#this isn’t glorifying disabilities

[aggro-my-beloved]

yeah non-hetero redacted characters are cool and everything but…

autistic!david?!?

adhd!asher?

chronicpain!milo??

deaf/hoh!huxley?!

ocd!lasko???

bipolar!damien?

schizophrenic!gavin?!

it’s pride disability month for crying out loud, don’t let the inclusivity stop at sexuality!

[spacerockfloater]

Every time Team Black stans talk about Rhaenyra’s bastards and the Dragon Twins as if they’re blessings upon this earth, an angel loses its wings.

Like, okay. They’re children, I’m excusing all of them up to a certain point. But they’re some of the most vicious, aggressive, cowardly, snotty brats we’ve ever seen in this franchise and pretending that they’re not is so foul.

Lucerys is a hypocritical twat that bullied the boy he grew up with because he didn’t have a dragon, but then he’s totally okay hanging out with Rhaena who doesn’t have one either. And then he pulls out a knife and blinds Aemond for no fucking reason, after his gang attacked him first, and faces zero consequences for his actions. He eventually grows up to become an even worse person by literally laughing in his cousin’s face, whom he disabled. And then he tries to boss lord Borros around by telling him that he’s obligated to ally with Rhaenyra even if there isn’t anything in him for it.

Jacaerys is also very two faced for the exact same reasons as Lucerys, with the addition of having anger management issues. Like, remember how he beats the living shit out of his little brother when they’re training at the beach, kicks him to the ground and grabs him by the throat because he is upset their uncles are better warriors than them? That’s the good future king you’re all talking about? He is already obsessed with the idea of becoming king, to the point that his own mother has to remind him that she’s actually alive and well and he would have to wait a good fucking while before his dreams come true. That’s actually so sick on his behalf. Not to mention that he very likely married Sara Snow, betraying his fiancée, in order to gain the Starks’ help, which is very dishonourable. At least Lucerys told Borros he’s betrothed and refused to marry one of his daughters to get his support, I’ll give him that.

Baela is a deranged evil girl who was ready to throw hands on sight, too. And have we forgotten that she becomes a drunkard and whoremonger who spends her money gambling in the rat pits, the places where children fight one another in King’s Landing, once she grows up, or is it wrong only when Aegon II does it?

Rhaena is an aggressive coward who seems more preoccupied with the acquisition of a dragon than her mother’s death. She didn’t have the guts to go and claim Vhagar, but she feels powerful enough to confront Aemond when she has three people backing her up.

Finally, even without taking all of their problematic traits into account, these people are so severely uninteresting and unimpressive. Lucerys does not convince Borros to side with his mother and drops dead like a fly. Joffrey gets shrugged off by Syrax and plummets to his demise. Jacaerys is immediately killed during his embarrassing attempt to fight the Triarchy, not to mention that he was the reason his youngest half siblings were captured and nearly killed because he had the brilliant idea of sending them away. Baela loses the only dragon fight she was ever part of to Aegon II and Sunfyre who were very injured by a previous fight already! And Rhaena is just… there. Doing nothing. Never avenging her husband’s death, eventually marrying a Hightower. Yikes.

Are there much more ill behaved children in ASOIAF? Yeah, for sure, but we actually acknowledge that children like Aegon II and Joffrey Baratheon are pieces of shit. But if we could like, stop glorifying these four mediocre and borderline malicious kids solely because some of you feel the need to ride the dicks of everyone who is part of Rhaenyra’s crew, that would be great. They might be children, but they’re children with shady, putting it mildly, personalities, wielding new-clear weapons of mass destruction who actively participated in a war, especially Jacaerys and Baela. They sure were victims of the world they were raised in, but they were aggressors as well. And like, this is the ASOIAF universe, nearly all of our protagonists are children. We can’t constantly apply modern day morals and coddle them forever because “OMG, they are just babies!”, unless we are ready to apply the same logic on the Targtowers, who were basically the same age as Rhaenyra and Daemon’s children.

[physalian]

On Punishing your Characters with SA

***Trigger warning for discussion of SA in fiction***

Because I am still recovering from the bizarre alternate reality I fell into where “SA is hot and if you were a survivor you’d think so too” is at all an acceptable and defensible stance to take, I want to talk about punishing your characters, and the means through which we go about it.

This post is NOT condemning stories that go “we know this is awful, you’re here because it’s awful, we’re all gonna have a good time with it anyway”. Or, your usual Dead Dove.

This is instead critiquing stories (and their authors) who either think:

SA is kinky

SA is just a run of the mill thing that happens in adult fiction, especially fantasy, it’s par for the course

If you’re a fan of either or both and plan to attempt to justify them, you have been warned, turn back now. My tolerance for harassment about this is at an all-time low.

Disclaimer:

I am not hating on BDSM or a character whose kink is feeling helpless and controlled. BDSM is, after all, consensual, and there’s mutual respect involved. Nor am I hating on a character who is attempting to self-medicate in a harmful way and they and the narrative know it.

Keywords being: Consent, mutual respect, and self-awareness

Which is completely lost in stories that either romanticize SA or toss it in there for shits and giggles and cheap drama.

—

In fantasy in particular, rampant SA is kind of ridiculous and getting worse. It may be for “mature audiences” but often the stuff written for kids and families has more “mature storytelling” in that it can show you horrible things without being gratuitously r*pey. Characters suffer other hardships and get the same point across.

And SA is one on the list of many things in fiction that usually isn’t written with the grim reality of a realistic aftermath. Things like broken bones that heal with supernatural speed, head injuries with cherry-picked symptoms, and grief and mourning.

We don’t want to derail the whole narrative to focus on the nitty gritty recovery period of a one-time event that moves characters from A to B. That’s just how fiction works. They absolutely deserve to be written better with proper awareness and understanding, they’re just not what this post is about.

But SA is different, because it’s often treated like this horrible threat, this scandalous thing…while then not being written with the respect and tact it deserves, written like a character merely got tortured, interchangeable with any other kind of suffering but with ~titillating undertones~.

Because, odds are, the average person won’t ever know what it’s like to be tortured, or suffer debilitating injuries from an accident, or have to live with the long-term disabilities of a major head trauma or coma. But far too many of us do know SA intimately, and the flippant way it’s tossed around in fiction will never sit right with me, especially when it’s romanticized and glorified.

So in short, I’d like authors who toss it on like a garnish to pause and think: Are you prepared to write the consequences of the situations you throw your characters into? If not, then write something else.

There is of course many levels to including SA in fiction, and its importance in the story should be proportional to the effect it has on a character’s arc and how much time is spent discussing with it and dealing with it, as with any element of backstory.

Having it be a distant memory in a side character’s backstory as just A Thing that happened to them years ago should demand, bare minimum, a cracking of that character’s worldview. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

If it’s just another incident and this character grew up with or is surrounded by those who take advantage of them (first of all, writer beware, that is a daunting story to tackle) the trauma of this individual event might be insignificant to them in the grand scheme of things, but it should still matter to them and how they see themselves and how they interact with those around them. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

And if you’re setting up a character’s first encounter with SA, however horrific it is, or it’s this encounter with this character that makes it unique, and it’s going to be a big moment for them and the story, it had better fucking matter to them once it’s over. Otherwise, why is it here? What purpose does it serve other than to be tragic, and why is it SA over straight-up torture or any other tragedy?

It's a whole different world if this is a Stockholm syndrome story, where it is very, very clear that this relationship is fucked-up, but the character has no idea and they themselves romanticize and glorify their abuser—in those stories, it is understood that they’re an unreliable narrator and that their thoughts on what’s happening do not align with the author’s. (Most of the time. People unironically and uncritically love and want to have relationships like Harley Quinn and the Joker, without having any experience on what it’s actually like, but most of the time the comic writer tries to make it clear that she’s a victim. Most of the time).

—

I have two characters in two different WIPs who suffer this, more than once. A handles it a lot better than B. More time has passed and the perpetrator for A was a clear cut villain, while B's was someone they trusted. Neither spends every waking moment defining themselves by their abuser, but the impact of what happened to them shows up in multifaceted ways.

A is self-conscious about their body, as it still bears marks from that encounter. Some intimate things they used to enjoy or would have enjoyed are now off-limits. Certain conversation topics are triggering. And because everybody knows, they have a permanent reputation they can never escape, hanging over them even when nobody mentions it. They have mostly healed emotionally and have healthy romantic relationships, but it’s not something they’re ever going to forget.

B blames themselves and any chance at physical intimacy is now lost to them, though they were already asexual to begin with. They’ve told no one and anyone who would guess or might know, they’ve lied to, to protect their abuser. The SA happened among other hellish circumstances, when they have nightmares, it’s all tangled up together. But they’re also quiet and kind and thoughtful and you’d never know unless you knew.

Did I have to give SA as a backstory to both characters? No. I didn’t have to, I chose to, understanding the responsibility involved, and for these two characters and how it impacts them, SA can’t be exchanged for any other violence. It’s SA, specifically, that hurt them so badly.

People react to and adapt from and heal from SA in different ways and not everyone all the time suffers daily reminders of it—those two characters don’t—but even something as simple as having that survivor always keeping their door locked, or always having their back to the wall of a room so no one can sneak up behind them, or wearing more layers than necessary, or if they are a little bit shy or skittish or skeptical, at least shows that you, as the author, tried?

You didn’t just write it in a vacuum? You acknowledged that SA is its own kind of horror?

And lastly: If you’re using SA as a way to punish your characters’ choices, whether it’s the narrative punishing them for being painfully naïve and stubborn, the villain who “deserves it”, or a symbolic death of innocence, just please be prepared for pushback from your audience if your message is: There are situations where SA is the victim’s fault and deserved.

You don’t have to spend pages and pages distracting from the plot, but if you’re going to have your character assaulted, you owe it to them to let them hurt and heal.

Otherwise, why is it here?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Kiera Butler at Mother Jones:

Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump held his first campaign rally as a convicted felon at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted by the arch-conservative student group Turning Point USA. This wasn’t Trump’s first appearance at Dream City Church; he also held a rally there with Turning Point USA in 2020. For events like this, it’s an ideal venue: A weekly attendance of around 21,000 believers makes this one of the largest churches not just in Arizona but in the nation.

Dream City, which didn’t respond to my questions for this story, is a mecca for special guests who blur the line between religion and politics. Its annual conference has featured notables like musician and pastor Sean Feucht, who participated in a White House prayer session for President Trump in 2019 and is currently leading a tour of prayer rallies at state capitol buildings across the country. The lineup for this year’s event also included David Barton, whose organization, WallBuilders, teaches K-12 students about the supposed Christian origins of America; Jürgen Mathesius, a pastor at San Diego’s far-right Awaken Church, which has become a stop on Mike Flynn’s ReAwaken America tour; and Jentezen Franklin, a televangelist who also spoke at the 2022 Pray Vote Stand Summit, which mobilizes conservative Christian voters to engage in political activism.

In addition to its thrumming weekly worship sessions and its blockbuster events, the church has another project: Dream City Christian Academy. The K-12 private school, which serves nearly 800 students, is part of Turning Point USA’s Turning Point Academy program, a network of 41 schools that describes itself as “an educational movement that exists to glorify God and preserve the founding principles of the United States through influencing and inspiring the formation of the next generation.” Dream City Christian Academy promises to “Protect our campus from the infiltration of unethical agendas by rejecting all ‘woke’ and untruthful ideologies being pushed on students.” This politically charged approach to education likely isn’t for everyone—and because it’s a private school, it doesn’t have to be. Except for one thing: Dream City Christian Academy is one of a growing number of religious schools that are supported by public funds.

In 2022, Arizona became the first state in which all students are allowed to use state vouchers to cover a portion of tuition at any private school, secular or religious. Through Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, each participating family receives about 90 percent of the money the state would have spent on the child’s public school education—around $7,000 per student per year—for private school tuition. For the 2024-2025 school year, the Dream City Christian Academy annual tuition ranges from $10,450 in elementary school to $13,999 in high school—so families of the school’s nearly 800 students can use state funds to pay for between half and two-thirds of their tuition bill. Dream City Christian Academy received almost $1 million in tuition voucher money last year, the Arizona Republic recently reported.

Since Arizona passed its universal voucher law, 10 more states have followed suit. According to an analysis by Education Week, 29 states currently have programs that provide such assistance to a variety of different students many of whom attend local public schools that perform poorly. It also targets those with a disability that requires specialized education and those whose families earn significantly less than the federal poverty level. More programs are in the works: Lawmakers in both Louisiana and South Carolina recently advanced bills that would create programs like Arizona’s that are open to all students. When state funds are available for private school choice programs, a recent Washington Post analysis found that religious schools receive upwards of 90 percent of that money.

[...] A prerequisite for students and their families to attend some of the schools that currently receive voucher money is that they accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior. In March, the education blog Notes from the Chalkboard highlighted one such school. Students attending North Carolina’s Daniel Christian Academy, are trained to “enter the Seven Mountains of Influence,” a main tenet of a Christian Nationalist movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. Its adherents believe that the faithful are called to seek Christian control of the “seven mountains” of society: family, education, media, government, business, arts & entertainment, and religion. Many New Apostolic Reformation followers believe that waging “spiritual warfare” is justified in achieving these goals, though Daniel Christian Academy specifies that its endorsement of the Seven Mountains Mandate “in no way includes violence or manipulation at any level.”

Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s Laser worries that the proliferation of private school voucher programs will open the door to even more permissive rules around the use of public education dollars to teach religion. She points to a suite of bills that would allow public schools to employ chaplains, and even more remarkably, to an Oklahoma Catholic school called St. Isidore of Seville, which is set to become the nation’s first Christian public charter school this fall. The overarching goal of these initiatives, she says, is to “bestow a power and privilege on Christians in our country, at the expense of all the other religions in America.” Meanwhile, public education is robbed  “of the funding that it’s entitled to.”

Mother Jones reports on the disturbing trend of Christian Nationalists opening taxpayer-funded private schools with the intention to indoctrinate students with right-wing politics and a Christian Nationalist worldview.

[ellmaii]

Anti Mileven Bylers: “Mike doesn’t love Eleven, he just loves her powers and glorifies her as a superhero”

Are they forgetting the whole season long drama between Mike and everyone because he was mad they were using her powers, causing her potential harm and risk of being exposed and taken?

Anti Mileven Bylers: “El doesn’t understand love and relationships and isn’t ready for a relationship”

Are they forgetting the conclusion of Eleven and Brenner’s relationship? Or her time in NINA entirely? She’s doesn’t severely lack emotional maturity, she does NOT have the mind of a child and limited capacity with independence. She struggles with a lot of things as result of being isolated and mistreated her entire life but it doesn’t make her incapable of a romantic relationship.

Anti Mileven Bylers: “there is an unhealthy mental/academic gap between Mike and Eleven”

Of course theres a gap! He grew up in a middle class background living a very normal life while she grew up confined and abused in a lab without receiving a formal education. But what’s the issue, why should it stop them from being together? Believe it or not, relationships between neurotypical, ‘normal people’ and people who have disabilities and trauma’s do exist. Relationships where one partner takes care of the other (that could be emotionally, physically, financially ect) do exist!!

Is Mike taking advantage of her difficulties? Does he control her, baby her, lie because she might not know better then to believe him?(him lying in season 3 doesn’t count, the circumstances are completely different🙄)No. That’s not an opinion it’s a fact, we never see him do that. In what way does her not being on the same academic/mental level as him make their relationship toxic?

At the end of the day they’re just two kids from very different backgrounds who love each other. They’re relationship isn’t perfect but it’s what they both choose. You love who you love.

I’m tired and getting really bored of people who ship Byler and use Mileven to further their ideology going to extreme lengths by finding ‘reasons’ Mileven is unhealthy and morally wrong. They don’t have to like them, their reasons for disliking them just often contradict the evidence or are straight up offensive and discriminatory.

[weirdo-catkid]

This is part 2 and end of the series. Thank you for reading them both!

Meltdowns

Luckily, i don’t have/deal with them all that much, but they are still violent and often results in me having to be picked up by my parents since i was kicked out. I’ve sometimes caused property destruction, throwing things and punching. 

Speech

For my very young years, from toddler hood to 10 years old, i was delayed in talking. I guess i was considered functionally nonverbal or literally just nonverbal even though i could speak, but i spoke very rarely. I used my hands to point at things i wanted as communication most of the time. When i grew closer to 10 years of age, i began to use my words more and more but the majority of people i talked to couldn’t understand me which often made me mad. Afterwards and up to now, i’ve been considered to have a speech impairment but i think my speech has improved enough for the SLP to focus more on slowing my speech down more.

Accommodations

My school has a big list of accommodations for me, all of which are suited for autistic students. I also have a safety plan if i have a more violent meltdown at school. I have something called an IEP which is just a glorified list of accommodations that i am supposed to have, yet i don’t really use a lot. I have a part time EA support after lunch, and i sometimes get support even before then from another EA if the kid they’re assigned to isn’t there. I take meds for my ADHD and i find that they help also with some of my autism traits.

Past

When i was three years and 4 months old, i was brought for an assessment and i was diagnosed as autistic along with having a speech/language delay. They said that i also was delayed in walking, i could stand, crawl, and sit up, but when i was standing, i just couldn’t walk for some reason. I can walk now, by the way. For the few years of my life not being as verbal as my mom and i would like, i was given PECS so i could understand transitions and they supported my pointing at things i wanted as communication. No AAC. After a bit, i was in ABA and for some reason, that wasn’t working as intended so my mom and dad sent me to IBI until i was in grade 4, when i was later also diagnosed with ADHD as an addition to my ASD diagnosis. Sometime along those years i learned to speak more and not be considered nonverbal. I didn’t know i was autistic until i was told the night before grade 4 started, i guess. Those years until the higher grades, i was put in this room in the library and was given somewhat minimal mainstream class time with non disabled peers. During the pandemic, i was also diagnosed to have a Learning Disability in Writing and Mathematics.

Thank y'all for taking the time to read this through!

[hootbon]

I think its weird to use something historically used to oppress disabled people for an au but maybe that's jus me

..I knew this one was coming,

I thought it would be interesting and cool to expand on what things were really like back then, I know I may not be the best person to do it or extensively well versed (I have done serious research nonetheless, im not about to make something without doing the research to get it right, same applies to the topics of abuse and my own personal experience with victims of it), though this was meant to be more based on the idea of it more than anything else, a lot of disabled folks are mistreated and back then they were taken advantage of for entertainment. It isn’t just freak shows that were awful but regular circuses weren’t any better even if the weren’t impressing disabled people. It’s not that I’m trying to glorify it in the slightest and I hope I’m not but this was in good fun because it’s meant to be fictional,

Please do take this au with a grain of salt as it’s not meant to BE an actual freakshow, rather based off the concept of one.

[petrichorvoices]

I’m having more thoughts about being psychotic. I wish we didn’t feel as self-conscious about our insanity. And I wish we could call ourselves insane without worrying about being called some edgy kid, because hey, we are insane. We’re schizo, we’re genuinely insane. I wish we could be louder about our insanity and be proud about it like we are our other disabilities without being afraid of being accused of glorifying psychosis. I wish we could refuse to let people separate us from our psychosis the way we do with our other disabilities. I wish we could talk about our schizophrenia in the same way we talk about our ADHD.

For the most part, any fear we have related to our schizophrenia isn’t because of the unreality. For fuck’s sake, we’d be more scared if you took us out of our unreality and put us into the more common reality than we are just chilling in our unreality. Our fear comes from other people. Is it edgy to say we’re scared of sane people? Maybe I don’t want to care if it’s edgy. We’re scared not of our psychotic breaks but of how people will use those psychotic breaks to say we’re a danger, to say that we aren’t deserving of or able to be loved, and to take away our autonomy.

[moonstoneistired]

Disabled people just aren’t allowed to exist online, are we.

Our symptoms are similar to others, or different from others? We’re faking it. We’re posting about it? Attention seeking. We’re visibly queer or a poc? Just another liberal trying to victimize ourselves. Have multiple conditions? OBVIOUSLY faking. Show our symptoms? Exaggerating, whining, we need to suck it up and deal with it. Has shown medical records (which NO ONE has to do, that’s incredibly private)? Obviously forged. Hasn’t shown medical records? Hiding the truth (which is that we’re faking, obviously). Diagnosed? “It must be wrong, so-and-so that I know has that and is completely different from you.” Not diagnosed? Not disabled, of course. Love ourselves in any way? Glorifying disability.

Let us live, jesus christ. Our content isn’t made for abled people to criticize, it’s for disabled people to connect with their community, and to spread awareness.

[tem-tem-timmy]

ramblee abt autism incoming

Beingggf autistic is not “silly” i fuckinggggg hateee it guhh,,

having a character as a special interest is silly until its a factor on you not ending it all

i HATE talking about being autistic publicly because of the amount of ableism i’ve experienced from my family [mostly my dad :smiles:] and just how glorified ppl on the internet have made it??

i don’t have a lot of safe spaces and to be blunt im terrified of even saying im autistic without someone going in my ear “URMMMmmMmmMm U cannn write, talk, walk and shit fine uRRR nOt AUTISTIC?!1?1! UR JUS SILLYYT” LIKE STFUU PLZ. ive had to basically monitor the times ive said “autistic” and jus autism in general to ppl because i do NOT wanna come off as those “haha autism is so zilly gayz UWU OwO!!! *stims cutely*” LIKE EW I HATE THOSE TYPES OF PPL /gen /neg

don’t get me wrong there’s things about it i like: i probably wouldn’t be as creative without my autism being a factor of myself and having clive as a coping mechanism is wayy healthier than a lot of coping mechanisms i have done in the past. i think its just eternalized ableism that makes me think otherwise. plus i do not owe anybody an explanation on my autism at all, having it in my bios isn’t for aestheticz its a genuine disability i struggle with [ESPECIALLY my depression and anxiety as well].

i do not have a lot of safe spaces because like said my dad has made me not feel comfortable talking about my autism and plus ive gotten bullied and shit for it so bad to the point ive just resulted in not bringing it up for my own safety. and also i have a bad habit in the past of being to much of a “vent whore” publicly and being wayy too tmi so ive been trying to keep my cool publicly. um idk i just wanted to ramble cauze its been bothering mee, being online is kinda my only safe space for me to be myselff so yuh

[zebulontheplanet]

I'm someone who says IQ doesn't matter, even though I'm aware there's "people" like you for whom it matters a great deal. The reason is that I don't think you really count as a person, so when I say IQ doesn't matter, I mean it doesn't matter so long as I agree you're a human being and not just glorified farm equipment

Get the fuck off my blog. Get the fuck off my blog. I’m a PERSON. I’m a person too. Even with autism, even with an intellectual disability, even with everything that I have I’m still a PERSON.

I bleed, I have skin, I have FEELINGS!! Get the fuck off my blog with this blatant ableism and this goes to everyone with this thinking.

I know I can just ignore these types of anons but I’ve gotten several anons calling me slurs, calling me inhuman. If you think this then get off my blog and go away. My blog isn’t for you.

[2manythoughtz]

Gypsy Rose Is Being Over-Glorified On Social Media 

The girl who escaped years of abuse and went to jail after orchestrating her mother’s death is free and the socials are going crazy about her story.

This isn’t the first time the internet has taken interest in a criminal case, we’ve had many cases of people on social media taking a stand for the best or for the worst but what is happening to Gypsy Rose might be the first time a criminal becomes a famous figure because of her story. And that’s mainly because whether she can be considered a criminal or not is up for debate to this day, but who exactly is Gypsy Rose Blanchard and what did she do?

Some may know her from the famous TV series “The Act” which follows the girl’s story from the day she moved to Springfield (Missouri) with her mother Dee Dee after Hurricane Katrina in 2008 to the day she got arrested in 2015. Her story is a tragedy unlike any ever seen before. In fact, Gypsy has suffered all her life from the abuse her mother put her through, forcing her to take medication and lying about her health conditions when she had nothing wrong to begin with. 

Dee Dee is believed to have suffered from Münchausen syndrome which is a mental condition that makes it so people seek medical attention by faking or inducing physical symptoms as a way to get attention, sympathy or reassurance for themselves. And that is exactly what Dee Dee did, she made up many conditions and forced her daughter to get treatment and lie about it to the public, specifically, she convinced everyone that Gypsy could not walk and had to use a wheelchair, she had cancer and that was the reason why she couldn’t grow out her hair, she couldn’t eat and needed to be fed by a feeding tube, she had an allergy to sugar and many more health problems that were not true. Whenever she had to talk about her daughter’s problems, she would say that Gypsy had the mind of a kid, suggesting that the girl had also a mental disability.

As I said earlier, Gypsy was perfectly healthy and did not need any of the many procedures she went through ever since she was just a kid. And if that was not enough, Gypsy also had to endure a lot of physical and mental abuse as a way for Dee Dee to keep her under control. But how could she do that without anyone noticing? In this case, timing is the answer. Because they moved after Katrina it was easy for the mother to fake hospital records and personal information, such as Gypsy’s date of birth. Thanks to that, Dee Dee was able to convince people her daughter was ill without any type of suspicion from others, not even the doctors who checked on Gypsy. 

Slowly Gypsy started to realize what was going on but she didn’t have the power to go against her mother, mostly because of the years of manipulation and abuse she had endured but also because she was aware that coming clean meant that she would’ve lost everything and have people look at her differently from before. That’s when Gypsy starts to connect with the outside world on the internet in secret and that’s how she meets Nicholas Godejhon who will later on become her boyfriend and help her in her crime.

So what happened? After years of wanting free, Gypsy asks her online boyfriend for help and together they plan on killing her mother to be able to escape her and start a life together. They only succeed in half of it as they get arrested not too long after killing Dee Dee and went to trial. Only in 2016 Gypsy pleads guilty to second-degree murder as she confessed that she was the one convincing Nick to stab her mother, but because of all the abuse experienced she was sentenced to 10 years in prison while Nick was sentenced to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder. 

But why are we talking about her now? Gypsy Rose Blanchard was released from jail last month and immediately started being active on socials. She had always been open with the media about her past and her actions, releasing various interviews and a documentary telling her truth. There was a lot of hype around her release as people all over the world either loved her or hated her but, apparently, the majority of people seemed to be in favor of Gypsy’s early release. 

This new attention quickly transformed into hate as fans started to realize that maybe having a criminal become a famous figure is not the best idea, not only because of the many ethical issues behind it but also because Gypsy herself doesn’t know how to handle herself. She’s been controlled all her life by her mother, she couldn’t say what she wanted nor do any activity others her age would do and now she’s finally free but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she is aware of her words or actions. 

People don’t appreciate the way she’s been using her platforms but also the things she’s been saying in interviews, telling people that she wasn’t responsible for her mother’s death since she didn’t actually kill her, she just planned the whole thing but Nick did the stabbing. I think that comment in particular made people think about the fact that she, a woman who was involved in a murder, is now so popular online that she has 8,2M followers on Instagram and 9,9M followers on TikTok which is kind of scary, she is now living her best life because of all the fame that she accumulated thanks to her story. 

In the span of a month, she went from being the IT girl to one of those problematic influencers we can find on social media. Believe it or not, people all over TikTok are trying to bring her down with old information about her case, trying to show that she’s not as innocent as she claims to be. As I said, it’s debatable whether her intentions were excused or not, there is so much to say about her story that only Gypsy knows. Is it ok to glorify a girl who’s had such a difficult life and will never be able to live a normal simple life like everyone else?

Let me know what you think!

[cerseiwexler]

🐬 + Myrei & Zeet. Reveal their crimes 👀

oh! two of my evil babies!

myrei is canceled for Lannister Typical Behavior. the biggest one w/ today’s discourse is the sibcest; i would personally argue the child murder is a more grievous sin but what do i know. she’s a big supporter of a corrupt regime (bonus points: it’s joffrey’s and we know how everyone feels about him) and works hard to put her many nepo babies into important positions within it. everything cersei does, she’s cheering on fervently. even her more… controversial moments, for the most part. and since she dares to be morally questionable as a disabled queer woman and a mother whose role isn’t limited to motherhood in the narrative, she’d catch more criticism for all of this than some other characters would in her place 💀

zeet is evil in a way that i suspect would be more palatable to a general audience than myrei’s way, judging by how people talk about characters who are similar to them both. zeet does a lot of murdering, but that’s mostly other bad people so it’s a little more sympathetic. they’d attract criticism for the excessive torture of some of them though. like myrei, there’s also the support of a corrupt organization (the cartel). zeet definitely glorifies/glamorizes drug use within their own life too. the thing about them though is that they’re really quite likable when you’re not a threat — affable, warm, accommodating, friendly. so i think people would be more inclined to favor them as a character and not cancel them as hard as certain other people i have spoken about in this post lol

[defectivegembrain]

I wanna start by saying I’m not sending this to you bc I think you personally are saying this, it was just brought to mind by a post you reblogged but honestly I need people to realize that the “quirkifcation” of autism is NOT because of autistic people on tumblr making silly jokes or “””””glorifying autism””””” or whatever, it’s because allistic people have decided that we are either 24/7 sufferers who can’t possibly enjoy life or have depth, or otherwise we’re faking. (Part 1/2)

Adding part 2 to this post for clarity: (Part 2/2) And at a certain people these posts about “reminder that autism isn’t just quirky!!!” feel almost victim blamey, as though it’s a handful of autistics on tumblr that cause this downplaying and not a movement set to dehumanize every autistic as either a faker or a burden. I’m not saying people can’t downplay autism as a disability or that it’s never happened but all of these posts seem to exist in a very frustrating vaccun that doesn’t acknowledge the full picture.

[My response from here]

Okay like, I don't think it's because of us making jokes or "glorifying" it, but I also don't think it's just allistic people causing it. I have personally seen a worrying number of autistic people as well denying that autism is a disability or that certain struggles even exist, such as understanding sarcasm and empathising. I think a lot of it comes down to people denying struggles that they don't experience themselves, and this in my experience is a big problem within the autistic community, not just from outside. I don't think it's victim blaming to acknowledge intracommunity issues, and honestly sometimes I am personally very reassured by seeing more people acknowledge how autism is disabling as well. It doesn't mean we can't make jokes or anything, but pretending that the entire problem comes from allistics helps nobody.

[deadletterpoets]

Was reading a post and saw someone say that the reason they like Batgirls and having Barbara as Batgirl and Oracle is because Barbara is shown having off and on days whereas as when she’s just Oracle she’s basically Alfred which is such a bad take of who and what Oracle actually is. But I can see why someone would say that since that’s basically all she appears to be doing when DC claims to be using her as Oracle in current issues. You’re right to say that when Barbara is Batgirl along with Cass and Steph it makes them look like secondary characters even when the writing for Barbara isn’t the best. Generally there is excitement when all are shown together but if I’m being honest I don’t want to see them together because they are shown always together and nothing has really come out of it. Same with Barbara and Dick. In my opinion all the characters need a cleanse from each other and to be given their own titles without each other for at least a short time. With Barbara it feels like there needs to be a show why Barbara as Oracle is important and probably having her working with people who don’t share the same skills and actually need her. We actually need to see Barbara getting dirty work again and not just shown as a cheery I got your back support. And I feels like that because she’s following either Nightwing or Batman and what they are doing instead of being the head where she made the decisions on what she plans on tackling and what missions her team goes on.

While I can appreciate the want to showcase disabled rep of "good days/bad days" seeing as it happened during the exact time as Nightwing doing the "invisible disability" type of representation left a bad taste in my mouth since it continued the usage of Babs (once they even started to acknowledge she even had a disability again) being a revolving door of any type disability they needed, except the one she's actually supposed to have so I didn't think Cloonrad deserved praise cause they "did more than Tom Taylor". She is supposed to be a physically disabled full time wheelchair user. Even with those that use her as Oracle now often still don't often use her in a wheelchair. That's something I can give Batgirls, that book is one of the few to actually show her as a wheelchair user at all even if it was part time.

In terms of the characters being allowed to be away from each other more and having their own titles, it's kinda sad how apparently DC can't get most of the other Batfam members to sell well enough to keep an ongoing. in regards to showcasing why Oracle is important, this is a BIG reason why so many have been adamant that Thompson's Birds of Prey is a letdown. That is not only Barbara's team, that is specifically a book where showcasing why Oracle matters, showcasing her intelligence, her leadership, her character, her heroism, it should've happened in that book. It should've happened with her as Oracle. I've seen ppl say Babsgirl is more important because she's out fighting blah blah blah (those same ppl are why I believe Cass/Steph get pushed to the side when Babsgirl show up cause all of them don't understand why Cass/Steph exist as Batgirl is Barbara is there) and Oracle is a glorified GPS. And unfortunately that's how too many writers tend to use her. They don't showcase how much of a genius she is at strategy, they reduced her hacking so often it's a borderline joke to me at this point. With all the technological advances Oracle should be a one woman army capable of toppling governments (which I'm pretty sure she could at one point), but now she can barely hack the FBI I think or some government agency and she asks permission to hack GCPD. Every other hacker that shows up takes down her firewall like it's held up by duct tape (I always found it weird how easily Seer took down her entire network during Fear State and yet Ghost Maker's network stayed strong. Babs takes Ls so much I don't think ppl even realize when they happen anymore)

There's no excitement for me at all when it comes to the batfam together or apart honestly. DC isn't in the business of telling stories for their characters they just want to sell the brand. It's probably why Cass and Steph got to be Batgirl again cause selling them as Batgirl is just easier, but also allows them to never get too big cause no matter what as long as Babs can still be Batgirl then she's the one that's front on the covers when they want her to be.

Idk what Thompson plans to do with her, but odds anything she plans to do wouldn't be nearly as interesting or cool as a true Birds mission where Dinah and Helena with the guidance and leadership off Oracle go global and handle some fucking business.

[burnerblog888]

Hi, I’m a fan of warrior cats and I have autism. This sounds random, but this is important for what I have to say regarding something that has made not only me, but others, very uncomfortable.

In the clangen game discord server, there is a mod called “Disabilities and Disorders.” Many of the names for disorders have been changed in order to be more “in universe.” However, this has resulted in some rather unfortunate names. In this post, I’ll only be focusing on the one for Autism, “Star Walker.” There are other inappropriately named disorders (i.e., DID being called “shattered soul”), though.

So, star walker. The issue with this name lies in its implications, that a cat with autism can walk among the stars, aka StarClan. It means that this cat has a connection to the stars, thus directly linking autism to StarClan, which is the main religion of warrior cats. And, if you’ve read the books, you know that StarClan is an absolute shitshow. I feel that it is also worth bringing up characters like Jayfeather, and medicine cats as a whole. Jayfeather’s power involved being able to walk among StarClan while sleeping, and medicine cats are able to communicate with StarClan. Jayfeather’s powers are also from StarClan themselves.

Therefore, by referring to Autism as star walker, you are directly connecting it to the literal heaven of the clans, and the clans’ religion. It even implies that Autism is a gift from StarClan, which sounds fine at first, but it takes away from the experience of autism as a whole. It’s being glorified and sugar coated. To see Autism be depicted as this ethereal, head-in-the-clouds thing is disheartening. It sucks. It really, really sucks. Because Autism isn’t like that at all. Having Autism be linked and tied into the religion of warrior cats (albeit in a fan-made game) feels icky.

I’m sorry if this post is so messy and rambly, but I’m tired of not being able to say anything. Thank you for reading.