Greetings TFA Fandom. We Support Characters Having Agency Over Their Actions And Not Being Boringly "perfect"

— the official hawkmates (hawkman/hawkgirl/hawkwoman) relationship chart

this has been said before but I also think that part of the problem is that we need to stop seeing “misogynist” and “transphobe” and “ableist” etc as IDENTITIES and start seeing them as ACTIONS and WORLDVIEWS that cause a specific type of harm

When writing a blind character, what are some things to avoid?

Ah! So this is definitely a bit of a broad question, but I can give a few basics:

Blind people don’t actually give a shit about touching faces, so please, please stear clear of that. The only exceptions may be the same way sighted lovers may caress each other’s faces and parents may hold a child’s face in an emotional moment, but it’s just like a sighted lover or parent would, nothing more.

Please avoid giving your character a cure. One of the most crushing things as a disabled reader is to finally have a disabled character, but for them to end up with a fantastic magic cure half-way through. It rarely makes for a good story, and often a much better story is that person’s journey in understanding themselves as equal and learning that they aren’t broken and useless and can do whatever they want, overcoming internalized ableism rather than “overcoming the disability.”

Few blind people actually wear sunglasses or eye coverings, so your character probably won’t either if the likelyhood says anything. Chances are they will not be part of that minority, so probably better not to do that.

Something similar can be said for characters with white or cloudy eyes. The vast majority of blind people will not have very abnormal-looking eyes, so chances are your character will not be part of that minority.

Another very similar thing should be noted about the level of vision they will have. Somewhere between 80 and 90% of blind people have some level of remaining vision, weather it be little more than light perception or enough that they were forced to use their eyes a lot growing up and weren’t taught braille or to use a cane because they could get by well enough not to die most of the time.

So these are just the first several things I can think of at the moment, but definitely feel free to ask about more things!

Can we go back to Transformers intelligence not being linked to how they look?

Like the G1 marvel comics? Where a mechanical bat could be an accountant and no one cared cause they are robots and can come in all shapes and sizes?

There’s a terrible lesson to children of teaching different “sub races” as inclined to being unintelligent or criminal.

Remember the Dinobots in RID 2015 being portrayed as inherently destructive and voiced by black guys? Or other “sub-races” prone to being serial killers or kleptomaniacs?

Also gets into “why would anyone build/program for that?” which would lead to pointing towards implying transformers reproduce like organics making the racist parallels EVEN WORSE

All the edgy grim dark stuff to “both sides” the autobots and decepticons in works bothers me because there is a perfect established moral failing across media for them: their ableism towards those in out-groups. Repeatedly the autobots are awful and contemptful to the “empties”, neutral noncombatants unwilling to join or unable to be accepted by either faction and who aren’t doing well. 

I want to see for once a human companion join them on a trip to cybertron and be horrified.

Combaticons

Honestly, I’d doubt Starscream knew or cared what alt modes the Combaticons had in their old forms before he built them new bodies.

So I’d kinda like to see fanart go crazy with their cybertronian alt modes, since we don’t need to care about brand unity.

Heck they might not have even had the same names, I feel the whole “rebuilt get a new name” is a sadly lost part of transformers culture these days.

And heck Starscream probably named them.

I also wonder if they had larger group of members, and how they’d react knowing Starscream blew up the rest when he destroyed the other cabinets.

[ I imagine there are still other cellblocks of prisoners dismantled since Starscream only blew up one. Scary thought.]

From studying french history on the subject of Israel (it's so badly documented it's such a mess gods) on the side of France, it was basically : "yeeaah we know we were total asses to you but we still got troubles letting go of colonies and still don't want to apologize so here ! have your sacred land ! ok bye" like, instead of taking responsibilities, we gave jewish ppl a "sorry lol" gift, but the "gift" wasn't even ours to begin with. So 's not surprise Israel is such a mess. Europe fucked up.

yeah exactly

it wasn’t their land to give, basically just “Hey we aren’t going to fix your problems, but we’ll give you land that doesn’t belong to us!”

it was a clusterfuck from the very beginning.

People like to pretend I will "get better" so they do not have to think about the deadly lie they are living. Abandoning disabled and high-risk people to preventable death is eugenics.

To clarify, this is NOT just an American issue -- think of the "pan" in pandemic.

The MSKCC Library

The People's CDC (weekly weather reports on COVID in the U.S.)

Image IDs available in Alt Text and written out below:

Image ID begins. A black and white cartoon comic titled Pandemic Year 4. This is panel 1. A boy with short hair — Joey, the author of the comic — is holding a Christmas wreath and handing it to his boyfriend, a boy with long hair and a beard, who is standing in a window while decorating. The text reads: This year, my boyfriend and I got fresh pine wreaths from the farmer’s market — our fist big Christmas decorations together!

Panel 2. A hand holds pine needles. Cartoon stink clouds radiate off of the pine needles. The text reads: I break pine needles between my fingers and it smells hideous. Pain shoots through my head.

Panel 3. Joey stands in front of a table on which there are various foods. He looks disgusted and is covering his nose and mouth with his hands. The text reads: This is how I have lived since my February 2020 COVID infection. COVID caused brain and nerve damage, making everything smell and taste like rot. The condition is called parosmia, and it has no cure. Eating is a nightmare.

Panel 4. Joey’s boyfriend, a taller boy with long hair and a beard, puts his hand on Joey’s shoulder. They are shown from behind and are both wearing backpacks and winter coats. The text reads: Last week, my boyfriend walked me home from work midday after I had a near-fainting episode. I wear a heart monitor full-time. Doctors say I’m “too young”.

Panel 5. Joey is shown from behind, sitting sadly and gazing out a window. The text reads: I’ve literally been isolated from the rest of the world for four years. One COVID infection destroyed my life, and I can’t risk another. How can I get you to understand? After becoming disabled by COVID at 19 years old, I have been completely shut off from the outside world.

Panel 6. Joey stands in between two maskless and anonymous figures. Joey looks uncomfortable and is crossing his arms and gazing at them. He is wearing a respirator mask and goggles. The figure on the right is holding a bag labeled “food Joey can’t eat”. The text reads: “Friends” and family who have seen the depth of my suffering for four years have stopped masking and can’t be bothered to care. Family Christmas meant that I had to reiterate daily that I would not and physically could not eat at restaurants.

Panel 7. A drawing of an open laptop, next to which lays an N95 mask. On the laptop, a headline from the Washington Post is displayed. The headline reads: Covid kills nearly 10,000 in a month as holidays fuel spread, WHO says. The comic text reads: This winter has been the 2nd highest peak of the pandemic, with at least 10,000 Americans dying of COVID in December. Playing pretend at “normalcy” is profoundly violent and deadly. Under the comic frame, a citation reads: The Washington Post, January 11, 2024. This is an undercount, as there is no more COVID tracking in the U.S.

Panel 8. A drawing of Joey gesturing at an educational chalk board with a pointer. He is wearing a respirator mask, goggles, and a sweater vest. The text reads: COVID is a virus that causes long-term damage to your organs and nervous system. It’s also a Biosafety Level 3 pathogen, like tuberculosis, meaning that is can be lethal upon inhalation and requires special and serious PPE in Laboratories. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has a digital library of research on COVID impacts. https://libguides.mskcc.org/CovidImpacts/Home

Panel 9. An anonymous figure behind an oration desk is trying to cover a pile of bones behind them. On the pile of bones is a flag that says: Just keep buying and working! The text reads: You are being led to enact violence on your community members by a government who is sacrificing you on the altar of capital. You should be terrified.

Panel 10. A drawing of Joey’s head from the side. he is wearing a respirator mask. The text reads: There is no neutrality in a mass-death and mass-disabling pandemic. Wear a mask or forever be complicit. The comic is dated February 3, 2024. Image ID ends.

tutorial for drawing characters with Down syndrome!

DISCLAIMER... please keep in mind that this is an introductory drawing tutorial and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. it's more of an overview of features that are common in people with Down syndrome, not meaning to imply that every person with DS has all of them 👍👍 thanks

if you draw any characters using this feel free to tag me!!

As a rule of thumb, don't reblog donation posts or people asking for donations unless they've been vetted and reblogged by Palestinian bloggers. We usually go to lengths to verify this shit because we know scammers have been faking to get people to send them money, using the urgency of our genocide as bait.

It's disgusting this is what we're dealing with, but people are losing money because of some truly evil people out there.

Accounts don't just randomly spring up on tumblr without gofundmes while asking for someone to help them create a campaign. Fuck out of here with that shit.