#the internalized ableism saying what kind of a person can’t function as a human without needing medicine to do the most basic things

[nope-body]

.

[lorenfangor]

I heard that #40 was super homophobic :/ so I skipped it. But now your fic is making me want to give it a try. How problematic is it? Are the characters worth it?

Okay.

Okay.

Let’s talk about #40.

The plot of The Other (a Marco POV) is that Marco sees an Andalite on a video tape sent in to some Unsolved Mysteries-esque TV show, and he assumes it’s Ax and hauls ass to save him from being captured. Ax, being Ax, has videotaped the show, and they pull it up and Tobias uses his hawk eyes to figure out that it’s not Ax, it’s another Andalite - one without a tailblade. Ax is appalled at the presence of this vecol (an Andalite word for a disabled person) and we find out that he and others of his species have deep ingrained prejudices against at least some kinds of disabled people.

Despite this, Marco and Ax go looking for the Andalite in question because he’s been spotted by national TV, and they meet a second one, named Gafinilan-Estrif-Valad. The vecol is Mertil-Iscar-Elmand, a former fighter pilot with a reputation and Gafinilan’s coded-gay life partner. The two of them have been on Earth since book 1; they crashed their fighters on the planet and have been trapped there thanks to the GalaxyTree going down. Gafinilan has adopted a human cover, a physics professor, and they’ve been living in secret ever since.

Thanks to that tape, Mertil has been captured by Visser Three, and he’s not morph-capable so he can’t escape. Gafinilan wants to trade the leader of the “Andalite Bandits” to the Yeerks to get his boyfriend back; he can’t fight to free Mertil because he’s terminally ill with a genetic disorder that will eventually kill him, and (it’s implied that) the Yeerks aren’t interested in disabled hosts, even disabled Andalite ones. Despite Ax’s ableism, the Animorphs agree to work with Gafinilan and free Mertil, and they’re successful. Marco ends the book talking about how there are all kinds of prejudices you’ll have to face and boxes that people will put you in, and you can’t necessarily escape them even if they’re reductive and inaccurate, but you can still live your life with pride.

So now that I’ve explained the plot, I’m gonna come out the gate saying that I love this book. I love it wholeheartedly, I love Marco’s narration, I love Ax having to deal with Andalite society’s ableism, I love these characters, and as a disabled lesbian I don’t find these disabled gays to be inherently Bad Rep.

that’s of course just my opinion and it doesn’t overshadow other issues that people might have? but at the same time, I don’t like the seemingly-common narrative that this book is all bad all the time, and I want to offer up a different read.To that end, I’m going to go point by point through some of the criticisms and common complaints that I’ve seen across the fandom over the years.

“Mertil and Gafinilan were put on a bus after one appearance because they were gay!”

this is one I’m going to have to disagree with hardcore. I talked about this yesterday, but in Animorphs there are a lot of characters or ideas that only get introduced once or twice and then get written off or dropped - in order off the top of my head, #11 (the Amazon trip), #16 (Fenestre and his cannibalism), #17 (the oatmeal), #18 (the hint of Yeerks doing genetic experiments in the hospital basement), #24/#39/#42 (the Helmacrons’ ability to detect morphing tech), #25 (the Venber), #28 (experiments with limiting brain function through drugs), #34 (the Hork-Bajir homeworld being retaken, the Ixcila procedure), #36 (the Nartec), #41 (Jake’s Bad Future Dream), and #44 (the Aboriginal people Cassie meets in Australia) all feature things that either seem to exist just for the sake of having a particular trope explored Animorphs-style or to feature an idea for One Single Book.

This is a series that’s episodic and has a very limited overall story arc because of how children’s literature in the 90s was structured - these books are closer to The Saddle Club, Sweet Valley High, Animal Ark, or The Baby-Sitters’ Club than they are to Harry Potter or A Series of Unfortunate Events. Mertil and Gafinilan don’t get to be in more than one book because they’re not established in the main cast or the supporting cast, I don’t think that it’s solely got anything to do with their being gay.

“Gafinilan has AIDS, this is a book about AIDS, and that’s homophobic!”

Okay, this is… hard. First, yes, Gafinilan does have a terminal illness. Yes, Gafinilan is gay. No, Soola’s Disease is not AIDS.

I have two responses to this, and I’ll attack them in order of their occurrence in my thought. First, there’s coded AIDS diseases all over genre fiction, especially genre fiction from that era, because the AIDS epidemic made a massive impact on public life and fundamentally changed both how the public perceived illness and queerness and how queer people themselves experienced it. I was too young to live through it, but my dad’s college roommate was out, and my dad himself has a lot of friends who he just ceases to talk about if the conversation gets past 1986 or so - this was devastating and it got examined in art for more reasons than “gay people all have AIDS”, and I dislike the implication that the only reason it could ever appear was as a tired stereotype or a message that Being Queer Means Death. Gafinilan is kind, fond of flowers, and fond of children - he’s multifaceted, and he’s got a terminal illness. Those kinds of people really exist, and they aren’t Bad Rep.

Second off, Soola’s Disease? Really isn’t AIDS. It’s a congenital genetic illness that develops over time, cannot be transmitted, and does not carry a serious stigma the way AIDS did. Gafinilan also has access to a cure - he could become a nothlit and no longer be afflicted by it, even if it’s considered somewhat dishonorable to go nothlit to escape that way. That’s not AIDS, and in fact at no point in my read and rereads did I assume that his having a terminal illness was supposed to be a commentary on homosexuality until I found out that other people were assuming it.

“Mertil losing his tail means he’s lost his masculinity, and that’s bad because he’s gay! That’s homophobic!”

so this is another one I’ve gotta hardcore disagree with, because while Mertil is one of two Very Obviously Queer Characters, he’s not the only character who loses something fundamental about himself, or even loses access to sexual and/or romantic capability in ways he was familiar with.

Tobias and Arbron both get ripped out of their ordinary normal lives by going nothlit in bad situations, and while they both wind up finding fulfillment and freedom despite that, it’s still traumatic, even more for Arbron I’d say than for Tobias. And on a psychological level, none of the main cast is left unmarked or free of trauma or free of deep change thanks to the bad things that have happened to them - they’re no less fundamentally altered than Mertil, even if it’s mental rather than physical. And yes, tail loss is equated with castration or emasculation, but that doesn’t automatically mean Mertil suffering it is tied to his homosexuality and therefore the takeaway we’re intended to have is “Being gay is tragic and makes you less of a man”. This is a series where bad shit happens to everyone, and enduring losses that take away things central to one’s self-conception or identity or body is just part of the story.

Also, frankly? Plenty of IRL disabled people have to grapple with a loss of sexual function, and again, they’re not Bad Rep just because they’re messy.

“Andalite society is confusingly written in this book, and the disability aspects are clearly just a coverup for the gay stuff!”

Andalite society is canonically sexist, a bit exceptionalist and prejudiced in their own favor, and pretty contradictory and often challenged internally on its own norms. In essence, it’s a pretty ordinary society, and they���re really realistic as sci-fi races go. It makes sense from that perspective that Andalites would tolerate scarring or a lost stalk eye or a lost skull eye, but not tolerate serious injuries that significantly impact your perceived quality of life. Ableism is like that - it’s not one-size-fits-all. I look at Ax’s reactions and I see a lot of my own family and friends’ behaviors - this vibes with my understanding of prejudice, you know?

“Mertil and Gafinilan have a tragic ending, which means the story is saying that being gay dooms you to tragedy!”

Mertil and Gafinilan have the best possible ending that they could ask for? They are victims of the war, they are suffering because of the war, they get the same cocktail of trauma and damage that every other soldier gets. But unlike Jake and Tobias and Marco, unlike Elfangor, unlike Aximili? Their ending comes in peace, in their own home. Gafinilan isn’t dying alone, he’s got the love of his life with him. Mertil isn’t going to be as isolated anymore, he’s got Marco for a friend. Animorphs is a tragedy, it’s not a happy story, it’s not something that guarantees a beautiful sunshine-and-roses ending for everyone, and I love tragedy, and so I will fight for this story. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it deserved better. But it’s not less meaningful just because it’s sad. Nobody is entitled to anything in this book, and it’s just as true for these two as it is for anyone else.

“It’s not cool that the only canonically gay characters in this series don’t get to be happy and trauma-free and unblemished Good Rep!”

This is one I can kind of understand, and I’ll give some ground to it, because it is sucky. The only thing I’ll say is that I stand by my argument that nothing that happens to Mertil and Gafinilan is unusual compared to what happens to the rest of the cast, and that their ending is way happier than Rachel and Tobias’s, or Jake and Cassie’s. But it’s a legitimate point of frustration, and the one argument I’ll say I agree has validity.

(Though, I also want to point out that I think there are plenty of equally queercoded characters in the story who aren’t Mertil and Gafinilan - Tobias, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all get at least one or two moments that signal to me that they’re potentially LGBT+, not to mention Mr. Tidwell and Illim in #29 and their long-term domestic partnership. There’s no reason to assume that the only queer people here are those two aliens when Marco’s descriptions of Jake exist.)

“Marco uses slurs and reduces Gafinilan’s whole identity to his illness!”

Technically, yes, this is true, except putting it that way strips the whole passage of its context. Marco is discussing the boxes society puts you into, the ones you don’t have a choice about facing or escaping. He’s talking about negative stereotypes and reductive generalizations, he’s referring to them as bad things that you get inflicted upon you by an outside world or by friends who don’t know the whole story or the real you. The slurs he uses are real slurs that get thrown at people still, and they’re not okay, and the point is that they’re not okay but assholes are going to call you by them anyway. He ends by saying “you just have to learn to live with it”, and since this is coming from a fifteen-year-old Latino kid who we know is picked on by bullies for all sorts of reasons and who faces racism and homophobia? He knows what he’s talking about. He’s bitter about what’s been said and done, he’s not stating it like it’s a good thing.

Yes, absolutely, this speech is a product of its time, but it’s a product of its time that speaks of defiance and says “We aren’t what we’re said to be,” and in the year this was published? That’s a good message.

tl;dr The Other is good, actually, and Mertil and Gafinilan are incredible characters who deserve all the love they could possibly get.

[kirby-the-gorb]

reply roundup, vaccine edition!

special edition reply roundup to respond to all the thoughtful things you folks had to say about my Vaccine Woes now that I’m somewhat able to put together a coherent thought again (130 hours later lol).

very wordy and contains discussions of coronavirus, vaccines, chronic illness, and ableism. I got a lot of Opinions and y’all have been very kind, no one has said a single bad word to me about it, but I still gotta give Knowledge, I’m sure you understand XD

also there were some comments on day 3 that belong in the regular roundup, hopefully this reminds me :T

and for clarification, [this tiktok] is how I feel about vaccines in general aside from the whole “I’m chronically ill and any significant change can function as a bulldozer to my fragile internal ecosystem” thing. I am strongly pro-vaccine and I know they are 100% safe for able-bodied people. I am just also not able-bodied anymore.

on [day -1]:

@a-passing-passerby said: Hey. You shouldn't get the vaccine if it's not for your best health. You should talk to your doctor about any adverse risks because of your special condition. Don't be pressured into taking the vaccine if you're immunocompromised or something similar. (No one should be forced to take a vaccine, especially if it's against your health.) And I like your drawings. I hope to see more. Funny boyo go poyo. I hope things go well for you.

no one individual was sitting me down and going “get vaccinated or I’m never speaking to you again” or anything like that, it’s just the perpetual ignorance towards the disabled and the way that makes people as a group regard “~The Unvaccinated~” as some kind of maliciously ignorant monolith who needs to be bullied into submission. and I did speak to my doctor, they of course were all for it because it reduces the risk of me getting seriously ill from exogenous viruses, even though it comes with a bunch of other risks of its own that frankly they as an individual have only a moderate grasp on at best (which is still better than their profession as a whole, tragically). and we did what we could to mitigate those other risks, even though obviously what we could do was limited and I was functioning very independently in that regard.

in order to have a viable alternative to the chronically ill having to choose the lesser of two evils for the sake of their own lives, we have to get society to like, remember we exist at all. cuz otherwise with the aggressive vaccine mandates being put in place instead of social distancing and other preventive measures, it’s either get vaccinated and make myself bed-bound for apparently at least a week in addition to the risk of anaphylaxis and/or permanent worsening of my chronic illness, or don’t get vaccinated and be even more house-bound for reasons that have nothing to do with me, possibly forever. (I, personally, was not at a very high risk of catching covid anyway, because I stay home all the time and my wife is in healthcare but strictly forbidden from seeing covid patients, meaning she’s got all the high standards of workplace sanitation and regulation without the additional exposure risk. but those of us who can’t control our own exposure risk to such a degree also have that to weigh against.)

(but thank you for being in my corner, and I’m glad you like the drawings. he will evidently keep showing up every day come hell or high water :> )

@hollow026 said: As a fellow chronically ill human, I know your pain. Getting my vaccine knocked me down for a couple days, but it does get better. I hope you find a comfy spot to cuddle up and wait it out! I wish you plenty of rest and many blankets!

I’m glad it only took you out for a couple days, and thank you <3 I got myself a heated blanket back in april which has been very nice to have. (it’s all those blues and pinks and purples I really like)

@maybeifitalk said: I'm really sorry that's all happening. I guess every time I see a vaccine mandate, I assume it excludes people for whom the vaccine would be harmful and therefore the mandate is actually in favor of those who can't get vaccinated cause herd immunity. I guess I believed more in the government's ability for nuance than they deserve 😅

most vaccine mandates have an exception for a negative PCR test within the past 72 hours, but that 1000% requires substantial advanced planning for damn near literally any activity. (my state only requires vaccines for ticketed events, which that I can at least sort of be at peace with, but my county requires vaccines for events, restaurants, museums, etc.) and I’m guessing the at-home mail-in tests aren’t going to cut it, due to the length of the turnaround, which means you have to physically go out somewhere to get tested, which can be A Massive Problem for the chronically ill. that means without getting vaccinated I’d have to plan everything at least a day in advance and heavily gamble on not running up a crippling spoon debt getting tested, and there would be no wiggle room for rescheduling.

and honestly, herd immunity was a pressure point people used for a while to get others vaccinated, but the concept at play of “the immunocompromised” or “the sick” is always some distant other sitting in a nursing home looking sad, rather than “hey if 8 of our 9 family members and our three best friends get vaccinated, and we have it outside and wear our masks when we’re not eating and sit at separate picnic tables, maybe we can have a very small wedding ceremony without killing me or my stepdad [who had cancer and also wasn’t vaccinated at the time]”

@melodiousramblings said: Your blog brings such a smile to my face all the time and I love your Kirby art. Sadly we live in an ableist society and no one takes the time to care or even consider those with chronic illnesses. I hope the vaccine doesn’t hit you too hard and take it easy! Don’t push yourself! Sending good vibes!

god it gets under my skin sometimes. and I know how easy it is to be ignorant of it! I was almost completely ignorant of it until I got sick enough to notice! but that just makes it worse! thank you for your commiseration and kind words <3

@midget-vigilante said: I’m pretty sure there are accommodations in place for those with immune disorders? Plus, there have been plenty of studies that show unless you have an allergy to one of the ingredients in the vaccine, it’a safe. It’s more dangerous to actually have COVID-19 with an autoimmune disorder than to get the vaccine. This isn’t to shame you or anything, and of course you shouldn’t listen to random people on the internet, but I hope this makes you feel better!

you’re right, actually getting covid would be worse for me than getting the vaccine. but that doesn’t mean the vaccine is just a half day of feeling a tiny bit under the weather for me like it is for abled folks. and the problem with the allergy thing is the nature of the disorder I have. my mother who probably has the same thing has a legitimate allergic reaction to the sun, which would sound super fake if I didn’t know better. a blogger I follow with the same disorder wept with joy when she got to eat a grape for the first time in many years because her illness was under control enough to reintroduce foods to her diet. this isn’t me going “oh no I’m not sure if it’s safe I heard there’s mercury in it???” this is me going “okay my body reacts very strangely and often very negatively as a basic rule. some people with my disorder go into anaphylactic shock from things they could handle fine before just because there were too many other normally-fine things pushing them up towards the threshold. this vaccine negatively impacts abled people enough that they experience distress about it, which means it’s gonna take me to the cleaners. that’s a lot for me to put on myself and this is a really garbage situation. there should be other options here and there aren’t and that sucks and I don’t want to go into anaphylaxis which is a pretty grounded concern.”

as for accommodations, there’s the negative test exception mentioned above, where I also go into why that’s not really much of a workaround for us. thank you for trying to reassure me though, I’m sure it’s important info for others out there <3

@hermitfox said: oh no, I only wish you the best! Hopefully the vaccine won't be too hard on you, that sucks. we vaccinate the healthy so that people like you are protected after all...

yeah, that is ostensibly the idea, but a lot of people’s image of “the immunocompromised” or “the ill” is grandma at the nursing home, not another 20-something at the concert. and because everyone’s mental picture is so limited and outdated, rules written to match it do a lot of harm in their own right, even when they’re meant to protect.

@zer0cracy said: Even if the work slows down or stops, we're not going anywhere. Good luck with the vaccine!

thank you <3 I know no one else is demanding I draw every day, but I am! I want me to draw every day. I don’t want to break my 1237 day streak lol

on [day of]:

@ceylonsilvergirl said: I hope it stays mild for you

@maybeifitalk said: I hope you stay more or less okay 🥺

well I didn’t go into anaphylactic shock which is technically a positive! getting to read the nice thoughtful comments people were leaving did help me feel emotionally better, thank you <3

on [day 1]:

@maybeifitalk said: 💕💕💕 I'm not sure what you need to hear rn, but what would help me is remembering that this too shall pass! It's cheesy but it helps me 🥺. I like the phrase "we'll gather lilacs in the spring again" which means just about the same thing to me UwU. But anyway, hang in there. I hope the next few days aren't terrible.

that’s a very sweet phrase, thank you for sharing it with me <3 I am the reigning regent of optimism and I know the bad times never last, but sometimes you do have to sulk a little bit I think lol

@theraphos said: Hope you are well soon!

@ceylonsilvergirl said: So sorry you’re having these reactions

@hermitfox said: D: I hope you'll get well soon! You're so strong!

@thunderjaw-bussy said: I hope things ease up for ya op, your art always brings a smile and a happy squee to my day every day <3

@writingdesaster said: get well soon!!!

thank you all <3 <3 <3 I’m not completely better yet but I went back on the extra preventative measures and I can still sit upright and put words together so I’m counting that as a win for today.

from the ask box:

anonymous said: Hey, please take it easy and don't feel pressured to even make art. The most important thing is that you take care of yourself and get better. Trying to keep doing things when you're not well is not worth it. Remember, we can wait :) You just take care of yourself!

you’re right, I have a bad habit of trying to still get stuff done even when I really shouldn’t XD I promise I only draw what I feel up to drawing though, a circle with a smile on it isn’t very taxing. thank you for the reminder and support <3

anonymous said: I'm sorry to hear all of that, I know it may not mean much, but I hope you feel better soon enough, or at least good enough for it to not be stressful for you if that makes sense. :)

that is a good way to think about it! it’s gonna take a while yet to recover back to where I was the day before the vaccine, and I’ll never not be chronically ill, but I want to be well enough that I can do the things I want without distress someday. and right now I can’t wash the dishes, but I can play little games on my ipad without hurting, and that’s still better than what it was.

@thunderjaw-bussy said: Heya I've been keeping up with what's going on with ya and I just want to say that 1) i've always adored your art (I actually have very chipper and happy song play in my head whenever I see your art of the gorb! :D) and 2) I hope your pain eases soon. Much love and good vibes to you <3

that’s so cute that the gorb gets his own little theme tune, thank you for sharing that with me and for the support <3 still incapacitated but not in pain -thumbs up emoji-

anonymous said: I give you virtual ice cream to feel better. Eat it. Or else.

I love virtual ice cream, thank you :> I hope it is the kind with bits of stuff in it. like cake or cookies. that’s the best kind.

[elkian]

I was gonna do a “missing the point”-style meme but I’m honestly not sure that would even work tho so:

Harry Potter and My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia have similar issues with introducing and then immediately ignoring ENORMOUS issues re: ableism.

I think these two series in specific come to mind bc it’s ableism within a specific empowered community, and in both cases the series are pretty well-known and the community (Wix/Heroes) are immediately identifiable to many audiences.

[WARNING: Discussions of ableism, child harm, and abuse on multiple levels.]

What’s the problem?

SQUIBS.

[This post got stupid huge SO here is a tl,dr for all you lovely people who understandably have no time for this.

TL, DR: Both Harry Potter and Boku No Hero have a bad tendency to implement or imply a level of disability regarding unempowered people in empowered societies. They then continue on to completely disregard important conclusions to these implications, such as how heavily it is implied that these unempowered people (Squibs) are so ‘worthless’ to those societies that their very deaths are merely a byline rather than an actual tragedy.

This is especially troubling in MHA/BNHA when so many other political and worldbuilding considerations HAVE been planned out, and seems to be less-discussed in the fandom as a whole, so that’s a much larger chunk of this post.]

That’s your tl, dr!

Here’s the Harry Potter angle:

HP has a bit that I’ve seen people discussing already: Neville’s magic was discovered when his uncle dropped a literal child a potenial lethal distance. 

Neville activating his power and surviving is celebrated, and then JKR immediately glosses over the glaring issue this has introduced: the heavy implication that a Squib dying from this incident would have not have been mourned or even really commented on.

The few adult Squibs (and isn’t that a whole new slice of wonderful /j) are generally disliked and ridiculed for some reason or other. Now, while obviously there are plenty of places where the Venn diagram of “disabled” and “asshole” intersect irl, when your ONLY presentation of a disabled character or group is, every time, an asshole or a fool or both, boy! That’s bad!

Neville (who is generally presented as magically, physically, and mentally weak and often treated as comic relief) is a bit better via the POV Character constantly having positive interactions with him, but this is still a mess. Yes, Neville canonically is not a Squib, but it’s not subtle that he’s on the cusp OF being a Squib, and that is a key element of ridiculing him in many situations (also the whole trauma thing multiple times, like if I really get into it I could do a whole double-size post of how Neville was done dirty or nearly dirty by JK all the time but this isn’t that post).

This isn’t even the point of this post. Let’s move to MHA/BNHA

Hero Academia has differing but honestly even worse issues. And I’m aware that different countries handle ableism and accessibility in different ways, but if you think too hard about it this is an absolute clusterfuck.

What is the problem now?

Squibs! Or rather, the main character of the series, Midoriya Izuku.

Deku (a nickname meaning “useless”! Imparted after his disability is recognized! hilarity!!) is also born without powers. Even worse in some ways, he is born without powers in a world where the overwhelming majority of the global population has some kind of empowerment. I can’t recall if it’s outright stated or only implied that someone with a functionally useless (and hoo boy, usefullness to society is its own post nope not today i do not have that much energy) Quirk is still more of a person than a Quirkless human.

That sink in? Okay, let’s move on.

In a narratively not-uncommon turn of events, Deku gains power. This is partially a product of, and directly tied to, his own work and determination, as well as his willingness to help even when physically outmatched.

To an American audience (NOT the intended audience though I wouldn’t doubt it if Horikoshi meant to have international appeal more or less from the start), this is a deeply satisfying narrative. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? And we even learn that the strongest hero of all time (til this point, anyways) was ALSO born Quirkless!

However, from here, things take a nosedive.

The key problem is a combination of story progression and overall thought put into worldbuilding. Horikoshi’s efforts may not be the MOST thorough, but he has put a great deal of work and thought into his creation (he at least understands the concept of implications and sometimes plans accordingly, looking at you JKR). However, that tied with story progression and personal repercussions actually works to the detriment of the matter.

Especially given recent turns of events.

 [BIG MEGA SPOILERS FOR FAIRLY RECENT PLOT

 STOP HERE IF YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT UP

 SERIOUSLY]

 What I mean by this is the current state of events re: two particular recent/recent-ish plot arcs.

First, Quirk Removal, and second, Endeavor’s comeuppance.

Quirk Removal/Loss was the start of my realization to what the narrative was doing regarding Izuku’s Quirklessness and the state of being overall.

This arc was a perfect time to bring up Midoriya’s past! A lot of Western works certainly would have done so! And yes, it may be bordering on done-to-death, but many elements of Hero Academia put new twists on common themes and cliches; it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that he might do it again.

Instead, little to NOTHING is discussed during this time! In fact, iirc I’d go so far as to say Midoriya straight-up never considers his past at any point during this arc!? If I’m wrong then it obviously made little impact.

NOW, not every disabled character needs to incorporate their disability and/or skills gleaned from living with it in every narrative. In fact, it would get tedious and questionable if they did (note: this does NOT mean ignoring/forgetting the character is even disabled when convenient. Like, I’d like to think that’s the obvious point of this post but... *gestures at tumblr*). 

But the complete lack of it here feels really weird. Like, almost hollow. I think Midoriya makes some kind of suggestion to Mirio of his former Quirklessness at the end of the arc, but nothing that made any kind of impact.

Let’s move on.

Endeavor.

Now, the problem with Endeavor’s arc is not the arc itself. Or, rather, it’s the fact that Endeavor’s Comeuppance is pretty good.

This is a problem because someone else should be getting this exact same arc, yet the issue is never even RECOGNIZED, let alone addressed.

Endeavor’s abuse of his wife and children, all in the name of creating a Heroic legacy, is publicized and tanks his popularity. The general public is now aware of what he’s done to the people closest to him, which aside from giving him a more correct reputation, means they can’t trust him to protect them if they can’t trust him to protect his own family.

This isn’t the goal of this post and I’m no expert regardless, but up to this point (around chapter 290) this was handled in an interesting way. Endeavor is humanized and often shown interacting with people in a way that, while often domineering, isn’t always aggressive or abusive. He runs a Hero Agency for crying out loud! But abuse in the real world often isn’t constant, nor happening to everyone in contact with the abuser. So this is a surprisingly good lead up to the reveal, where you can understand how most people never realized this was an issue.

But here’s my main point. Let’s examine some traits and actions that come up:

physically abusive to a child (often dangerously so) to the point of permanent trauma and severe scarring in some cases

target of abuse was weaker (physically and/or regarding Quirk power)

often abused victim emotionally/psychologically, bringing this weakness up again and again

own immense power led to rising in the world of Heroics

comrades, fellow Heroes, UA teachers etc. not aware of prior abuse issues

Who does this sound like?

Endeavor, who has a whole fucking arc dedicated to this reveal and repercussions?

Or Bakugou?

Reminder: This isn’t a hate post. This isn’t a character post, or even an abuse post. This is about ableism.

Bakugou exhibits many, many traits and actions that Endeavor was literally just punished for. So why does the treatment of these characters in-universe differ so drastically?

Two primary reasons I can think of, which feed into each other:

1) Bakugou was a child (still technically is a minor, remember! Still a first-year high schooler!) when this started. This doesn’t mean he’s strictly innocent, but it’s an important point, because it leads us to

2) Bakugou Katsuki’s abuse of Midoriya Izuku is socially accepted.

Reminder of the audience’s first encounter with Katsuki. The very first page with him is him and his grade-school posse picking on a kid that Izuku is trying to protect. His posse is showing off their Quirk powers and mocking Izuku’s lack thereof.

Then we flash forward to late-middle school versions of the kids. Bakugou, in front of a fucking teacher and entire class, is verbally, physically, etc. abusive to Izuku. He trashes his stuff, threatens him, tells him to kill himself (which, as Izuku notes later, is a fucking felony in Japan too).

No one stops him.

No one criticizes him.

We don’t even get a shot of like, some more ‘regular’ students being like “man Bakugou’s kinda fucked up but we’re too scared to do anything about it” NO. NO. Everyone more or less either backs Katsuki up or straight up doesn’t care.

Remember that this started when Katsuki and Izuku were four. Remember that Katsuki’s power is absurdly dangerous, ie. LITERAL. GODDAMN. EXPLOSIONS.

Izuku has scars. He probably has hearing loss! He may have gotten at least one concussion which can cause serious neurological issues and open him up to further risk!

He could have died.

And?

NO ONE. DOES. ANYTHING.

THIS is the point of the post. THIS is the value placed on Quirkless people in this society.

And yet. Despite Endeavor’s comeuppance. Despite All Might and Izuku’s blatant ‘value’ to society through Heroics. Despite so many other political implications and quandaries address in the Hero Academia series.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing about this is addressed. The nearly-lethal ableism towards Quirkless people in this society is never ONCE brought up properly once Izuku receives One For All.

There is so much potential here! There is so much worth talking about! And yet we’ve moved into what feels very much like the Final Battle without it being addessed, despite numerous, numerous opportunities for a meaningful conversation about it along the way.

Mirio losing his power! Hell, Mirio’s powers’ drawbacks (and pretty much every Quirk’s drawback! if acknowledged properly!) border on a disability-analogue, and even more when Yuga’s laser comes up, and yet again and again we fail to truly engage with the matter in a meaningful way.

At this point, even if it comes up in the finale, I’m going to be disappointed in this particular aspect of the series due to the complete and total shut-down it’s been given so far.

What the FUCK, Horikoshi?

[swampgallows]

...

[[MORE]]

i can't fucking do anything right, i can't remember anything, i have my therapy at 230 tomorrow and my sleeping has been so fucked up that i don't even know if ill be rested enough to be cognizant. i don't even know what to do in therapy. i know i need it because I'm more suicidal than ever but nothing changes and I've been cut off from everything for so long and with the pandemic it's only gotten worse. all therapists ever seem to fixate on is getting me to go back to work instead of getting me to a point where i can work and also not spend my lunch breaks finding places to commit suicide at my workplace. it's all just like "here take meds so you can be like everyone else-- chemically, i mean, of course!!--and work a 9 to 5 job because Society Said So." like how is that gonna improve my mental health at all. is that gonna make me healthy or is it just gonna make me complacent

realizing lately i have a lot of internalized ableism as well because I'm sick of being pathologized for my idiosyncrasies. sometimes humans are just different and you don't have to crack the spine of the DSM whenever a person does something unusual. i guess it's resurfacing a lot of feelings from school where you draw something kinda weird or say something silly and people go "omg what were you ON" or "you would be SOOOO amazing drunk/high" like can you just chill and not chalk up my existence to some kind of fucked up brain chemistry. like can i at least have the illusion of being a person with free will

i keep flashing back to this conversation an old acquaintance had with me where i was talking about how a lot of adhd resources seem to help me, and some child psychologists thought i had adhd (even back then, when it was still add/adhd) just because i was smart but also rambunctious (because i was a literal child... in first grade...). and my buddy was like "oh, you're ADHD. for sure." and took a long drag of his cigarette and i was like what??? what makes you say that??? wouldn't it run in my family???? and he was so fucking patronizing, like the fact that i read a lot about my interests or that i got genuinely excited about things as an adult instead of having some "cool" detached passing interest or something... it infuriated me so fucking much because it reduced my human experience and feelings to just this totally bogus stereotype.

like maybe one day il find out for sure whether or not im adhd or on the spectrum or if it really just is hypo- and hypervigilance wrought by a lifetime of compounded traumas. i will try to be open to it. but reducing my lifetime to a stereotype is incredibly dehumanizing and i feel like it lessens the validity of the community as a whole. maybe i can get really immersed in shit without it being "hyperfocusing" or a hyperfixation. maybe i can use body grounding techniques that aren't "stimming".

on one hand maybe it normalizes those concepts so that neurodiverse people are better understood. but that's not my call to make. and while im not necessarily against self-diagnosis, i know that i am too biased toward my own experiences to tell. i know that i am mentally ill, and i know that i have PTSD, both from my own research and learning and from multiple professional diagnoses. but i don't have the map to my own brain, and i can't decide for myself whether or not im neurodiverse, so on that account it feels wrong and inappropriate for people to describe my behaviors with terminology that isn't for me.

just like i wouldn't want people to misuse other terms, i don't want people to think im autistic or adhd just because i fulfill certain behavioral stereotypes. to me it seems as harmful to armchair diagnose me for being "weird" as it does to assume people aren't neurodiverse because they aren't "weird enough" or whatever.

i dunno man. maybe i am neurodiverse, but let me have that journey on my own unless you can be supportive. i don't need a bunch of jerks infantilizing me like "heh told ya so, you freak" while ive been suffering all this time. until then im just trying different methods that might work for me without worrying about a label. if adhd coping mechanisms work for me and it turns out im not adhd? who cares! if it works it works. if it turns out i AM neurodiverse somehow?... it will take a lot of work to accept that and to forgive myself and others, but it will hopefully put me on the right track to figure out how to live a functional life.

thats all i really care about. i just want to be functional and stable and happy. i want to be able to be comfortable and to want things again. im tired of having to figure everything out all on my own without any help and for zero reward. im sick of not wanting to live and having nothing to look forward to. im sick of not wanting to be alive on planet earth. but i have to be. so i need to figure out how to do that without people telling me all the time that I'm "so smart" and "should be able to figure it out on my own".

i don't know how to want things. i don't know how to WANT to want to live.

[toralyzer]

apparently there was this series of personal writing prompts for autism acceptance month that i missed, but i decided to do them all now cause i like talking about myself. http://doingcollegedisabled.tumblr.com/post/159842938764/30-days-of-autism-acceptance

Day 1.     Make yourself known.

I’m Amanda I’m 19! I was professionally diagnosed at a young age but by the time they told me I already long since knew I was weird.

Day 2.     Talk about passing and/or being out.

I’d be open about it I think but it hasn’t come up many times. I guess I did work really hard growing up to be able to pass as allistic though. Oh... I’m not sure if that’s ever caused burnout!

Day 3.     Talk about relationships, both platonic and romantic. 

Yeah as a kid I had a hard time making friends but now I’m a lot better at being sociable - in the allistic way I guess. But now lots of my friends are proudly autistic anyway!

Day 4.     Talk about your family and support. 

I think my family was fine about it. Unless in fact my trauma comes from them dealing with my autism badly. It’s unknown.

Day 5.     Talk about employment and your career. 

Yeah I gotta get one of those...

Day 6.     Talk about music, art, writing, and other forms of creativity. 

Yeah I do that stuff! I’m really creative. Sometimes I think about autistic themes but I don’t think I know what they would be, I think I have too many bad depictions internalized. Sometime I wanna do something with the changeling comparison though...

Day 7.     Talk about community. 

I guess I’m really not out as autistic anywhere ‘cause I pass well. So idk. And I’m not in any communities of autistic people.

Day 8.     Talk about traditional media. 

I think as a kid, media depictions gave me this horrible sense of condescending superiority toward myself and added to my complexes of not listening to my feelings. It’s like, you get these books that put you outside the autistic kid to laugh at his misunderstanding things, and I think then I felt like any sincere expression of my own feelings and thoughts was an immature misunderstanding and worthy of shame.

Day 9.     Talk about Autism Speaks.

Ya, fuck them.

And/or  Talk about special interests.

Damn I’m not sure if I’ve had a special interest lately? I guess some things I’ve been constantly thinking about lately are, um, Sports Anime RPG and my Zimmy fanfic. Okay so Sports Anime RPG is a roleplaying game I’m making based on sports animes even though I haven’t actually seen many but I thought it was a cool idea. It’s split into two sections, one is for the sports games and you can swap out different rulesets for different sports, and in general it’s focused on strategy and mechanics, similar to traditional RPG battles. The other is more freeform roleplay for the story outside sports matches, with light skill checks that are mostly social-based. And there are friendship mechanics where you can build friendships with other characters and get friendship abilities that you can use in either mode! And then the Zimmy story is this fanfiction idea that I always come back to when I feel really fucked up in my head - the premise is basically to throw together all the most viscerally upsetting surreal gore and horror set pieces I can think of, in the context of Zimmy from Gunnerkrigg Court’s reality warping getting set off bad. I’m a little frustrated because I can’t figure out how to express how much I love Zimmy and want to save her but also address how abusive she is.

Day 10. Talk about a cure. 

It’s a divergence not an illness so it wouldn’t be a cure so much as just mental modification. And no that would be really evil for other people to be able to make us allistic

And/Or  Talk about stimming. 

Yeah I like stim toys sometimes. I have a bracelet of rainbow stars and a thing of rainbow blocks you can put in different shapes and a fidget cube. I think a bigger thing for me though is that if I’m listening to a podcast or so I need to play a video game that uses my hands but not my listening brain. When I do that it can be the most fulfilling and engaging activity ever. Watching video fills my attention too much to do a simultaneous activity but not enough to keep me from being distracted so it’s not as easy for me.

Day 11. Talk about sensory issues. 

When I was a kid I only wore shorts all the time. Now I’m hugely self-conscious about it and I’ll never wear male shorts again. Yeah, I guess there are various sensory things I have a problem with... It’s not too intrusive to my life though.

Day 12. Talk about ableism. 

I don’t think I’ve got any stories here. I’ve never been targeted directly.

Day 13. Talk about something funny. 

“Has anything humorous or ironic ever happened to you because you were autistic?“ Haha probably not anything I’d want to joke about!

Day 14. Talk about role models. 

Uhhhh I’m not sure I know any autistic role models. Sometimes there are tumblr users who are vocally autistic who seem cool. Role models in general? I was saying the other day, I used to have a list of people I wanted to be like, but several of them have since become my enemies, so. Yeah, I think every celebrity disappoints you eventually. The last person about whom I thought “well, at least so far, this person seems really good and kind and a cool artistic inspiration” was... Rebecca Sugar.

Day 15. Talk about identity. 

I was diagnosed with aspergers but later I learned that’s just a subset of autism now. I like autistic better.

Day 16. Talk about treatment. 

I haven’t done any that I can really remember. I should go to therapy though. Like in general.

Day 17. Talk about empathy. 

I guess usually I have more sympathy than empathy for people? But sometimes when my girlfriend does a kind of cutesy sad voice as a joke I get some kind of weird hyper empathy and get really sad.

Day 18. Talk about functioning labels. 

I hear those are bad. I would probably be on the higher functioning side but yeah, those seem like a bad idea because they describe how well society is ready to engage with us as if it was our own success or failure.

Day 19. Talk about your struggles and strengths. 

I don’t really know which of those are because of autism or not and I’m self-conscious about finding out because I spent so long trying to learn to be “normal”. On the other hand sometimes it feels like it’ll turn out that autistic traits just account for my whole personality.

Day 20. Talk about communication. 

I’m verbal, sometimes I like when I can communicate in other ways though, like when I can get something across with quick hand signs.

Day 21. Talk about comorbid conditions.

Well I’m not sure about any of those and I don’t think I’ll speculate here to make sure I don’t appropriate anything.

Day 22. Talk about autism parents. 

Wow fuck them! Yeah I was just reading about #BoycottToSiri. People who abuse their kids because they can’t fathom trying to interact and listen to them to understand what they really need and instead go to great lengths to train them like animals into simulating “normality” should die.

Day 23. Talk about your living situation. 

I have a roommate who I know enjoys being able to stay in their room without ever encountering a single allistic or cis person. ^u^

Day 24. Talk about the stereotypes and misconceptions that neurotypicals and allistics have. 

Luckily I haven’t encountered it much in person but I know people see us as a young boy with a slightly distant expression with a single savant skill but also enough tragic disconnection from the rest of humanity that they can safely feel intellectually superior. Wow now that I think about this it’s actually this really unique way of viewing a person where they feel that the stereotypical expression shows that this child doesn’t really exist outside of his mysterious, unknowable brain and therefore all of his personal space and bodily autonomy is up for grabs. It’s really unsettling how autistic bodies in media are dehumanized into dolls because the portrayer is so obsessed with emphasizing this perceived unbreachable distance between the subject and the human observers.

Day 25. Talk about meltdowns/shutdowns. 

Kinda had one earlier because academic research is so frustrating. I think work pressure like that is the usual cause, other than social overload.

Day 26. Talk about echolalia and scripting. 

Yeah I don’t use really specific scripts for most things now, but when it comes to formal things like phone calls I do really need to work out my full sentence before I start.

Day 27. Talk about eye-contact. 

I think I’m pretty okay with eye contact? I don’t think I give people the wrong signals? This always makes me self-conscious X(

Day 28. Talk about autism as a disability.

It’s not a disability ‘cause it’s just different, right? Or are there aspects that strictly make things harder? I don’t really know...

Day 29. Talk about executive functioning.

IT’S DEFINITELY AN ISSUE.

Day 30. Talk with pride. 

“Are you proud to be autistic?” Yeah definitely!!! “How do you show the world your pride?” Oh. Hm...

[suzanneshannon]

What the web still is

Being a pessimist is an easy thing to fall back on, and I’m trying to be better about it. As we close the year out, I thought it would be a good exercise to take stock of the state of the web and count our blessings.

Versatile

We don't use the internet to do just one thing. With more than two decades of globally interconnected computers, the web allows us to use it for all manner of activity.

This includes platforms, processes, and products that existed before the web came into being, and also previously unimagined concepts and behaviors. Thanks to the web, we can all order takeout the same way we can all watch two women repair a space station in realtime.

Decentralized

There is still no one single arbiter you need to petition to sign off on the validity of your idea, or one accepted path for going about to make it happen. Any website can link out to, or be linked to, without having to pay a tax or file pre-approval paperwork.

While we have seen a consolidation of the services needed to run more sophisticated web apps, you can still put your ideas out for the entire world to see with nothing more than a static HTML page. This fact was, and still is, historically unprecedented.

Resilient

The internet has been called the most hostile environment to develop for. Someone who works on the web has to consider multiple browsers, the operating systems they are installed on, and all the popular release versions of both. They also need to consider screen size and quality, variable network conditions, different form factors and input modes, third party scripts, etc. This is to say nothing about serving an unknown amount of unknown users, each with their own thoughts, feelings, goals, abilities, motivations, proficiencies, and device modifications.

If you do it right, you can build a website or a web app so that it can survive a lot of damage before it is rendered completely inoperable. Frankly, the fact that the web works at all is nothing short of miraculous.

The failsafes, guardrails, redundancies, and other considerations built into the platform from the packet level on up allow this to happen. Honoring them honors the thought, care, and planning that went into the web's foundational principles.

Responsive

Most websites now make use of media queries to ensure their content reads and works well across a staggeringly large amount of devices. This efficient technology choice is fault-tolerant, has a low barrier of entry, and neatly side-steps the myriad problems you get with approaches such as device-sniffing and/or conditionally serving massive piles of JavaScript.

Responsive Design was, and still is revolutionary. It was the right answer, at the right place and time. It elegantly handled the compounding problem of viewport fragmentation as the web transformed from something new and novel into something that is woven into our everyday lives.

Adaptable

In addition to being responsive, the web works across a huge range of form factors, device capabilities, and specialized browsing modes. The post you are currently reading can show up on a laptop, a phone, a Kindle, a TV, a gas station pump, a video game console, a refrigerator, a car, a billboard, an oscilloscope—heck, even a space shuttle (if you’re reading this from space, please, please, please let me know).

It will work with a reading mode that helps a person focus, dark and high contrast modes that will help a person see, and any number of specialized browser extensions that help people get what they need. I have a friend who inverts her entire display to help prevent triggering migraines, and the web just rolls with it. How great is that?

Web content can be read, translated, spoken aloud, copied, clipped, piped into your terminal, forked, remixed, scraped by a robot, output as Braille, and even played as music. You can increase the size of its text, change its font and color, and block parts you don't want to deal with—all in the service of making it easier for you to consume. That is revolutionary when compared to the media that came before it.

Furthermore, thanks to things like Progressive Web Apps and Web Platform Features, the web now blends seamlessly into desktops and home screens. These features allow web content to behave like traditional apps and are treated as first-class citizens by the operating systems that support them. You don’t even necessarily need to be online for them to work!

Accessible

The current landscape of accessibility compliance is a depressing state of affairs. WebAIM’s Million report, and subsequent update, highlights this with a sobering level of detail.

Out of the top one million websites sampled, ~98% of home pages had programmatically detectable Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) errors. This represents a complete, categorical failure of our industry on every conceivable level, from developers and designers, to framework maintainers, all the way up to those who help steer the future of the platform.

And yet.

In that last stubborn two percent lives a promise of the web. Web accessibility—the ability for someone to use a website or web app regardless of their ability or circumstance—grants autonomy. It represents a rare space where a disabled individual may operate free from the immense amount of bias, misunderstanding, and outright hate that is pervasive throughout much of society. This autonomy represents not only freedom for social activities but also employment opportunities for a population that is routinely discriminated against.

There is a ton of work to do, and we do not have the luxury of defeatism. I’m actually optimistic about digital accessibility’s future. Things like Inclusive Design have shifted the conversation away from remediation into a more holistic, proactive approach to product design.

Accessibility, long viewed as an unglamorous topic, has started to appear as a mainstream, top-level theme in conference and workshop circuits, as well as popular industry blogs. Sophisticated automated accessibility checkers can help prevent you from shipping inaccessible code. Design systems are helping to normalize the practice at scale. And most importantly, accessibility practitioners are speaking openly about ableism.

Inexpensive

While the average size of a website continues to rise, the fact remains that you can achieve an incredible amount of functionality with a small amount of code. That’s an important thing to keep in mind.

It has never been more affordable to use the web. In the United States, you can buy an internet-ready smartphone for ~$40. Emerging markets are adopting feature phones such as the JioPhone (~$15 USD) at an incredible rate. This means that access to the world’s information is available to more people—people who traditionally may have never been able to have such a privilege.

Think about it: owning a desktop computer represented having enough steady income to be able to support permanent housing, as well as consistent power and phone service. This created an implicit barrier to entry during the web’s infancy.

The weakening of this barrier opens up unimaginable amounts of opportunity, and is an excellent reminder that the web really is for everyone. With that in mind, it remains vital to keep our payload sizes down. What might be a reflexive CMD + R for you might be an entire week’s worth of data for someone else.

Diverse

There are more browsers available than I have fingers and toes to count on. This is a good thing. Like any other category of software, each browser is an app that does the same general thing in the same general way, but with specific design decisions made to prioritize different needs and goals.

My favorite browser, Firefox, puts a lot of its attention towards maintaining the privacy and security of its users. Brave is similar in that regard. Both Edge and Safari are bundled with their respective operating systems, and have interfaces geared towards helping the widest range of users browse web content. Browsers like Opera and Vivaldi are geared towards tinkerers, people who like a highly customized browsing experience. Samsung Internet is an alternative browser for Android devices that can integrate with their proprietary hardware. KaiOS and UC browsers provide access to millions of feature phones, helping them to have smartphone-esque functionality. Chrome helps you receive more personalized ads efficiently debug JavaScript.

Browser engine diversity is important as well, although the ecosystem has been getting disturbingly small as of late. The healthy competition multiple engines generates translates directly to the experience becoming better for the most important people in the room: Those who rely on the web to live their everyday lives.

Speaking of people, let’s discuss the web’s quality of diversity and how it applies to them: Our industry, like many others, has historically been plagued by ills such as misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism. However, the fact remains that the ability to solve problems in the digital space represents a rare form of leverage that allows minoritized groups to have upward economic mobility.

If you can't be motivated by human decency, it’s no secret that more diverse teams perform better. We’ve made good strides in the past few years towards better representation, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Listen to, and signal boost the triumphs, frustrations, and fears of the underrepresented in our industry. Internalize their observations and challenge your preconceived notions and biases. Advocate for their right to be in this space. Educate yourself on our industry’s history. Support things like codes of conduct, which do the hard work of modeling and codifying expectations for behavior. All of this helps to push against a toxic status quo and makes the industry better for everyone.

Standardized

The web is built by consensus, enabling a radical kind of functionality. This interoperability—the ability for different computer systems to be able to exchange information—is built from a set of standards we have all collectively agreed on.

Chances are good that a web document written two decades ago will still work with the latest version of any major browser. Any web document written by someone else—even someone on the opposite side of the globe—will also work. It will also continue to work on browsers and devices that have yet to be invented. I challenge you to name another file format that supports this level of functionality that has an equivalent lifespan.

This futureproofing by way of standardization also allows for a solid foundation of support for whatever comes next. Remember the principle of versatile: It is important to remember that these standards are also not prescriptive. We’re free to take these building blocks use arrange them in a near-infinite number of ways.

Open

Furthermore, this consensus is transparent. While the process may seem slow sometimes, it is worth highlighting the fact that the process is highly transparent. Anyone who is invested may follow, and contribute to web standards, warts and all.

It’s this openness that helps to prevent things like hidden agendas, privatization, lock-in, and disproportionate influence from consolidating power. Open-source software and protocols and, most importantly, large-scale cooperation also sustain the web platform’s long-term growth and health. Think of web technologies that didn’t make it: Flash, Silverlight, ActiveX, etc. All closed, for-profit, brittle, and private.

It also helps to disincentive more abstract threats, things like adversarial interoperability and failure to disclose vulnerabilities. These kinds of hazards are a good thing to remember any time you find yourself frustrated with the platform.

Make no mistake: I feel a lot of what makes the web great is actively being dismantled, either inadvertently or deliberately. But as I mentioned earlier, cynicism is easy. My wish for next year? That all the qualities mentioned here are still present. My New Year’s resolution? To help ensure it.

The post What the web still is appeared first on CSS-Tricks.

What the web still is published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/

[notapuzzlepiece123-blog]

Hey guys, I made this picture on my DeviantArt (if you’re on DA, my user is NotAPuzzlePiece).

Since I can’t find a share button on DA I should post it here too, and explain why I made is even though all it’s all pretty obvious to all of us.

Also, YamiDawn33 is a friend of mine IRL and on DA. And if you have a good caption for this send it to my inbox/messages and I’ll see if it’s okay or not here.

Content/Trigger Warning for mentions of ABA, Quiet Hands mentions, overall ableism/eugenics mentions, and me cussing like a sailor like normal, but with more passion.

And so, without further ado: 

“Hey everybody (haha can I even say that?), I feel like I had to upload this for...reasons. To be specific, for some reason a lot of people are unfamiliar with the concept of ableism and what its effects are on disabled people. Be warned here, there will be lots of swearing/strong language, ranting, getting shit off of my chest, and reliving my past as my wrists shake when talk about this. I'm not sure if I should mark the art as 'mature' or not. I'm don't really know if this belongs in the "Macabre" art category: to me it's important but it's also an incredibly sensitive psychologically terrifying nightmare for me to talk about once I get into the details. Ableism: Discrimination on the basis of ability/disability. In theory this is illegal but in practice it happens in everything from housing to organ transplants and everything in between and beyond. Internalized Ableism: The way one internalizes themselves as inherently bad, broken, and depraved because of their disability despite knowing otherwise. The closest comparison I can get to is this is like internalized sexism, but with disability. I feel like this is incredibly important to talk about but because of the cure-culture that exists, disability is simply pushed to the side as an afterthought, if it even comes up in discussion at all. Able-bodied (AB): Not physically disabled in any way. Body function, height, etc. does not significantly deviate from the societal norms. Neurotypical (NT): Not mentally, intellectually, or developmentally disabled in any way. Brain function does not significantly deviate from the societal norms. And even when that happens, I can guarantee you that 99 times out of 100, it's the able-bodied neurotypical people who get to talk about disability, not the disabled person themselves. And by virtue of the AB NT not having any disability, they don't know what it's like living with one. And yet it's almost always the AB NTs who constantly speak over us, dehumanize us, and blatantly ignore our cries of agony despite the fact we are right in front of them. This goes for all issues. As an Autistic I always have this happen. It's not just Autistics. It's every disabled community. I only mention Autism because that's what I am. There are disabilities I don't have, I refuse to speak over them. Autism $peaks: Autism Speaks. The $ in "Speaks" was originally to reflect the fact they only spent 4% of their fund toward "resources" but now is meant to denote this eugenicist organization in general. Filicide: The killing of a child by their parent. Disabled people are statistically more prone to this, and violence in general (stats for Autistics: 6 times more likely to be sexually assaulted, 10 times more likely to be physically assaulted in general) When Autistic people say Autism $peaks is a hate-group, you should believe the Autistic. Not the neurotypical parent who happens to have an Autistic child. The child is Autistic, the parent is not, the Autistic will know better by virtue of being Autistic. When we say we either can only minimally our actions during meltdowns or literally can't control those actions, we literally can't. Most of us can't even remember what we said or did during meltdowns. When we say that the noise is too loud even though there are only six people in a room, you'd better believe it. If the lights are too dark or too bright, you'd better believe it. When we say our rocking and hand-flapping and tapping our feet in a certain way is our equivalent to facial expression, and it is used as much for joy as it is furiosity, I know for a fact it is because MY hand-flapping is EXTREMELY different depending on my mood. And yet the it's the neurotypicals that get listened to. A majority of them say we're broken, missing, Autism $peaks has literally made comparisons to Autism being like your kid was kidnapped, so many neurotypicals only defend stimming as a necessary evil, the use of functioning labels hurt us and yet neurotypicals continue to use them to defend shit like filicide. The lack of hand in the drawing, by the way, is on purpose. Have you heard of Quiet Hands? I've seen Autistic people go home from ABA therapy with bruised wrists and no ability to tell their parents because they won't give a rat's piss. I've heard the stories where a six-year old was flapping her hands in jot and her therapist fucking used TACKY GLUE to pin her hand to the desk and fucking HELD them there despite her SCREAMING and wanting to to stop. ABA therapy: Applied Behavioral Analysis. Non-ABA-ABA Therapy: A personal distinguishment I make between harmful therapies and non-harmful ones due to US insurance laws. True ABA therapy: A personal distinguishment I make between harmful therapies and non-harmful ones due to US insurance laws. Why do you think that true ABA therapists don't let the child's parents back in their little "offices"? I was in a fucking "behavior" school, called Hillcrest Family Services, and if I even so much as read a book under my desk I was thrown into an isolation room by a police officer, even though we were being taught turtles are cold-blooded and I knew that when I was THREE YEARS OLD. Those dickhead staff just assumed that we were incapable of doing anything at or even three grade below our grade level. And before you even FUCKING TRY TO DEFEND ABA the shut the HELL UP and sit. Your. ASS. DOWN. NOW. If all of THAT hasn't convinced you, then what does that say about you? Would you be encouraging assault and filicide if I was talking about ABA therapy for depsression? No, you wouldn't. And if you think this is all illegal, oh no you are SOOOOO fucking wrong. First off, ABA therapy is technically/legally the ONLY therapy that is insured in the US, so many non-ABA therapies decide to go under this label specifically for that and that alone. Thus my distinction between what I call non-ABA-ABA therapy and true ABA therapy has arisen. Secondly, one of the founders of true ABA therapy, Ivar Lovaas, also created gay conversion camps. Yes, you heard me right, the guy who co-founded true ABA therapy also founded gay conversion camps and yet was somehow able to defend ABA's torturous existence. ... ... ... And...if you've read through all of that I'm incredibly shocked and incredibly grateful. I don't mean to say all neurotypicals do this to us, I'm not trying to be mean or hateful or anything it's just. ... I'm aware that there are allies out there, but out of all of my interactions with neurotypicals, I've had about three people I know to be neurotypical who have been kind to me on a regular basis (somewhat shameless shoutout here to YamiDawn33  for being an awesome friend and a decent human being). I simply don't know what to do sometimes because, as you can see, the fact I have to wear a mask these days, the fact that I actually had it better than other disabled people even as I was being dragged into isolation rooms, that being a verbal Autistic and knowing non-verbal Autistics are falsely perceived to be "unintelligent" and "lesser" and yet I have the privilege to be an advocate? It makes me feel like a fraud, a fake, a sell-out. At the same time I feel equally as broken, missing, invisible, chained.... I'm not free until all of us are free and it just keeps following me and haunting me like something, like a ghost, its some inescapable leash, a cage, I don't know how to describe it, it's a lot of things. Seriously. Thanks so much for listening to this nineteen-year old sophomore university student talk about social justice and literal Hell, it means a lot to me.”