Every day I wake up sore. For disabled intel and spitting in the face of Light Yagami. Sometimes pretty things too. Sometimes. Mun of y-the-youthful https://ko-fi.com/fernsalem22529 I do art.
going through the hades 2 stuff and im sorry but i just have to ramble a second because look at Hephaestus
he's not just a wheelchair user but also an amputee. an above knee amputee. wheelchair users are already next to nonexistant in video games but amputees exist in this really...disheartening? spot where they're pretty much just reduced to "person with a cybernetic limb" - it's always just somewhere from "just a cool visual design" to flat out "superpower". I can't think of a video game amputee that is actually disabled by their limb differences - I'm all for futuristic worlds where prosthetics and other disability aids are far advanced from what they are now, but that's not really what's implied by these designs. They're just... Cool designs that in no way reflect on the real-world experience of being an amputee.
Look at Hephaestus, though. Look at that prosthetic. Whilst stylised it very much looks like it functions like common mechanical knees - knee bends when thigh is lifted, knee straightens when thigh is lowered. He's a wheelchair user as well as a prosthetic user - every prosthetic user I know is also a wheelchair user as a prosthetic is not usable in every occasion and also cause exhaustion and pain if used constantly.
Whilst we can't see much of his wheelchair the position he's sat in and the wheels very much evoke active wheelchair to me - this carries on to very specifically the thickness of his arms. Whilst a lot of Hades designs are muscular Hephaestus has very noticeably thick arms - which makes sense, as active wheelchairs require a lot of arm strength.
Just overall this design is making me want to cry - he's not just an actual wheelchair user in a video game, he's a realistic depiction of an amputee, a disability usually brushed over in order to give a character a fun design quirk and nothing else. He's fat and he's hot and he's a realistic depiction of an above knee amputee. Oh my god. Oh my god?
a15 bail and legal defense fund (supporting community members criminalized in the us for solidarity with palestine)
university of texas at austin students bail fund venmo @ psc_atx (livestream)
columbia students bail fund venmo @ bcabolitioncollective
as of april 15 ct dissenters (new york and connecticut) need bail funs for arrested activists: zelle: [email protected] cashapp: $BristolAntiRacism (use "april gift" in your memo so contributions can be tracked)
the palestine legal defense fund supports acitvists across the united states
palestine legal defence also supplies free legal support for activists
the national bail fund network may update with local bail fund efforts as events continue to unfold
this list is updated as of 24 april 10pm EST. i'll try to update as i find further bail funds and legal supports: if you know of other funds or if information shared here is incorrect, please reblog with updated info (+ a timestamp) so people can give and access support.
The student protests for Palestine have been an amazing show of solidarity and support and seeing thr way that so many young people are willing to stand up for their values is admirable when so many others stay silent. But this is all to say that we are entering a pattern of glorifying these white “martyrs” from the global west to put all of this effort and resources and media coverage into instead of the actual cause they are fighting for.
I saw the same thing happen with Aaron Bushnell, when his self immolation was being talked about more than the actual genocide in Gaza (which went against everything he said he was self immolating for in the first place).
And again this happened with the prisoner from the US who worked 136 hours just to be able to donate his $17 check to Palestine aid efforts. In response to this, people wanted to help him and ended up raising over $100,000 in a gofundme for him. This feels almost satirical, as every gofundme to help Gazans evacuate Palestine and get to safety has a goal of less than $100,000 and most of them are not even close to reaching it.
And now, there are more and more posts on how to get aid to the college student encampments, and the “urgency” of getting enough bail funds for the students who have been arrested during them. Talking about Palestine itself and getting resources to Palestine has almost been put on the back burner in favour of making all Palestine related news about college students in the United States.
It think it is valuable to recognise the selflessness and importance of these protests, and getting these students resources but what is MORE important, and what these people are truly fighting for, and protesting, and make a statement about is PALESTINE. We have unsurprisingly reached the point where there are people who care much more about the white people fighting for the cause from the comfort of living in the global west than they care about the Palestinians undergoing a genocide in Gaza. It’s become almost blatant racism, the way people begin to drop everything the second a white/usamerican person does something in regards to helping Palestine, but will not put the same effort into a Palestinian IN Gaza who is telling their story or asking for help. I respect anyone who has done absolutely anything to help Palestine, but I hope people are starting to see the pattern of how the media gravitates towards the “white saviour/perfect martyr” instead of the first hand accounts coming from those in Gaza.
Anyway FIND A GOFUNDME AND DONATE TO HELP FAMILIES IN GAZA ESCAPE GENOCIDE
a15 bail and legal defense fund (supporting community members criminalized in the us for solidarity with palestine)
university of texas at austin students bail fund venmo @ psc_atx (livestream)
columbia students bail fund venmo @ bcabolitioncollective
the palestine legal defense fund supports acitvists across the united states
palestine legal defence also supplies free legal support for activists
the national bail fund network may update with local bail fund efforts as events continue to unfold
this list is updated as of 24 april 10pm EST. i'll try to update as i find further bail funds and legal supports: if you know of other funds or if information shared here is incorrect, please reblog with updated info (+ a timestamp) so people can give and access support.
I deserve more credit for not picking stupid fights on the internet than a nice person who doesn't pick fights does, because I have an unpleasant personality and it's harder for me
JK Rowling has used her billionaire legal team to silence a Jewish woman for telling the truth about her contempt for trans victims of the Holocaust.
Scotland’s network of “freedom of speech” organisations, as per usual, have nothing to say about the use of wealth to gag critics of the wealthy.
However fast they race to condemn the LGBT+ community for saying the names of those who harm us. Statements at the ready to insist that transphobes no one wants to work with anymore must be given every possible opportunity to gain from their bigotry.
But it's not the billionaires who are being silenced, as our media breathlessly echo their every hateful proclamation.
It's journalists and activists forced to publicly humiliate themselves under the weight and the threat of billionaire legal teams or be driven into destitution.
We deserve better. Freedom of speech needs to mean something
Ok so today I was on the bus with another trans guy and we were talking about how hard it is to get testosterone. The waiting lists, the price, all the doctors you have to go to, that kind of stuff. Except, we were calling it ’T’, like you do when you’re both closeted and in public.
Then suddenly the elderly lady sitting behind us was like ‘young men, either I’m going crazy or you both have never heard of supermarkets, they have shelves full of tea there! Do you need directions to one?’
To which my buddy starts to explain, because why not. ‘Well you see, we’re both trans, and… ’
The lady didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. ‘Oh no, I don’t mind that at all! Now do you want to know how to get to a place that sells tea? I’m actually heading there right now!’
We let her take us to the supermarket. We let her show us, excitedly, where the tea was. We both bought loads.