Raven, he/him, 20, multiple disabled (see pinned for more details.) This is my disability advocacy blog
282 posts
Latest Posts by theravenflies - Page 7
“Go to therapy” Are you gonna pay?
Not a day passes by without me being mad as shit that ableism against demonized mental illnesses is normalised.
We are not criminals. We are not dangerous. We do not owe neurotypicals a complete explanation on why we developed our disorders and why we aren't serial killers that kidnap people.
Fuck hollywood, fuck ableist criminology and fuck saneism.
another mental illness meme i made out of boredom
I love people with npd so much. I’m sorry that world is so ableist. I’m sorry that you can’t be anywhere without hearing the word ‘narcissism’ or ‘npd’ used in a negative light. I’m sorry that there isn’t anywhere near enough support.
I’m so sorry that you can’t win. It must be so suffocating and aggravating, living in a world where it feels like everybody hates you. You deserve better.
I think I might be relapsing.
I don't even want to really say it because I'm afraid the second I say "I think I'm relapsing into compulsive lying," everyone is going to think everything I've ever posted is a lie and nothing I'll say will ever convince them otherwise. But I am. I am relapsing because of the situation at work and because I'm scared to go into work every single day and that's just making my mental state so much worse and now I'm compulsive lying again.
At least this time, unlike when I was younger, my lies are believable so I'm not getting caught when it happens. It might landslide back in that direction, it might not. I hope it won't. I'll try and talk to my therapist about it and see if we can figure out how to fix this.
This sucks. It could be worse, but still, it sucks.
(And no, before you ask, I'm not lying about the stuff I post online. Because online, I type out the lie but realize it before clicking post and I can just delete it. For me, compulsive lying is only really an issue in my real life. I can stop myself from lying online. And if I do lie, I can always delete the post fast. I'm not lying.)
To my knowledge, my hair started turning grey when I was ten. But, from what I remember, I was super surprised to find a grey strand so it might have started sooner than that. My hair has also steadily been getting greyer since then.
"i'm using delusional in the right context, it's not like it's that serious"
DELUSIONAL DISORDER + SCHIZO SPECTRUM DISORDERS + TBI + MANY OTHERS
"calling someone a narcissist isn't ableist it's not a disability"
NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER
"sociopath/psychopath are just adjectives it's not like I'm hurting anyone"
ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
"saying i'm ocd doesn't affect you it's just the way i act"
MOTHERFUCKING OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDER
OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER
"i'm schizoposting lol it's just a joke"
SCHIZOPHRENIA
SCHIZOID PERSONALITY DISORDER
SCHIZOAFFECTIVE DISORDER
SCHIZOTYPAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
it's never just a joke, it's never an adjective. use a fucking thesaurus
So, I have a morbid curiosity issue but also OCD and anxiety, so sometimes, when I fall down a rabbit hole of something just a bit too creepy (especially when it comes with creepy pictures, like this schoolboy9 thing,) I find myself irrationally afraid of stupid things. Like twenty-ish minutes ago, I was afraid of seeing that schoolboy9 guy in my closet if I got up to go to the bathroom. I knew it was irrational, but I was too scared of that to get up. So here's a solution that worked for me;
Reaction content for kids under twelve.
Seriously. Azzyland, Kyutie, and Reaction Time, Azzyland and Reaction time slightly more but Kyutie does have some more adult-geared content if you'd prefer that. I just watch a couple videos and boom, I'm feeling better and I can get up and do what I need to do. I recommend it.
(Also, those merging games! I know there's a trick with Tetris, where if you see something scary you can play Tetris for a while and it helps you forget whatever than thing was, but I've never been good at Tetris. But merge gemstones games, like Candy Crush or, my favourite, Enchanted Kingdom; Eliza's Adventure, those help me take my mind off of whatever I saw. Plus they're easier.)
Hey if you’re schizophrenic/psychotic I just want you to know that you’re a wonderful person and that you deserve so much better than the demonization, marginalization and stigmatization you face in this society.
No disorder is inherently evil.
No disorder is inherently abusive.
No disorder is inherently scary.
Stop generalizing folks with stigmatized disorders.
As an autistic person I do not identify with the “autism creature” meme. I am an autism monstrosity, I am an autism beast, I am even an autism horror.
the mods of cripplecharacters are god's strongest warriors because some of those asks are really just "hey can i use this disability trope? I know you guys said it's offensive like 10 times already but i don't care and i wanted to use it anyways. Btw here's the most ableist oc scenario you've ever seen" like at this point i would just start telling people to fuck off and read previously made posts before they ask me another dumbass question
"Brain damage" only sounds like a harsh and offensive way to describe brain injuries because people constantly use it as an insult. It's a totally neutral descriptor of what it is. I have brain damage. My brain is damaged. It's not ableist to call it that, it's ableist to call people you don't like brain damaged because you think it's an inherently bad thing to be.
a damaged cerebellum causing ataxia, nystagmus, weakness, tremor, etc. etc. vs. a bad childhood
clearly exactly the same thing
i dont think the r slur needs to be reclaimed actually i think we can just leave that one where it is. it makes it very easy to identify what kind of person someone is when they use it
i dont think the r slur needs to be reclaimed actually i think we can just leave that one where it is. it makes it very easy to identify what kind of person someone is when they use it
Gods, the Storm post makes me so unbelievably angry. I think it says something about the community that we're erasing one character's extremely dangerous powers to act like she's being a dick to someone with powers that aren't anywhere near as dangerous just because people don't want her to be right.
Like, this is a crystal-clear example of y'all refusing to listen to people with higher support needs. I'm just saying. The parallels are crystal clear.
I don't want to detract from a post so I'll give my rant here.
Have you ever seen that post about where Rogue is asking if mutants could really be cured and Storm said no, because there was nothing wrong with them? And people were calling Storm's ability one to "make clouds" and really taking the situation at face value? Storm was right.
First off, Storm's ability isn't just "make clouds." Her ability is omega-level- for the record, that's the second most powerful level. It means her powers do not have an upper limit. Storm is an incredibly powerful mutant and she had to learn to control herself from a very, very young age. Because Storm's ability is far more dangerous than Rogue's could ever be.
To start, when Storm caused weather to happen somewhere, she was basically taking that weather away from somewhere else. If she were to use her power to summon rain and end a drought in one place, she would be taking that rain from someplace else and could cause a far deadlier drought without realizing. Ororo was told this at a young age. There is absolutely no safety in her "making clouds." She has to be extremely careful what she does or she could cause a catastrophe.
Additionally, the level of power Storm has is literally world-ending. If she wanted to, she could wipe out continents, even the world. If she lost control of her powers, she could kill hundreds, thousands, millions, billions. Ororo was a child when she manifested. In some canons, she was a child when she learned exactly how powerful she was. But, child or teen, she still had to adjust to exactly how dangerous she was. She had to look back and see how many times she could have ended everything. Such difficult lessons for a child to learn, but she learned them.
Storm's control is legendary. She had to learn to keep her emotions completely and utterly in check as they react hard when she's upset. To keep omega-level mutations under control as perfectly as she does is one thing. It's infinitely more impressive that she has as much control as she does when her powers are triggered by her emotions. Storm's ability to exist without being a constant threat to everyone around her is the product of years, maybe decades, of hard training to keep herself in check.
Storm does not just make clouds. She absolutely knows what Rogue is going through. But Storm is also old enough to see the full picture.
Number one, Rogue has only recently come into her abilities. Control very much could be possible for her. She's new to all of this.
Number two, there is no evidence that the cure is safe. Given the amount of genocide that goes on against mutants, the older ones were probably worried it was yet another attempt at wiping them out. Even if it wasn't, what if it hadn't been properly researched? What if medical trials hadn't been done properly? Had they bothered to look into what a "cure" would do to someone with a physical mutation like Wolverine's? There's so much unknown and the adults all know it. They don't know enough to know if this is dangerous.
And number three, the cure was dangerous. As Magneto says, how long before parents had the right to force this cure on their children, employers on their employees? How long would it have been before the cure became mandatory? They could not trust humans with a cure because humans were demonstrating a long history of wanting all mutants gone. Hell, humans literally weaponized the cure, shooting people with darts and forcibly injecting them with it, in the same movie! How long would it have been for them to go mask-off eugenics and genocide? They couldn't even make it the full movie without proving Magneto right, that this cure was going to be used to hurt them.
No matter what, the cure was a bad thing. Storm had the wisdom to know that. Rogue didn't.
This isn't comparing autism to depression in the "wanting a cure" debate, this is two high-support-needs autistics debating the autism cure thing. One desperately wants to not be autistic, the other understands that the cure is potentially unsafe and has some extremely dangerous implications. Maybe, one day, Rogue could be cured if she wanted to be. But that cure existing then, when people hated mutants, was only going to end in eugenics and genocide and could only be a bad thing. Regardless of the good uses of it, it would be used to turn all of them human.
Storm knew what she was talking about. Stop acting like she didn't.
in recognition of World Down Syndrome Day on March 21
There is an entire blog, @cripplecharacters, you can start with. Please, this is what we're here for. To make sure people don't write stuff like this.
We shouldn't be your only stop and as OP said, sensitivity readers are worth the investment, but we can help, too. Please utilize disabled sensitivity services. We're here because we want to help you represent your characters right.
ive been thinking a lot about the whole sia music think lately and ive said this before on my other blog but if youre allistic and working on a story involving autism/an autistic character please please get an autistic sensitivity reader (ideally more than one tbhhh) and, in addition, if you can please compensate them.
if you cant afford to compensate a sensitivity reader because the story youre working on isnt something you expect to be able to monetize like thats understandable especially right now. you should still seek people out. odds are you will find someone willing to give your work a once over and provide some thoughts, but like, if thats the case expect the kind of work you would naturally expect from a freeby. reading and giving feedback on another persons writing IS work and it honestly can be very draining work especially when it involves essentially asking a marginalized person to encounter and correct microaggressions they already are forced to deal with in life. that deserves the proper appreciation.
like if youre writing something about an autistic character and reach out to me ill definitely give it a look because this is something i care about a lot and i really want to see better depictions of neurodivergence in media, but if im doing this for freesies im going to be a lot less willing to get into circular arguments about what gets a pass and what doesnt or give you super detailed advice on how to fix a particular problem.
if im taking the time to review your potentially insensitive writing for nothing but my hope that itll do some good for the community, dont expect me to hold your hand. seek out sensitivity readers. pay your sensitivity readers.
That's right. It looks like the two adult characters did physically get on top of her, restrain her, and put weight on her. Of course there could have been some cinema magic in place to protect Maddie, who was a child, from being injured, but it looks a lot like they put at least half of their weight on the poor girl and even that could have seriously hurt her or started to suffocate her. Did she have a hand signal to tell the crew that something was wrong and she needed the scene to cut? Wait, her hands were restrained. How was she supposed to communicate that she genuinely needed help and wasn't just pretending to be panicked? Restraints like that could have made speech very difficult, maybe impossible. So yeah, Maddy very much could have been in actual danger.
Considering how little Sia seems to care about putting people in danger with what she's portraying, I wouldn't put it past her. Doing this safely would have required careful planning and a lot of effort she seemed at loathe to put in.
People are right to point out the use of dangerous restraint methods in Music in the context of its impact on the autistic community, but I'm also concerned about how they actually filmed it? Like maybe I'm missing something, idk a lot about filming movies and such, but if they actually did that restraint, doesn't that mean Maddy Ziegler was put in danger?
Okay, as a mod of cripplecharacters, I'm about to go off from several different angles. And these aren't even all of my thoughts. I have more. (TW for ableism, mention of prone restraints, caricature characters, and really, really poor writing of disabled characters.)
If she didn't get her information through a collaboration with Autism Speaks then where'd she get it? She claims she did three years of research. Did none of that research include basic stuff about writing disabled characters in general? Also, it takes five seconds to find out that there's an issue with Autism Speaks. It's in the little Wikipedia blurb. She didn't even skim Wikipedia in three years?
Not even come slightly close to the topic of prone restraints (which have a death count,) and definitely not portray is as a good thing twice
Gotten rid of that detail of Music having an accident during Kazoo's relapse. Yeah, that can happen sometimes with some autistics in real life, but the fact that it was portrayed the way it was and by an actress who wasn't autistic-
Similarly, the angry "Brush you hair" scene was... where to even start? No, not by an actress who isn't, at the very least, MSN or semispeaking (or even nonspeaking)
Gotten rid of that inspiration porn Music singing scene at the end.
Significantly rewritten the guy who is... I think he's Zu's love interest?
Actually done something with the kid who seemed to care so deeply for Music.
Explained how said kid managed to acquire twenty thousand dollars to buy Music a service dog over the internet just like that???
Remove Music not doing anything about finding her grandmother dead on the floor??? Or at least acknowledge that the poor girl was probably traumatized from the experience and had no idea what to do or how to help? It's shot almost like she's being selfish and choosing not to help rather than being disabled, terrified, and unable to help.
Not forced Maddie into this movie using their massive power imbalance. Definitely should never have forced a young teenaged girl into a position so bad that she literally broke down sobbing because she didn't want to come across as a caricature, at which point Sia lied to her. Look, Maddie was what, fourteen? And Sia was basically a mother figure and the one responsible for Maddie's success.
Not called stimming tics. Tics come from a very different group of disorders, involuntary stimming behaviours are a completely different thing with different reasons and mechanisms. If she wanted to write Music having tics, she should have given her a tic disorder. Actually, wait, scratch that. She screwed up badly enough with a singularly-disabled character. I don't want to know how much lower she could go by trying to portray a multiple-disabled character.
Not lied about trying to get a nonspeaking actress (because she was quoted long before that as saying she would only make the movie if Maddie was the main role. She wasn't going to try with an autistic actress.) Not acted like firing the fictional autistic actress was a mercy rather than putting some work in and making the set accessible for her.
Like, sure, maybe a hypothetical nonspeaking actress couldn't have been able to handle the dancing. You know what the solution to that is? Either adapt the dancing or get her an autistic stunt double who can do the dancing
Not have Music be significantly less autistic in her head? The stimming and movement abnormalities fade, if not vanish entirely, during the dream sequences. As though the version of Music in her head is less autistic than Music in her body, maybe even not autistic at all. Which is an idea that has blood on its hands
Not tried to portray all of autism rather than just Music, a character who happens to be autistic. What Sia was doing was trying to portray autism as a whole, or maybe even turn the entire idea of autism into a character rather than create a person with autism. Compare this to a (slightly) better example, Wendy from Please Stand By. Dakota Fanning wasn't trying to portray all of autism and her character wasn't written to portray autism as a whole, she was playing Wendy, one particular autistic woman, rather than a caricature.
Given Music literally anything. Why doesn't she have hobbies? Where's her personality? I know nothing about Music as a person and that's because she wasn't written to be a person.
The dead disabled brother plot was unnecessary. As was the HIV plot.
"She can hear two rooms away" she's autistic, not Superman.
The grandmother left absolutely no plan to help Zu care for her H-MSN sister, not even a note in her will like "The neighbour is close with her, he can help." I know she died suddenly but c'mon, she has a grandchild who will need care for the rest of her life, she should have been more cautious as an elderly woman. Her carelessness was setting Zu up for failure and Music up for an even worse time of this massive change in her life.
So yeah, it would make sense that there's some growing pains, Zu has no idea how to interact with her sister and her sister is probably distressed, confused, grieving, and frustrated because her entire world is changing. But rather than treating this as a "Yeah, this would have gone better with a bit of planning and we're both struggling because we're going into this blind," it's portrayed as "Music is the source of all of my problems, she's the worst, she's unreasonable, she's the worst thing that's ever happened to me and I hate her." Why is Music being portrayed as a burden rather than the burden being how ill-prepared the grandmother left all involved parties for this eventuality.
Wasn't Music meant to be HSN? Like, level three autism? Spoken like someone who's never interacted with someone who's HSN before.
Zu is high-key resentful towards Music as though any of this is her fault and she seems so desperately dedicated to either ignoring or despising her sister and the way it's portrayed makes it feel like the audience is supposed to agree with Zu?
Wow, I went off. To keep this from being nine hundred miles longer, she should have just not done that. If she had submitted this plot to cripplecharacters, literally any of us, autistic or not, could have told her not to do this. Did she even talk to someone from the disabled community? You don't even need to be autistic, just disabled, to know that pretty much all of this was a horrific idea.
What SIA Should’ve Done Making Her Movie ‘Music’
Cast an autistic actor for the main character
Consulted with actual autistic people instead of f$&@ing Auti$m $peaks
Did PROPER research
Made the movie accessible to watch - got rid of the whole flashing light thing that could trigger seizures
Used an actual mixed actor instead of doing literal blackface
Started being open to criticism instead of having a flip out at people for calling her out
Not agreed with an interviewer comparing non-verbal people to an actual inanimate object wtf
Feel free to add to this
Hi, guys. So, just to warn you, I encountered an ABA "therapist" (child abuser) in the wild today so I'm saving a lot of posts that are very anti ABA and Autism Speaks. Don't know when I'll reblog them but all will be tagged as ableism, plus specific tags like "aba therapy" and "autism speaks"
Hey Writers
Have you ever been writing a disabled character and wished there was just one great source on as many pieces of adaptive technology, medical equipment, accessibility devices, and whatever else have you as possible? Have you ever spent hours scouring the internet trying to find a source with everything your disabled character might need?
Well, have I got a site for you.
Rehabmart is an online store with a catalogue of thousands of rehabilitation, medical, and accessibility devices, ranging from simple things like canes to major medical equipment like cardiac catheterization items, all listed with what the items are, what they do, and even how they help certain symptoms or non-specific conditions. All of this is sorted neatly into several dozen simple categories on this page here. The information provided on the site may not answer your every question, but it's a fantastic starting point for the largest range of items I've ever seen from one source.
Consider checking it out.
(Disclaimer, I am endorsing this site as a writing aid, not as a place to buy medical equipment online. Please only buy equipment from sources you can trust to be safe.)
I am speechless at this blantantly ableist article from Bruce Pardy of the National Post.
Here’s a personal story. I have various learning disabilities one of them is called slow motor skills. This results in very poor writing speed. If I did not get extra time as accommodation or access to a computer to type my exams, I’d fail all my classes because I would not be able to finish my exams, and unlike Pardy’s claim, getting extra time doesn’t make me an A student. I’m not an A student and never have been, despite trying very hard. My accommodations don’t give me an edge, if anything they level the playing field. My disabilities have more of a negative effect on my learning than any accommodations I receive provide positives, but these accommodations allow me to at least pass my tests and continue my studies.
What’s pardy’s conclusion? People with disabilities shouldn’t be allowed in post secondary education? Because that’s what’s going to happen when you take away disability supports.
I am furious right now.
Because she was lonely.
So, today, a woman came into our shop. It was a woman I’ve only heard my parents refer to as ‘the Deaf Lady’. My mum had told her about me, explained that I was doing Sign Language, and come to find me on a day she knew I was working.
But today, she didn’t need her lawnmower repaired. In fact, she hadn’t touched it since it had been, and as far as she knew everything was fine.
She’d come in to sign to me.
She waved hello, and instantly explained that my mum had told her I would be in today. I asked her how she was, and the smile that she had on her face was the biggest I’ve ever seen.
And we spent about an hour in my family’s little shop, talking about everything. She told me about her life, about how she’d lived in the same house for 60 years.
She’d been born deaf, and been a Brownie, but never a Guide, because of the War… she’s now 86.
She had some amazing stories to tell, and twice she cried. One of those times was remembering her youth, and the other was when she was explaining to me that her husband had died around 20 years ago, and how he’d been the last person she’d known that could communicate with her.
She’s been alone for 20 years, living in a silent world, unable to communicate with anyone for the most part. The most interaction she has is when she writes things down for people, but she’s struggled to make any recent friends, and her family is long gone.
Now someone explain to me what’s wrong with every school teaching a certain amount of Sign Language, and for colleges to offer it more freely and frequently. People should be encouraged to learn BSL, because otherwise we’re cutting ourselves off from talking to around 8 million people or so (in the UK alone).
That’s millions of people who are no less important than you are, who have their own stories to tell, and the same need for communication as anyone else on this tiny little planet.
J. cried today because it was the first time for a long time that anyone has asked her for her name, or listened to her stories.
She’s also coming back into work tomorrow, to sign with me, and help me practice. But also - because we’re only human - for the company.
Okay.
People with low empathy are great.
Not despite it, or because of it, y'all are good ppl because you are people.
Ppl with lower empathy can be friendly, loving, caretakers.
girls sitting next to me talking about how a peanut allergic kid transferred into one of their schools and all peanut products were banned. They're genuinely hating on this kid so much. One of them compared it to lactose intolerance and how they don't restrict who eats what and I... THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "I DRANK MILK AND SHIT MYSELF" AND "I SMELL A PEANUT AND DIE OF ANAPHYLACTIC SHOCK" they are in fact WILDLY DIFFERENT DISORDERS. One is the inability to digest a sugar and the other is a deathly allergy. This counts as ableism right? Like hating on someone because you have to accommodate their involuntary life issues?
If you is look at AAC screen whilr AAC user is type. Please. Just stop please.
Is not cool. Not help. Is not thoughtful.
You is only make us anxious, or upset, or feel bad overall.
We need type process what is going say :(