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Erin Ekins (she/her)

@QueerlyAutistic

Oct 14

First time in my life that I've actually seriously wanted to call the NAS helpline for advice, and I find out they closed it a year ago.

But don't worry, they have a ton of school/children related specific helplines that are really helpful to me, a thirty year old 🙃 /s

Oh, and a parent to parent support helpline, which is also very useful to me, an autistic adult. /s

Luckily, I've seen that Scope has a helpline that is open at the weekends, so I'm going to give them a try.

Read 4 tweets

Erin Ekins (she/her)

@QueerlyAutistic

Oct 14

Just saying, due to some stuff happening in the US right now: someone needing communication aids or assistive technology to communicate, whatever the reason for needing it, does not make them unfit to hold political office, and to suggest that it does is deeply, awfully ableist.

There are many reasons why someone might need assistive technology to communicate, whether to help them hear/process what they're being told, or to help them communicate what they want to say, and we need to start normalizing this across our society - including in politics.

Someone taking a little more time, or needing a little bit of help, to process what they're being told, does not mean they are incapable of understanding/processing information, and we need to start accepting, respecting and normalizing the different ways that people communicate.

Read 8 tweets

Erin Ekins (she/her)

@QueerlyAutistic

Oct 14

I'm sort of mildly keeping on top of HOTD without actually watching it, and for them to take what was yet another queer character death in the book, and instead twist it around so he actually fakes his death and runs away to be with his lover, is a power move that I kinda love.

I've seen people accusing them of 'messing with the book to pander to wokeness', which ignores that a) the author is exec. producer and will have signed this off and b) the book is deliberately unreliable, written as a history drawn from numerous and often conflicting sources.

To say 'it doesn't follow the book exactly' is a deliberate misunderstanding of the book itself - the book is framed as a scholarly history, whereas the show is telling the ACTUAL story behind that interpreted history, and therefore changes like this work PERFECTLY in context.

Read 7 tweets

Erin Ekins (she/her)

@QueerlyAutistic

Oct 13

I'm gonna need people to stop tagging soap writers in gripes about stories.

Writers aren't storyliners. There may be story involvement, but they generally work from given outlines.

Just because a writer is accessible on social media doesn't mean you get to abuse that to vent.

Look, whether I agree with you or not, I get not liking a story, I really do.

But you're dumping that on a person who is a) almost definitely not in a position to act on your gripes and b) absolutely not going to start agreeing with you as you bash the people who employ them?

Just because they're the most available person (especially if they take the time to genuinely interact with fans, which they don't HAVE to do), doesn't mean they're a dumping ground for your feelings on story and character decisions. You achieve nothing by doing this. Nothing.

Read 7 tweets

Erin Ekins (she/her)

@QueerlyAutistic

Oct 13

Something I'm starting to hate: the concept of 'good' queer representation. It's so fallable, changeable, and sometimes gets in the way of important but difficult queer stories being told, blocking the development of multi-faceted, complicated, not always 'good' queer characters.

tw: sexual assault , rape

Ben's rape was one of the most fucking important queer stories this year, and yet I keep seeing it lumped as 'bad' queer rep. Fuck that, it was SO important to discuss sexual assault in our community and the experiences of queer survivors.

We, as queer people, deserve to have a myriad of representation. We deserve the heartwarming, happy, feel-good shows like Heartstopper, and we also deserve hard-hitting, difficult stories about real issues and traumas that people in our community have experienced. Give us both.

Read 6 tweets

Erin Ekins (she/her)

@QueerlyAutistic

Aug 21

As someone who works for a charity, the way Survivors Manchester has engaged with Ben's story - uplifting it, being vocally involved, and using the story beats to spread their message as the episodes aired - should be studied and replicated, because it's the best I've ever seen.

In the past, I've seen organisations send out a few tweets, be mentioned in press releases, have their contact details on relevant support pages, etc., but Survivors Manchester has been on every second of this story, using every episode to make a point and reach people.

They've understood the exposure that a story like this on a soap can have, how it can reach people that maybe they wouldn't normally reach, and they utilised every possible moment of it, every angle, and every avenue. Other charities should be watching and learning from it.

Read 10 tweets

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