im so sleepy

if it isn't actively bad or harmful, no representation should be called "too simple" or "too surface level"

I have a whole argument for this about the barbie movie but today I wanna talk about a show called "the babysitters club" on Netflix

(obligatory disclaimer that I watched only two episodes of this show so if it's super problematic I'm sorry) (yes. I know it's based on a book, this is about the show)

this is a silly 8+ show that my 9 year old sister is watching and it manages to tackle so many complex topics in such an easy way. basic premise is these 13 year old girls have a babysitting agency.

in one episode, a girl babysits this transfem kid. the approach is super simple, with the kid saying stuff like "oh no, those are my old boy clothes, these are my girl clothes". they have to go to the doctor and everyone is calling the kid by her dead name and using he/him and this 13 year old snaps at like a group of doctors and they all listen to her. it's pure fantasy and any person versed in trans theory would point out a bunch of mistakes.

but after watching this episode, my little sister started switching to my name instead of my dead name and intercalating he/him pronouns when talking about me.

one of the 13 years old is a diabetic and sometimes her whole personality is taken over by that. but she has this episode where she pushes herself to her limit and passes out and talks about being in a coma for a while because of not recognizing the limits of her disability.

and this allowed my 9 year old sister to understand me better when I say "I really want to play with you but right now my body physically can't do that" (I'm disabled). she has even asked me why I'm pushing myself, why I'm not using my crutches when I complain about pain.

my mom is 50 years old and watching this show with my sister. she said the episode about the diabetic girl helped her understand me and my disability better. she grew up disabled as well, but she was taught to shut up and power through.

If you wanna follow their new, not compromised account, it’s @sperosperosperospero

Remember, don’t give out passwords! Actual tumblr staff will not want you to hit them up on discord, the most likely other platform is an email. The screenshots the bot provided had a few other red flags that yall should look out for!

So, the way that the name is added in is a red flag when examining the screenshot itself. If this was an official email, it would not be formatted so awkwardly. Permanent IP address ban is another big one, if staff were to detect fraudulent activity from a different device, they would not ban the original device’s IP. That’s more of a scare tactic.

Another huge red flag is the wording. This, at first, reads like the reported account (your account) belongs to the account that reported your account.

However in the lower part, “We suggest you reach out to the reported users” it is contradicting that.

At the very bottom, you probably notice some smaller, grey text that cites a law of some kind. That is just legal jargon.

This is meant to scare you, you are meant to read the red box, where it says that if you don’t act within 12 hours, your account will face consequences and panic, then immediately contact the discord account.

Now, the scam is good at making you scared. On first glance, the email looks solid; the time limit is meant to make you even more scared. It’s actually the same thing that those infomercials use with the, “If you call today, you can get two of these!” just used very differently.

This is going to be a long post so buckle up and perhaps grab a snack

I am neurodivergent and physically disabled and Bob's Burgers is one of my two special interests so I feel very qualified to talk about this so let's just dive right in

In ~ my opinion ~ Bob's Burgers is one of the best shows overall in terms of disability and LGBTQ+ representation. Still, Today we'll be focusing specifically on disability rep and I'll be breaking it down by character and we'll be discussing both canon and implied disabled characters.

Tina Belcher - Tina is headcanoned by many (including myself) as being Autistic, as many of us autistic people find her extremely relatable and a lot of her symptoms to be obvious. She has a very hard time making and maintaining friendships with people besides her siblings, she does not understand most social situations, all of her "friends" besides Zeke are mean to her but never realize that they're being mean to her unless Louise points it out. She also displays heavy and intense interest in horses, and romance, which many see as her special interests. She also frequently stims both physically and orally; this is especially prevalent when she's in situations that she finds stressful. She's also known not to understand jokes or sarcasm (there's literally an entire episode with this as a running side plot, see season 7 episode 15) she also frequently tries to act like someone she's not and pretend to take interest in things she doesn't actually like in an attempt to make friends (see season 13 episode 14). There's also an entire two-part episode where she's a robot who's pretending to be human which was meant to be an allegory for her masking and she and Bob have an entire song dedicated to them feeling like they're unlikable and not knowing how to be "normal" and I find it painfully relatable and it has me in tears every time I watch that episode (season 12 episodes 21 and 22). The common argument against Tina being autistic is that within the first 5 minutes of the very first episode, there's a joke about Tina being autistic and Bob says "You're not autistic Tina" but my argument against this is that the Belcher family canonically does not have much money and getting diagnosed is very expensive. (also the entire family is very neurodivergent so it wouldn't shock me if no one in the family noticed that she was autistic)

Bob - Bob displays a lot of the same behaviours as Tina but also tends to be portrayed as the classical undiagnosed adult autistic man. He also has a strong tendency to personify and give names to objects such as his spatula; this however can be a sign of autism or childhood trauma which we also know that he has as it's showed and explained on many occasions that his childhood wasn't super great since his mother died when he was a young boy and his dad was not great at parenting and was showed to care more about his restaurant than his son.

Linda - Linda again is the classic undiagnosed adult auDHD woman. She's very hyper-active, and tries really hard to control situations but not in a malicious way. she needs everything to be perfect all of the time and takes extreme measures to make that happen which usually wind up making the situation worse (see season 1 episode 7)

Gene - Gene (in my opinon) clearly has ADHD. He's forgetful, can't get himself to do activities that aren't of his immediate interest, day dreams a lot and his very very extroverted. (Though not all ADHDers are extroverted). He also has a very hard time with rejection sensitivity which is common in people with ADHD.

Teddy - Teddy is the Belchers best customer and close family friend. He also displays symptoms of autism but on a more "severe" level than other characters mentioned. He eats the exact same thing for lunch every day at the exact same time, and literally has a breakdown if that changes without warning. He also has no social skills, is easily manipulated and has strong attachment issues particularily towards Bob and Linda. Also he's a hoarder but I'm not sure if that's relevant to this.

Gayle - I'm not really sure what's going on with Gayle or where to start with her but she definitely has some stuff going on in her brain.

Jimmy jr - Jimmy jr has a speed impediment and often displays his frustrations with his dad who wants him to go to speech therapy and get rid of his speech problems even though he'd rather spend his time pursuing his dreams of being a dancer.

Benji - Benji is a character who appears in a season 13 episode. He's a student in Louise's grade who uses a wheelchair and has a passion for puppetry and loves Jim Henson; though his mother would rather that he took wheelchair basketball lessons. (Also, fun fact: the voice actor for Benji also voices a disabled character on Sesame street, who's puppets were originally crafted by Jim Henson)

This post is already long enough so I'll stop here but I could go on for ages about this subject. I hope you all learned something and feel free to add to the conversation in the comments. Remember that some of these are just opinions and you're aloud to disagree.

A good example is S12E11, where the teachers are being evaluated by their students, Louise is presented with a kind of opportunity to take back control over an authority figure, which, at first, she takes. She writes a very long and scathing review of Ms. Labonz, partially in retaliation for a bad grade on a presentation she gave. When Ms Labonz later explains that the bad grade she gave was because Ms Labonz knew that it would make Louise work harder, Louise goes to take back her review in a very vulnerable way.

I often wonder if this is why you so commonly see the sentiment that we are in an era of uniquely bad literature, or at least that the fact that most books don't have artistic aspirations and are not aiming to be anything other than mindless entertainment is new. In fact what's new is the idea that everything is worth preserving (and also the internet making it easier to preserve it). The dumb artistically unambitious trash books of the past have survived only sporadically, because people thought of them as literally disposable.