*headdesk*

almost as crazy as how well you handle it

It's great seeing someone point in f this stuff out directly to the faces of aphobes, keep up the great work

...Not gonna lie considering the sheer amount of times I've written about being aroace, I'd expect MORE aphobia, usually 😂 But yeah, I guess people's open-mindedness and acceptance of us as we are can only get to a certain point before we become inconvenient.

Also, thank you very much for the kind words TwT Although, to be honest, I'm far from being the only one pointing this stuff out? I feel like so many of us have already, as calmly and patiently as we can, been trying to articulate it under every possible angle so people would GET IT, and they stubbornly don't. I guess the incompatibility is THAT severe.

(And then we get surprised pikachu face reactions when some of us inevitably get angry about it after a point. Man, like we don't get pushed CONSTANTLY. And the "not to be rude"s that are just there to put a nice neat bow over more dismissal. And the "you have to understand us" that we respond to in earnest and make as much of an effort as possible, but that NEVER goes the other way around. And I could go on. Anyway.)

Canes come in a HUGE variety of colors, styles, materials, and ways to decorate it. As long as it's the right length, sturdy enough for your weight, and has a non-slip tip there's a good chance it'll do for you*.

Additionally: there are a lot of assholes that don't want you to take care of yourself this way. People who use accessibility aids despite the social pressure not to and their own internalized ableism are powerful people.

Additionally additionally: You are not taking anything away from anyone else when using your own personal cane or rollator. You're just making it easier for other people to exist while using them.

For the time being it is TOGGLEABLE and you can TURN IT OFF!

However, we do not know if Twitch will force this to be on at all times like some other platforms, like X/Twitter, have previously done.

Regardless of IF YOU STREAM OR NOT you should TURN THIS "TRAINING FOR GENERATIVE AI" SETTING OFF IMMEDIATELY!

To do so you must go to: https://www.twitch.tv/settings/security

And then scroll all the way down near the bottom.

There you'll find the "Training for Generative Ai" setting, toggle it to OFF!

Be sure to keep sending messages to Twitch that you do NOT want this to exist.

Controversial opinion here

But the ‘Lalafell are Child-Coded’ crowd need to replay the game, memorise every line that comes out of Mimidoa, Gegeruju, Momodi, and various other NPC lalafell mouths, and then, most importantly, check their Ableism.

Lalafell usually come in three canon flavours: Evil Capitalists, HORNY on MAIN, and the Cinnamon Spectrum of Murder (from: too sweet and pure for this world, to: will commit war crimes. I call it the Nanamo > Teledji scale).

Quite frankly, Lalafell fuck. It’s Canon.

Tataru Taru, in the events of the game, gets down more than Thancred. Confirmed by comments made during Stormblood by Hancock complaining about the sheer number of ‘paramours’ she has. For those of you who don’t own a dictionary, that’s another word for lover.

Knock it off with the ‘child coded’ bullshit. You don’t look at a Little Person IRL and call them child-coded when they’re paying their fucking mortgage are you?  The way the community treats lalafell as a race in both fandom and game is honestly WEIRD. Mimidoa stands there and talks about saucy wenches and prostitutes, and you call him fucking Child Coded??

I refused to recommend this game to someone today even though I knew they would enjoy the game. That person had dwarfism. They are a Little Person. I’ve known this person peripherally for a few years, they’re not really a friend, just an acquaintance because I see them so rarely, but we’ve chatted about social issues before. They helped me figure out I was aroace, and kept suggesting I get an autism or ADHD assessment because it was written all over me. And I know that a few years ago their now married partner almost broke up with them because someone tried to do some absolute bullshit Call Out/doxx about how they were a pedo for - and wait for it: because they were dating a Little Person. Because Little People are ‘Child Coded’, and the only reason anyone would want to date one is because they have a fetish or they’re a pedo.

All I can think when I see this ‘Child Coded’ bollocks is how close to crying into their fucking coffee this person was when they told me about how the love of their life wanted to break up because they were terrified they were going to lose their job for the crime of falling in love with a person - because that person was 3′9″.

Can you imagine? You’re in your fucking thirties and people think that anyone who could possibly love you is a paedophile. That’s what this person and their partner had to live though. And I don’t doubt that person had to face this absolute dogshite repeatedly before their current partner decided to stick with them come what may.

It is absolutely unhinged, I know, to equate the attitude of people playing a game and speaking about fictional characters to reality and real-life people. 100% I absolutely agree.

And quite honestly - I care more about real people than game characters.

Hence why I’m angry at the ‘Child-Coded’ Crowd because I’ve sat there and listened as this person talked about how fucking exhausted and furious and heartbroken they are that people don’t believe that they are worthy of love or desire, that anyone who does is a freak or a predator, or that they’re somehow not mentally capable of living their lives as fully capable adults. Just because their bodies stopped getting taller doesn’t mean their brains stopped functioning as well. Miss me with that shit, fuck off.

FFXIV is a game that I genuinely think this person could enjoy. It’s definitely the first game I’ve encountered where the small race is a/ not an animal race (dehumanising), b/ not a hideous goblin-esque race (also dehumanising), c/ isn’t Dwarvish (i.e. Hairy, Rude, Greedy, Dumb in all Fields Except These Culturally Approved Ones, etc).

Little People face enough dehumanising bullshit, entirely too many restrictions on what they should and shouldn’t be capable of doing and how they should be behaving in their day to day lives. They don’t fucking need it in their video games, and certainly not from their gaming communities which can be fucking toxic at the best of times.

Lalafell are not considered sub-human anymore than any other race in the game. They are not depicted as being uncivilised or lesser in a cultural manner (see your animal races), they’re not depicted as demons or outcasts and nor are they discriminated against (see your goblin-esque races), and there is a wide variety of characterisations from the naive and kind Nanamo, to the righteous and resolute Pippin, to the flirty and playful Momodi, to the first introduced disabled characters of Mimidoa and his dementia, and Shamani and his blindness, to Lolorito and his cunning ruthlessness, and Yuyuhase and his mercentile determination and cold apathy. They’re not crammed into one role, one personality archetype, one place. Out of sight - out of mind, until the player character has need of them.

If the ffxiv community stopped virtue signalling with this crap, I’d love to introduce this game to my acquaintance. But until such a time as I don’t think the majority of the vocal assholes aren’t going to retraumatise them with how people just like them are ‘Child Coded’, I’m not breathing a damn word to that person.

And honestly? I get it. I do. Both sides of the argument. I understand as a CSA Survivor. I understand the Aversion to anything that even whiffs of it.

But nowhere in the game are Lalafell coded as children save when they are very explicitly labelled as children or wearing school uniforms. Not in their culture, their behaviour, their conversations, their economy, their war-crimes, their historical origins with Mhachi and Nym, nothing.

I ended up having to help my brother move out and the guy was shocked & pissed that he didn't want to renew the lease.

See, putting the death of a chicken on equal moral footing as the death of a human being is part of the reason people are suspicious of militaristic vegans. They’re usually the type to ignore like the legitimate environmentalist reasons for hunting and health reasons that people might not be vegan and the attempted erasure of indigenous hunting practices, etc. There’s nuance to eating meat just as there’s nuance to eating plants. Eating plants isn’t a bloodless blameless practice either. Plants have personal experiences and are individuals. Plants might have to be shipped long ways. Plants might have been grown with child labor.

THIS NOT AUTHORIZED BY TUMBLR.

This is a phishing bot pinging blogs in the comments in an attempt to get your ID. This blog was pinged and I figured its noteworthy to tell everyone here.

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AND I RAN INTO A GIRL WHOSE BROTHER

and I cannot stress enough that I am a Kiwi and she was a Kiwi and this happened in England

ANYWAY THIS GIRL’S BROTHER

HAD BEEN AT A GIG OF THIS SAME BAND

IN WELLINGTON

TWO WEEKS PRIOR

AND HAD RUN INTO

AT THAT GIG IN WELLINGTON

The difference between me and them is that I recognize myself as an animal defending its territory. Cockroaches spread disease into your food storage. Therefore, they are a home security threat and I shall act as a proper ape should when faced with this kind of threat and stomp on it without remorse.

Many people see differently to me about these things. I know because I am friends with some of them. And yet I am called upon when necessary so the cockroach blood may not be on their hands but instead is on mine.

I mean I’m very much against destroying the planet. I think there ought to be more regulations on animal agriculture to reduce emissions and cruelty involved. When it’s my choice on what to eat I also prefer to eat chicken which pollutes less than beef or pork.

But yeah I don’t feel bad about killing things to eat them. Eating an onion also kills the onion and I continue to eat onions. Some people don’t eat root vegetables for this reason. How far do you want to take the not killing things to feed yourself thing? That’s ultimately up to you because there is no objective correct answer.