criticizing gyj* for height differences being problematic or some shit is dumb as fuck but abled writers pulling Some Bullshit with johnny's disability is worth critiquing, that has actual capacity to harm and perpetuate ignorance

socially understood mores values and taboos to be bad are fine to explore in fiction, i'm all for that, i don't think people go out fucking their cousin bc of some fanfics, but a lot of non disabled people just don't fucking know what disabled people are like

it's not the same thing as "if you write Bad Things in fic it'll make people do Bad Things" but it is like. reinforcing existing stereotypes about a marginalized group with very little cultural knowledge that would automatically correct these assumptions for readers. which is bad

we (that is, like. everyone participating in society barring some like. ed gein level outliers) know rape is bad incest is bad et al, fiction isn't going to make us do those things, that's not what the jaws effect is, but that broad understanding of disability doesn't exist

so when someone who isn't disabled sees ableist tropes in fiction they don't have any established social mores, values, cultural knowledge, etc, to guarantee they'll go "hey wait that's fucked up" because sure we know in a Broad Sense "being ableist is bad" but do we REALLY

it's very easy to be exposed to the idea that murder is bad in society and to thus be able to engage with it in fiction without murdering anyone. less so with the idea that disabled people are independent human beings with dignity and value. much easier to find ableist bs

that, without any other facts or previous base of knowledge to compare it to, become accepted as sort of...fact-adjacent. a thing you aren't right about but you don't know enough about to dispute when it's shown to you without critique or comment

tl;dr some things perpetuated in fiction are bad actually it's worth critiquing existing social prejudices and stigma and lack of understanding of marginalized experiences lives and bodies and how that manifests it media but i don't want some 12 year old anti doing it lmfao