*scrolling tumblr* hmmm. i agree with the sentiment of this post, but the phrasing feels off to me. it doesn’t really have that Reblog factor, you know? *scrolls* oh good, a post that just says “i jerk off till my penis scrweam” . i better reblog this
What about a knight who has gotten so skilled and strong no one can even land a hit on her in battle or sparring but she misses the feeling of bruises and wounds so much she begs the princess every night to beat the everloving shit out of her and she always leaves the royal boudoir dizzy, adrenaline high, and blissed out and none of her fellow soldiers understand how the hell she is always covered in welts and cuts with black eyes when no one can even touch her
some things that horror movie culture has taught you are scary…. are just ableist
….clarify?
okay sure. psychosis? scarier to have than to know someone who has it. DID? im more a threat to myself than people around me. wheelchairs and psych meds? are tools that help people live more functional and flexible lives and are not judgments of the persons character and for sure are not scary things. and for real, intellectually disabled people are not threats, but movies love to make them villains because they act different and understand the world differently. and people with notable physical differences? people who’s bodies look different? people with scars, growths, amputations, etc? are literally just people. and seeing themselves painted like monsters on the big screen is absolutely sickening and damaging to how society will see them.
its not only bad writing but its extremely harmful to people who actually live with conditions that are misrepresented in media. when i found out i had DID, my mom freaked out because her only point of reference was Sybil. when i was younger and first went on psych meds, i thought it meant i was set on a track to be a bad person, because in so many movies and video games you find out the bad guy has medication in his bed side table for some sort of psych disorder. the worst thing a hallucination has ever made me do was wake my mom up at 3 AM to check my bathroom to see if the bugs i saw everywhere were real and the worst thing an “episode” of any sort has made me do is hurt myself. my ptsd doesnt make me kill people, my alters dont kidnap people, my autism doesnt make me so morally unaware that ill murder for senselessly, my ocd doesnt make me hurt people etc etc etc
literally the only “horror” is the ableism. and the only way you can write good horror about disability and mental illness is if the focus is on how society and the medical field treat us rather than focusing on how we are apparently so scary, threatening, and bad.
Horror is and has historically been an incredibly ableist genre, and it is still largely unrecognized as such. This has genuine severe and real-life consequences for disabled and neurodivergent people in real life. Please keep this in mind if you are abled and/or neurotypical.
also asylum horror is deeply ableist.
oftentimes an asylum is much scarier for people who need to be there. surprise! you’re considered incompetent, so no one while believe you if you report abuse. so those doctors can really do anything to you.
To add to the reblog above, when I was actively depressed and suicidal around ages ten to eleven, I was terrified to ask for help or therapy because of asylum horror. Those scenes from Zootopia in the asylum scared me so badly I thought that was the extent of “care” for the mentally ill. Eventually I pushed through that stigma and got the help I needed, but that was literal years after the first crisis I had. I wonder what would have happened if I weren’t so scared, if I would have gotten the help I needed and prevented some of the shit I’d go through later on. We deserve better.
