A lot of Hellblazer fans think their John needs to be dirty or ugly instead of pretty and this isn’t them “knowing the comics better.” It’s incredible classism and sanism. The fandom constantly likes to thirst for John at his worst, during psychotic episodes, as this proves they like him more then ppl who likes him when he’s clean in outside media but . This is almost always when he’s explicitly unwell and not able to keep up his hygiene because he’s physically struggling. As someone with schizophrenia I think most of the hellblazer fandom is super weird for this and needs to examine why they feel the need to 1.) prove they know more than outsiders to the comic or beginner readers and 2.) examine why they often only view John as mentally ill when it’s convenient rather than a consistent theme of his story.
really really really really fucked up that you're not allowed to tell your parents to shut the fuck up, no matter how obnoxious they're being or how much what they're saying genuinely sucks.
My mom woke Me up talking over and over and over with multiple people across multiple different phone calls about this disabled woman she hit (and contemplated shooting?) for trying to steal her phone, and now she's talking about it AGAIN in the next room.
no, I doubt she thought you were "one of them" (disability is a personal difference, not an organization FFS), I don't care that her eyes were weird, I don't care that she didn't speak coherently.
worst part is that this is just a thing she does sometimes: have a bad encounter with a disabled and/or homeless person, that she always gets out of unscathed, just for her to go on endlessly about how unpleasant it was, how repulsive "those" types of people are, sometimes even how badly she wants to hurt them, all in the indignant or bemused tone.
IDC that you gave birth to Me I cannot wait for you to be out of My life. I've gotta reverse-disown her genuinely no good comes out of being around her.
I shouldn't have to pay to have my mental and emotional issues and struggles taken seriously
But here we are. It's honestly gross of people to claim to be HUGE advocates for mental health and ND people but will use the fact that some (usually non-white) people are unable to get properly diagnosed (usually due to financial, racial, familial, and/or living conditions) as an excuse to overstep their boundaries, ignore their mental health issues, and vilify their symptoms without critical thoughts because they can't afford to properly get diagnosed. Especially when money and societal/racial/familial stigma is at play.
And I'll be completely honest, and I know this is gonna piss people off- But the mindset of "Definitively Neurotypical unless diagnosed" is fucking classist, and partially racist. ESPECIALLY if you use that as an excuse to ignore and mock the boundaries and issues of others. And truthfully, being able to get diagnosed early and easily is a privilege that not all of us, especially non-white or low-income people, are afforded. And it's honestly aggravating to see it being used against us.
Being able to get diagnosed isn't a bad thing, glad for you and I'm happy that you now can access those resources but by god please acknowledge your privilege and don't use it to vilify the working class and/or non-white people who cannot readily access it.
@the anon that came through, that I will delete for reasons but don’t want to leave the questions unanswered (feel free to dm if you’d like me to expand):
[gist of anon is: the fighter is close to home, already much of the foundational elements are present in the US with the way poor and nonwhite communities are funneled into the prison system and then used as slaves, and have i thought about it or gotten opinions of poc in the community]
Here’s the answer! I have thought in depth about the closeness of what’s going on in the story to the current US prison system and largely consider the bones of the story to be (maybe not grounded in reality exactly) not that far off from where we are now. It’s written as an expansion of what’s happening now, and I try to be cognizant of that, but it’s certainly something I’ve thought about.
I’m not sure which readers are poc, but if anyone does want to dm me to talk to me about their experiences reading the story I’d love to hear your opinions and thoughts. I think the story probably does make some people uncomfortable, and I try to tag everything accordingly. I have attempted to create a plausible future reality that clearly shows the wrongness of not only what’s happening in that future, but what’s happening now.
I love how two white, American internet demsocs can face blowback for their white, American demsoc takes (and one of them has the power to cut off eight people from their insurance plans, if she so wanted to, by leaving YouTube), and people will be like, "This is a devastating loss for the Left™"
Gather round everyone. It’s time for our every-few-monthsly post on ADHD by your local ADHD ghost. In this episode, we’re talking about ADHD and how it relates to “being dramatic” and “being lazy.”
On Being Dramatic
No doubt a lot of you have been told you’re being dramatic over the years. I know I have. There are a lot of reasons one might be dramatic, but they’re rarely about the drama.
If I’m to guess the origin of the word dramatic, I’d guess it probably has something to do with over exaggerating your response for the drama. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of people being dramatic - on tiktok and vine, on youtube... drama calls for dramaticism.
Do you want to know what isn’t dramatic? Genuine reactions. That’s right - genuine reactions, inherently, cannot be categorized as dramatic or hyperbolic. There is nothing about them that is being overdone with the intention of getting attention or entertaining other people. So, let’s talk a bit about how this conflation has hurt us as a community.
Growing up, everything I did was “dramatic.” Crying because I didn’t want to do more chores was dramatic. Having a panic attack because there was a spider in the room was dramatic. Freaking out because I needed people to stop touching me was dramatic. Getting angry when my mother made jokes about my sex life as a teen was dramatic (and apparently abusive, but that’s neither here nor there). Nothing I did that involved a noteworthy amount of emotion was anything, if not dramatic.
On Being Lazy
I know a lot of you have also been labeled as lazy over the years. “Lazy” is the diagnosis everyone loves to give to those who don’t do enough, in their eyes. If you “could have” done something and then “chose not to,” you’re lazy... right?
Growing up, I was lazy too. I was lazy for avoiding housework. I was lazy for not wanting to brush my teeth. I was lazy because I didn’t turn in my homework. I was lazy for staying in bed, on my computer, most of the day.
If I’d only just “applied myself,” or if I would just “put in the work,” then I would be respectable to the people around me. But, because I wasn’t “willing” to put in the time and effort, I was lazy.
Why Is Emotion Dramatic?
The short answer is: it’s not. The real question is, why do people seem to perceive emotion as being dramatic? These are real emotions, after all - real and genuine feelings that are being dismissed as playacting. There are a number of reasons.
Why Are We Lazy?
Again, the short answer is: most people aren’t. The question here is, why do people see others not doing something and assume it’s because they simply don’t want to put in the work? Why do they not seek out an explanation or consider other alternatives? There are a number of reasons for that too.
The Answer...
Editing to put a Read More here because it’s very long
(TW for each of these sections in their name)
1. Sexism
At its core, seeing emotional outbursts or responses as dramatic is inherently rooted in sexism. Whether you’re a boy or a girl, man or woman, if your emotions are being mocked, it’s almost definitely because of our world’s history of sexism and relating emotion to women, who are “illogical” and “just want attention.”
And “real men” work! They work hard! They work long hours! They put themselves into an early grave, with pride, by never sitting down to rest! For this very reason, women, housewives of decades past, were expected, after a long day of doing housework and caring for the children - things that are just as exhausting as a full time job - to dote on their husbands who had just returned from work expecting a hot meal and a beer to be ready for them. Her work is devalued. It wasn’t grueling or tiring or important. It was just “women’s work.” A wife who does all of the housework and child rearing and fails to provide a hot meal and a warm body to her husband is “lazy.”
This is further shown to affect men as well. We can see, as early as non-manual labor-based jobs existed, the men who took them were lesser. Men who work at computers are seen as nerds and geeks - weak. Men who work in universities, coming up with new solutions to our medical needs and discovering the mathematics we need for space travel and advanced technology - they’re weak too. They’re unimportant to society because they’re not willing to get their hands dirty. Those men who prefer artistry are called gay and seen as disposable. It is irrelevant to the conservative man that his artistic counterpart designs everything that fills his home and office - that without artists we would have nothing.
2. Racism and classism
You might be surprised, but racism and classism both have their hands in this as well. I’m talking full on systemic oppression. The ability for people in power to look down on those they see as beneath them for being emotional or passionate about a topic or incident is all about power. You can see a million examples of this today. POC are called dramatic or are implied to be blowing things out of proportion by conservative white people because they want equal rights and feel they’re being treated unfairly. Their emotions are dismissed as irrational and dramatic.
The cries of the poor, whether white or of color, are mocked. They have no reason to be having the emotions they’re having because they wouldn’t be in the position they’re in if they weren’t “lazy.” After all, only lazy people don’t have money. Only lazy people can’t get work. If they had just “applied themselves,” they would have an income, a home, and ample food on the table.
3. Ableism
And, last but not least, we have ableism. The neurotypical and abled people of the world, at large, cannot understand the experiences of the disabled, both emotionally(those with mental illnesses, disorders, and so on(whether or not certain disorders can be categorized as a disability in a just society is another topic entirely, but they are regarded that way, generally)) and physically.
If you have sensory overload, you are being irrational. It doesn’t matter to a NT if this is caused by an actually chemically different response in your brain. It doesn’t matter if it’s Real To You. To them, it doesn’t make sense, and so you deserve no compassion for your experience. Your emotional response is dramatic.
If you have executive dysfunction, you are simply choosing not to do your work. It doesn’t matter that there is an actual reason, buried in you somewhere, for why you have become Stuck. It doesn’t matter if you feel crippled by this aspect of your life. They see that you have neglected to do something they deem easy. Therefore, you are “lazy.”
ADHD and Being Dramatic
For those of us with ADHD, being called dramatic is a very familiar experience. After a while, we begin to internalize it. We must be dramatic, right? After all, so many different people have told us we are - and for good reason. We do tend to get overly emotional.
So the question is, why? Why do we get overly emotional? Why are our emotions so much different than those of our NT peers?
1. Lack of Emotional Regulation
A big part of ADHD, which is not yet a diagnostic criteria, is our emotional disregulation. ADHD, inherently, comes with some amount of disregulation in our emotions. We have a hard time controlling the emotions that we feel and managing the intensity of them. They may come across as overly intense, or they may seem subdued, both for reasons we can’t possibly figure out as individuals. This disregulation is entirely out of our control, happening at a neurological level. Our brain chemicals don’t work as they should. But, no matter how unregulated our emotions are, they are still real. We do still feel them, exactly as intensely as we think we do. Disregulated does not mean made up.
2. RSD
If you knew about RSD before, or you’ve read my last post on ADHD (under my tag adhdghost), which has gained some popularity, you already know what this means. For those who don’t, RSD is short for Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. This condition plagues something like 99.9% of people with ADHD (while not being ADHD exclusive.) It comes with the lack of emotional regulation and means we have a reaction, that seems out of proportion (or “dramatic”), relative to the thing that caused it.
In short, RSD episodes can look like an entire breakdown, a very sudden loss of any self esteem or confidence, the feeling that you are certain someone now hates you or has secretly always hated you, and/or an immediate need to get rid of the thing that caused it. These episodes are caused by any kind of perceived failure or disappointment. They can be caused by someone whose opinion or relationship we value who gives us a slightly judgmental look, someone saying they don’t understand why we like the thing we’re interested in, or even not living up to our own expectations. These episodes frequently lead to emotional outburts, episodes, breakdowns, and tears. Naturally, all of this is “dramatic,” despite it being very real and painful for those experiencing it.
3. Combination with Other Things
Emotional disregulation can interact with other parts of our lives as well. For instance, I have a lot of phobias. My reactions to seeing or being around the things that terrify me can be even more intense than how most people react to their phobias. They can cause anxiety attacks, emotional breakdowns, and lasting fear for hours or days after. My recovery from these instances is hindered by my inability to regulate the feelings they caused.
Emotional disregulation can also interact with triggers, trauma, sensory problems, etc.
ADHD and Being Lazy
And of course, if you struggle with ADHD, you want to know, “Why am I so lazy?” The answer is: you’re not! Laziness is a made up word. Laziness was created to pass blame onto people who struggle to do things that more typical people can accomplish with ease.
So, what is the reason we struggle to do these seemingly simple tasks?
1. Executive Dysfunction
This is The Big One. Of all the things that can cause an inability to do things, executive dysfunction is the Achilles heel of ADHD. Because ADHD causes a difficulty with prioritizing, rewarding actions with no immediate reward, and creating a list of steps for us to take (something that comes naturally to NT people), we sometimes get “Stuck.”
This feeling of being stuck may look like us just having fun and avoiding our responsibilities. You may be Stuck right now, scrolling through tumblr mechanically even though you’ve been needing to pee for three hours. Naturally, you’ve been wanting to go to the bathroom... you just don’t know how.
To a NT, this sounds ridiculous. “Just get up and go?!” I’m sure you can imagine your parents saying, when they simply don’t understand. The truth is, tumblr can be a nightmare for executive function. It endlessly scrolls, giving you post after post. There’s no natural stopping point. You keep an eye out for a natural end to this activity, but it’s hard to find the right post to stop on. If you find those, “This is your sign to go to bed,” posts helpful - otherwise locked into the activity of scrolling regardless of whether you want to - you might be struggling with executive dysfunction.
This inability to “queue” our actions or prioritize what we need to do, and in what order, can wreak all kinds of havoc in our lives. You remember you didn’t really understand that equation the math teacher explained earlier. You know today’s homework is related to its use. Therefore, you cannot start your homework. There are a number of possible solutions floating around your head. Maybe the book will explain it better. Maybe your parents know how to do this and you could ask them. Maybe you could Google it. It’s possible the homework is about something else. But, if it is, what if you don’t understand that? Maybe you should ask your teacher before class?
Even though you have all of these solutions in your head, because you don’t know which solution is the best solution, you find yourself unable to do any of them. You show up to class with no homework and your teacher gives you a disappointed look. “I don’t understand why you don’t just apply yourself more. You’re a very smart student.” The remark brings you to holding back tears, because you want, with every fiber of your being, to apply yourself and make your teacher proud, but you simply don’t know how.
This is the destructive nature of executive dysfunction, and it is not something to be taken lightly.
2. Distraction
For those with ADHD, the inability to regulate external stimuli makes focusing incredibly hard. You wake up one morning and plan to start that English paper after breakfast. You go to get yourself some cereal. You’re out of milk. You decide to make toast instead. You burn your toast because you lost track of time for just 30 seconds. You go to throw it away, feeling an overwhelming amount of guilt over the two pieces of bread you wasted. The trash is overflowing. You decide to take it outside. It’s a really nice day out. Maybe you should take your dog for a walk. You haven’t taken her on a walk in a while and you’re just now feeling motivated to, so you should take advantage of that. You go to retrieve your dog and take her for a walk. When you bring her back in, you go to get her treats from the shelf in the laundry room. Oh yeah, you’d been meaning to do laundry. You go to get your laundry hamper from your room and notice there’s a bunch of laundry on the floor. You begin picking up the laundry from the floor. You may as well tidy up the other things on the floor as well. You finally get around to taking your laundry to the washer. You’re out of soap. Maybe you ought to make a run to the grocery store. You take ten minutes to find your keys and wallet and then head out to the grocery store. When you get there, you’ve forgotten what it was you needed. “Oh, right! I’m out of milk!” You go and retrieve milk. When you get to the checkout and the cashier rings you up, you suddenly remember you need laundry soap. Well, it’s too late now. You’ll have to do laundry tomorrow. You can’t risk the cashier giving you a tired look by asking them to wait. You go home and make some cereal. You can’t really write while you eat, so you open tumblr. you scroll through tumblr for a while. Your cereal gets soggy, you notice, disappointed. You see a tumblr post reminding you that you forgot to order something important online that you need to get here as soon as possible. The day continues in this way until you finally realize at 5pm that you never started your paper. “It’s so late now... I’ll just start it tomorrow morning,” you tell yourself. Rinse and repeat.
If you relate to this, you might want to consider researching ADHD a bit, because this is a very typical ADHD experience.
3. Hyperfixation and Hyperfocus
The last prominent reason why people with ADHD are seen as lazy has to do with a cycle in hyperfixation and hyperfocus.
If you don’t already know, hyperfixations are those interests you have that fill you with an overwhelming love and which take up an incredible amount of your time, energy, and brain space. These could be fandoms, hobbies, characters, games, or otherwise.
Hyperfocus, on the other hand, can be related to hyperfixations or things that aren’t hyperfixations. Hyperfocus is when you get “locked in” on a task and can’t seem to put it down. If you started this post not knowing how long it was and find yourself still raptly reading, completely ignoring the world around you, you may have hyperfocused on it. If you ever start cleaning and just can’t stop until the whole house is clean, despite your lack of regularly cleaning for over a month, you are hyperfocusing on cleaning. If you write a 20k word fic in one night, you are hyperfocusing.
Hyperfocusing can leave you completely unaware of the world around you, causing you to neglect your own basic needs, such as food, bathroom breaks, water, and social interaction.
Because people with ADHD are able to occasionally apply themselves to such an extreme degree, NT people don’t understand why ADHD people are unable to apply themselves to other things as well. The reason we can’t is because we do not regulate our hyperfocus. Hyperfocus comes from tasks that are giving us serotonin, to make up for our brains inability to give serotonin in the way it should - in the way NT brains do. Emptying the dishwasher just felt really good. The next thing you know, you’re filling it with more dishes and wiping off counters and sweeping the floor and, “oh god, it looks so nice what if I just-” and then you move on to the laundry and the living room and the bedroom and then somehow 6 hours have passed. You don’t know how it happened, but now your house is clean and you feel amazing... but also tired and hungry. So you go make some food and then pass out on the couch.
So, when NT people see this kind of laser focus, they demand to know why you couldn’t do that simple math assignment, or why you haven’t been returning their texts, or why you couldn’t apply the same level of energy and enthusiasm on that really boring geography project. They demand to know why you’re so “lazy” the rest of the time.
There’s also the element of hyperfixation. It is the ultimate distraction. Your parents tell you to do the dishes and you say you will. Suddenly, you’ve found a fanfiction about your hyperfixation and you can’t stop reading it. It’s 60k words long and it will take you all day, but you’ll find a break to do your chores somewhere in there, right?
Your mom is suddenly knocking on your door what feels like 5 minutes later, but it’s been an hour. She wants to know why you didn’t do the dishes yet. You’re upset at yourself, but you lash out at her, because you’re unable to regulate your emotions. “I’ll do it in a minute!” you say loudly from behind your door. She walks off, irritated. You ask yourself why you can’t just do it now. Why does it feel impossible to tear yourself away? Your hyperfixation is the ultimate creator of hyperfocus. It rules you.
Before you know it, it’s midnight. You’ve finished the fic. It was amazing. You realize with dread that you still haven’t done the dishes, so you sneak out to the kitchen, hoping your parents have gone to bed. They have, but you find the dishes have already been done by someone else. Suddenly, you’re holding back tears from the RSD episode this has triggered. You ruined everything. You disappointed your parents. You’re a lazy and terrible child and they deserve better.
The truth is, you’re none of those things. In fact, you’re struggling with one of the most difficult mental blocks someone can have. But to others, you’re just making excuses. To others, you should have been able to just do the dishes and then go back to reading. But you know it’s not that easy. But why?
It’s ADHD, Babey!
If this post is hitting hard in a way that feels like your life is being splayed out before you, you might just have ADHD.
The fact is you are not dramatic and you are not lazy. You are struggling with a lot of ADHD symptoms that are making functioning in a neurotypical world incredibly difficult. This world was designed by and for NT people. Your worth is not based in how you live up to their expectations.
If you think you might have ADHD, it might be time to ask your doctor about getting an ADHD evaluation. Please check out my last post (the one i mentioned is under my tag adhdghost) to get more information on RSD and on getting evaluated.
An Important Note
Many experiences and struggles caused by ADHD are also present in other disorders. For example, RSD can be seen frequently in autism as well as in anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Sensory overload, emotional disregulation, executive dysfunction, and so on, can all be present in things other than ADHD. If you want to know if you fit the criteria for ADHD, go check out the criteria on the ADDitude website, which is a great source for ADHD related information.
I never really thought about how much could have been solved with "Why not just ask the Chee?" until I listened to the Animorphology podcast.
To be honest: I’m not the biggest fan of the chee, so I had an instantaneous “noooo” reaction to the idea of the Animorphs simply asking the chee to solve all of their problems. I already kinda hate the handwave thing about the chee pretending to be the Animorphs at home (even if I can appreciate that it frees up some plots), to the point where I tend to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Anyway, that aside. Let’s answer the question: Why NOT just ask the chee to like Visser Three, or sneak the kids into the Yeerk Pool, or rip apart the Sharing, or otherwise solve the war? I think there are two closely-related answers to that question.
Answer #1: The nonviolence programming.
This is the most obvious reason given in the text for the chee not helping the Animorphs more. Chee apparently cannot even assist in the development of technology that might be weaponized (#45) or physically restrain individuals who are trying to hurt others (#26) or cut grass (#10). They had to stand around and watch as the howlers killed the pemalites, unable to intervene at all.
Ergo, the chee wouldn’t be able to sneak the Animorphs anywhere if the Animorphs so much as expressed the intention to hurt yeerks while there. The chee can’t facilitate violence, and they can’t even prevent violence in the name of self-defense. If a chee pretends to be Visser Three, and “Visser Three” has to walk through a Gleet Biofilter that reveals he’s inorganic, then at best all the chee can attempt to do is make a run for it while not getting in anyone else’s way. At worst, the chee will have to let itself get captured and used by yeerks.
Of course, Jake eventually forces Erek to participate in a battle in #53 through saying that he will murder Chapman and Iniss 226 if Erek doesn’t help. But that ploy involves violating a lot of ethics that the kids are unwilling to discard until then. Jake has to be 100% ready to carry out that threat and execute an innocent man to make it work. That ploy also works exactly once and forever burns the Animorphs’ alliance with the chee. If they’d attempted to force the issue during any earlier battle, then they would’ve lost the chee’s help forever.
Answer #2: The chee have their own agenda (and it’s a sketchy one).
It’s an oversimplification to claim that the chee’s sole guiding principle is “do no harm.” As others have pointed out, being equally tolerant of oppressors and the oppressed only benefits oppressors; peace requires justice. The chee don’t go that far, but they do have a bad habit of not challenging the status quo too much if they might feel bad about themselves afterwards. To go back to those earlier examples, why is it “violent” to restrain a howler, but not to watch as a howler murders helpless iskoort? Why is cutting grass violent, but keeping a yeerk in solitary confinement not? Why is it violent to help the Animorphs develop weaponry, but not to cause a car crash to save a dog? For that matter, what’s so nonviolent about having the ability to end wars or solve world hunger and then just not bothering?
There is canon evidence that the chee can interpret their programming in different ways. Some of them do some sketchy stuff to get around it. Worse, some adhere to the letter of the law rather than the spirit. When Jake threatens Erek in #53, it backfires in spectacular fashion when Erek chooses to drain the Pool ship’s weapons systems in revenge. That decision results in Tom’s and Rachel’s deaths. On paper, Erek is just following his programming: he’s a nonviolent robot destroying a tool of violence! In reality, of course, he’s choosing to interpret his programming that way to sabotage Jake’s plan. One could even say that Erek harms Jake, and as collateral harms Rachel and the morph-controllers she must kill when the Blade ship cannot be disabled.
In short: no wonder the Animorphs don’t call the chee more. They can’t trust them.
All in all, I view the chee as classic NIMBYs: they’re good people, kind people, people who vote progressive. People who post on Facebook about supporting feminism, and who also would rather their kids not be in that class taught by a trans woman. People who talk about the root causes of homelessness and then vote against food pantries in their area. People who think inequality is a damn shame, but have never volunteered or gone on strike to protest it. People who are comfortable exactly where they are, shaking their heads and judging others while also never suffering inconvenience or taking risk to back up their own principles.
hey, i noticed gigi gorgeous was on your “use at your own discretion” part of your trans fc masterlist and i couldn’t find anything about her being antisemitic (most things popping up had to do with the model gigi hadid) so what exactly did gigi gorgeous do? thanks!
Hey anon, I totally forgot to link receipts on the masterlist I’m sorry! Here are articles and her YouTube videos are linked on each though:
Classism - Gigi Gorgeous Is Getting Dragged For Sharing This Super Insensitive Video AND Gigi Gorgeous Is Getting DRAGGED Online After Calling Herself "Broke" And "Homeless"
Antisemitism - Fans Are Calling Out Gigi Gorgeous For Disrespecting Jewish Culture During Trip To Israel
