When Ableism Pretends to Be ‘Professional Advice’

Update: Now, two days after posting this blog, J.B. is either creating fake profiles, or having friends leave fake arc reviews. The lengths people are willing to go to bully is astounding. J.B. is from Hove UK and spent over an hour on my website according to my analytics.

They even became a site member using an outlook email komorebi88

J.B. is a 36 year old 5'11 commissioning editor who held a competition for disabled writers, who's favorite genre is horror, and who supposedly knows Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout. If you're a disabled writer in Hove UK be aware of this wolf in sheep's clothing.

If you are also experiencing ableist hate speech in the UK, you can learn about reporting hate crimes here: https://www.report-it.org.uk/disability_hate_crime

Original post: I never thought a stranger with a faceless username and a holier-than-thou attitude would be the reason I started writing Pretty Wrong. But here we are.

We crossed paths on Reddit of all places. They claimed to be a professional commissioning editor that knows Sarah J. Maas personally.

Who knows if that was even true. They never shared their real name, no credentials, nothing but an inflated sense of authority and a taste for knocking down disabled writers like me who use AI as an accessibility tool.

I’ve been open about how I rely on AI to help untangle my words. I’m autistic, ADHD, and dyslexic. A walking alphabet soup of invisible shit that makes writing possible but hard, beautiful but messy. And I guess that was too much for them. Their messages were so dripping with ableism it made my skin crawl. And when I pushed back? It only made them nastier.

So I’m sharing our messages here. I want people to see how insidious ableism can look when it’s dressed up like “professional advice.” Maybe you’ll see the same venom I did.

Maybe you’ll see how sometimes people who claim to love words the most are the first to weaponize them.

Examples of Dyslexia. Click the image to expand.

It all started with a post I made in a Reddit thread called writingwithAI. The post itself was simple. Something like:

Hey everyone, I’m looking to meet people who embrace AI in writing. I’ve gotten great reviews on my book on Inkitt and Archive of our own, but the anti-AI crowd found me, and now my reviews on Goodreads are going down. Hoping to meet other writers so we can support each other.

Some people responded with kindness. But many comments came from the anti-AI lurkers who wait like vultures, and their words were dripping in ableism whether they realized it or not.

“You’re not entitled to a good review.” This is what they say to shut disabled people up. I never asked for good reviews I didn’t earn. No one is entitled to a good review. But bad reviews based solely on the use of accessibility tools is ableism.

“Just quit.”

Telling a disabled writer to just give up when they find an accessibility tool that helps them exist in a world not built for them is ableist. Full stop.

“Bedroom writer.”

Oh, the classic insult. If you have to belittle where I write from, you’re really just telling on yourself. Disabled people often have no choice but to write from their beds, bedrooms, or hospital rooms. That doesn’t make our words worth less.

“You look like a pussy.” Ableism and misogyny holding hands. Using slurs about weakness to shame someone for finding a tool that lets them function is textbook dehumanization. Associating the word 'pussy' (a word used in slang to represent a woman's vagina) as a weakness or insult is misogyny.

“Explain how being disabled or whatever affects you from typing things in Microsoft Word.”

This one is so revealing. People who don’t live it can’t fathom that invisible disabilities don’t work like a broken hand or a missing limb. It’s about executive functioning, processing, focus, dyslexia. They pretend not to get it so they can feel justified in their cruelty. Not only is demanding a disabled person to explain why they're disabled offensive, it's ableist. Putting a disabled person on the spot and making them feel like they need to state their case to be taken seriously is bullying behavior. Many disabled writers speak their stories into a voice recording, and use AI to type them out and edit them. Disabled people shouldn't have to explain this to receive basic empathy or acceptance.

“You just want the prestige of being a writer without doing any of the actual work.”

Yeah buddy, I wrote alien porn under a pen name for prestige. Every disabled creator has heard some version of this. We fight twice as hard to show up. To finish anything. To survive the mental gymnastics it takes to make our brains do things they were not designed to do. Using AI doesn’t erase the work, it makes it possible. I'd love it if bullies like this could step into my brain and try to write. Then tell me how I'm skipping over actual work. Unbelievably ignorant.

“Using disability as an excuse.”

This is peak gaslighting. It implies we should hide the reality of our disabilities just to make other people comfortable. Like it’s shameful. Like our existence is a problem.

“Abusing AI.” As if using a tool that levels the playing field is somehow immoral. Funny how nobody calls sighted people “abusers” for using glasses.

“If you need a machine then you don’t belong in the writing world.” Gatekeeping at its worst. Imagine telling someone with a wheelchair they don’t belong outside because they need a ramp.

“You have hands, don’t you?” The ignorance in this one is unreal. It isn’t about whether I can physically type. It’s about the way my brain processes, organizes, and translates my thoughts. Disability isn’t always about missing limbs.

“Is this a marketing strategy?” This is projection at its finest. They’d rather believe I’m lying for attention than accept that a disabled writer might have to work differently to survive.

“I got diagnosed before it was trendy. Suck it up, life’s hard.” This is internalized ableism turned outward. I am not your punching bag just because you didn’t have support when you needed it. Furthermore, I also got diagnosed in 2007 at Kaiser, before it was "trendy." Spoiler: it's not "trendy" we've just had 20 years of research and awareness raised around invisible disabilities. We also have social media now. We're connected to way more people than we used to be, giving us access to conversations we never would have had in the 90s.

“If you can type a prompt you can type into Word.” Again, missing the point entirely. AI isn’t just a fancy typewriter for me. It’s a cognitive support, an organizational tool, an editor that doesn’t shame me for my processing delays.

“I’m an editor, commissioning editor and literary agent, and I’d hate you less if you just admitted you had no talent so you used AI. Just admit the idea was dumb. Quit playing the victim card.”

First of all, anyone who has to flex their fake title that hard on Reddit is probably lying. But the worst part is the seething contempt for disabled people finding a workaround. We’re not supposed to outsmart the system. We’re supposed to shut up and stay broken.

Most of these people kept their hate on Reddit, where they could hide behind fake usernames and pretend their cruelty was just “debate.” But a few of them weren’t satisfied with that. They wanted to hurt me in every corner they could find. So they dragged it over to my Goodreads page, too.

That so-called Hove UK based “commissioning editor” (if they really were who they claimed to be) was one of the worst.

They decided they couldn’t stand me using an accessibility tool, so they tried to drown my book with a scathing one-star review. It didn’t matter that they probably never read it. It didn’t matter that they twisted my words to fit their little outrage script. What mattered was silencing disabled people.

So I’m putting it all here. I’m going to copy and paste what they said, word for word, because sometimes people need to see it in the raw to believe how ugly ableism still is. And I’m going to break it down, line by line, so no one can pretend this is just about AI or “bad writing.”

Here’s the bile they tried to feed me. Here’s why it’s ableist, and why I won’t let it slide back into the shadows where it festers. I'll break it down for you here, but click the images to expand them and see the screenshots I managed to get.

Click to expand. Ableist review bombing on Goodreads.

Here it is. Word for word. One of the review bombs I got from this Hove, UK based “commissioning editor” who apparently felt so threatened by a random disabled writer using AI that they had to throw their entire mask in the trash. Let’s go line by line.

“More AI trash, and we’re all sick of it.” This isn’t about my actual story. This is their opening line. No specifics yet, just an immediate blanket condemnation of the tool I use to function. The hate is directed at the existence of AI in general, and by extension, at people like me who need it.

“This book is a perfect example of why real authors don’t have to worry about AI ‘artists’ gaining any prominence…”

Oh, were the real authors worried? First, the “real authors” line. Classic gatekeeping. It implies disabled writers who use AI for accessibility can never be “real.” They slap the word “wannabe” on me to strip away the fact that I’m a human being with a brain that works differently, not a machine spitting out garbage for attention. They further illuminate that apparently 'real' authors are worried about AI. Spoiler: they later deny being worried about AI.

“AI has sold these bedroom writers the illusion that they can be the creative geniuses they’ve always envisioned themselves to be…” Again, the “bedroom writer” insult is ableist at its core. A lot of disabled or chronically ill writers must work from their bedrooms. We don’t have the luxury of a fancy office or the energy to always show up in professional spaces that aren’t designed for us. So instead of seeing that for what it is, survival, they use it to degrade and humiliate.

“Without having to worry about the pesky gatekeepers of the publishing industry, AKA, professionals.” Translation: If you can’t pass through the narrow doors of traditional publishing, you don’t belong. This is ableism because traditional publishing was never designed to accommodate disabled or neurodivergent brains in the first place. Many of us have to self-publish because the industry remains stacked against us.

“There’s a reason we have professionals gatekeeping what books get published…” Meanwhile, back in reality, anyone can publish a book. The publishing industry they're speaking of is just a group of egotistical elitists roleplaying gatekeepers. If you're a neurodivergent writer, feel free to contact me to learn more about how to self-publish. I'd be happy to help.

But this entire statement is them saying the quiet part loud: keep people like you out. Gatekeeping is celebrated here as a way to keep the industry inaccessible to people who find workarounds. They don’t want a ramp at the front door, they want a locked gate and a sign that says “no crips allowed.”

The next chunk is nitpicking random lines, saying humans don’t write like this. Here’s the truth: stylistic choices are subjective. Some of these structures they mocked are used by published authors every day. What they really hate is that a disabled writer is using a tool to smooth out our processing barriers. They need to believe AI erases our effort, when the truth is that AI gives some of us a way to keep up.

“Message to the author: pick up any book by a professional author, read the prose and compare it to what you’ve written. Do you see the difference? If you can’t, then you have no place in the writing world.”

Here’s the ableist kicker. If you can’t see what they see, you don’t belong. Neurodivergent people process text differently. We often miss details or structure things in unconventional ways. That’s literally how our brains are wired. They’re punishing me for it, all while ignoring that my entire point is: AI helps me bridge that gap.

“The author uses the excuse of being neurodivergent as to why they abuse AI for this stuff…”

Calling my diagnosis an “excuse” is peak ableism. They’d never call a ramp an excuse for a wheelchair user. They’d never call a hearing aid an excuse for a Deaf person. But when it comes to invisible disabilities? Suddenly we’re “playing the victim” if we dare to explain how our brains work.

“Call me insensitive, but I fail to see how being autistic, ADHD or dyslexic affects someone’s ability to write. If you can type prompts into ChatGPT, you can type text into Microsoft Word.”

They admit they don’t get it. They don’t want to. They want to flatten the experience of neurodivergence into a lazy, performative checklist: Can you type? Then you’re fine. They ignore processing disorders, focus struggles, dyslexic reading loops, executive dysfunction. All real, all proven by brain scans. But they’d rather cling to their ignorance than let in any empathy.

“And if you suck at doing that, then just quit. Sometimes life hands you a raw deal and you just gotta accept that. I wanted to be a basketball player but I’m 5’11.” The false comparison here is telling. They equate needing an accessibility tool to help my brain do its job with wishing I could magically grow a foot taller to dunk. One is physically impossible. The other is the entire point of accessible tech: to close a gap so I can participate in playing the same game they do.

“So, avoid this like the plague. And to any writers reading this who are actually utilizing talent instead of Mommy ChatGPT… this book proves why we don’t need to worry.”

And there it is again. It’s about their fear. Fear that if disabled writers find tools that let us compete, they lose their false sense of superiority. They’re not defending art. They’re defending their gate.

You see it now, right? Fear is hard to hold onto, so they turn it into anger and place it onto someone else. This is what ableism looks like when it wraps itself in “professional criticism.” Ableism disguised as standards. It tries to sound smart. It tries to make you feel worthless. It tries to convince you that you don’t belong here. But Pretty Wrong exists because I refuse to believe that lie anymore.

Click the image to expand.

Keep reading. There’s more. And it only gets worse.

My response was to input their review into AI and have it explain exactly why it was ableist. Then I pasted that explanation right under their review for everyone to see. No insults, no threats, just a breakdown of the ableism dressed up as “professional advice.”

My response. Click to expand

And what did Goodreads do? They deleted my response and told me I was violating their community guidelines.

Goodreads deleting my response. Click to expand.

They kept J.B.’s ableist review up. Every word of it.

So what does that tell you? Goodreads either doesn’t understand what ableism looks like in real time or they just don’t care. They can’t be bothered to see how hate can hide behind “critique,” how bullying can dress itself up in a suit and tie and call itself an editor.

J.B. wasn’t done though. Discrimination never sleeps.

When I called out the ableism, they came back claws out, frothing harder than before. Let’s pull it apart so there’s no mistaking what’s really happening here.

Click to expand.

Click to expand.

Click to expand.

“This is not an anonymous account. This is my only account. Look at my history. I've literally been using it for like 10 years.”

They start by posturing. “Look at my history.” As if having an old account makes them more credible. It doesn’t. Hate ages just fine.

“I really couldn't give a rat's ass if you think I'm ableist… Feel free to call me whatever you like, because none of it has any relevance to the point I was making.”

Right here, they admit they don’t care about discrimination or harm. They mock people who use words like “ableist” to name the violence done to them. This is dismissal 101, when they’re caught, they turn the blame around, pretending calling out oppression is just about “hurt feelings.” It’s not. It’s about the systems that keep disabled writers out.

“First of all, the fact you had to ask ChatGPT if my comment was ableist is hilarious…”

They can’t fathom that AI is a literal cognitive support for neurodivergent brains. For people like me, processing language and breaking down hidden biases can be exhausting. Using a tool to check it isn’t lazy. It’s survival. Mocking that is like mocking someone for using captions on a movie. It shows ignorance about how invisible disabilities work.

“AI will say whatever you want it to. It doesn't have a bias…”

This is willful ignorance. AI doesn’t “say what you want” it reflects patterns it’s trained on. When it flags harmful rhetoric, it’s because the words match the patterns of discrimination people have been fighting for decades. But J.B. wants to pretend that bias doesn’t exist so they can keep their own unchecked.

Then they try to twist it: “I’m not attacking your condition, I’m challenging your excuse.” 

Except telling a disabled person that their diagnosis is an “excuse” is literally ableist. It ignores the fact that accessibility tools exist because barriers exist. They act like they know better than the person living it. That’s textbook ableism.

“If you put your work out there, expect it to be torn apart… Learn to take criticism… NEVER challenge your reviewers… it makes you look like a pussy.”

First, the obvious: this is bullying, not critique. Telling any marginalized person to shut up and “take it” when hate speech is disguised as “criticism” is gaslighting. The slur is just more dehumanization, throw a sexist insult on top for flavor. The hypocrisy here is that they’re weaponizing “tough love” while refusing to face their own bigotry.

“No one has yet explained to me how being autistic or ADHD or whatever affects you from typing things in Microsoft Word.”

The arrogance drips through. They admit they don’t understand how these disabilities work, yet they keep speaking with authority. Executive dysfunction, working memory challenges, dyslexia, all real, all proven by decades of research. They’re not asking to learn. They’re demanding an excuse so they can keep pretending the problem is me, not their ableist worldview.

“If you can’t write without a machine, just quit… you shouldn’t be a writer.”

This is ableism in its purest form. It’s the equivalent of saying if you can’t walk without a cane, don’t go outside. It ignores the whole point of accessibility. It’s gatekeeping dressed up as “standards.” And they proudly admit they want disabled people shut out.

“I welcome all disabled writers. My criticism is of your AI usage. Nothing else.”

This is hypocrisy. They say they welcome us, as long as we write like neurotypical people. As long as we don’t use the tools that make it possible for us to keep up. That’s like saying “I welcome wheelchair users, as long as you don’t bring your wheelchair inside.” They want the appearance of inclusion while holding the door shut. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

“Haha… we don’t take AI writers seriously. They’re at the kids’ table.”

This is fear masquerading as smugness. They’re scared that people who were shut out before are finding new ways in. They’re scared that the gate they built so carefully is becoming useless. So they lash out, trying to humiliate anyone who dares to find a workaround.

“Regarding the environment… I couldn’t give two fucks about the environment.”

Their final bit just shows how little this person cares about real harm. They’ll use any argument (moral, ethical, environmental) to bash disabled writers, but when pressed, they admit they don’t even care about the thing they’re pretending to defend. It’s projection and deflection all the way down.

So here’s what this proves. This was never about the quality of my writing. This was never about “protecting” publishing or the environment or some sacred art form. This was about gatekeeping. This was about control. This was about a fear that disabled people with the right tools might take up space we were never meant to fill.

They want us to be quiet. They want us to be broken. They want us to stay in our bedrooms, whispering our words into the void.

But I’m done being quiet. Because they can keep ranting about how people like me don’t belong, and I’ll keep writing anyway.

I'll continue to raise awareness about ableism in the writing world. The kind that lurks behind fancy titles, anonymous reviews, and so-called “professional standards.”

After this mess, Goodreads sent me another warning. This time for responding to yet another reviewer bomber’s ableist nonsense. That person was even more obnoxious. Their review basically admitted they came from Reddit just to review-bomb me. Goodreads did take that one down, probably because it was so obvious what they were doing. But they still threatened to ban me if I kept responding.

Click to expand.

So I added J.B. as a friend on Goodreads. They accepted me and I sent them a message. It was short. I told them I was going to prove them wrong.

And the conversation kept going. It moved from the public space to the private messages. The tone changed, but the discrimination didn’t. If anything, it got more personal.

Let’s pick this apart so nobody misses what’s rotting under all that fake “professional” polish.

“What might proving me wrong look like? Self-publishing some two-bit book that nobody’s gonna read?”

They start with pure elitism. They treat self-publishing like it’s garbage by default. This erases the fact that self-publishing is often the only option for disabled writers who can’t navigate the impossible maze of traditional publishing gatekeepers. That’s the first layer of ableism: pretending the door is open to everyone when it’s only open to people whose brains and lives fit the mold.

“Doing an interview for some podcast nobody listens to about AI ‘writers’? Things like that would not be proving me wrong.”

Here they mock not just me, but the entire idea of disabled writers building community and raising awareness. They hate that we might find each other, swap ideas, or help each other survive. This is a classic tactic: isolation. Keep the “broken” ones separate so they can’t grow stronger together.

“I deal with manuscripts every day, and I can tell you right now you will not be part of the 0.003% of writers who reach the best sellers list…”

The fake statistics and gatekeeping again. They frame success as something that only “naturally talented” people achieve, ignoring that “talent” is often code for privilege. They don’t account for how many brilliant writers never get through the door because their brains work differently or they can’t afford the time, connections, or unpaid labor it takes to be visible.

“You need natural talent, natural storytelling ability and above all, a respect for your readers.” This is the hypocrisy. They keep claiming they “respect readers," yet they spit on disabled writers who use the tools they need to give readers the best version of their stories. They pretend AI makes the work effortless, when the truth is it makes the work possible. They refuse to see that many disabled people, using AI is not a shortcut, it’s a prosthetic for the brain.

“When you generate bad prose via a database, you are giving the readers a middle finger and telling them that their time is less valuable than yours.” They’re claiming that by using AI as a tool, we're somehow disrespecting readers. They’re basically saying:

“Because you didn’t write this ‘traditionally’ and your prose isn’t perfect by my standards, you must not care about your readers at all. You’re lazy and you don’t value your audience’s time.”

That’s the insult. Here’s why it’s projection: They’re accusing disabled writers of disrespecting readers when in reality, they’re the one disrespecting an entire community of disabled writers and readers by saying that if you can’t produce “perfect” work the “traditional” way, you shouldn’t even try. The real disrespect is gatekeeping a whole chunk of humanity from storytelling because their brains don’t process language the ‘traditional’ way.” What’s actually disrespectful is trying to erase voices like ours, people who have stories to tell but need tools to do it. Just because someone creates in a way you don’t personally relate to doesn’t make their work worthless. The real middle finger is acting like disabled or neurodivergent artists should just shut up because our art isn’t made exactly like theirs.

“I have no problem with success that comes from real writing, real hard work, real craftsmanship. In fact, my entire job is to make that happen for people.”

Here’s the lie. They claim they “have no problem” with success, as long as it fits their box. As long as it comes from people who don’t need ramps or captions or AI. They see my accessibility as cheating, so they keep moving the goalposts for what counts as “real.”

“There is a new breed of dreamers who think that just having an idea is enough…” This is where they show their fear. They’re terrified that people who were never supposed to have a seat at the table might get one. They’re terrified that the old walls don’t hold up when tools like AI exist. They pretend it’s about “protecting art,” but it’s really about protecting the gate.

“If you want success, you have to bleed for it.”

This is the cruelty in plain sight. Disabled writers already bleed for it every single day. We fight our own brains. We fight exhaustion. We fight systems that were never made for us. The difference is that we’ve learned how to survive with the tools available.

They want us to stay trapped in the struggle so they can feel superior for surviving a system designed for them.

This is the ableism running rampant in the writing world. It hides behind fake industry jargon, behind fancy stats, behind this lie that “hard work” and “natural talent” are enough when the deck is stacked. It tries to shut disabled writers out for daring to do the one thing we were never supposed to do: make it easier for ourselves to show up.

They think telling me I don’t belong will break me. All it does is make me write louder.

My response to J.B. Click to expand or read further for a summary.

In the end, my response was pretty simple. I told them that maybe dealing with manuscripts every day had sucked all the joy out of stories for them. That they seemed more outraged at the fact I dared to publish something they thought was crap than they were at the actual “bad prose.” I reminded them that hundreds of Inkitt readers have already binged my story and loved it, so clearly there’s an audience for imperfect work while I get better.

For transparency's sake. Here are my Inkitt analytics.

Weeping Nightshade got an 85-95% binge rate and over 400 readers. Spoiler: they never addressed this, it was like I never said it.

Inkitt also contacted me wanting to publish my book to their Galatea app.

"To be published on Galatea, your book must engage readers and show potential for bestseller status based on reader feedback and patterns." I'm still speaking with them and deciding whether or not I will go this route.

I pointed out how sad it must be to only enjoy stories so pretentious you can’t even relax enough to have fun. I told them they should probably stop lurking in pro-AI spaces if it upsets them so much. I reminded them that I used AI as an editor, not to generate whole chapters, and that maybe what really stings is that writers like me could never afford editors like them anyway.

I called out how fragile their ego must be, that one day they might get themselves canceled for discriminating against the wrong person. I told them empathy can be learned. That there’s room for everyone at the table, even if some of us never cared about their fancy pinkies-up table in the first place.

Some people write just because it’s fun. It’s fun to be bad at it, fun to share it with people who want it anyway.

I closed by thanking them for the tiny scraps of actual constructive feedback buried in all the spite. I made sure my joking tone was clear, because even after all the bile they spit at me, I honestly hope they find some laughter and joy in their life again. I even told them I could see us being frenemies in real life. It would make a pretty good book, actually. And this was their response:

So here it is, all laid out. J.B.’s big rant in response to me daring to stand my ground. Let’s break it down piece by piece so you can see how ableism, gatekeeping, and hypocrisy drip from every line, all while pretending to be “helpful” or “professional.”

“How could you possibly infer this? … I highlight crap because I care.”

They try to paint themselves as some noble protector of good writing, the heroic gatekeeper. But real criticism helps writers grow. It doesn’t come with open contempt for people who use accessibility tools. This isn’t “care.” It’s the same old control and ego boost, repackaged as “professional honesty.”

“I’m starting to understand why you have to use AI to get anything done, because you can’t stay on a single train of thought…”

Here they reveal how little they understand neurodivergent brains. Executive dysfunction, ADHD, dyslexia. All real, well-documented reasons someone might struggle to hold a train of thought. Using AI to help with that isn’t a weakness or laziness, it’s a practical solution. Mocking that is classic ableism: refusing to accept that some people literally process differently.

“I know both of these authors… you’ve twisted the perception of me disliking AI to me disliking low-brow genres…”

This is deflection. They want to pretend they’re not discriminating, so they twist it back onto me: “No, no, I just hate your taste!” It’s a smokescreen for the deeper bias, that they think using AI is cheating, and that disabled or ND people shouldn’t find ways to level the playing field.

And the authors they're claiming to know personally are Sarah J. Maas (A court of Thorns and Roses) and Jennifer L. Armentrout (From Blood and Ash, who is also disabled.) Do you believe them? They also claim one of them uses ghost writers.

“Your prose has been 100% generated by AI… you can deny it all you want.”

This is gaslighting. They claim to know better than me what I did with my own process. It’s also hypocritical: they say they hate AI but pretend to know every nuance of AI writing. Meanwhile, they ignore that for me, AI is an accessibility tool, not a replacement for my brain.

“Editing is about a lot more than just fixing words…”

Yes, and that’s exactly why disabled writers use AI for editing. It’s a flexible, affordable tool for people who can’t always pay for a neurotypical editor who charges thousands to do what AI can help do in drafts. Instead of acknowledging that, they twist it to make you look incompetent.

“AI-using authors are at the bottom of the barrel and will stay there…”

This is classic exclusion. They want us to believe the door is locked forever if we use a tool to help us create. It’s the same as telling a wheelchair user they’ll never belong in a building because they dare to use the ramp instead of crawling up the stairs.

“It’s a harsh truth that some people should not be writers… you can’t be assed to put the work in…”

Here’s the ableism in its raw form. The old “if you can’t do it like I did, you shouldn’t do it at all.” It erases every legitimate barrier that disabled or ND people face. It pretends talent and work look the same for everyone, ignoring that for me, showing up at all means fighting my brain every step of the way.

“Quit with the ableism bullshit. I ran a writing competition for disabled voices…”

One of the oldest tricks: “I can’t be ableist because I did a good thing for disabled people once.”

This is tokenism. It's like saying "I can't be racist, I have a black friend." Or "I can't be sexist, I have a daughter."

Real inclusion means supporting all kinds of access needs, not deciding whose needs are “acceptable” and whose aren’t. They brag about a charity event but miss that dismissing my disability as an “excuse” is ableism in action.

“Good writing is not pretentious. Your AI drivel is pretentious…” They call my work pretentious while ignoring that for me, AI is the tool that helps me rein in my thoughts. They want my brain to fit their idea of “clear writing” while shaming me for the very tool that makes clarity possible.

The hypocrisy: They claim they “love disabled writers” but they want us to “accept our limitations”… as long as we don’t do anything to work around them. That’s the core. They want me broken and struggling so they feel superior. The second we find a tool that works for us, they call it cheating. That is ableism. That is gatekeeping.

That is the poison that threads through the writing world and keeps marginalized people fighting twice as hard to survive.

For the next part, I want to call attention to the fact that my responses did start to get snippy. I was losing my patience by then, sitting there, realizing this person was willfully twisting every single point I made. They had no intention of hearing me. They would never admit they were being ableist. They were going to keep doubling down until their keyboard caught fire.

Trying to hold my ground while navigating the emotional gut punch of open discrimination, plus trying to educate someone who clearly didn’t want to learn, wore me down. I cracked. I started biting back. I threw out insults I’m not proud of. I called them “old gramps,” I threw in digs about them being stubborn and out of touch.

Looking back, I see exactly what that was: ageist. And I regret it.

I know comments like that can hurt people in the Boomer generation who don’t deserve to be lumped into a stereotype. My own mom is a Boomer. I'm sorry mom! I know firsthand how unfair and flattening it is when people slap one label on an entire group and call it a personality trait. It’s the same thing I’m fighting, just pointed in a different direction.

So I want to be transparent about that. I take responsibility. I see the hypocrisy in trying to speak up about one type of discrimination while feeding into another. I’m sorry for perpetuating ageist rhetoric in my replies. That wasn’t okay.

But the bigger picture here matters too. It’s messy. It’s emotional. When you’re fighting for your right to exist in a space that’s actively trying to push you out, sometimes your words come out sharper than you mean. That’s human. And I’m human. So here it is: I said it. I own it. And I won’t pretend I didn’t just to make myself look better. Transparency matters. So does accountability. So does trying to do better next time, and I will.

And while I’m at it, there’s more I need to own. At one point, I said they sounded like a “white male boomer.” I lumped them into a stereotype and I see now how that’s just more of the same broad brush I hate when it’s aimed at me.

Not every white man is this closed-minded or cruel. Not every older person clings to their gatekeeping with their claws out. That stereotype erases the real people who do the work to be supportive, to be open, to learn. I know people who fit that demographic who have been kind, generous, and have had my back when I needed it most.

So I want to be clear: I’m sorry for throwing that stereotype around. It’s easy to snap back with the first cheap insult when you’re hurt and angry and feeling cornered, but it doesn’t make it right. I know words have weight. I know how labels can bruise when they’re used like weapons. I can do better, and I will.

Again, transparency matters. I want to tell this story without pretending I was perfect the whole time, because I wasn’t.

I’m not interested in a polished hero arc. I’m interested in being real and raising awareness. So here’s me being real: I messed up. I take responsibility for that too.

My response. Click to expand or read further for a summary.

My response. Click to expand or read further for a summary.

My response. Click to expand or read further for a summary.

By the time I got through that last round of back-and-forth, I was exhausted and my patience was gone.

I called out how ridiculous it was for someone claiming to know famous authors to spend their time bullying a nobody disabled writer on Reddit. I pointed out the irony in them calling me scatterbrained when their whole argument was just them twisting my words on purpose.

I said flat out that I don’t believe they know Sarah J. Maas or Jennifer L. Armentrout, and that they probably haven’t even read their books if they think purple prose is the ultimate sin.

I reminded them that they were correct when they said "AI can't even plot a short story, let alone a complex novel." Which is why it made no sense for them to accuse writers of using AI to generate entire stories, while simultaneously admitting AI doesn't have that capability yet. Accusing disabled writers of just pressing a button and calling it a day is absurd. I called out how they keep demanding that disabled and neurodivergent writers stay “within their limitations” and just accept that they’ll never belong, which is textbook ableism no matter how they spin it.

I asked them why they claim to “support disabled writers” while mocking accessibility tools like AI. I pushed back on their brag about running a disability contest, pointing out that true support isn’t conditional on whether we’re “disabled enough but not too disabled to try AI”

I told them to send our messages to disability charities and see what they think. Because if you flinch at the idea of other people reading what you wrote, that says plenty about whether you really believe you’re in the right.

I laughed at their whole “no purple prose” lecture and told them flat out: some people like it. My readers binged my book and liked my style, and at the end of the day, that’s who I’m writing for. I even told them I liked the flowery sentence they mocked, just to prove their idea of “bad writing” is subjective.

They had said 'Pretentiousness is purple prose - the kind of crap your book is full of.' 

No, pretentiousness is judging people that like purple prose, and telling them they're bad writers for their preferences.

I ended by calling out the hypocrisy of someone claiming they’re a respected editor yet acting like an anonymous basement troll, roleplaying as a gatekeeper. Because when your entire argument is built on putting disabled people in their place, it doesn’t matter what you claim your title is, your actions show exactly who you are.

Was I sharp? Yes. Did I throw a few cheap shots? Also yes. But my point stood: they could twist my words, but they couldn’t twist the truth.

Using an accessibility tool isn’t cheating, my disability isn’t an excuse, and gatekeepers like this don’t get the final say on who deserves to share a story with the world.

Then I blocked them. And now, two days after writing this blog, J.B. is either creating fake profiles, or having friends leave fake arc reviews. The lengths people are willing to go to bully is astounding. J.B. is from Hove UK and spent over an hour on my website according to my analytics. It's giving fan behavior.

J.B. is a 36 year old 5'11 commissioning editor who held a competition for disabled writers, who's favorite genre is horror, and who supposedly knows Sarah J. Maas and Jennifer L. Armentrout. If you're a disabled writer in Hove UK be aware of this wolf in sheep's clothing.

Want to explore this topic more? Check out these articles below that further explore the use of AI in writing:

Is AI Really Killing Creativity? Or Is It Setting Us Free?

There’s a war brewing. One fought not just over punctuation like the em dash, but over who gets to be heard. This article is more than a hot take on generative AI, it’s a heartfelt look at the shifting grounds of art, identity, and value.

Read the full article and join the conversation. The real war isn’t over artistry. It’s over who gets to matter.

The Authors Guild - Ethical AI Usage Recommendations