[mr-deep-downer]

[sailatina3]

[herecomesthementalmeltdown]

[threeninesfine]

The suburbs dream of violence. Asleep in their drowsy villas, sheltered by benevolent shopping malls, they wait patiently for the nightmares that will wake them into a more passionate world.

—J.G. Ballard, Kingdom Come

[twofingerswhiskey]

"oh food now has so much added to it, past food was so pure and untainted" victorians used to cut bread with chalk and aluminum powder. romans put lead in the wine, which was made from dirty feet mushing unwashed grapes covered in horse shit and road dust. i think our species will survive a few additives in food. our food systems have never been cleaner and safer. it has room for improvement, but we're not putting fucking plaster of paris in the milk

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[bebsi-cola]

you know when i say you don't have control over being disabled and some people are like "nahh you do bruv" and other people are like "sure bc we can control genetics or accidents [eyeroll]." they're making a fair point but it does remind me that "we can't control genetics " is only partially true and people have been trying to control it for hundreds of years and that's eugenics baby. people who believe you can control your way out of being disabled are halfway down the disability eugenics pipeline and that sentiment is incredibly widespread, and that, precisely, is the problem

[diserbillyti]

Anyway can we meditate on this, fellas?

Every time I point out that disabled people are chill and that presuming we are violent monster maniacs is a bit ridiculous, at least one fuckwit has to be like, "oh yeah? What about [condition]?"

"Oh yeah? Well my sister works at a special school and she gets bitten by autistic kids all the time!" Okay. I was an autistic kid who went to special school. Didn't bite anybody, didn't see anybody bitten. I also worked in SPED for a while as an adult. Never saw an incident. Hm.

Oh look, studies show that violence is common in pretty much all schools because exploring and experimenting with violence is actually really common for kids aged three to nine. But oh, we notice it more when the retards do it. Why is that. Could it be ableism. We discuss it as an especially common and problemaitc thing when the retards do it. Why is that. Could it be ableism.

"Oh yeah? Well I'm a psychiatric nurse and my schizophrenic patient punched me!" I am a diagnosed schizophrenic. The whole reason I'm not working any more is that I lost years of my life in psychosis. Now, follow me here, I never assaulted anybody, but I have been assaulted a number of times since I became ill, always with the excuse of "well he could've become violent." Hm.

Every single major study on violence and schizophrenia finds schizophrenics are not more violent than the general population but experience violence at massively, massively disproportionate rates. In fact, they usually find the majority of violence in these contexts is perpetrated by support workers, family members, and police. Hm.

It just doesn't work mate. I'm sorry. You not only look ignorant, you just become useful fodder to prove my point that ableism is a real social force, because you've seen some disabled dude on social media talking about being disabled and thought to yourself, "aha, this is a fine time to be ableist." Come on.

[diserbillyti]

My favourite ever piece of Disabled Research has always been that, when it was noticed that a lot of schizophrenics own cats, some dorks were like, maybe the cats are causing the schizophrenia?? and came to the stunning conclusion that people must be eating cat poo and thus getting a kind of parasite that makes you schizophrenic.

And of course a lot of these studies suck. A lot of them didn't actually think to ask WHEN the schizophrenic acquired the cat, so it's just always presumed that the cat came before the schizophrenia. Most don't really account for the fact that a schizophrenia diagnosis is often a very slow and complex process due to specific regional legalities associated with having "doctors can turn your rights off whenever" disorder. Basically, the same scientific half-truths that surround the phenomenon of "drug-induced schizophrenia," that is the conflation of schizophrenics self-medicating before their formal diagnosis is set and the ambiguity of proving when symptoms onset in relation to that, has been completely replicated for cat-induced schizophrenia lol.

And I love this because it's kind of a perfect demonstration of how the stigma associated with schizophrenia works in medical and scientific settings, right. Everything becomes possible to pathologize, from smoking weed to owning a cat. While the science here is usually pretty bad, "science communication" outlets make it much worse because they run with the most broad dumbass versions of these stories and present them to the public as if there's a clear causal relationship between owning a cat and having schizophrenia, instead of actually reading through the research with an appropriate critical lens and demanding real actual meta-review of obviously flawed studies.

Which is not to say that schizophrenia can't be caused by cats or THC exposure, but that the standard for a concept to become "scientifically true" when dealing with schizophrenia is uh, let's say lower?

Anyway, the reality is that a lot of schizophrenics have cats because being schizophrenic is lonely so many of us want pets. Dogs are too demanding and require a lot of hands-on exposure time, but having an adult cat is like having a gay little roommate that occasionally breaks your shit and vomits in your shoes, so they opt for that. A lot of schizophrenics also have pet fish for similar reasons and the second psychiatrists learn that fact they'll start punching up studies about how drinking fish tank water makes you schizophrenic and how to some of us born of the degenerate brain it's completely irresistable lol. Then science communicators will be posting articles with like stock image white girls superimposed over a fishtank lookin thirsty, titled things like, "COULD FISHWATER BE MAKING YOU CRAZY?" lol

[mousidy]

gender has been severely shrunken down into the domain of language, and I think it's been a serious mistake to prioritize language over all other facets of what gender is and can be

women can have penises and men can have vaginas, and it's great that we understand that, but we've done little in the way of challenging what these body parts mean, what types of people they're attached to, what those people's personalities are like, how dangerous or not dangerous they are, how they think and behave

we may have a little more wiggle room to label ourselves and our bodies now, but in many other ways we are right back where we started, with "amab" and "afab" swapped in for "man" and "woman." saying "women can have penises too!" is really not very progressive at all if you still think her penis makes her dangerous, if you still think it determines her personality and behavior and thoughts

[filmphotofranz]

source

[demilypyro]

huh. I'm flattered.

[flowerbleedme]

My incredibly bleak philosophy of compassion is that we should all pity each other horribly and practice an according amount of kindness.

[kayla-denker]

All the things I want to say will get me nuked by tumblr. When I say that I hate cis people, just please know that the hatred behind those words is stronger than the fucking sun.

[wulfbones]

Misgendering someone is never okay.

Even if you don't like them, even if they're canceled, even if they're a CRIMINAL.

Identity is not a privilege that can be revoked at any given moment.

[firem4ge]

If you are saying that baeddel, futanari, and shemale are slurs for intersex individuals and not trans women. You’re either ignorant or malicious. Similarly, if you think femboy, trap, or tranny are words describing men and not slurs for trans women. You’re actively transmisogynistic.

[parasauropteryx]

ive been thinking about this for a while, about how the way jax is treated by some fans irl is a really bitter reflection of her status as a closeted trans woman. it feels like it adds to the tragedy of it in a way. i see so many fans vitriolically referring to her as a man, refusing to think any further and only thinking they see some sort of predator and abuser. insisting she is irredeemable and should be shunned by the only people she has in her life. jax isn't real but even so, her actions are treated as if they are. "jax is just gooseworx's favourite" yeah. why do you think that is? what is she putting of herself in jax? why do you automatically assume this means the transfem creator must be a violent and abusive person instead of anything else? why do you say you want to see more messy female art but make an exception in this case? the whole thing feels like metatextual performance art.

[demilypyro]

>people really just don't know how to engage with a flawed female character

>so true, people were so unfair to Ragatha and Gangle from tadc

the Jax shaped elephant in the room:

[floof-ghostie]

"You only like this character because she's a woman!" okay and you hate her because she's a woman, knowing that she has all the traits you would enjoy in a male character.

[gondorrevealparty]

They need to eat less because they're so small and weak. Why are they so small and weak? Because they eat less. Let's base our entire society on this distinction.