Giving Birth Astride of a Grave

But most of my followers don’t watch the show and don’t wanna hear about it while the rest of you will probably fucking crucify me because that’s what happens to people with legitimate fucking grievances in this fandom apparently because these cartoon ponies can do no wrong. So I’m slapping it under Read More and preparing for angry asks and unfollows like a bitch. Probably not enough people care for those things to happen.
Also, for the people who care, trigger warning! Ableist shit.


Okay, look. I loved the new episode. I loved the conflict addressed—I can totally empathize with having too much pressure put on you, and being ashamed of coming in just short of first. I adored some of the moments with my favourite ponies—Pinkie being furious that the promise was broken was FANTASTIC, and Rarity’s one line (“Were you insulted when I insulted your hair?”) had me chuckling hours later. But let’s get real, people, and talk about the Pony Previously Known As Ditzy Doo.

Her name is now officially Derpy Hooves, and most of the fandom is so fucking proud of themselves for this and they’re patting each other on the back and freaking out about how Studio B recognized them and it’s the greatest day and blah blah blah. And I can see why, I really can—fuck, if a show I loved decided to take my headcanon and make it canon? I’d hit the ceiling and I wouldn’t come down for a year at least. And I don’t have a problem with the fact that she’s klutzy, or that she messes things up sometimes, because those have always been her character traits.

I have three problems: her name is Derpy Hooves, Rainbow Dash finds her unfit to work, and this is a kid’s show.

Now, I’ve seen about two posts since the episode came out about how “derp” is an ablesit slur and about a billion posts complaining that there is nothing offensive about it and we should all (all three of us, I guess?) stop trying to see a problem that isn’t there. And sure, for a lot of people, I can understand that the problem is hard to see. But the word “offensive” doesn’t necessarily mean that something offends you personally. I don’t call people out on “derp” usually because I know they mean no harm and have “rebranded” the word to make it mean something else just like people tried to do with the words “bitch,” “nigger,” “gay,” and “retard.” Would you want there to be a character on a kid’s show called Retard Hooves? Because I would not.
I’ve worked a lot with kids who have mental disorders and disabilities, including severe autism, mental retardation, and other problems that make a person no less human, no less wonderful, but in some cases less able to control their facial expressions. In other words, things that are often associated with the “DERP” meme, which apparently the rest of the internet finds fucking hilarious. And I get it, there’s a disconnect. It’s someone on the screen, not someone you know, and not someone you’re physically affecting. And I’ll be honest, I used to say “derp” a lot myself, before I did some research and realized what a shit I was being, and before I started working with kids.

Once, when I was a good bit younger, I was playing tag with a girl who had a mental disability which caused a speech impediment, I didn’t know about the latter, so when she hissed at me, I hissed back, thinking we were being cats or some weird little kid shit like that. Nope. That was the sound she had to make when she tried to pronounce the letter “S.” Turns out she was trying, very distraught, to say “Stop it.” Even as a cocky-ass twelve year old, I felt awful, because I knew I had just looked in her eyes and made light of something she couldn’t control.

I can’t say “derp” anymore because I absolutely adore all the kids I work with, and I love to see them getting along with other kids. When I hear the other 9-year-old boys already mumbling about the kid with a severe mental problem that there’s “something wrong with him,” it breaks my heart, because he’s one of the sweetest kids I’ve ever met. And he loves television. It helps him connect with the world. When he was at camp this summer, he had a toy ball he carried around with him that he pretended was a television set, so he could keep his favourite shows close to him, so he could keep himself safe. He’s part of the fanbase of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic just as much as you are, bronies, and to hear you whining because some fans are speaking out against the fact that the show is outright propagating an ableist slur against kids like him is frankly disgusting. Get the fuck over yourselves.

This morning in Sunday School, we were talking about crime, and our teacher suggested that mental illness could cause someone to commit a crime. A woman in the corner, small, forty-something, and usually quiet, suddenly spoke up. She spoke for about ten minutes straight about her mental disability and the troubles it’s caused her—an entire lifetime spent in and out of the hospital, five years locked up in a facility she described as “somewhere you wouldn’t even leave your dog,” seeing people with diagnoses identical to her own starving homeless on the streets or being locked up in prison solely because of their disability. But you know what she talked about more than any of those? You know what she said was the worst part?

The prejudice.

She said the worst part was that as soon as she let anyone know she had a disability—she’s been coming to our church for years and never mentioned it to anyone outside her family and the pastor—as soon as she told them, they would immediately treat her differently, like she was a child or something less than human, like she was incurably stupid.

That was worse, for her, than the prospect of homelessness or prison.
Now, let’s pan back to “Derpy” for a minute, shall we? I’m not saying this pony has already been characterized as having a disability, that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is that she is a character whose name is associated with a mental disability, who is shown being stupid and bad at everything, who is, according to RD, not fit to work, and who is a comic relief character. Now, while I mostly work with kids, I also know adults—oh, I don’t know, my uncle for example—who suffer from mental disabilities and find it almost impossible to find work because hiring companies and overseers have the same mindset that is humorously given to a heroic cartoon pony. And “work” here isn’t just a method of supporting oneself—many folks with disabilities find it amazingly therapeutic, to realize that they are worth something and that they can contribute in society. And that they would find it FUNNY to put in a KID’S SHOW that there are some people ponies who are just TOO STUPID TO WORK is actually APPALLING to me.

I don’t talk about sex around my kids, I don’t swear around my kids, and guess what? I don’t toss around ableist slurs around my kids. I know they all watch the show because we got a bunch of the girls MLP:FiM toys for Christmas and they were so excited. I know some of my girls have mental disabilities, too. I don’t want them to start playing pony games and say to one of the little ones, “Okay, you’re the dumbest, YOU be Derpy.” I’m sorry, that’s just not something that’s okay with me. I know I sound like a dipshit, being an eighteen-year-old girl with no romantic partner in sight and definitely no actual kids of my own on the way, but I get close to these kids. I hate seeing them cry, I love seeing them smile, I get really excited talking to them about their dreams. And guess what, bronies? Some of these children, the actual target audience for the show, are going to be hurt by the fact that a character named Derpy is so stupid that she breaks the town hall and is unfit to help all the other ponies, especially when they grow up and see the word “derp” associated with “funny” pictures of people like them making faces they can’t control, when they realize that they’ve been being made a laughingstock of since they were little kids.

And you know what?

You know the fuck what?

If “Derpy Hooves” doesn’t offend you, that’s fine.

I don’t actually give a shit if you draw “Derpy” fanart ‘til the break of dawn and get super-duper excited about her appearance every time.

That’s none of my fucking business. If that’s the way you enjoy the fandom, fine, whatever, I guess ableism is hilarious and cool for some people.

But the fact that I have seen so much anger and so many shocked reactions berating, scolding, and actually screaming at the few of us who were offended? That’s disgusting.

You know who’s being oversensitive in that situation? The person who “CANT BELEEVE ANY1 WULD EVAR FIND THIS OFFENSIVE OMG!!!11!!1!one!!!!” Wow, I’m sorry. I didn’t know being upset or hurt could get me on so many people’s shit lists. This must be especially jarring for people who have disabilities, as you’re basically telling them to shut the fuck up because you know everything about their situation—even after clearly not having done any research on it.

Look, I get that a lot of you don’t find “derp” to be ableist, which is why I don’t call it out often, and I get that it’s great that Studio B is acknowledging us, but don’t get angry at other people for being upset about something that you don’t understand. Even if I don’t have a mental disability, that I-know-everything-about-you-don’t-complain-there’s-nothing-offensive-about-what-I’m-saying attitude has still affected me on other issues, and it is literally the most douchey attitude in the universe. If you don’t think that there’s a problem with Derpy Hooves, could you at least stop shouting that there’s a problem with those of us that do? You are not Princess Celestia and you do not pass final this-is-who’s-a-shit-in-the-fandom-and-who’s-not judgement.

Look, I know this is rambly as all shit and nobody will read it, but I had to get it out there. Take from it what you will.