#that is ableist and counter productive

[hussyknee]

In one of the 647968 posts going "What You Like Says Nothing About You" (broadly agree) the first comment in the reply section was, "well I'm never going to apologize for being a Swiftie and a Reylo and Destiel shipper and Snape fan and loving ACOTAR and LOTR and Hamilton and B99" and I'm like, actually being this much of a pathological white liberal makes you the exception to this rule 😭😭

[fatehbaz]

"Industry" as a frame of meaning is [...] relevant from the beginning of [modern-era labor advocacy and the general practice of intentionally "taking it easy" or "slowing down" while at work in order to advocate for and take care of oneself] [...], a form of "working badly" [...]. This close link is understandable given the absolute focus on efficiency that marks management thinking - Taylorism [Frederick Taylor's time studies and his support for using stopwatches to micro-manage in the workplace], the Gilbreths' time and motion studies [...]. [W]e can feel that trace of disgust, a certain sneering affect [...]. The sneer gathers around the word "motionless," [...]. The promise of the “upstanding citizen” is posed against the figure of the cripple, etymologically bound to the one who creeps, who stays low, to the one who is not proud and erect and in public view. In this way, that figure - along with the hobbled, the mute, the blind, the mad, the deaf, the chronic, and, of course, the paralyzed - becomes the exemplary negative definition. [...] [T]he only culturally sanctioned options are to be hidden from public life or recuperated [...]. That [...] fantasy of [a] return to previous levels of mobility that aligns easily with ableist conceptions of normal function and health [...] is also grounded in the specific idea of a return to ["productivity"] [...].

We can find this dynamic in especially dramatic form in the influential work of early twentieth-century “scientific management” theorists Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, known both for their time and motion studies of labor processes [...]. [T]he Gilbreths are relentlessly devoted to the reduction of inefficiency in labor to save energy, reduce unnecessary fatigue, and, above all, neutralize the fundamental “waste” of effort and time hidden within every human movement, particularly when at work. According to Frank and Lillian, “there is no waste of any kind in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions, and their resulting unnecessary fatigue.” The battle against this “waste” gets posed as a civilizational battle stretching back across human history, only now conquerable with modern means, yet theirs is also a project with explicitly nationalist overtones that can be strategically couched to suit a war economy and a desire for American imperial hegemony.

---

The solution they propose is a total analytical dissection of labor processes, breaking single tasks into discrete parts to detect the little gaps in time that could be closed. Such minute lags and “micromotions” will necessarily get missed without the tools the Gilbreths turn to, like moving picture cameras - turned to face workers with chronometers in front of the lens and reticular grids on the wall behind for scale - and a “chronocyclegraph,” which allowed them to zoom in on a single gesture to see its tiny deviations and wasted movements frame by frame. In their methodology, delays and breakdowns take a form almost directly counter to simple malingering or the kind of willful self-stasis that Spargo denounced. Rather, what causes the inefficiency that the Gilbreths target is too much movement, an excess of animacy and motions that need not be done to complete a task, resulting in unnecessary fatigue and wasted opportunities for profit.

Yet at the heart of this, there is one figure seen to most embody this “wasted” energy and time in full - not in a specific action, badly choreographed task, or laziness, but in their entire being. This is what they designated as the “cripple,” [...].

---

“What,” the Gilbreths ask, “is to be done with these millions of cripples, when their injuries have been remedied as far as possible, and when they are obliged to become again a part of the working community?” [...] The “cripple” therefore emblematizes the waste of America’s “human resources” for the Gilbreths. It manifests a physical limit - the body that is conventionally seen to be unable to do productive work - but also a political one that they cannot even fathom, or at least allow publicly: the idea that anyone might challenge either the supposed utility of this frenzy of streamlined work or the very category of what constitutes “waste” itself. For the Gilbreths, the “elimination of waste” is not merely a project of capital. It is a civilization-scale undertaking that benefits all involved in the process: “All workers are sharing in the savings made possible by the elimination of waste.” [...]

It is not mere surveillance, increased policing, or something that openly oppresses and invites a revolt. Instead, it is a mode of management and control that seeks to saturate every step of the process, all the while insisting that what’s good for profit is good for those whose stolen time generates that profit.

---

All text above by: Evan Calder Williams. "On Paralysis, Part 3". e-flux Journal Issue #147. September 2024. Published online at: e-flux dot com slash journal/147/624989/on-paralysis-part-3/. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity/context. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[helping-people-love]

Oh shit an abuse support blog that's actually not ableist as fuck? 10/10

So anyway I'm a pwNPD (and more than a few ASPD traits tbh) because my dad is a raging piece of shit that treated me like a toy instead of a child.

- ⚔️

OF COURSE!! Npd and PD’s as a whole are trauma based disorders. It’s counter productive to demonize people who struggle with NPD because that just makes it worse and traumatizes you guys even more and that’s not fair at all. It doesn’t do anything to help and even then it’s just WRONG. You didn’t ask to be this way and it’s not your fault. As long as literally ANYONE with mental health struggles acknowledges that’s they’re mentally ill and actively tries to work on it and takes accountability even if it’s the tiniest of baby steps then that’s all that matters!! You are valid friend!! There needs to be more support in the abuse community and I want to actively work to make this space a better place! I’m sorry your dad is an ass hat :(

Much love friend!❤️

[jitterbugjive]

i've been thinking about this all day since I witnessed it

dude: "I think people are smart because they are smart, not because they are autistic. No mental disability should be claimed to be responsible for making a person smarter because that is stereotyping the condition and it's simply not true. The stereotype of the savant autistic person is counter-productive because it's rare in autism and people need to stop assuming intelligence means autism." other dude: "That is rude and ableist of you to say autistic people can't be smart"

dude: that's not what I was saying at all you fucking dingbat

other dude: WOW I'M AUTISTIC AND NOT UNDERSTANDING WHAT PEOPLE SAY IS AN AUTISM THING AND YOU ARE ABLEIST FOR NOT REALIZING THAT ABOUT ME AND NOT HOLDING MY HAND THROUGH WHAT YOU SAID

Look, I've learned as a rule of thumb NOT to interoperate everything people say in bad faith unless it's absolutely blatantly obvious they're being a shitheel, because believe it or not most people aren't trying to open themselves up to attack for saying something shitty. Most of the time, they just said something stupid without thinking and it's not meant to be harmful.

[peantisdeliriouts]

According to modern-day puritans, your intrusive thoughts are only valid if you DON'T get aroused by them. Like, arousal is a body's response to stimuli, and just because some people are aroused by their thoughts it doesn't mean it's any less distressing for them. If anything, the fact that it arouses them may make it MORE distressing.

Seriously, what is with this push to make mentally ill people the most sanitized versions of themselves? Do you NOT see how counter-productive it is to push down all the things you and others around you deem "impure" or "immoral"?

You're not going to heal or improve yourself if you're bottling things up and shaming yourself for the ways in which your brain functions (none of which anyone has literally any control over). You're not actually helping anyone but deeming them "degenerates" or "freaks" or any other derogatory words your ableist mind can come up with.

Accepting mental illness is spreading proper information on the ways in which it can impact the way people act, think, and are as opposed to spreading the misinformation that least impacts your personal discomfort.

Your ableism hasn't ended just because you yourself are disabled or because you accept certain palatable symptoms of mental illness.

[rouge-fauna]

I'm a c!Tommy fan and didn't mind your aspd c!Tommy post. I don't think it was ableist. I don't exactly agree with it either though but you have a right to say it and not get talked about behind your back. I'm sorry that happened. I would probably send an ask about my interpretation in the distant future once all this has calmed down and the abundance of c!Tommy asks have stopped 😅 ❤️

I really appreciate you saying that. :) I’m glad I haven’t pissed everyone off lol, whether you agree or don’t, or like c!Tommy or don't. I mean I personally don't think it's really right to talk badly about people behind their back anyways, but it certainly does feel a little unreasonable to call me dumb, crazy and delusional without even trying to have a conversation with me. What's sad is that there are points to be made and would have been interesting to discuss like an alternative diagnosis or looking more at the diagnosing criteria. Like this is not a hill I would die on, it's not my favorite analysis or take, it's just an opinion and viewpoint I shared with reasons why, the context of which was actually countering the argument of people calling c!Dream a psychopath.

And while I'm at it, I would like to note a few things. In the essay I didn't even call c!Tommy evil or ASPD evil, and I have tried to be very clear that by no means do I believe c!Tommy deserved to be abused in Exile or any other time. And in regards to the alignment chart, I really disliked that analysis anyways. It just doesn't really work. It's a simplified tool for dnd to help people stay to character, but how do you decide what is good, lawful, and evil in a story where, as I have talked about so many times, there is no true system of laws or government, and no widely accepted bounds of morality... So just to be clear, I will reiterate - no one deserves abuse, I do not think c!Tommy is "evil" or the "Bad guy" and I do not think there is a dsmp character who is. And while it may seem like I have a vendetta or am targeting c!Tommy specifically, that's just where discussion has lead recently, mostly because of the finale, anons, and also because of noticing how often c!Tommy calls c!Dream a psychopath I thought it was interesting to look at how it might be the other way around...

Also... I guess... I don't know, aren't y'all bored of having the same old discussions and takes on c!Dream, c!Tommy, c!Wilbur, c!Punz, c!Tubbo... etc over and over? Is it not fun to look at things in a different way and say - what if this is true or - that is true and how does that change things? Is it not interesting to take the same story and lore and see if it can be seen still canonically in a different way? I mean, applying diagnosis is never going to fit perfectly, not just because I'm a 23 year old autistic engineer not a psychologist of any kind, but also mostly because we only have a set chaotic few years of them to look at with no past to base on. But beyond that, isn't it fun and interesting to see if it fits, if it provides an explanation for behavior we didn't have before? Is it so wrong of me to try and see if there are fun new ways of looking at lore instead of having detailed ships and aus?...

Anyways sorry, I may have gotten carried away there, it has been a long Monday. Regardless, it is a shame that it ruined the chance for actual exciting productive conversation and discussion to happen, because I can't say I am not curious on your interpretation. Guess we will just circle back around to it (it seems to be inevitable at his point lol) <3 <3 <3

[smilesstardust]

- He’s my boss, I can’t tell him what to do. For your Dance Company au

Hi! This one is a little sad, but ultimately kind of sweet. It’s set in the run up to the big production that saves the company. (Also, minor cw for someone being an ableist prick)

It had been a long day. Connor walked back to his office, feet heavy, deciding whether he was going to make a dent in the pile of paperwork on his desk or just leave it for the morning. It had been a full day of meetings about funding, about set design and costumes, about how they were going to promote the show to sell as many tickets as possible. And that was on top of taking some of the rehearsals so that by the time it was ready to perform the dancers could do it perfectly in their sleep. So Connor was exhausted.

He’d decided to leave the paperwork, that the bottle of whiskey on his counter that he was slowly working his way through was calling his name, as he rounded the corner up to the corridor where his and Ava’s offices were.

There was a loud voice coming from Ava’s office, one that he recognised as belonging to the mentor she’d invited to visit. They’d discussed it before she had extended the invite, deciding it would be a good idea to get his input on the show they were putting together, as neither her or Connor had ever been behind something of this magnitude and wanted to get the opinion of someone who did it regularly.

Ava’s door had been left ajar, so Connor paused on his way past to check everything was okay.

"I’ve more cause to be disappointed in you than I thought." He heard the miserable old man bark at her. "Honestly Ava, it’s almost like you no longer care about dance."

"I do." Her voice sounded so much smaller than usual. If Connor didn’t know her better, he’d call her tone a whimper. "I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t."

"You’re too young to be a choreographer, you don’t have the right experience or tenure as a dancer. The only reason they hired you is because they want you to dance for them. Ava, child, why else would a third rate company on the brink of closure hire a washed up prima?" He paused. "You need to stop all this nonsense and come home. Get back to dancing. You’ll feel better after a class or two."

"I can’t." She stuttered. "My injury-"

"Is in your head. You’re making a big deal out of nothing, everyone gets dropped at some point. You are not the first and won’t be the last. Now stop blubbering about it and get back to work."

"I, I, I-" She struggled.

"I think you need to leave." Connor pushed the door open and stepped inside, deciding enough was enough. "I don’t know what you think you’re trying to do, but all you’re actually doing is upsetting her. Ava can’t dance anymore, not like she used to, and it’s not for lack of trying on her part. The fall should have killed her and it’s a miracle she recovered as much as she has, so you don’t get to tell her that isn’t enough." He had to ignore Ava’s expression, her tear stained face look at him half grateful and half like he had gone crazy.

"This is none of your business." The old man got defensive.

"Believe me, I would much rather be on my way home. But you just had to be verbally abusive to a member of my staff while I was walking past." Connor sighed. "Ava is damn good at her job even if she doesn’t have much experience, and all of the improvements we’ve made since she joined are down to her. You don’t get to come here and make her feel bad about her work when she’s better for this company than anything we could have asked for."

Jaffrey turned away from Connor, steam blowing out of his ears and towards Ava. "Are you going to let him speak to me like that?" He demanded.

"He’s my boss." Ava swallowed, shaking her head slightly. "I can’t tell him what to do." Connor had to do his best not to laugh at that. He might have been in charge on paper, but Ava was no stranger to ordering him around. However Ava’s response seemed to work, the miserable bastard grabbing his coat and bag and storming out.

Ava choked back a sob and Connor crossed over the room to where she was stood, pulling her into a tight hug. She buried her face into his chest as she cried and he held her upright, pressing a soft kiss to her hair as he rubbed circles on her back.

"Come on, I’ll drive you home." He told her, pulling back just enough to see her face when the wet patch on his T-shirt stopped growing. She nodded and he picked up her bag from its spot underneath her desk, slinging it over his shoulder as he wrapped his other arm around her. A quick stop at his office to grab his stuff, and then he walked her out the back entrance so they could go home.

[hussyknee]

As someone with OCD who has been driven to breakdowns about twice a year over the past ten years of being on this hellsite, here are some things you need to see and internalize:

There is not a single personal preference or emotion that has moral value.

Your tastes, kinks and feelings are 200% value neutral. They have fuck all to do with social justice.

Fandoms and ships have no moral value. they do not make you any sort of sexual predator.

You are not a bad person for liking problematic media. You dont need to justify or redeem it to enjoy it.

"Problematic" just means "has problems that merit thinking about". Not "bad evil wrong freakish".

Your consumption habits under capitalism does not make you a bad person. Systemic issues are not A hypodermic needle you are personally pushing.

You get to decide what goes on your blog and what you can handle paying attention to.

Not doing exactly what someone tells you to do is not the same as not listening to them. Nobody else is living your life but you.

People have the right to anger. that does not mean it's yours to absorb or carry. You have the right to block or ignore or scroll past anything you want.

You are well within your rights to avoid groups and minorities have hurt or traumatized you in the past, regardless of privilege. You're not hurting anyone by not engaging with topics and people that make you anxious.

Inducing guilt is completely useless and unnecessary for social justice and actively counter-productive.

However.

White guilt is still a thing. An extremely misconstrued one. White guilt doesn't mean it's wrong to feel guilty. It means you need to process whatever feelings that arise when racism and racial microaggressions are brought to your attention by yourself.

The majority of this website is neurodivergent, queer, Western and white. The minority is neurodivergent, queer, of colour or non-Western. Neurodivergence does not mean you get to accuse minorities of "making you feel guilty" when we get angry.

"Please consume these things critically"=/= "you are an oppressor if you like this".

"It's really fucking hard to see 73817 memes and 2 info posts about the thing killing us" =/= "how dare you make memes".

"You need to listen to us"=/= "if you don't do exactly as we say you're a racist." "

This thing you do is racist" =/= "you are a racist and bad person".

If we do explode it's because we are at breaking point and you are only seeing 1% of what it's like to be us. We would much rather you scroll past than attack us because you felt shitty.

Yes it's hard to negotiate this when we have OCD, but just as PoC can be ableist and try to make you feel guilty for your feelings and tastes, you can also be racist by accusing us of ableism when we speak up. Ableism is something that is most often weaponized by white disabled/neurodivergent people against people of colour. Oftentimes, both parties have OCD or other neurodivergence that make us hypermoral. Nuance is key.

Most of this website is frankly power-tripping assholes who think screaming at and dunking on whoever they've assigned as "problematic" constitutes social justice while patting themselves on the back about how inclusive we are. It's a culture of acceptable targets. Which makes it all the more important that you lead with compassion and stick to a personal code of behaviour regardless of who you're talking to. Kindness is really fucking hard, and I personally fail at it more often than not, but it's the only way we can stop hurting each other for no reason.

this site really hates people with ocd

[aliyasthoughts]

Past: "Fuck Your Healthy. Fuck Your Wellness"

This section discusses the emergence of the word wellness, replacing healthy in combatting the capitalist, systemic, and individualist connotations of the latter industry. In pairing with other societal systems, the medical-industrial complex enforces a singular version and image of health that is simultaneously pushed as the goal and ideal for all humans. This however is “inherently ableist, not survivor led, nor does it try to understand how generational, individual/collective trauma impacts our collective bodies and lives” (Hassan, 116). In opposition to healing justice and harm reduction, healthism controls bodies and minds for profit and power. Healthism also stigmatizes certain forms of coping, further stigmatizing and isolating survivors.

Analyzing something under the label of health allows both individuals and institutions to acceptably shame others and enforce a norm without judgment or guilt. Because health is constructed to be something unequivocally necessary for a successful and productive life, there is little room semantically to counter its socially embedded meaning. It has ableist, sexist, and racist implications, but since health is so far removed today from its formation, people merely recognize it for its manufactured merit without recognizing it is human manufactured. The health and medical industries don’t exist in the US apart from capitalism, and they manipulate people into an obsession and a cycle with money at the center. Frequently, I hear that certain brands of products designed for self improvement under the “health” category are actually ineffective, one example being EOS lip balm. Chapstick and lip balm are supposed to hydrate your lips, where chapped lips are a sign of “bad health.” However, it makes sense for these companies to create products that make your lips dryer so that as you obsess with the need to be healthy, you buy more and more of the product that you think will fix your problem. There was a class action lawsuit against EOS in 2016 because its products caused harmful reactions to consumers. This example also shows how something that is perceived as healthy (ex. non chapped lips) may more so have to do with beauty and aesthetics, and how the two get intertwined for the sake of capitalist exploitation of human egos. 

Link to Glamour article about the EOS lawsuit 

[protected-and-loved-by-castiel]

Why heal if it hurts? (This is a continuation of a post-series on the ADHD neurotype)

ADHD trauma is largely a product of ableism in our environment. Suppressing our innate/genetic/heritable ADHD traits through trauma-based coping skills is how we have survived in an ableist world. Suppressing our True Self is an amazing coping skill AND it has a huge cost to our physical bodies. Masking (whether through fawning, through running on adrenaline, or through dissociation from parts of ourselves) leads to multisystemic mind-body illnesses.

The list of traits I posted seems negative and not neutral because of ableism. And in some settings they are negative. If our immediate environment (home, work, school, etc) is ableist, then we actually still need our masks and our trauma-based coping skills. If we try to unmask or allow more of our True Self to take up space when our immediate environment does not support that, the result is going to be re-traumatization and eventual burnout.

Here's an example. I had a big episode of burnout in 2020 because of trauma work. A part of myself that longs for connection came awake from being numb for years. But because it was the pandemic-lockdown environment, there was no way for me to meet that need. And the pain of that part of myself waking up only to have the same experience of unmet need again was devastating. I was in burnout for months. I had to stop doing trauma work until my environment could support more connection.

Choosing our own pace for trauma healing is something we’re all entitled to. We’re not obligated to heal trauma, despite what social media says, and we can pause the process at any time. Sometimes it’s safer to avoid trauma work for a while and just focus on using our coping strategies.

For individual trauma healing to be possible, we really need collective healing. We need environments that are aware of systemic ableism and seeking to counter it. We need homes, workplaces, schools, and communities where its okay to have all of the traits I listed before, where support and affirmation is offered. I am lucky to be in community with neurodivergent humans who have no problems with me being my unmasked “more” ADHD self. I know it’s a far off dream for some, but I wish that for everyone.

Everyone deserves the safety to be able to drop their trauma defenses and be supported as their True Self. If you don’t have that yet, I pray you do someday.

[ionlylikemycat]

i bought a bag of six potato rolls for lunches for a week

i matched the amount of meats and cheeses to the amount of rolls

i cannot leave my bread products in the special lemon-only bag by my mini fridge bc the cat attacks them there, so i have to leave them on the counter with the other breads

the first day i wake up and someone has eaten one of my rolls- that’s on me, i forgot to tell people or write my name on them

i write my name on the bag six times. i debate telling my sister not to eat the rolls, but we’ve been having food problems where i say don’t eat my food and she says you’re the sole cause of my eating disorder and that might just ignite another fight so i only write my name

i wake up today and someone has eaten another roll. of the six i have had two, someone has eaten two. i now have two. rolls. for an entire week, and way too much meats and cheeses. the ratios are fucked, and i’m gonna be out money i don’t really have for groceries

now i Do have to say something bc i really want my last two rolls actually but it Will cause a fight bc now i’m mad

borb says i need to have put tape on the bag that said lemons food for lemon only but i feel like writing my name on it with purple sharpie six times kinda got that message across

so now i have to talk to my sister and do the whole, i am doing my half of marking my food and making things clear you have to now do your half where you do a little check in with things before you eat them and see if there is writing all over it

which is gonna cause a fight cos she’s gonna go, well i’m autistic and you’re making me have an eating disorder and i’m so stressed at work and i cannot possibly be expected to do any of the work to solve these situations and i need every one else to bend to my whims or else you’re all ableist against me

which like

bud we’re disabled in like basically the same ways just you have adhd and i have nvld like. get your shit together?

i hate living with people so much

[loiswasadevil]

arent you ablist af? that seems a little counter-productive considering the previous asks about the LGBTQ+

What the fuck are you talking about, When the hell am i Ableist, And what the hell are you talking about at all.

[rubberduckyrye]

….

Okay. Breathe in, breathe out.

I know you replied to this in jest, but this post was not meant to be taken in a lighthearted way. I’m sorry to scold you, but. Well. You really shouldn’t “refute” things in “jest” or as a joke. It is not kind, and in this case, you are aiding in extreme bigotry by doing so.

Some background as to where this post came from and why I’m a bit miffed:

This post was made in response to a series of events relating to how the fandom infantizes Gonta, making him out to be frustratingly babied by the fandom to the point of extreme ableism and bigotry. Antis in particular started to try to derail the argument by implying that it doesn’t MATTER that Gonta isn’t a literal baby, he CANNOT be “Sexualized” (this came up as a point because in the post I linked to above, I pointed out how Gonta was sexually attracted to Miu, to the point where seeing her in her underwear made him specifically horny) because he is a MINOR and thusly my points were invalid. They were trying to excuse their bigotry and ableism by pulling the “b-b-but minor!” Card.

So I do not care that you are trying to derail my counterpoint to these kind of people, even unintentionally. The discussion about how Gonta is treated with extreme forms of ableism is extremely important to me and all of my friends, so it being derailed, getting back on track, and then derailed again is not a fun experience. Still, since you’ve brought up the argument, so have to counter it now. Because if I don’t, we will never be able to discuss the extremely ableist way the fandom treats Gonta in any method that will actively be productive. That is unfortunately the position you’ve put me in, and I do apologize for being so harsh about this, but I will not let the discussion of Ableism get derailed again.

Point one: The HPA memories are false.

There is no canon proof to state that the HPA memories are indeed false. Tsumugi admits at the very end that she was a “cosplay-cat criminal”, AKA a “copycat criminal,” which is a term used in criminology to discuss a criminal who is imitating another. This implies that Junko Enoshima, the original criminal of the killing games, was real. She also got cospox from cosplaying as Kaede, implying that unlike her claim in Chapter 6, that the V3 cast are real people as they are presenting in V3. Meaning Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist, is a real person, according to Tsumugi’s testimony. Had Kaede Akamatsu not been the Ultimate Pianist, Tsumugi would be adding a fictional element to Kaede, thusly making her a sort of “Face claim” to Kaede Akamatsu, the Ultimate Pianist, and thusly would not have gotten Cospox from cosplaying as a character who has an “actress” for a face. Tsumugi’s testimony, as well as chapter 6 in general, is highly suspect to begin with—but these points cause a contradiction to the claim “everything is just fiction.”

There is also no canon proof that V3 takes place in a different universe. Once again the cosplaycat criminal thing. This actually proves that Junko Enoshima existed, and thusly, is in the same universe. Can’t be a “cosplaycat criminal” if there isn’t a criminal to copycat.

Point two: the HPA memories are Invalid to use as an argument because they are false.

This is wildly inaccurate of a sentiment to imply.

First of all, the post was describing Kirumi Tojo the character. Her backstory is the same whether you believe she is a fictional character in her own story or not. Her backstory as the character, Kirumi Tojo, is that she accepted to be the Prime Minister’s maid at the tail end of High school. This doesn’t change if she’s a fictional character in context of V3 or not. The supposed fictional backstory created for Kirumi by Tsumugi or by the creators of V3, whether she’s fictional in game or a real HPA student in game or not, does not actually matter. Her backstory is still written to be the same—She accepted her role as the Prime Minister’s maid right before graduating HPA. This means she was 18 before V3 starts. They cannot be younger. Aside from that, if Real People were joining a Real Killing game, (in the context that it’s all fictional anyway) they would need to be 18 years of age to even be considered legally able to sign a waver to allow them to participate in such a game.

Also as someone in the notes pointed out—Ryoma is on death row, a sentence that is given to adults, not really to high schoolers. Several V3 students have colleges level talents as well. They’re more college coded than high school coded if anything.

Speaking of…

Point 3: They’re high school coded.

The point of the main DR games is that these students are “factory reset”, so to speak, to their High school selves, just before entering HPA or otherwise. So yes they ARE High school coded at first, because they do not remember attending high school and being in higher education beyond that/don’t remember anything more than being scouted. The memories given to them reflect this as well—about their progression through high school and the passage of time they had forgotten. This is the same formula in the first two main game titles as well. So yes their memories refer to them as high school students. They are also still pretty much graduated by the time V3 rolls around. These are not mutually exclusive.

In conclusion.

Please don’t derail augments for the “jest” of it. Please do not “refute” what you consider to be headcanons that you do not agree with because you are taking this as a joke. Refuting headcanons like this is already what people call a dick move, let alone derailing a very serious discussion and a counterpoint to people already trying to derail it.

I know you probably didn’t mean to derail the discussion on the fandom’s Ableism towards Gonta, but you really should have read the post I linked. It might’ve helped you realize this was not a post to “jest” on, but I can’t be sure of that.

To anyone else reading this: this is not an excuse to harass or attack this person. Don’t do that. I’m just correcting them, so please don’t bother them.

Anyway. I hope you have a good day/night.

Okay DRV3 Fans Let's Talk about Canon Ages.

Because I woke up and my brain connected the dots, and because some of you are fucking weird about High-school students. So let's clear the air here--and let's just say they're probably over 18 years old.

In my Gonta rant (which yes I'm linking here, go read it) I call him a young adult. Some people are under the impression (like that anon I got last night) that the V3 cast is canonly 16 or younger due to... whatever the fuck reason. But! I am here to argue a counter point--that the V3 Cast is actually much older and are more college age than young highschoolers.

First of all, let's remember the fact that in all DR games, the cast has gone to high school for some amount of years before their memories are wiped. V3 Also has this feature, and it is within the canon story that these kids remember attending HPA.

Now whether or not you believe this to be true is irrelevant right now because I need you to remember that the backstory for these characters was that they were being hunted down by the Ultimate Hunt, which means they were Ultimate Students at HPA first. Then they had their memories wiped to go into hiding. Yada yada.

The important part actually comes from Kirumi, however. Kirumi is the character that proves that the V3 cast is older than 18 years old.

Remember this tidbit--where Kirumi was the maid of the Prime Minister? Well, when do you think she became the maid for the Prime Minister, do you think?

I have an answer for you.

This is the dialogue from Kaito's "My Future" cutscene from DR:S. The "My Future" Cutscenes take place at the end of the run with the character chosen, and DR:S takes place right at the end of their 3rd year of attending HPA.

Kirumi doesn't specify who she will be working for, but considering that this person is such a big deal what she felt the need to consult Kaito about it, to help her sort out her feelings, I think we can all agree this is heavily referencing V3's plot where she is the Prime Minister's Maid.

This means that Kirumi only took the job as the Prime Minister's Maid at the very end of high school.

That means that by the time V3 runs around, she's well out of high school.

Now you can argue that V3 and DR:S aren't in the same canon--and you'd be right! I would never consider them to be canon to one another. However, this scene shows that in DRV3 and in DR:S, the intention for Kirumi to have been the Prime Minister's maid started at the very tail end of her time in high school. Same character, same backstory, different situation.

Meaning by that logic, Kirumi--as well as her other classmates--are over 18 years old in V3.

They are young adults.

[attackfish]

I saw a deeply stupid post in the Ursa tag the other day, which is unfortunately not an uncommon occurrence, but in this case, this particular post took aim not only at Ursa, the fictional character, but at the human beings who defend her parenting of Azula. The poster said that it really bothers them when people try to justify Ursa's reactions to Azula' behavior by saying that Ursa was just worried about her daughter's behavior, because after all, that's what the abusive parents of neurodiverse children say too, they say it's about the behavior not the child.

This line of logic is deeply flawed and dare I say problematic. Azula wasn't stimming. She wasn't talking too much in class. She wasn't misreading social cues and upsetting someone. She wasn't doing any number of things that neurodivergent children do that are ultimately harmless, for which they are punished. She wasn't even doing something that was potentially dangerous to herself, for which she had minimal understanding or control over. The behavior that concerned her mother was the skillful manipulation, control and bullying, of her brother and companions, animal cruelty, and speculating openly and gleefully about her grandfather's possible death or usurpation, something that would be echoed not long after by her equally gleeful taunting of her brother with the prospect that their father is about to murder him.

This behavior is all very much the product of Ozai's abusive parenting, and a sign of deep psychological damage that has been done to her. It's also dangerous to herself and to her peers, including her brother, and if it isn't somehow stopped, it indicates that she will grow into a dangerous adult. I want to repeat that, her behavior, leaving aside the concerns for what it might mean for her future development, is already dangerous to herself and other children.

This is a thing that happens in the real world. Children, including traumatized children, often exhibit behavior that is dangerous to themselves and others, and that behavior should absolutely concern the caring adults in their lives. Likewise, behavior that is the sign of trauma and abuse should also concern the caring adults in a child's life.

Ursa is not aghast that her child is acting in socially frowned upon ways. She is coping with a child who is engaging in deliberate and profound cruelty aimed at other children, including her brother. There would be something very wrong with Ursa as a parent if that didn't scare her, as indeed there is something extremely wrong with Ozai, who encourages it.

The use of neurodiversity here is especially aggrivating to me for two reasons, the first, because it feels manipulative as hell, and is used to claim that any parent who is concerned about their child's very worrying behavior is in fact ableist, and a bad parent. More, this logic is overtly aimed not at Ursa the fictional character, but at the real people who don't agree that her treatment of Azula was mistreatment. It's the manipulative use of accusations of ableism and supporting the abuse of neurodiverse children to win a fannish arguement, and as a disabled and neurodiverse person, seeing ableism against neurodiverse children used as effectively a manipulation tactic in this way is offensive, and also dangerous, because it is exactly the kind of argument that ableist parents bring up to counter people advocating on behalf of neurodiverse children, who want them to not be punished for behaviors that are part of their neurodiversity.

The other reason I find this particular argument nauseating is because of the exact type of behavior that Azula was engaging in, which is to say the bullying of her brother and companions, in which she exhibits a high level of social awareness, and certain types of strong social skills. I was regularly bullied by children with strong social skills and high levels of social awareness, for my lack of those things, and for my weirdness, almost all of which was born from either my neurodiversity, or my lack of social experience thanks to my disabilities. This bullying was often either ignored, or encouraged by the parents and teachers of the bullying children. They did not view this deliberate cruelty as concerning. And they should have.

Azula has one parent who sees that behavior as concerning, as extremely troubling, and one parent who doesn't. The fact that so many people in this fandom seem to think that realizing this kind of behavior is troubling, inherently makes someone a bad parent, is frustrating in the extreme, because it is in fact an example of good parenting, and Ozai's lack of concern about that behavior is part of what makes him one of the most abusive fathers in children's media.

[underleveledjosh]

I'm pretty sure most communist communities are cults or at least cult like because when I left communism, most people who I thought were friends/to be trusted flamed me and attempted to mass harass me. This was on my old main Twitter that is now suspended, by the way. The majority of commies aren't in it for what they say they're in it for. They're in it for the clout. One of my ex-friends from when I was a commie basically told me that the fact that I want to start my own business someday is immoral. That's the thing: most communists hate successful people because Communism preys on the unsuccessful. They don't care if you are in a marginalized minority group and are running a small local business that donates a portion of profits to charity. They'll still burn your business to the ground because they think all for-profit organizations are evil when they really aren't.

They also assume all business owners and managers are evil/don't do any work themselves when it actually takes a fuck ton of work to start a business and keep it going. It's like they assume that if you aren't in the production line or behind the counter, your job takes no skill. Owning a business actually takes a lot of management and people skills (which most communists also seem to lack).

And if you say this to them, they will accuse you of falling for Capitalist propaganda or some shit. Oh, and not to mention the fact that they think switching to communism will help solve all opression. As a queer Neurodivergent person, I heavily disagree now. A change in economic system will not change people's attitudes. Hell, it's entirely possible that it might make it harder. When I pointed all of these things out, I was harassed and people I thought I could trust stabbed me in the back. Some people even accused me of sucking up to my oppressors just because I decided to no longer be a communist (which I justifiably saw as queerphobic and ableist). Also, Communism heavily and excessively relies on doomerism. This is intentional, too. People who have a lot of anxiety are highly vulnerable to doomerism. This makes these types of people get trapped in, but their mental health also gets worse due to all of the negative information they see on a daily basis. My mental health actually started getting better after I stopped being a communist. It really improved my mood, and I think it's one of the reasons why my depression and anxiety is much more tame now.

In conclusion: communism is a cult. I suggest you stay away from it. If you are a communist, I suggest you get out of it immediately. You never know who is just waiting for you to screw up even slightly so that they think they have an excuse to harass you.

[chinesegal]

Royal inbreeding and ableism

Some people might find what I have to say ridiculous, but I dont give a damn. I believe that what I have to say desperately needs to be said, and people need to hear it out.

The way certain people on this website talk about royal inbreeding and the congenital difficulties thereof, and the way popular fiction depicts it is ableist as hell, and it is a problem. There are plenty of jokes about nazis/white supremacists being "inbred rednecks" and using pictures of Charles II of Habsburg to prove that european monarchs were the "real degenerates", and as a way to counter the idea european civilizations were superior (they weren't, but thats not the point). In Game of Thrones, its heavily implied if not outright stated that the reason Joffrey was evil is because he is the product of brother-sister incest, and sometimes when aristocrats are shown to be evil or "depraved" in fiction royal inbreeding is often used to invoke disgust, as well as an excuse to show various "physical deformities" as a way to repulse the viewer.

You might think this is ridiculous and find what I'm about to say conroversial, but please hear me out.

First off, it has been pointed out numerous times that plenty of ways villains in fiction are designed is racist, antisemitic, fatphobic and transmisogynistic.

For example, using fatness as a signifier for gluttony and greed is fatphobic, evil female villains with "mannish" features run the risk of being transmisogynist etc. On a similar note using physical deformities and illnesses associated with inbreeding as a visual signifier for "degeneracy" and evil can very well be ableist. In my opinion, any attempt to link physical traits to your worth as a person, as well as judging people based on how they were born are unquestionably bad and biological essentialist.

@tenitchyfingers You have said some stuff about this, so I'm tagging you here, also to spread this post around.