[ableism stuff that Addi is just realising they are still processing] So. I'm going to start this by showing you all what my handwriting looks like. This is a very hard thing for me to do

Now, you might say Addi lots of people have chickenscratch handwriting. And this is very true! And I joke about my handwriting a lot (B once compared it to Jack the Ripper's. B is allowed to make these jokes) but uh.

Bb Addi had occupational/physical therapy starting at the age of...4? lasting until...8? idk man, a long time, to Learn How To Move Their Body Right and part of that involved learning how to hold a writing implement. Spoiler, I sitll can't do it 'right'

Some of my earliest memories of school involve being bullied not by other kids (That too, but) but by teachers who made me feel ashamed for my handwriting. I remember this in first fucking grade

The worst one was in middle school (most teachers had, mercifully, allowed me to get out of the requirement set on other studnets to write in cursive by this point) when a teacher yelled at me, inf ront of the whole class, that I was wriitng poorly to make her job hard or something (and then when I started crying said I was laughing at her(

so is it any fucking wonder I learned how to type 90-100wpm basically as soon as they starrted teaching us touchtyping because I could make words move without exposing them to that cruelty anymore

(...the fact spotify just started playing Fighting Fish for me is appreciated). BUT. I realised I draft better writing in pen. I can keep up with the way my thoughts move! I can...jot notes side ways, draw arrows etc in a way I've never found a single word processing program recreate! but I was (am, lbr) fucking embaressed by my handwriting

even when it's just me seeing it, it's. almost physically painful to do so even just filling out medical forms etc, let alone this because. I remember what adults did to little me because the best I could do with my little broken body wasn't good enough

so uh, tl;dr, I've realised that starting to handwrite stories again is another little victory for me and a fuck you to a lot of people that in a sideways I have to give sparky ⚡ some thanks for (can you tell it's 1am and I should be in bed ahem)

here is what breaks my heart about this

your handwriting is totally legible to me!

I doubt it was ever as bad as you were harassed about - not in a "ohhhh it isn't A Thing, ~everyone has bad handwriting lol~" way but in an it is not worth being called incomprehensible way

Your handwriting is for real not actually bad

And if it makes you feel better I had a teacher who was Very Concerned I was coloring outside the lines to the point where I became upset over not coloring in the lines

...I was four

So a lot of them just have wildly unreasonable expectations too 8D

"you, a literal child, have penmanship that is worse than a college student's! Clearly this is a you problem"

unsurprisingly i also got the not coloring in the lines thing at abt that age :/ and ofc kneejerk reflex is to qualify thats on wide ruled paper without the constraints had when writing for school bc thats what that bullshit leaves you with

(considering my physical therapist came to my classrooms at times you would like to think teachers wouldve understood more but alas. ofc I wasnt getting therapy anymore by the time the one made me cry so she prob thought I was ~better~ and just being difficult)

It's truly disturbing how many teachers are personally offended by the fact that they have students with disabilities

as though those students are disabled at them to spite them personally

y eah it. did not help taht I was ~exceptional~ in other ways and had Liberal Opinionated Parents Who Taught Me To Question Authority (and who, on at least one occasion, made one of my teachers cry over something they had done) so of course one thing I Did Not Perfectly had to be out disrepect or something

(...and again, I am seeing some common threads with characters I play woops)

...You Are Me exhibit one quintillion

There's this fascinating dynamic where it depends 100% on where you excel whether you're "gifted but unmotivated" versus "You're just a STUPID STUPIDHEAD"

I'm dyscalculic, so I struggled with math because I'm lazy. Dyslexic Devon excels in math but never gets any credit for it.

Because if you struggle with English, it must mean you are just Bad At Everything!!

y e p (I similarly got 'why can you not understand graphing/geometry when algebra works for you' when. ya'll how has it not become clear to you I have spatial perception issues)

if the hellscape ever abates I am srsly thinking of looking into getting my cebral palsy diagnosis solidified (a lot of drs suspected but money etc meant it never got put on paper) just for some vindication bc of all this tbh