I can’t do a real image description because I can’t parse the visuals well enough, sorry, but here’s the narrative text:
[So why is it so hard to be kind? Why does being nice feel so…embarrassing?
Why can’t we just say, “hey, it could’ve been me. I’ve sent those emails. I’ve taken those selfies. I’ve tried to hide stuff from my parents. It could’ve been me, so I’m gonna help you through it. I’m gonna stand with you through the waves of mortifying embarrassment. And it’s gonna be okay. It’s gonna be okay, because we’re gonna make it okay.”
Imagine what would happen if compassion were normal.
Imagine how many people would still be here.
Imagine that.]
i tried to find guidelines for formatting comic pages, but couldn’t find anything for multiple-panel comics. Hope this works. ❤
[TEXT: So why is it so hard to be kind? Why does being nice feel so…embarrassing?
IMAGE: a white girl with blonde hair stands at her locker. she is taken by surprise as a girl in a hijab hugs her from behind. A smiling girl with dark skin and hair is walking behind them.
TEXT: Why can’t we just say, “hey, it could’ve been me. I’ve sent those emails. I’ve taken those selfies. I’ve tried to hide stuff from my parents.
IMAGE: the girl with dark hair joins the hug, as a white girl with blue hair and a black boy in a trilby watch from across the hall.
TEXT: It could’ve been me, so I’m gonna help you through it. I’m gonna stand with you through the waves of mortifying embarrassment. And it’s gonna be okay.
IMAGE: The girl with blue hair energetically joins the hug, as the boy hangs back looking dubious.
TEXT: It’s gonna be okay, because we’re gonna make it okay.”
IMAGE: The boy in the trilby reluctantly joins the hug, looking over his shoulder and announcing “long, dramatic sigh.”
TEXT: Imagine what would happen if compassion were normal.
IMAGE: several more students of various races and genders join in the hug, which has moved to the middle of the hall with the white girl in the middle of the group.
TEXT: Imagine how many people would still be here.
IMAGE: the girl with dark skin and hair is smiling happily in the middle of the crush of people.
TEXT: Imagine that.
IMAGE: The boy in the trilby pokes his head up, raises his hand, and says, “okay, I’ve used up my feels. let me OUT please!”]
my line of logic was “well if i put the sponge in the blender, when i turn it on the sponge will spin around and scrub the blender for me so i dont have to spend ages cleaning it”
the natural conclusion to “let writers write what they want! no censorship!!” combined with a complete unwillingness to examine internalised (and externalised) bigotry on the part of writers is sharp. scathing. reviews.
if fanfic writers are going to continue to defend untagged rape, csa, and blatant racism, they are directly responsible for readers making the decision to leave negative reviews warning others away from the fiction and the author.
it’s quick (10 questions) and mostly multiple choice. I would very, very, very much appreciate it!! & if 100 people answer, I will buy Pangur a SECOND tiny hat!
“If autism isn’t caused by environmental factors and is natural why didn’t we ever see it in the past?”
We did, except it wasn’t called autism it was called “Little Jonathan is a r*tarded halfwit who bangs his head on things and can’t speak so we’re taking him into the middle of the cold dark forest and leaving him there to die.”
Or “little Jonathan doesn’t talk but does a good job herding the sheep, contributes to the community in his own way, and is, all around, a decent guy.” That happened a lot, too, especially before the 19th century.
Or, backing up FURTHER
and lots of people think this very likely,
“Oh little Sionnat has obviously been taken by the fairies and they’ve left us a Changeling Child who knows too much, and asks strange questions, and uses words she shouldn’t know, and watches everything with her big dark eyes, clearly a Fairy Child and not a Human Like Us.”
The Myth of the Changeling child, a human baby apparently replaced at a young age by a toddler who “suddenly” acts “strange and fey” is an almost textbook depiction of autistic children.
To this day, “autism warrior mommies” talk about autism “stealing” their “sweet normal child” and have this idea of “getting their real baby back” which (in the face of modern science) indicates how the human psyche actually does deal with finding out their kid acts unlike what they expected.
Given this evidence, and how common we now know autism actually is, the Changeling myth is almost definitely the result of people’s confusion at the development of autistic children.
Weirdly enough, that legend is now comforting to me.
I think it’s worth noting that many like me, who are diagnosed with ASD now, would probably have been seen as just a bit odd in centuries past. I’m only a little bit autistic; I can pass for neurotypical for short periods if I work really hard at it. I have a lack of talent in social situations, and I’m prone to sensory overload or you might notice me stimming.
But here’s the thing: life is louder, brighter and more intense and confusing than it has ever been. I live on the edge of London and I rarely go into the centre of town because it’s too overwhelming. If I went back in time and lived on a farm somewhere, would anyone even notice there was anything odd about me? No police sirens, no crowded streets that go on for miles and miles, no flickery electric lights. Working on a farm has a clear routine. I’d be a badass at spinning cloth or churning butter because I find endless repetition soothing rather than boring.
I’m not trying to romanticise the past because I know it was hard, dirty work with a constant risk of premature death. I don’t actually want to be a 16th century farmer! What I’m saying is that disability exists in the context of the environment. Our environment isn’t making people autistic in the sense of some chemical causing brain damage. But we have created a modern environment which is hostile to autistic people in many ways, which effectively makes us more disabled. When you make people more disabled, you start to see more people struggling, failing at school because they’re overwhelmed, freaking out at the sound of electric hand dryers and so on. And suddenly it looks like there’s millions more autistic people than existed before.
“…disability exists in the context of the environment.”
Reblog for disability commentary.
That last paragraph is absolutely important.
There’s also some disabilities that effectively don’t exist in a modern environment. Shitty eyesight, for example, is 99% of the time effectively and easily treated with glasses, and is not a disability at all (assuming you can afford the glasses, of course). I don’t have to go to my school’s disability services and request accommodations because I need glasses, and I don’t have to alter my daily life because I wear glasses, because today’s modern environment is perfectly navigable to a person with glasses. If I lived 500 years ago and had the same shitty eyesight, it actually would cause me problems. If only we build the world to accommodate other disabilities the way we accommodate glasses.
Kimchi and Justice 