Can Y'all Please Stop Using Words Like "delusional", "psychotic", And "narcissistic" As Insults. These

”autistic people don’t do [ extremely common higher support need , higher level autistic trait / symptom ] , that just stereotype”

you need include us too : you need include childish autistic person , you need include nonverbal autistic person , you need include autistic person who drool , you need include autistic people with intellectual disability , you need include autistic person with loud messy public meltdowns .

can not hide behind “it just stereotype” because that not true . there are many people very disabled by autism , you need remember us and include us .

hey i just wanted to give a shout out to people with personality disorders real quick. your disorder doesn't make you evil, it doesnt make you an abuser, and it doesnt make you unlovable. you're just as deserving of respect, care, and support as people without personality disorders. stay safe, i love you and i hope you have a happy holiday season. we're in this together <3

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.

When people comment they're surprised I didn't cure a character I gave a disability to by the end of my fic

Came across a video of a guy showing other wheelchair users how to get up and down escalators in a manual chair, and my God, the comments were just filled with people, or rather 2 very dedicated people yelling "This is SO DANGEROUS!! You should not be showing people how to do this!!! You will never need to do this because everywhere HAS to have lifts!!! Its the law!!!!" Over and over again.

Like tell me you've never gone to a public place with/as a wheelchair user, lol. Even in countries like America that have the ADA and Australia that has the DDA, you aren't garuenteed accessibility. You should be, but the unfortunate reality is that just because it's the law doesn't mean businesses/people will listen.

If I didn't know that escalator trick in uni I'd have probably missed so many classes I'd have had to repeat a year because the lift at the local train station broke at least once a week, and the ones at my local shopping centre I think worked maybe...twice the 3 years I lived there. Like obviously, it should be more accessible and lifts should be available because not everyone can do that trick, but why are you getting mad at disabled people for working with what we've got? Get mad at the people breaking the ADA/DDA, not us.

Disabled people aren't these fragile little flowers, nor are we children that need protecting from ourselves. If we are using the escalator, we can handle it, I promise.

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?

An unpopular opinion that actually makes sense when I explain why I have it. (Well makes sense if you're not abelist)

I'm not too fond of the "I don't want to be led by the people that ate off of led paint and played in asbestos." Criticism against baby boomers.

Obvious abelism aside (the criticism is implying that baby boomers are less fit to lead because asbestos and lead severely negatively impacts cognitive functioning.)

But both of these mass disabling events are centered around a lack of knowledge that asbestos and lead has such a severe impact on cognitive functioning.

And I don't like that because many people today are also victims of a mass disabling event caused by a lack of information.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.

Up until 2013. The only fetal alcohol diagnosis that existed was Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. And it's caused by severe alcoholism in the pregnant person, and the baby tends to have withdrawals after they're born.

Back then. It was believed if you drank while pregnant, you could still get lucky, and your child can be born "completely fine".

But very recently (I think it was in the early 2000s?) People started saying "No. They're not 'completely fine'. They don't have the classic signs of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, but they're still impacted by the alcohol on the developing fetus." And it was in 2013 they realized that yes. Even "just one or two glasses" causes Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

It's estimated 1 in 10 pregnant women between the ages of 15-41 have had alcohol in the past month and 1 in 5 first graders have fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.

Fetal alcohol syndrome is pretty well known. They have a distinct face shape and learning disability.

But fetal alcohol spectrum disorder can (but doesn't always) have specific facial features. Other symptoms include

Trouble with emotional regulation

Issues learning

Low body weight

Loss of coordination

Issues with empathy

Shorter height

Hyperactivity

Holding attention difficulties

And you're thinking "wow. That sounds a lot like my autism/ADHD diagnosis". Yeah. Since it's not well known in its mild forms. It's often misdiagnosed as autism/ADHD and often times the best way to know is by straight up asking your parents if there's any chance your mom drank while pregnant.

I asked my mom, and she was one of those strict "I didn't even dye my hair while pregnant because I thought the chemicals would seep through my skin and affect the baby."

But like...

Let's not make fun of baby boomers for being disabled due to a lack of knowledge? When a lot of us Millennials and GenZ are probably affected by a similar lack of information.

-fae

Things I Want to See More of/Less of in Blind Characters

Format borrowed from WritingWithColor]

Note: This is not an excuse to harass blind/visually impaired/low vision writers writing in the ‘Less of’ category. You’ll see I have included several instances where a story should be written by a blind writer. You should also consider that blind writers have a lot more insight and flexibility about what they can write than you do, by nature of being blind themselves and therefore able to portray things in a more nuanced way. They cannot misrepresent themselves.]

Here are some things I personally would like to see in stories about blind characters!

-Characters with varying types of blindness.

I wanted to include more information at the request of my followers who felt confused by some of the wording, so I have edited this post as of 2022.

Types of blindness include: cortical blindness, progressive vision loss, blind spots, total blindness (meaning no light perception), characters with only light and shadow perception (note that some people also refer to themselves as ‘totally blind’ or ‘totally blind but with some light perception’ for ease of communication outside of medical contexts, but totally blind generally refers to people without any light perception at all), eyes with differing kinds of blindness (partial blindness, total blindness in one eye but not the other, etc), characters with low vision in both eyes, characters with prosthetic eyes. Keep in mind that visual acuity is measured through a person’s best eye with best correction.

-Blind main characters. Blind heroes and blind villains. Blind love interests!

-Blind characters who are considered attractive or charismatic

-LGBTQ blind characters! Polyamorous blind characters. Blind characters with additional disabilities. Blind characters of color.

-Active blind characters: in sports, martial arts, theatre, nature-y things, and art. Blind characters doing unexpected things. Playing instruments, being competitive, etc. This also applies to jobs.

-To add to the last point: I want to see them using adaptive technology or skills rather than magic that completely erases their disability. So rather than magic that enables someone to read, magic or technology that reads to them, like real-world technologies, or use of Braille.

-Using technology. Using phones, especially modern phones which have more accessibility options. Too many people don’t believe blind people can use phones and if you perpetuate that idea in your modern styled narrative, you need to fix it. Blind people also have radios, TVs, etc, and they do use them.

-Reading and writing in Braille

-Using canes, guide dogs, or a combination of both. Learn the pros and cons of these and maybe include more than one for different characters

-Stories with more than one blind character. Especially stories with blind characters interacting and having a sense of community, perhaps exploring diversity of opinions and ways of navigating the world. One thing I try to show on this blog is that blind people are diverse even in how they interact with their blindness.

-inventions or magic for blind people being invented/developed BY blind people

-acknowledgment of difficulties that blind people face: economic challenges, ableism from family (although stories focusing on this as a plot/theme just might be best left up to blind writers), barriers in transportation due to being unable to drive, lack of accessibility in entertainment and education

Things I Want To See Less Of:

Blind characters: -being portrayed as sad or broken because of blindness

-wanting to be sighted

-hating their glasses or canes

-being innocent, helpless, or unrealistically kind and selfless only because of their blindness

-being portrayed as ungrateful or rude in general but mostly when refusing help they don’t need. Characters like Toph are fine because her attitude has nothing to do with her blindness when refusing to make strangers feel good.

-being portrayed as rich or overly privileged in order to portray the character as spoiled/ungrateful, particularly for refusing unnecessary help or for asking for accessibility. [This worked with Toph because riches and privilege were used to explore different sides of her, such as a more socially competent/powerful side. It is important to remember that many disabled people struggle with income and finding employment due to various factors such as ableism in hiring, transportation difficulties, lack of accessibility in the workplace, changing vision conditions and other resulting health problems.]

-going blind due to accidents or trauma. I want to see this less often, as the leading causes of blindness today are unrelated to tragic accidents/incidents. The leading causes of blindness worldwide, according to the World Health Organization in 2022, are uncorrected refractive errors and cataracts. Workplace accidents, however, are the exception to this according to my research. In instances where you want to write a character going blind due to accidents, incidents, or other traumatic injury, it is helpful to consider how blindness is often portrayed as tragic. Narratives about traumatic accidents can strengthen the idea that blindness itself is inherently traumatic and tragic, even for those who are born blind. It can also increase the misconception that an accident is the most common cause of blindness. Because this idea is so strong, I usually prefer to avoid characters going blind through one-off traumatic accidents, and instead prefer characters going blind through other ways. However, if someone wishes to write characters going blind this way, such as due to a workplace accident, it is helpful to make an effort to separate trauma from the blindness itself where possible, rather than focusing on blindness as trauma throughout the story. These posts may help: one and two.

-avoiding certain words. Blind people do not go out of their way to avoid sight-related expressions unless it is an ironic joke. No one casually says ‘I was listening to a show’ unless it is audio-only. “Listening to a show on TV’ is not a thing unless it was on in the background- ‘watch’ is perfectly acceptable

-blind characters being ‘cured’, at least when they have conditions that cannot be cured completely or at all, such as Retinitis Pigmentosa—and, no, fantasy is not an excuse. The cure narrative is especially common for totally blind characters who have never been able to see, which would require lots of adjustment in real life. Cures also tend to erase blind characters from stories. I feel that stories like this are best left up to blind writers themselves. However, this post may help when writing a blind character’s remaining vision improving, complete with an addition from a person who had visual rehabilitation.

Of course, if you want to try writing some of these things, you are free to do so! I suggest consulting with a few blind people either way. My intention is not to hold anyone back, but to make people think. Many of my readers ask questions I had not considered and it is fantastic to engage with people thinking on this post and how to make some of these things work well in their stories.

That's not how telekinesis works

[Plain text: That's not how telekinesis work]

(Disclaimer; I am not paraplegic, just a nerd)

Stop making Charles Xavier use his telekinesis to walk.

In order to do that, he would need to concentrate extremely hard and it would be very complicated. Keep in mind that he readily admitted that he's "no Marvel Girl," meaning that he's not a high-level telekinetic like Jean Grey, so he might not even be capable of the amount of control you're going for. If he is, it's not practical and there's no reason he would go for that other than the writer being ableist.

Guys, why go for ableism when there's already a far better thing Charles Xavier does? In canon, he uses his telekinesis when he needs to lift his wheelchair over stairs or other obstacles. In one instance where he did this, at a Hellfire Gala, it was him being petty because he's dealt with way to much to not enter the gala through the front door. At that point, he was being petty and that infinitely funnier than an ableist idea where he can magically move his legs even though there's literally no reason for him to do that.

in recognition of World Down Syndrome Day on March 21