effnostairsandsewers

[effnostairsandsewers]

ddrussianinja replied to your post: So... umm...

Sorry it makes you so anxious. Either way, I hope you keep writing. I love reading your stuff.

Thanks. I mean... I really don't want to stop. I just have no idea how to make it work or motivate myself, even.

[effnostairsandsewers]

So... umm...

I still haven't updated. I don't... know if I'm going to. I didn't think through how much work would go into getting pictures for a lot of these updates, how I really need to keep a schedule...

And, honestly, I'm depressed and restless and dealing with a lot right now. Tumblr makes me anxious. I think about logging on, and I just don't. I don't even know how relevant this is to anyone anyway, and the majority of Tumblr pretty much considers the entire CONCEPT of ableism to be a huge joke anyway. So, I don't know, it just feels kind of pointless.

I may delete this whole Tumblr soon. I really don't know for sure yet... either way, thanks for the support you've given me up to now. I appreciate it.

[effnostairsandsewers]

Lack of updates

I'm sorry for the lack of content here. It is coming. I just hit a sudden wall of lack of motivation. I'm sorry.

[effnostairsandsewers]

My Little Pony: Stairways Are Magic, Part 3: Disability in Equestria

Now that we've looked at why I'm looking at My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and looked at locations, I think it is time to talk about the nature of disability on this show. I neglected to mention something in the first part when talking about wheelchairs. Not only have there been wheelchairs for the temporarily injured, we also see several elderly ponies using walkers or canes. Granny Smith, the matriarch of the Apple family, is said to have a bad hip.

Now, this may be the closest example we have seen to someone with a permanent physical issue. We don't see any ponies who rely on wheelchairs permanently. We don't see any pegasi with wings that classify as anything more severe than weak. We don't see any unicorns with broken horns, which would cut them off from their ability to use magic. We've yet to see any ponies with vision or hearing issues beyond ones who wear glasses. So, one big question I have is... why don't we see them?

Do they just not exist? That seems so unlikely. Even if, somehow, there are no ponies born with disabilities... things happen. All sorts of things happen that result in permanent disability. There are professional sports. There are construction accidents. There are adventurers and explorers. No way would there be no one who would be injured resulting in a permanent injury.

But wait. There's magic. Maybe unicorns heal the injured and prevent disabilities? I'm going to have to say no on this. Simply because of the fact that we never see this happen. Equestria has doctors. Equestria has nurses. Equestria has hospitals. All of these seem to operate without any sort of healing or medicinal magic. And when magic is used directly on ponies, the results tend to be temporary, like Twilight granting non-pegasi the ability to walk on the clouds of Cloudsdale or giving Rarity butterfly wings.

With the introduction of Zecora the zebra, we are given the possibility of potions. But again, the effects of those are temporary. Potions themselves also tend to use rare ingredients, come with the possibility of harsh side effects, and can be disastrous if prepared incorrectly. This also seems outlandish.

And even with a mundane medical system, even if it is, say, absolutely perfect and has made leaps and bounds in terms of progress... their healthcare isn't free. The economic system of Equestria is an odd one, and I don't want to go into a deep discussion on how their economy seems arbitrary and nonsensical when it is mentioned, but in regard to Granny Smith's hip, Applejack's goal at the Grand Galloping Gala is to sell a lot of apple pastries and make enough money from the upper class ponies to help fix up the farm and get Granny Smith a new hip. So, it's not as if most ponies could even afford such miraculous care even if it did exist.

The only other possibility that springs to mind is that they are kept somewhere. At worse, they are locked away in some facility and the candy-colored happy shiny Equestria we know is in fact a lie covering dark secrets. Or there are just, in a society where the tenets of friendship are held in such high regard, rehabilitation centers and care homes that we simply have not seen yet. Which seems problematic to me still in that it means all ponies with disabilities are isolated from the rest of society and out of sight.

There is, of course, the outrageous possibility that the people working on the show just haven't included or thought to include disability. And by outrageous, I mean incredibly likely, obviously. Which I wish would change. If handled correctly, I think the very concept would be very interesting.

Now, with that aspect discussed, tomorrow we will be looking at specific places in the world and continuing on the nature of hypothetical disabled ponies. If you have any questions or comments, please keep them coming!

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Just as a question, the possibility of Pegasi with weak or disabled wings seems to exist within My Little Pony. Are you going to be covering that? And if not, what would your thoughts on what that would be like?

I will certainly be covering that. I'll probably be touching on it twice, when it comes to disability in Equestria in general as well as when covering Cloudsdale in greater detail. I mean, we see Fluttershy is usually a pretty weak flier (except when plot says otherwise) compared to other pegasi, and Scootaloo can't do more than a low hover with her wings. And wing injuries can happen, as seen with Rainbow Dash, which brings a lot of things up when it comes to pegasus society, for sure.

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My Little Pony: Stairways Are Magic, Part 2: Locations

Another thing we need to look at in this is Equestria itself. Equestria is a large area containing many different areas, all of which are unique in their own ways. We will only be looking at places shown on the show, and places which are relevant to this discussion.

For example, despite Hoofington, Trottingham, Fillydelphia, Baltimare, and Las Pegasus  being mentioned, they've never been shown, so we can ignore those.

Also, places like Ghastly Bottom Gorge, Froggy Bottom Bog, and the Everfree Forest will not be considered because it's rare you hear about wheelchair-accessible gorges, bogs, and spooky forests full of dangerous beasts.

So, that leaves us with the following: Ponyville, Canterlot, Cloudsdale, Appleloosa, and Manehattan.

Ponyville is a small town of what mostly look like cottages, surrounded by hills, farmland, and streams. It is the main area where the show takes place, with the majority of the main cast living there.

[Image Description: A small town of buildings with hay-colored roofs, surrounded by large hills, a trees, and an apple orchard with a fence. There are mountains to the right.]

Canterlot is where the castle is, and also has a city area behind the castle walls. It is up in the mountains, overlooking a cliff.

[Image Description: A crowded castle city of spires, towers, and overhangs, a drawbridge in front with ponies crossing it, led up to by a road. There is a waterfall nearby, leading to a lake and small stream that passes along the bottom of the structure, and then falls once more. Hills are below, and the moon above.]

Cloudsdale is the home of the pegasi. It is a network of clouds, and has many pillars utilized in its design. On an interesting note, without magic assistance or an aircraft of some kind, non-pegasus ponies can't even reach Cloudsdale, and without magical assistance, non-pegasus ponies can't stand on the clouds. We will be looking at this further in a later post. This is just the introduction.

[Image Description: A blue sky, and in the middle is a city of clouds. There is a stadium off to the left and a lot of the buildings seem to incorporate pillars. There are waterfalls, rainfalls, and rainbowfalls everywhere.]

These are the three main areas. Others include the Old West towns of Appleloosa and Dodge Junction, and the big city of Manehattan. But these play minor roles in the show, we don't see much of them, and we won't be covering them in-depth anyway. I won't include pictures until it is relevant.

Tomorrow we will be discussing what it would mean to be a disabled pony in Equestria and then dive into specifics about the locales.

[effnostairsandsewers]

My Little Pony: Stairways Are Magic

So, for the next however long, we will be looking at My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This is kind of a jump from video games and Pokémon, but here is why I want to look at the world of Equestria:

It's an odd world. The show is a strange combination of magic and castles and little villages but also steam trains but also modern day hospitals and audio equipment. So, while a lot of things are old-fashioned and simple, there is modern technology.

Minus the magic and the fact that the world is populated by cartoon horses and mythological beasts, it's a world of towns and cities and transportation. So, it has things we can look at.

Also, wheelchairs have been shown in the show. Three times even. Now, all three times they have been for characters having temporary injuries.

The first time, Twilight Sparkle is hit by a door, and because of that her front legs are in casts.

[Image Description: Twilight Sparkle, a purple unicorn with purple and dark blue hair, sitting in an almost throne-like wheelchair, holding a pair of binoculars in her front hooves, both of which are covered in casts, and leaning on the back of a park bench. Spike, her purple dragon with green scales, is peering next to her.]

The next time we see a wheelchair, a mouse with a bandaged up leg is in one, after Fluttershy has nursed it back to health.

[Image Description: A brown-gray mouse in a green wheelchair with a bandaged-up right hind leg. A smaller grey mouse and a much smaller white mouse are in front of him at a mouse hole.]

I would also like to point out that both of these wheelchairs so far only have two wheels... which, while a valid design, is an unusual one that was more common in the late 1800s.

Finally, the third time, Rainbow Dash is seen in a wheelchair being discharged from the hospital after a wing injury. 

[Image Description: Rainbow Dash, a blue pegasus with a rainbow-colored mane, being speedily shoved out of the front doors of a hospital in a wheelchair looking very much like the one the mouse is in in the previous picture, albeit larger, eyes wide and teeth gritted. A pink pony in a nurse's cap looks out after her with what may be a smirk.]

Note again the two wheels. I just find it interesting. A lot of times where a wheelchair is portrayed in a cartoon or comic, it is usually drawn missing key components or possessing other odd design choices. But we'll get to that at another time.

Why am I showing these? Because wheelchairs are a thing that exists in the world of My Little Pony. And because of that, even if for temporary use, it is worth looking at the world to see if it accommodates the use of wheelchairs.

[effnostairsandsewers]

No update yesterday!

Sorry, I was all relieved about being done with Crystal, and then the Olympics happened.

A nice number of people with disabilities during opening ceremonies! It made me really happy!

Anyway, taking a break from games and gathering stuff to do a TV show instead. Expect a post tomorrow or Monday!

[effnostairsandsewers]

Generation II: Pokémon Crystal, Part 10

With all of that out of the way, we make our way back to Mahogany Town and take Route 44. Though I guess technically we never left since that entire last post was inaccessible and hypothetically optional.

It is, as usual, a straightforward route full of trainers and open roads. It leads to... the Ice Cave. I have a bad feeling about this. Looking at the map, this is the only path to get to Blackthorn City. We are 7 badges in, and this is the only path to the eighth.

The inside of the Ice Cave is, of course, icy. There is ice everywhere, including slippery ice paths. It's not perilous, or even that unsafe as long as you take it slow. Of course, after one ice path, we are met with stairs.

[Image Description: Screenshot of game. Standing on frozen ground, surrounded by ice and rocks. Directly in front of the player is a few steps leading up.]

And like that, we are finished. The only road leading to Blackthorn is blocked by a series of ledges and possibly another cave. There is no way to proceed without tearing apart the ground. Also, in terms of the cave itself, this will be the first of undoubtedly many steps and probably a few ladders. So, we're finished!

But, hey, we did get seven badges. I'll remind you again, in Generation I only one badge was obtainable. Here, we nearly got to the end game. That is pretty impressive.

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Generation II: Pokémon Crystal, Part 9

Where we last left off, we just got another gym badge and got an urgent call from the professor. There's weird radio activity happening in Goldenrod City, and because we're the protagonist in this game, it's time to check it out. Time for a long trek...

To the surprise of no one at all, Team Rocket has taken over the radio tower. As we've already seen, the radio tower is not accessible and only has stairs. The only thing that gets accomplished in the radio tower is finding out the radio director has been taken hostage and the one on the top floor is actually an impostor. The real one is elsewhere. So, that entire step can be skipped, hypothetically. Someone else can beat the Rocket grunts and get that information. So, we're still going.

Where the director is really being held is... the Underground. More steps.

Of course, the only thing that happens here is a few very easy battles and then finding the real radio tower director... who gives you a card key and sends you back to the radio tower to save it. Nothing of grand import has happened yet and I still stand by the fact that someone else can do this.

After all of this, with the tower beaten, you're given an item that helps at Tin Tower, for something not important, that we will not be doing. All in all, someone else can handle this mess hypothetically. We have badges to get. On to Route 44.

[effnostairsandsewers]

rockpapertheodore replied to your post: Mikecraft

yes what an absolutely splendid vehicle it is capable of much adventuring and mining.

Still stuck on rails though. Haha.

[effnostairsandsewers]

[Image description: Ask box message. rockpapertheodore asked: Draw yourself in the style on Minecraft, in your recently put-together Powered Wheelchair that you managed to find enough surface iron to make!]

[Image description: A Windows 7 Paint drawing done using the crayon tool. A man with dark hair and green eyes, short arms and very little in ways of legs wearing tan shorts and a green shirt, sitting in a blocky, square wheelchair. The chair is motorized, the motor having a large red ball in the middle, and red dust coming out as it moves down rails.]

Mikecraft

For reference, this is about these posts:

http://effnostairsandsewers.tumblr.com/post/27923404015/minecraft-part-1 http://effnostairsandsewers.tumblr.com/post/27927351102/minecraft-part-2-minceraft

[effnostairsandsewers]

Oops...

Sorry, Tumblr. I had work last night and forgot to queue up some posts. Any suggestions for what you'd like me to do a quick post about today? You name it, I'll do it. Assuming I can. 

[effnostairsandsewers]

Minecraft, Part 2: Minceraft

So, now that we've poked a bit at the topic of spawning, let's talk mechanics. Perhaps you haven't noticed, but things in Minecraft are square. Very square. As stated previously, this means there are no things like wheels. Which means no wheelchairs. Also no ramps. There are no slopes at all, in fact. Only stairs and half-steps.

But wait, you may be saying. What about mine carts? Mine carts exist. And carts have wheels. And my response? Show me. These mine carts certainly do not have wheels, not visibly anyway. And without rail, they handle like the most stereotypical bad shopping cart ever imagined. To use a Minecraft mine cart as evidence that a wheelchair could exist is laughable.

But couldn't a wheelchair just run on rails then? Well, sure. That really limits freedom of movement and comes with its own set of problems though. For example, where are you getting this rail? To build 16 sections of rail requires 6 ingots of iron and one stick. Sticks are easy enough to get. Sometimes you spawn right next to a tree. The problem is iron. Iron is almost always inaccessible. Surface iron is incredibly rare. Iron is also only mined with a stone pickaxe or stronger, and iron must be smelted to make ingots. The process for making sections of rail is as follows:

Gather wood.

Find surface stone.

Mine enough stone to make a stone pick and a furnace.

Find surface iron.

Either find surface coal or use wood as fuel for the furnace.

Make rail.

Keep in mind, this all needs to be done while controlling an impossible shopping cart through dangerous environments. Speaking of dangerous environments, you could just punch zombies to death and hope they drop iron ingots, which are a rare drop. Or maybe hopefully appear near a village that hopefully has a chest with iron ingots in it. Also, rails require momentum. So you can only really go downhill, unless you have powered rail, which requires redstone and gold. And that's another story entirely. Also, be prepared to keep laying down and picking up the same bit of rail in order to progress. The idea of a mine cart-esque wheelchair is hugely inconvenient.

Now, things can be powered in the game, so perhaps a motorized wheelchair would make sense, which would cut down on some of the problem. But new problems open up. Furnaces and powered mine carts require fuel. And fuel runs out rather quickly. If a powered wheelchair is powered by fuel, it would need to be constantly fed. Or powered by some kind of redstone-powered recharging mechanism.

Also, if the chair does need to be crafted, I'd imagine that it would be made of iron and possibly wood.

So, in order to have a usable wheelchair system in place in Minecraft would require an easily accessible source of wood, iron, fuel (coal, wood, lava), stone, redstone, gold, and massive amounts of luck in that no skeletons or creepers attack (ranged attack and proximity-based explosions, respectively, for those not in the know). And unless the same bits of rail will be collected and re-placed continuously, a massive amount of said rail will be required to get anywhere useful, not to mention various switches and whatnot to make travel more convenient. And that's if starvation doesn't set in, requiring a food source (sustainable source of mushrooms, a sustainable source of wheat, a source of livestock which need wheat to reproduce, a body of water for fishing, or eating poisonous spider eyes and rotten zombie flesh that makes hunger happen faster for a short period of time).

The alternative is killing an endless supply of Endermen and teleporting everywhere. Or finding a saddle somewhere and riding a pig.

In conclusion, unless conditions are perfectly ideal, a wheelchair user in Minecraft would most likely be unable to even move very far, let alone thrive.

Tomorrow I resume Pokémon. Thanks for reading this nonsense.

[effnostairsandsewers]

Minecraft, Part 1

Everything is square and blocky. Round things do not exist. Therefore wheels, and thus, wheelchairs can't exist. Inaccessible.

...

Okay, but really. This is not exactly a serious post. It started out as a joke tweet about the world of Minecraft being inaccessible and it being my shortest possible review. But a friend of mine actually responded, bringing up points and hypotheticals. So, let's look at them.

First off, in Minecraft, would you spawn with any needed adaptive equipment? My friend argues that yes, you would, much like how in any other game you would start out with that kind of thing. I, however, disagree. In most other games when you start out there is a backstory, or at the very least an implied backstory. For instance, in Pokémon you are just suddenly the protagonist. But you have a house, you have at least one parent, you have a room and interests and possessions. There is a fourth-wall-breaking speech by that specific generation's Pokémon professor explaining the premise of the world.

Even in Super Mario Bros., despite starting out as a small plumber in a strange world, at least the instruction booklet tells you what is going on (even if most of it is absolute nonsense).

"One day the kingdom of the peaceful mushroom people was invaded by the Koopa, a tribe of turtles famous for their black magic. The quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks and even field horse-hair plants, and the Mushroom Kingdom fell into ruin.

The only one who can undo the magic spell on the Mushroom People and return them to their normal selves is the Princess Toadstool, the daughter of the Mushroom King. Unfortunately, she is presently in the hands of the great Koopa turtle king.

Mario, the hero of this story (maybe) hears about the Mushroom People's plight and sets out on a quest to free the Mushroom Princess from the evil Koopa and restore the fallen kingdom of the Mushroom People.

You are Mario! It's up to you to save the Mushroom People from the black magic of the Koopa!"

So, while it appears we are just a random guy in overalls, we have a name, a quest, a world full of innocent people turned into bricks (let us ignore the unfortunate implications of such an idea) and turtles who are also wizards or something. There's a Princess, and she is also magic. Now while next to none of this plays into the actual game, it's still a backstory.

Minecraft, you are just a guy. Your name may or may not be Steve, though you are not told this. You are right-handed given that you hold all your inventory items in your right hand. You spawn randomly in a randomly generated world with nothing on you but your clothes with no sign of how you got there. That's it. So, why would you have a wheelchair? And how did you and it get here? Did you appear here magically? Did you travel? How? 

And then there's death. When you die in Minecraft you reappear back at your spawn point, or the last bed you slept in. You lose all your possessions. If you do have a wheelchair, does that magically become recreated?

(I'm sorry for almost always saying wheelchair. But as previously stated, it's what I use, and when talking about this type of thing, it is my go to. It is also what I have the most experience with and I wouldn't want to extrapolate on subjects in which I have no experience with. I just realized I'm doing that. I know it was established in the Pokémon walkthroughs, but I feel it needs restating.)

In the next post, we will be looking at questions beyond just spawning, at actual mechanics.

[effnostairsandsewers]

...

*stares at the two Minecraft posts in queue*

*siiiigh*

Haha, what is my life.

[effnostairsandsewers]

Story of my life.

Wheelchair accessible…not