is a nice way to say that I couldn't actually get around in any of the stores while people were in them.

It was overall a frustrating experience, but it was like. One night. I figured it was probably a fluke and they were still ironing out all the details. So I ended up going back with my parents later.

Y'all, it was a shit show.

Broken elevators that prevented disabled guests from accessing rides. Performers being up on raised platforms/sidewalks so disabled guests couldn't get to them. Sidewalks being made inaccessible by putting movable signs directly in the middle of them. Stores (even outside of the HP part) that were so damn narrow that I actually ended up getting hurt trying to navigate one of them. And no -- it was not easy to get first aid.

And my god, was the training bad. We went to one of the new HP rides, asked if there was a specific entrance for disabled guests. We were told no. We waited for a very long time in a line that honestly I shouldn't have been waiting in, but I wanted to be a good sport. I was pretty sick by the time we got through it, and the line itself had some very dangerous inclines/turns for wheelchair users. We get to the front of the line -- and the employee asks why we didn't just use the accessible entrance. 🙃

(Side note: several of their rides are also just unrideable if you don't fit within a pretty narrow body type of thin and able-bodied, so... there's that.)

We'd asked repeatedly and gotten incorrect answers, and I'd been put in physical danger as a result. Wild. I started to notice that if you asked different employees, you'd get different answers about almost anything, really. Just exceptionally poor training. Even stuff that should've been a no-brainer, like loading wheelchair users into a stationary movie theater, ended up creating chaos when they did it incorrectly and we had a giant wheelchair pileup.

Like -- let me stress to you that many of the things that happened could have caused actual injury to people. Some of these situations were dangerous. And some of them were just alienating, like when I'd have to wait outside a store while my family could go in.

I never went back after that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We just kept going to Disney.

One thing that'll probably show how good Disney is at accessibility is the whole Make-A-Wish thing. A lot of people know that it's a popular Make-A-Wish request, and you're likely to see at least a couple kids with Make-A-Wish buttons during your visit if you keep an eye out. One reason for this, is that, y'know, Disney World is fun. Kids want to go there. But more important, I think, is that Disney can accommodate people with at-times severe medical needs. Those kids can safely go anywhere and do anything in those parks that able-bodied kids can, and that's important.

All in all, the parks are just so accessible and you will never, ever be made to feel like you're lesser for needing those accommodations. You will be treated so well and you will not have to worry about accessibility because the cast members are always doing it for you. They'll usher you into the correct entrance as soon as they see a mobility device, and they'll do it with a very warm welcome. It's one of the very few places on earth where I have never felt like a burden.

Again, y'know, I know that Disney does not have a perfect track record on a lot of issues. I would never defend them from rightfully earned criticism. I strongly support labor action against them, and I do think they should be criticized whenever they fuck up. I have been uncomfortable with the sheer amount of power they have both in Florida and in the entertainment world just because no one should have that much power. But I am far more uncomfortable with that power being stripped away for blatantly discriminatory political reasons.

I do have some loyalty to Disney just because there is no other place on earth where I've been able to safely have fun with my friends with so little agony. That's... I mean, it's important, really. To be able to just exist in public without getting grief for it. And I have some loyalty to them because they were a safe space for me as a young, queer kid who was not safe being out in other areas of my life.

(Like, I am talking about actual literal safety. I kept seeing notes on my post saying that Disney didn't care about creating a "safe space for queer people" but as someone who lived in Florida for the entirety of my teenage years? It was the safest goddamn place there.)

I do not have enough loyalty to defend them when they do immoral bullshit, but I do have enough to make sure that people know the good that they do as well.

I want other businesses to follow Disney's model for disability. I will praise them forever for what they've done in that regard because if I don't, there's no reason for other companies to follow suit. I want to praise them for the good things they've done so they have incentive to keep doing it, and other companies have an incentive to do it as well.

Like bro, I just wanna be able to move around and be treated with some dignity, y'know? My bar is so low. lmao

But yeah. That's why you always see so many disabled guests at Disney. It's literally the only place some of us can go to have fun.

[cripplecharacters]

is it ok to have two main characters who share a disability but one views it with internalized ableism while the other doesn't? im writing two characters w chronic fatigue (one is a protagonist and the other is a villain) and wanted to have a little back and forth between them but i didnt know if itd be insensitive to have the villain view his cfs as a negative thing while the protagonist accepts it as something part of themself i do not have cfs myself

Hello!

In general, it's perfectly fine to have two (Or more!) characters with differing views on a shared disability. In fact, I think it's better than fine!

There's a very wide range of experiences and perspectives in the disabled community, which is something that I rarely see portrayed in fiction. Though, admittedly, I rarely see media with multiple disabled characters, let alone multiple characters with the same (Or even similar) disability.

That being said... there is something that makes me pause with this concept.

Why is the villain the one that thinks of his disability in a negative way? Why is the hero the one that "accepts it as something part of themself"?

Furthermore, what do you mean when you say that? You can accept something about yourself without viewing it as something necessarily positive. Likewise, you can view something positively while still not accepting it.

There's a sort of attitude that's commonly directed towards physically disabled people with the expectation that we need to be "positive" about our disabilities and "not let it stop us/hold us back/etc." A lot of people have good intentions but there's a few problems with this sentiment. Namely, it dismisses the complicated experiences and feelings that a lot of us have around our disabilities.

Although there are some differences between this concept and the "disabled villain" tropes, it still comes back to the main problem of it. In this case, it's less about equating disability with villainy and more about the attitude towards disability. Is it a bad thing to feel negatively about your disability?

Of course, this isn't to say that this is what is happening with your situation. It's just something to be aware of.

If you want to keep the current arrangement where the villain thinks of his disability more negatively and the protagonist is more accepting of it, there are a few things that should be considered.

Why is it the villain that thinks of it negatively?

Does the villain's way of seeing his disability have any impact on why he became a villain?

Why is the protagonist more accepting of their disability?

What will their 'back and forth' look like? What purpose is it serving in the overall story? Does it affect the characters or change the way they see their disabilities in any way?

I do think that this could be a very interesting concept to play around with, especially when it comes to looking at the factors that can make somebody into a villain and how those same factors can also affect how somebody sees themself and their disability.

Is the protagonist more accepting of their disability because they had the support and acceptance growing up that the villain didn't? Does the villain feel more negatively about their disability for the same reason that they became a villain in the first place?

This concept really has the potential to discuss some difficult topics and portray them in a really interesting way but you do need to be careful with this.

Make sure that you aren't equating your villain's view of their disability with their morality and it would be good to show that these things aren't black and white. Show the protagonist having days where they do feel negatively about their disability, focus more on the factors that have influenced each character's views rather than the views themselves, don't show the protagonist as being morally above the villain because of how they view their disability.

A lot of us do feel negatively about our disabilities and there's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make us evil or bad or pessimistic -- it just makes us human.

In summary, just be careful with the implications that you've giving here and think about how your disabled audience might feel about this portrayal.

Cheers,

~ Mod Icarus

[velvetvexations]

Something that continues to confuse me about the whole "it's regressive to admit that some transphobes don't view trans people as their gender" is like…I thought that was a given? The disconnect between the way the bigot views the people they hate/oppress and the actual lived reality of those hated and oppressed people is a huge part of what bigotry even is in the first place. Like I'm disabled, and I know the reason ableists hate me is because they think I'm lazy and a leech and a waste of resources and in some cases such a failed human that it would be kinder to let me die, and while obviously none of that is true, recognizing that that IS the way they see me isn't reductive, it's necessary to counter their bigotry. I am not ceding ground by pointing out that ableists see me as less than human because it's true. That is how they view me. The trick is to point out the way they think and then make it clear that they are wrong.

And yeah sometimes sure people just decide they hate a group and work backwards from there, and they'll take any position if it means hurting the people they want to hurt, and even the ones who do view trans people as our gender can come up with other reasons to hate us, but overall the central issue with the majority of transphobes is that they don't see trans people as our genders. That's why they go around misgendering us and making such a huge deal about "sex", it's because they don't think we are what we say we are, and our assertion that we are means we're dangerous freaks who must be removed from society by any means necessary.

I'm just so confused, it feels like we're just willfully denying how reality works for like??? No reason??? I do not understand the motivation behind pretending bigots believe something they clearly don't, and acknowledging the way someone thinks doesn't mean you agree with them. You are not any less valid in your gender if you recognize that some people don't see you as who you say you are. Suggesting that admitting transphobes don't see trans women as women means that we all no longer see trans women as women is just...it's a non-sequitur, it makes no logical sense at all. Especially given how the average transphobe's opening argument is usually "I don't think you can change your sex/gender you will never be a woman/man and trying to become one is disgusting and weird" like they are TELLING us what they think. What good comes from ignoring that??

Between this and the whole "saying that transandrophobia exists obviously means you think androphobia exists" just makes me feel like a lot of people have, idk for lack of a kinder phrase completely lost it. Neither of these arguments make any sense to me. I just don't get it.

It's literally just not wanting to admit that masculinity is in any way a negative in any context no matter what.

[howlingday]

Ruby, up and coming hero blessed with the Silver Eyes, has heard terrible news! A horrible fiend has invaded the lands! A demon, hailing from a long and cursed line, master of sorcery and steel, a silver tongued trickster, a slave master, a depraved incubus, foul crafts hiding under welcoming illusions, a keen mind of gears and schemes and plots within plots, stronger than iron and quicker than quicksilver, all this and more, has taken control of an abandoned fortress! Determined to boldly rid the lands of this foul taint, (and to prove to Yang she’s a big girl!) she sets off to confront the monster alone! (Bad girl! That’s the first rule of adventuring: don’t go it solo!)

Except, no???????? Jaune has never seen or heard of any ‘demon’ around here. He just moved in, trying to strike out on his own, but nothing seems to be cursed from what he can see. He seems nice enough too. He’s fixing up the old ruin, disabling traps, healing folks when they wander into his place, and all that. Strong, smart, endlessly kind. Talks about his family a lot, they look so happy in the photo. That crest looks familiar, but it’s probably nothing. Surely he’s not the monster, but she can sure use his help to slay the monster when she finds him!

You see, the Arcs are only labeled villains because they refused to kowtow to the government way back when. Their views on life, other races, virtues, and such also puts them at odds with the narrative. The Arcs also have higher standards before they allow their kids to go on adventures, so even the weakest is very strong even to other adventurers. Slightly inspired by the Mind Reaver comic strips by Edd Lai.

So, I decided to have a look into Mind Reaver by Edd Lai, and I have to say I love the idea. A Mind Flayer that's actually a good guy and helps people who wander into his house. It's cute, especially when his niece and... servant, I think? Anyway, it's all so cute, and I highly recommend y'all check it out. Anyway, on to the story.

===========================

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE

JAUNE "SALEM'S PALADIN" ARC

REWARD ON APREHENSION

===========================

Ruby looked down at the wanted poster in her hand, carefully examining the features in the mugshot. She'd heard many stories about the Arc family, though much of it was told in the darkest of night as a warning to not stray too far from home, or to not stay up too late, or to file your taxes on time. His jawline was coated in thick hair, and his blue eyes gazed death into the soul of those who view them. There were many other tales, too, like how he'd sway any woman into being his slave, take cannon fire with his bare body, and would even subject whole armies with his sorceries.

Ruby looked up from the poster to see the baby-faced man sitting across from her at the table. She'd found him, demanding to engage in honorable combat between warriors! His response was, "Can we get coffee first?" Ruby agreed and watched as he sipped from his mug after waiting for to cool.

"Ooh!" He winced. "Still kinda hot."

"Uh..."

"Oh, sorry!" He then handed her a napkin. "I think I forgot to split our share."

"No, you already did." Ruby shook her head. "Besides, there's more important stuff going on here!"

"More important how?"

"I mean like this!" She slapped the wanted poster onto the table, earning a groan from him.

"Not another one." He shook his head. "Can we finish our coffee first?"

"I... I guess?" Ruby shrugged. "But why aren't you all... Y'know, big and scary and trying to mind-break me?"

"...Because I can't?" He asked more than he said. He then took the poster in his massive, clawed hands. Each finger was about the size of a breakfast sausage. "I really wish they would get a new picture. They make me look like a monster in this."

"Aren't you?" Ruby asked.

"Half." He answered. "Well, kinda sorta. You see, my great-great-great-"

Ruby whirled her fingers in a wheel as he rounded off each great in his ancestor's name. She'd heard a lot of tales about monsters and humans and faunus getting together, except for the Grimm, who were mindless beasts of destruction. What usually came from these unions was either monster or human or faunus, but on rare occasions, half-monsters would be born. These creatures were then cast out of the village upon their discovery, usually ending with their own demise. It was sad and cruel, but terribly not uncommon.

"-great-grandma Salem, the mother of all Grimm."

"Wait, I thought Grimm couldn't reproduce."

"They can't, but she can. Or could, since she hasn't had any kids since The Great Tear." Open in dimensions from a huge magical clash, brought monsters into Remnant, new age of war, magic, and adventure for everyone. Ruby knew it well enough from the stories. "Ooh! Still hot." He chuckled, after wincing from another sip of hot coffee.

"Okay, so then why is everyone after you? Half-monsters don't usually have posters, unless they commit a crime."

"Well, I didn't."

"You didn't?"

"He did." Ruby whirled in her seat to find a young woman standing in the doorway to the coffee shop. She stepped in with guards trailing behind her, all heavily armored, while she herself wore an elegant officer's jacket. "Jaune Arc, I am placing you under arrest in the name of the Schnee Dust Queendom."

"What did I do?" Jaune asked.

"Yeah, what did he do?" Ruby asked.

Snapping her fingers, a heavy, white book was brought to her hands. Opening it, the pages fluttered until they landed on a pair of pages with Jaune's name and mugshot on them. Clearing her throat, she began.

"Corrupting the minds of the youth."

"Hey, Mr. Whitley asked me to tutor him!"

"Silence!" She barked, her face growing a bit red. "Seducing a high ranking officer of the Schnee Dust Queendom."

"Your mother was a nice woman! She kissed me first!"

"I said shut up!" Her face grew even more red. "And public indecency while resisting Queendom duties."

"You fired a cannon at me!"

"And stripped yourself bare in an attempt to intimidate us."

"MY CLOTHES WERE BURNED OFF!"

"AND I SAID SHUT UP!" Face completely red, she tossed the book behind her in a fury. "You will surrender yourself at once, Salem's Paladin!"

"Oh, come- I don't even know Salem!" He defended. "I've never even met my great-great-great-great-"

"Great." Ruby groaned. "You got him started again."

"And who are you?"

"Ruby Rose, bounty hunter." She smiled. "Who are you?"

"Queen-Heiress-Apparent Weiss Schnee," she huffed, "and I'm taking this criminal in."

"Nuh-uh."

"What do you mean, 'nuh-uh'?"

"I mean nuh-uh."

"-great-great-great-grandma Salem!"

"Did you add two greats on there?" Ruby asked.

"Enough!" Weiss snarled. "You are both being brought into custody!"

"Aw, really? But couldn't we have... coffee?" Ruby winked at Jaune.

"No, we can't." Weiss answered.

"Jaune!" Ruby whined. "You were supposed to throw coffee on her!"

"Excuse me?!" Weiss screeched.

"Yeah, excuse you?!" Jaune reeled back. "Why would I do that?!"

"Because it'd be totally cool, like in an action comic!" Ruby reasoned.

"But it would hurt her!"

"THAT'S THE POINT!"

"ENOUGH!"

The cafe rumbled as white circles covered the walls and floors. An angry Schnee huffed in and out of her nose as she pulled out her rapier. Behind her, soldiers readied their guns on the two. Ruby glanced to Jaune, who gulped at the sight. Looks like she was going to do this alone.

"Are you sure you don't want coffee? It's really good~!" Ruby sang.

"Oh, please," Weiss rolled her eyes, "do you really think you can throw coffee on me now that I'm aware that's your- ARGH! BIG NICHOLAS FUCK!" She held her face as very, very, very, very, very warm coffee splashed onto her face.

Ruby took the cue and grabbed Jaune. Together, the two weaved through gunfire as yellow and red petals fluttered to the floor. The two had successfully made their escape, and it seemed the soldiers inside were easily distracted, too, as they began barking orders at one another. One of them actually barked like a dog, too, which was weird.

"AFTER THEM!" The barking died as the Schnee roared over them all.

Weiss used a blanket of napkins to wrap around ice dust and held it to her face. One guard remained behind, holding her book. Through her anger, she gave him an order that would turn the world upside down for Ruby and Jaune.

"I want wanted posters in every kingdom," she seethed, "and I want that Demon Couple locked up YESTERDAY!"

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Hey ho, have you seen The Creator (2023) yet? Unsubtly about US imperialism, but also really moving, aesthetically stunning (Greig Fraser as DP, oh yeah) and John David Washington killing it in the main role. I was surprised by how much there was to love. xoxo

I fucking LOVED The Creator and kept trying to write something about it here but never managed to collect my thoughts. But yeah what a fucking movie, oh my god. I feel like it kind of got buried by lack of publicity but tbh I am not that surprised because it's one of those movies with politics that make you think how the fuck did they get away with making this.

Gareth Edwards, like Villeneuve, is a director I've been paying attention to for a while now, ever since his 2010 movie Monsters, which was a really impressive low-budget sci-fi with effects that just looked seamless and interesting things to say about borders and the human cost of militarized responses to disastrous events.

And then he did Rogue One and pulled off something very impressive, which is to take one of the most famous sci-fi weapons of our era--the Death Star, a metaphor for nuclear weapons so iconic it has become a symbol in itself--and made it actually fucking scary for the first time in the history of the franchise. And he did it by turning the camera around.

Because the thing is that before this point, we had only ever seen the Death Star from the point of view of the people firing it. The idea of a planet-destroying weapon is intellectually horrifying but we didn't really ever feel it. Because for that we need to see the weapon from the point of view of its victims. It's such a simple but radical shift in perspective, and I feel like Gareth Edwards took that idea from Rogue One and then made it into a whole movie with The Creator.

The Creator, for those unfamiliar with the premise, is about a near-future counterinsurgency war in which the US military is hunting down various forms of AI/android/robot beings. It also features a space-based super-weapon that is eerily beautiful but goddamn fucking terrifying. It was mostly shot in southeast Asia and heavily evokes Vietnam War imagery (as the ending of Rogue One did as well); it is probably about as close to "Vietnam War movie but you're rooting for the Vietnamese" as it is possible to make in the American studio system. The protagonist is still an American soldier (who defects and "goes native" fairly early in the movie) but making him a Black disabled veteran was certainly a Choice. And yes it's John David Washington and he's great in it.

It feels facetious to say The Creator is Reverse Terminator, because it's much richer than that, but it's also kind of fucking true. For the entire movie, the characters are just running for their lives from the implacable and overwhelming destructive force of the US military which is just crushing everything in its path.

The movie does a lot of things that you simply do not see in most American war movies, but the one that stands out to me the most is that in every scene of war violence there are civilians, including children, fucking everywhere. It really threw into relief for me how often American war-action movies create these empty video game environments for soldiers to run around in, where any actual people who might live in the place where the war is happening are at best props and at worst completely absent. (Alex Garland's Civil War, in addition to being terrible in every other conceivable way, is a particularly bad offender at this.) The Creator does what really should be the bare minimum of taking time to showing that these are people whose homes and lives are being destroyed and it is shocking how novel it seems. (There's a line that plays in my head all the time where one of the AI characters says something to the effect of, "Do you know what will happen to the humans when we win this war? Nothing. We simply want to live.") I will also say that this made it a very intense watch in late October 2023 in particular, but it is fiction so we get a very satisfying and cathartic ending. And yes it is an absolutely gorgeous movie, the VFX are mind-blowing, and I found it quite moving.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

As per usual, I was talking to a client this week about autistic cognitive processing and I felt the sand shifting under my feet. So I come here to you Tumblr to do my own autistic cognitive processing in the hopes of better serving myself and my clients.

I have known for a long time that I can't process my thoughts and emotions verbally. This is what sometimes leads to me getting frustrated, "stuck," and increasingly pressurized towards my meltdown threshhold when I'm trying to express a half-formed thought or need. This is why I often choose to process my cognition in writing. It allows me to sift about in the sands of my mind, sliding to and fro, checking and rechecking, until I find what I need.

There is something to the capacity to shape my communication more freely and without the preesure that I put myself under which often leads to stammering, stuttering, aphasia, confusion, and my inability to hold something as ephemeral as language in my head long enough to manipulate it like clay with my hands. Words are not my brain's mother tongue in the first place, and it can be a welcome relief to truly take the slowed pace I need to translate my thoughts into a language others will understand.

Some others. I am well aware of who I learned my translation process from and of how that has made my translations inaccessible to some of the very people who share my brain.

The thing is, to learn to speak at all when your brain processes this slowly takes enormous effort. To learn to CHANGE your speech is back breaking. I have been trying for fifteen years.

Autistic cognitive processing pace and the disabling ramifications aren't things we talk about often. It's one reason some of us become obsessed with having back up plan upon back up plan (because we literally cannot think fast enough to keep up with the demands of our lives). It's one of the fastest paths to burnouts and meltdowns. It's part of why we are unable to keep up with the demands of social interactions, especially in large groups (too many social cues moving too quickly to be processed at pace and we drop the ball in the moment even if we realize later).

Because the pace of our cognition is chronically slowed, we are chronically disabled socially, emotionally, cognitively, etc, and we are forced to spend an incredible amount of mental and physical energy either compensating for that, recovering from it, or both. That is energy and resources neurotypical people get to spend on other things in their lives, maybe a project or hobby, a relationship, hell, just relaxing.

There can be upsides to it. This slowed cognition seems to be related to how the process of bottom-up analysis functions during cognitive processes in Autistic folks' brains. That bottom-up analysis is a really interesting cognitive processing style that seems to be responsible for increased pattern recognition! So a lot of how we're able to analyze, learn, understand, mimic, etc based on pattern recognition is thanks to this processing style. It helps us take in a holisticly detail oriented view of the things we look at, which can (with support) make us great researchers, investigative journalists, and inventers.

But while the upsides have become more discussed as we've become more willing to see Autism itself as neutral (a very good thing in my opinion), we sometimes forget the other side of the coin.

I often find myself trying to brute force my way through my processing pace. It always ends badly. And that's really the trouble. I can talk most of the time, but I can talk A LOT faster than I can process my thoughts. So most of the time my words are just. Garbage. Sounds. If you ask my to speak to you, you are asking me to fill up soundwaves because realistically my brain moves at about 25% of the speed of the conversation.

It's why as a clinician I have to be so incredibly careful what I do and say and how I hear my clients because I *truly* am processing what the tell me at auch a significant delay. It can sometimes be days later when the information truly settles into place.

The same is obviously true in my personal life! It can take me days or even weeks to figure out what a single thought or feeling means in the context of my own life because I have to process that often entirely alone or just on paper. Not because no on one WOULD help me I have people in my life who would be willing but because by the time talking to someone would be any help, I would have basically figured it out enough to just say it out loud and I don't really need their help by then. There are rare exceptions to this when I do definitely seek help but it can be so frustrating to be trapped, voiceless, in your own emotions.

I don't have a framework for this, only the suggestion to embrace the slowness. I have found that when you are not constantly fighting against it all the time, it feels a little more like home, a little more like it's working FOR your instead of AGAINST you.

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

Just wanted to say I think it’s really cool that you attend government meetings and stuff like that’s a really important way to get into activism. I’d like to actually get involved in like local government too at some point, so yeah very inspiring :)

lol, I’m actually really active in government stuff and go to all sorts of things here in Australia!

(if any of you guys want like an amazing guide to institutional places and establishments that are super fucking cool I will give so many recommendations, my family despite being shit most the time. We actually do a shit ton of outings to all sorts of educational places)

I just dislike how they run the place into the ground lol, there is unironically so much corruption.

The housing market, industry and the regulations and laws and shit for Australia ARE BAD, LIKE UBER BAD. LIKE INSANELY UBER BAD.

(It’s a post for another day, but uh… there’s these things called strata’s and also like our government is like insanely corrupt almost comically so, no joke lol)

I’ve been learning and engaging through the community and my friends and colleagues and all that, for years now I think a lot of leftists and people who want progressive change actually have a horrible mentality about it.

as the government does NOT listen most the time, you have to complain and complain and complain.

but to do that you must actually know the communities and people and fight for the rights of everyone even if you hate the living shit out of them.

I’ve been to army school open days, I’ve been to so many museums, I’ve talked with aboriginal elders and people, I’ve been listening to my disabled friends and family, my friends, my black friends, random people on the street shop owners all this.

and like, my views on politics in my country is that the government will just actively let us die they have been literally letting the homeless and unhoused (which is like entire fucking families with pets now) just die of heat stroke and shit.

for years, not to mention the absolute fucking horror show our penal system is and how most people IN PRISON ARE ABORIGINAL KIDS AND TEENS.

I can go on and on and on and on, unlike I guess most people I’ve been deeply involved with a lot of stuff and I’m honestly surprised everytime I look at auspol shit and see like the worst fucking takes of my entire life.

like damn bro you dunno about our shitty ass penal system???

that literally shit tons of mentally ill, and disabled people and aboriginal children just get chucked into????

hell I talked one time randomly to this nice lady she was one of them prison guard ones that help reform people so they can go on parole.

we had a conversation about how how psych care systems are actually incredibly shit, and a lot of people with schizophrenia and other ones who usually just need meds and not to be locked in prison don’t get the appropriate support and treatment.

WHICH IS FUCKING TRUE FOR THIS STUPID ASS COUNTRY UGHHHGHG

like I can go on and on about the amount of horrifying ableism and saneism there is, I can go on about the racism, and antisemitism and Islamophobia, I can go on about our absolutely abhorrent treatment of the environment.

I can go on and on and on. And yet?

I never see nuanced and good takes, I never seen any kind takes that take into consideration anything.

just blabbering weird tankie shit, and evofacism.

and that is so upsetting to me, I’m freaking disabled as shit i can’t organise anything I just sit in my chair and go out sometimes and take weeks to recover from various things.

yet like, so many people here just.. are heartless and also fully tankies.

it’s genuinely upsetting.

really the only way in the world to make changes is to talk and chat and find out the problems, then you can rally together and fight for what’s right!

otherwise it just, it never happens.

[queer-crip-grows]

Previously, when the Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) buoys detected a reading over 35 degrees Celsius, the reading was assumed to be a possible sign of instrument damage or malfunction.

But this may be the new normal.

Earlier this week, the CDIP 256 buoy — located in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana — clocked a record reading of 35.0 degrees Celsius, or 95 degrees Fahrenheit; the warmest detected sea-surface temperature in the history of CDIP.

View the data here:

I’ve been listening to several things on the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Ancient Egypt, which occurred as a result of droughts caused by Atlantic current disruptions that were less severe than is looking likely within the next 25 years. Disruption in food systems destroys civilisations.

I think a lot about Tolkien’s thoughts on despair and how it drains the ability to fight for the future. I am aware that, as a Northern European, I am very literally in a better place to survive this than people in the Global South, many of whom are already suffering the impacts of climate change.

About the best thing I can say, if you also live in the Global North, is to be galvanised by our responsibility to help people who need to flee uninhabitable areas however we can, whether that’s political or personal (or ofc both). We need to step up in building stronger communities *and* on putting pressure on the state to arrest and reverse their fascist leanings. And we need to be there for refugees and work on actively accepting and absorbing people into our communities, including old and poor and disabled people.

We need to *help*. And if we despair we won’t.

The way we survive as humans is by doing things for each other. And if we die, which we will eventually no matter what we do, we hopefully help there to be a world where there are still humans, and there are still other creatures we value too.

I’m thinking a lot about “Let this radicalise you rather than lead you to despair.” It’s the best thing that’s working for me so far about taking this in.

We can’t despair. There is work to be done.

[adamsvanrhijn]

HATE the "hey you are mildly nerdy about [subject] therefore i think you have autism" thing this webbed site has going on. Over 60% of autistic people are non-communicable. Of those who are capable of communicating - and therefore of running a fandom blog - over 30% read below their grade level. "Autism = nerdy superpowers" is such an ableist and unrealistic portrayal of autism it's actually offensive. I'd love to know how many people on here actually have an irl autism diagnosis (not Aspergers - the damage done to autistic people by combining the two and therefore centering far less disabled people as the face/voice of autism cannot be exaggerated) and how many are just playing into gross ableist stereotypes.

I hear what you're saying! When discussing autism there is definitely a very clear bias in the general fandom-y nerdy user bases of Tumblr + Tiktok + Twitter toward people who can communicate with spoken & written language, and the prevalence/prominence of those ideas has altered the way people perceive autism in a way that can reposition an already vulnerable demographic of disabled people for whom resources are already very scarce.

I will say though I don't think the autism spectrum disorder designation including people of various communication abilities and developmental delays inherently centers people who communicate at average or above average levels. Like, Asperger's is not diagnosed anymore in part because the symptom cluster was not wholly unique from autism & the people making the distinction thought that it was not useful for diagnostics and care. At least to my memory what we are seeing online right now is very recent within the last like 2-4 years and seems a lot more Prevalent online than in real life?

Part of why I feel like it's more of an issue online is that where I've lived, resources as well as general understanding of autism seems to be centering people who cannot communicate and their families and caregivers which is how it has been since I was growing up. But I live in the middle of nowhere and that might not be true other places.

I think the fact that the clinical distinction is no longer made combined with how people who right now are nerdy tweens and teens lost 1-2 years of normal social development and school attendance is probably a huge factor, and this might not be a long term issue the further we move away from the impact of covid.

On a personal note—

I also think that due to the nature of how online communities work, we don't have a view into how people with above average communication skills might be affected by symptoms of autism offline, and that some of that might be intentional in that people don't want to bring those experiences into online spaces. People like to control the image they have online, you know??

I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in 2016 as a young adult by a clinical psychologist after a childhood ADHD diagnosis, and my also double diagnosed brother has significantly more noticeable symptoms than I do including communication delays that I never had (I got the "little professor" moniker). I'm not sure what his first diagnosis was but we are both higher functioning/lower support needs while also in our youth being objectively disabled in a way that relates to autism symptoms. I didn't have support growing up and once I was in middle school I failed every semester until I dropped out of high school (this was also due to homophobic bullying) and he was on an individualized education plan for all of his school years.

I think a lot of people find solace in what their autism symptoms make easier, more engaging, or fun for them and want to focus on that and talk about that rather than all of the things that are difficult for them—and I bet this is especially true with younger people who might be more defensive in general and very, very conscious of how they are perceived offline. "Nerdy superpowers" online might be "can't physically go into the grocery store because the fluorescent lights are too bright" and "only talks out loud to 4 people and is ostracized in school & social spaces" offline.

[crow-caller]

Hey! I want to preface this message by saying that I mean absolutely no hate by it, and I genuinely respect your content hugely and think you're an amazing person. However, in your most recent video you made a comment about autism that I, as an autistic person, have a different perspective on, and thought it might be interesting to you.

You said that being autistic doesn't automatically make someone disabled and I disagree. A disability is anything that makes it difficult for an individual to function in normal society. This means that, whilst autism is indeed a neurotype and is not inherently bad in any way, it is still a disability as our society is entirely based on social structures and social norms that are completely antithetical to how autism as a neurotype functions. Essentially, whilst autism is a neurotype, the way that autistic people are expected to conform to neurotypical standards makes it a disability, as it makes it significantly more difficult to function.

I and many other autistic people who are extremely high masking and have low support needs still consider ourselves to be disabled not because of our neurotype, but because of how society is structured to our disadvantage.

I know that it was just a passing comment and I genuinely don't want to be rude at all, but this is something that I'm extremely passionate about because of my own neurology. I love your videos, and I hope you have a good day :))

So, this is something I've got a lot of comments on!

Let's start here: I am ALSO autistic and disabled. I probably should have made it clearer.

This is a very interesting subject really and comes down to how we define disability in terms of medically, socially, and more. I'm not an expert, but I happen to live with someone who does study autism academically (and is also autistic and disabled). (My flatmate is helping me correct this wall of text too.) (also, this is VERY long and not like, trying to prove you wrong, it's just more I feel like giving a lot of context, especially for people who aren't very aware of autism related issues)

Firstly also, it's 100% valid to view autism as a disability or identify as disabled via your autism. I don't consider my autism to be a disability, but it is something which can be disabling.

Autism as a disability though is complicated, and to call it not a disability again relies on how you actually define disability. Your points here are very true, but also rely on a social system of understanding disability. The world isn't built for autistic people and that can cause disabling effects. If the world was built ideally for an autistic experience, would autism still be able to be counted as a disability? This is called the social model of disability and is a newer thing.

Traditionally disability has been considered in terms of the medical model, not the social. This views disability in terms of there being a disorder or deficit in capability for an individual which requires treatment or intervention. With autism, it isn't really ideal to use the medical model because it inherently implies autistic people are in some way lacking.

But then there's also the legal definition of disability. Autism is legally often classed as a disability because disability is a protected category that affords certain protections such as against discrimination. This is also how autism is able to be used to gain access to special accommodations such as in uni. While labelling autism a disability in this more legal system sense is important, this is primarily because there is no other protected characteristic it could fall under at this time.

Ideally, I'd say 'neurodivergence' is a better category, though it's a term which has a lot of debate on what that means. Usually, it'll include autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, and dyslexia. All of these are things which can be disabling in certain circumstances per the social model but are harder to place in the medical model as disabilities.

I call autism a neurotype to reflect the idea it is fundamentally another way for the brain to be wired. A good example of this is what is called the 'Double Empathy Problem': Autistic people are often thought of as being impaired in terms of social communication and empathy because they are often viewed from a neurotypical perspective. However, the same is equally true in reverse: non autistic people often struggle to socially communicate and empathize with autistic people. Meanwhile, autistic people are able to communicate with other autistic people equally in much the same way neurotypicals find it easy to communicate with other neurotypicals. The trick to it is that autism is a neurotype, and what appears to be deficits and flaws is merely a difference in communication style between two neurotypes.

Is the theory, at least. This is pulling into flatmate help, who again studies this sort of thing at PHD level.

It's complicated, really. It has nuance. I hope it's been interesting!

Basically, I'm really aware I should have had more context in what I said. Especially since I pulled out the term 'neurotype' which isn't exactly common lingo. It's ultimately up to every individual autistic person to decide how to label themself and doesn't require any intervention from academia to find an answer. It's just this is actually a very hot topic of study and a rather interesting one. I definitely will be adding a new pinned comment meanwhile on youtube to at least clear up I wasn't an ablebodied neurotypical handing out judgements on the autistic. this is just my life.

[hyperlexichypatia]

hey! ive been observing this account for a while as a person who is relatively new to anti-pysch, madpunk, and youth rights related stuff. and i wanted to ask something related to bodily autonomy. would someone refusing or downright saying they hate showering count as ones right to their own bodily autonomy? i see hygiene commonly weaponized against those who are neurodivergent or have mental illnesses and physical disabilities, that and i think hygiene has moved so far from protecting ourselves from certain viruses and diseases to "if you dont follow this specific skincare routine, buy these specific products, and take a shower in a very specific way (or use an alternative method/way that doesnt involve a shower in the first place) you're gross and should be shunned from society". i feel like our quickness to judge others who dont follow these things are may appear like they dont is connected to somethings related to consumerism and classism but i wouldnt know how to explain it as im still new to all this.

Needing help with hygiene is also really stigmatized, and people are denied access to it. Lots of people who don't have clean bodies and clothes are denied access to those things -- maybe they're unhoused and don't have a working bathroom, maybe they're disabled and can't get into the shower without assistance, which they don't have -- and of course anything associated with poor and disabled people is intensely stigmatized. So yeah, stigma on not having the right hygiene is absolutely classist and ableist. Even the word "hygiene" is often used to mean eugenics. We equate "clean" with "abled" and "dirty" with "disabled." There are even studies (I'm not sure how reliable they are because I haven't done sufficient research on them) suggesting that people adopt more conservative/judgmental attitudes when there's a bottle of hand sanitizer in view.

I think what really reveals the bad faith of the whole thing is that this kind of stigma is purely about social class and not actually about cleanliness from germs. The clearest example might be how in the 1840s, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis proposed the completely radical idea that maybe doctors should wash their hands before treating patients, and being widely denounced for suggesting that doctors could be the problem or could be dirty. The second clearest example might be the American political response to the COVID-19 pandemic -- people who had spent decades opposing the rights of poor people, unhoused people, immigrants, disabled people, people of color, queer people, etc. on the basis off "They're dirty/ they smell bad/ they're gross" suddenly pivoted to "How dare you ask me to avoid touching you or your food, wear a mask, or wash my hands, this is personally insulting to me."

Hygiene requirements are certainly necessary in certain contexts -- yes, you should have to wash your hands and wear a hairnet when preparing food, you should have to wash your hands and wear a mask before performing surgery -- but these should be things the employer provides and makes accessible.

[uncloseted]

hi! i read one of your past posts and you mentioned that you think everyone is redeemable and i want to hear more thoughts on it, i feel like a lot of beliefs like Karma and Hell really push the idea that once someone does a bad thing or is a bad person, they deserve to suffer the consequences of those actions forever bc they are a bad person forever, what are your thoughts? does it relate to your views on the law and prisons? what about people who are not remorseful or love to hurt others?

I really love this question so thank you for asking it! The first thing I should say here is that I grew up Eastern Orthodox Christian, which isn't really a tradition that has hell or karma as part of their theology. I'm sure over the years, Orthodox churches have adopted the fire-and-brimstone version of hell, but the way I was raised viewed hell as a spiritual separation from God as opposed to a literally place where your body is tortured. I think this may be an extension of the Jewish concept of Gehinnom, where a person has deviated so far from the will of God that they're emotionally tortured by intense shame, but I don't know that for sure. I'm not active in the church or anything anymore, but I think the fact that I didn't grow up in a "your actions on earth will doom you for all eternity" faith tradition is probably part of the reason that I think redemption is possible and that a belief in redemption is necessary. I think it's also worth noting that in a lot of Christian theology, it's not actually your actions that send you to hell- it's not accepting Jesus Christ as your savior. In a lot of Christian traditions, you can be a serial killer as long as you repent and accept Jesus on your deathbed, and people like the Dalai Lama will be sent to hell by virtue of the fact that they're not Christians.

For a long time now, my view has been that there are no inherently "bad people" in the world. Our genes, epigenetics, womb environment, unbringing, experiences, cultural context, socioeconomic status and a million other things all come together to inform all of the decisions we make from one moment to the next. And because of that, I just don't think it's fair to treat people as lost causes. Some people get dealt a really difficult hand and deal with it the only ways that they know how, but that doesn't mean they can't improve with the right kind of support. It's like that quote from The Good Place - "people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold it against them when they don't?" I believe nobody is beyond rehabilitation because what's the alternative? That we just accept that some people are just born evil and deserve to have their rights taken away because of it? And even if we did accept that people could just be "born evil", that doesn't really seem like their fault, does it? And so I think in this hypothetical scenario, we can try to mitigate the harm that kind of person could do, but it just doesn't feel fair to punish them for something that's out of their control.

If you don't believe me about the idea that there are no inherently bad people, look at the biggest determinants for whether someone will be incarcerated at some point in their lives: having been in out of foster care, receiving a poor school education, having early contact with police, having unsupported mental health and cognitive disability, problematic alcohol and other drug use, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, and coming from or living in a disadvantaged location. The more of those factors a person experienced, the more likely they are to be incarcerated. There's also a link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and incarceration later in life. To me, that just doesn't seem like people who are incarcerated have some sort of propensity towards evil- it seems like people who are incarcerated are a result of a system that failed them.

And if you look at the types of people who are incarcerated, that's basically what you see. About 58% of all incarcerated people either do not have a high school diploma or only have a GED. About 66% of people incarcerated in the US had annual incomes under $12,000 prior to their arrest. 75% of incarcerated adults in the US are functionally illiterate, and 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally low-literate. 44% of those in jail and 37% of those in prison have a diagnosed mental illness, and about 26.7% have ADHD. 58% of people in prison have a substance use disorder. Around 10% of those coming in and out of prisons and jails are homeless in the months before their arrest, and I couldn't find a number, but I imagine significantly more of the current prison population has been homeless at least once in their lives. Some sources suggest that children of incarcerated parents are six to seven times more likely to become incarcerated at some point in their lives, and 68% of men who are incarcerated reported experiencing some form of abuse before age 12.

We also know from other countries that having a strong social safety net and a focus on rehabilitation works. Per capita, Norway, a country with a strong social safety net and a policy focus on the well-being of its citizens, has a homicide rate of 0.552 per 100,000 inhabitants. The US, with its "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality, has a homicide rate of 6.383 - just fewer than Zimbabwe and just more than Grenada. By taking a rehabilitation-focused approach to imprisonment, Norway has reduced its recidivism rate to 25% after five years, and it has one of the lowest crime rates on Earth. In the US, 76.6% of prisoners are rearrested within five years, and in some parts of the country, that number is even higher.

All of this brings me back to my larger point, which is that... I just don't know if I believe that there are people out there who don't have the capacity to be remorseful or who love to hurt others (in like a violent crime kind of way and not in a masochistic kind of way). Looking at Norway again, only 3,687 people were imprisoned there as of 2022 (roughly 0.07% of their population, compared to the US' 0.7%). Of those, only 1,172 were violence or maltreatment (0.02% of their population), and 796 were sexual offenses (0.01% of their population). Of all those people, only 76 are considered to be there for "preventative detention", meaning that Norway doesn't trust that it's safe to release them (0.001% of their total population). If we extrapolate that number to a global scale, that's 82,000 people in the entire world who aren't safe to be around others- way less than the 10.35 million people who are currently incarcerated.

But even then, I just don't believe that those 76 people are in some way defective or irredeemable. Certainly, many of them have done horrible things (although not all of them- two are actually in their for their involvement in a heist, one for armed robbery that didn't kill anyone, and one person seems to be imprisoned primarily for making death threats to the prime minister), but I think most of them are probably just deeply damaged people. I want to be clear that I don't say that to excuse their actions or to spare them from accountability. Rather, it's to say that I think given the right support, some of that damage can be repaired, and maybe, eventually, they'll be safe to release. But even if they never reach the point where they can go out in public again, I still think it's our moral duty to try and help them get to a place where that's possible. I think to not offer them help is to reject their humanity, and that's just not something I can support in good conscience.

[long-suffering-little-spoon]

I JUST REALIZED THAT YOU WATCHED THE OFMD FINALE

H-

How are you feeling 🥲🥲🥲

Pahaha not swimmingly, I'll just say. First I have been doing a bit of the ol' menstruating which means everything is immediately more extreme lol. I've been very conflicted and I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about *THE THING* especially, but this is where I stand right here right now at like 11PM lmao

Under the cut cos this ended up being exponentially longer than I thought it could ever be sorry

Overall I've loved season 2!! It has been so much fun to interact with the community and convert everyone to the Izzy hands cult engage with the fandom week by week. We've had some incredibly beautiful high moments and some lovely refreshing queer joy. I adore the new characters and the developments of our existing ones. I know my negative thoughts here are much more substantial than my positives but this doesn't mean I didn't like it!! I just don't feel the need to describe the positives because I feel like they're pretty obvious and universally recognised, agreed upon and beloved, y'know? (if you want a purely positive thoughts autistic happy flappy hands rant™, i can oblige dw)

Izzy's death is not the only reason I have mixed feelings on the finale. Obviously the episode cuts were a result of HBO'S meddling and isn't the fault of the crew, but the pacing still felt off and everything that happened just kinda washed over me like white noise (haha will wo-). The loose ends were tied up in wholesome ways and if we don't get a season 3 this would be a mostly decent way to end our characters' journeys, if a bit rushed. But then...

Izzy's death. A lot of people feel very very betrayed and hurt by Izzy being killed off, some people don't feel the comfort they used to from this show because of it and no longer want to engage. I don't wanna discount these people's views, more power to them; I cannot stop them from feeling what they feel and doing what they choose. I haven't given up hope on this show but Izzy's death just felt pretty unsatisfying to me?? Putting my bias towards him aside, I get the "killing off mentor at end of second act" trope but I just feel and wish way more could've been done with Izzy. I wanted to see more of him being happy and secure in himself and his found family and his queerness and his disability!! But now I don't get that and it very much stings. I think I could've come to terms more with his death if there had been more time to dwell on it all and get to see the individual characters mourn, but again episode cuts, thanks HBO!! /s. And I know they had the funeral but it still feels like we didn't really get a chance to mourn or treat Izzy's death with the weight it warranted. And I am far too tired especially right now to engage in "is this/is this not bury your gays/disabled character" but I will say I've seen pretty compelling arguments on both sides. As an able-bodied disabled person I don't feel it's fully my place to dictate, but I am upset Izzy was killed right after some big moments in his healing process and being a disabled person and in general just enjoying his life.

Personally I'm not giving up on the show as a whole because the finale left a sour taste in my mouth. I still very much like this show and I'm willing to stick around for a potential season 3 and on future rewatches I'll be able to see the stuff I loved separate from the stuff I didn't. But since looking back now, the latter is most recent, it kind of casts an unpleasant shadow on a very enjoyable season of television.

RIP Izzy Hands you deserved better sweetie, you would've loved Drag Race. And also shoutout to Con O'Neill for a fucking phenomenal performance last season, but especially this one. Izzy was absolutely iconic and a fan favourite for a very good reason, even if imo the writers did him dirty. He was hilarious and a petty little bitch man but then deeply broken and compelling and a genuinely beautiful character with a beautiful journey despite an unfortunate and unjust end?? He slayed.

Wow this was a lot!! Sorry if you were expecting silly goofiness lmfao I got very analysi-ish and a bit melancholic. Thank you so much for the ask JJ, it was a good opportunity to try and express all my thoughts and squish them into something cohesive for both you and me. (And thanks to my friend who I was discussing this with earlier; they helped me get a new perspective by sharing some of his thoughts. Dude, if you're reading this you know who you are, thanks a bunch!!!!)

[tuningknight]

thoughts on girls revolution project cast based on their comics so far

#1, pink hair

- taking her first steps into the world; "my name is becoming real"

- (is she a virtual entity in the first place vs a real entity? idk)

- self-doubts, self-deprecative thoughts

- afraid of the world, afraid of being hurt by others

- (HC trans allegory...? self-deprecation is in line with gender dysphoria, being afraid of the world & being hurt by others is in line with how trans acceptance is viewed)

#2, purple&red hair

- feels the world is too big

- wants to shift focus on "smaller things"

- has been hurt in some way

- thinks abt reasons for hurt & conflict in the world

- believes strongly in empathy/sympathy

- (i really like this worldview... i resonate a lot with it, wondering about how people hurt others and are hurt themselves; why there is conflict in the world; implication that she feels like people who haven't experienced deep pain are cruel themselves -- i feel this a lot too)

#3, black hair

- loves the world in its darkness and beauty

- has a lot of emotions she wants to express

- sees her turbulent self in the turbulent world

- sense of self, authenticity, independency

- wants to be her authentic, messy self in expressing her feelings & emotions -- not cool and calculated at all

- (she screams goth/emo/alt to me, sorry abt being unable to pinpoint the specific name i'm a bit unfamiliar, but something about wanting to express darker emotions and not hide them is just. yeah you get it)

#4, white hair

- feels like the world is always watching & oppressive

- pressured to be a "certain way," to conform to the world, but wants to "just be herself"

- feels suffocated by the pressure of the world

- "we can't accept our differences from others" -> thematic of conforming & pressure; being different is unacceptable, the more different you are from society the worse it is

- emphasis on regrets -> maybe she doesn't want to live a life of regrets not expressing herself the way she wants to

- (somehow she gives me the vibe of being physically disabled or otherwise bodily frail, but i'm unsure where i get that vibe)

#5, purplish magenta hair

- feels the world is very structured and clear, but that structure is too oppressive at times

- likely experiences emotional & behavioral outbursts often (?)

- wants to hide her feelings/not make her feelings known, and just wants people to coexist alongside her in society like she's normal

- longing for normalcy vs feeling like the world's feelings & norms are against her

- (HC she has some kind of behavioral or personality disorder... projects my BPD on you)

#6, green/yellowish hair

- feels "empty"

- just copies others, doesn't have a real sense of self

- wants to be kind to herself despite her emptiness

- sometimes wants to feel pain (maybe related to the feeling of emptiness, something to fill that hole)

- feels importance in pain somehow

- (autism creature?)

other

another thing i just realized their eyes are all the same; given the significance of kafrim's eyes being similar, these 6 girls having the same eyes Probably Means Something in their united "revolution" against the world

all of them have comments about "the world" -- similarity in 4 and 5 regarding the structure & pressures of society; 3 and 6 also feel like they have similarities to me in their outlooks (idk how to word it, i want to say "being true to oneself" but that's not quite right); 1 and 2 also talk about being hurt by the world

all of them have critiques on society & the world from different angles, likely because they all deviate from social norms one way or another, so my HCs of some of them being say, mental disorder, autistic, trans, disabled, etc would be thematically fitting

4, 5, 6 all are hiding their sense of self, while 1 and 3 are showing & expressing their sense of self. 2 i'm unsure but i would say she's leaning towards showing her sense of self.

i wish they had fucking names already release the names PP-san AAAAAAAAA

[sbuggbot]

Long, rambling post incoming.

I'm a DSP. I work in a group home for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities. I'm also autistic; I just happen to need low support.

I do tangible, good work - the individuals I take care of are always happy to see me and like when I'm there to help them. (And being autistic myself, I have a unique perspective on things because in many ways, I'm a lot like them.) For many of these people, their families live not too far away but they still never come and visit or take them on home visits. (No all of them though-three or four of them do go home regularly on weekends, out of fourteen.) DSPs really are their family to them, and many view the older, longtime staff as parental figures.

But this post isn't about me.

The home I work at does not pass the burrito test. Or at least, I don't think it would. I don't think most of the individuals would even get the idea to try. Most of these people are in or approaching their fifties and sixties and have been living in this sort of environment since they first came of age. I wonder how much their autonomy has been repressed over the years. We don't have a set bedtime, but most are in bed before 8 or 9 pm (likely because of the medications they take and also many have to get up early to get assistance for morning showers). Most lack the skills to safely go out in the community unsupervised, as well.

As staff we micromanage so much of their daily lives. We have menus we are supposed to strictly follow and portion sizes we have to adhere to. We can substitute a food for a like food, but we still have to stick with what's on the menu. We can take suggestions from them but we have to follow what the dietician and doctor say, and any restrictions that come with that (like limiting junk food and pop to Saturday's Special Snack).

But even then, in training, it is hammered into our heads that these people are in fact people and that they do have rights. The individuals know it, too, and will tell you that. As staff, we can't just take away their things for misbehaving unless it's causing an immediate threat (like as a throwing projectile) or it's been laid out very specifically in a maladaptive behavior modification program, which has its own detailed process to be put in place, and it can't be permanent. Also, a number of these people are not their own guardian and there's all that entails.

They are getting to go out on outings a lot more nowadays thanks to our new house manager, and they love to do so, but that's all reliant on adequate staff. And let me tell you, the retention rate is terrible for DSPs because it's grueling, thankless work. You can easily end up running around like a headless chicken trying to keep everyone's needs met and make sure things are done on time (such as medication passes and dinner, while also ensuring showers are getting done and cleaning up any accidents or messes and making sure nobody starts a fight). I have my days where I get completely overwhelmed.

I'm honestly not sure where I'm trying to go with this post. I'm part of this massive and far from perfect system, and sometimes I wonder if I'm just adding onto the systematic oppression disabled people face...