#Same way I have a strange thing for writing people with disabilities actually-

[devouring-hive]

We do miss the particular way Doll-Sakuya was decaying before she finally broke. The complete unquestioning subservience forced upon her by Remilia, despite so desperately wanting to break free of it, was very compelling for Yami to write.

[cripplecharacters]

Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?

[large text: Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?]

(TLDR: no. literally no.)

A frequent topic that shows up around facial differences is the self-hatred, self-disgust, self-insert-negative-emotion that we must surely experience. I want to ask* writers without FDs - why? Why do you feel about us in such a way that that's the most common way of depicting us?

*- rhetorical question. I promise I know the answers, but I'm not sure if writers do.

It's frankly worrying to me. Is it really that common to assume that disabled people have this internal, never-ending hatred for themselves? The overwhelming majority of us don't. We hate inaccessibility, when people stare, or some symptoms when they get in the way, or how expensive being disabled is, but I find the concept of us being so completely disturbed by our own disabilities extremely strange. It’s “tragedy porn” intersecting “most basic ableism”.

“But trauma!”

[large text: “But trauma!”]

Trauma of what! People with facial differences don't have some sort of default trauma that we come with like it’s a factory setting. We are a group of people with tens of thousands of stories and experiences!

“Trauma of experiencing ableism/disfiguremisia” - that's better, at least this means something. If you're writing a story about this, please get a sensitivity reader with a facial difference. You can assume how we feel all you want, but in my experience these assumptions are often bizarre and unrealistic. Or just end up writing the same “disability so sad” sob story that everyone has seen a billion times. If you want to write about disfiguremisia, you need to understand the nuance and have more than just the basic level knowledge (which 99% of people don’t have either). If you can’t do that, don’t write about it. Simple as that.

“Trauma of the accident” - thankfully, the accident is an event and a facial difference is a disability. If you want to connect these two like they're one and the same, you're almost surely going to demonize disability. People with traumatic spinal cord injuries, acquired amputees, people with TBI, people with acquired facial differences - we participate in our communities, we have hobbies, we date, we play with our dogs. Disability isn't a death sentence. Media who make it feel like it is certainly don't help people who do suddenly become disabled, don't you think?

Here's a post by @blindbeta about blind characters becoming blind through trauma that’s better made than anything I could hope to write here. I heavily recommend giving it a read.

And, I can't stress this enough - most of us didn't have “the accident”, most of us are born like this! "Traumatic scars" isn't the only facial difference that exists, far from it, it's only one of thousands. It's 99% of our representation and "representation". If you want to make a character with FD - please consider that we aren't a monolith. Just like not all physical disabilities are "wheelchair user with paralysis", not all facial differences are "traumatic scar with somehow no nerve damage".

The overrepresentation of it is incredibly telling, and sometimes - or very frequently - feels like the writer doesn’t actually even want to deal with us. They want to use our disability as a way to cheap drama, moral metaphors, tragic backstories. Not to represent us as living people who are much more similar to you than you apparently think.

Now, I do have enough awareness to know that that's a big part of the appeal. “Horrific Thing #2456 happens” and boom, instant drama! Of course, it's a reasonable response that they would hide their disability for years, avoid talking about it in any way, and magically change their personality to be mean and reclusive, or at least be constantly soooo sad about how much it sucks to be disabled, right?

Do I really need to say that having your character becoming disabled be the worst thing ever is ableism 101? We have been talking about this for so long at this point. Writing about the process of adapting to a specific disability is better left to people who have actual experience in it.

To give an example that will hopefully resonate more with Tumblr users, I will use the fact that I'm also gay. It's not perfect by any means but probably much more familiar territory.

Imagine, let's say, a character. He's gay. The story he's in is supposedly progressive, certainly not trying to be homophobic. The character has experienced an incident, maybe an act of aggression or a hate crime, that happened because he’s gay, which was traumatic. Happens IRL, sure. So of course the character starts hating being gay. He talks about how gross and disgusting it is, he never lets anyone know that he could be “one of them”, certainly not take a stance against homophobia. You can't mention him without mentioning the accident, they're seemingly fused together. No gay love, joy, even basic happiness, he would actually choose to be straight in a heartbeat if given the option to and complains that he can't. This is shown as a neutral, obvious thing that a gay man would do, no one comments on it. He stays like this the whole time, unless there’s a plot twist in the last 10 pages where the world is now magically perfect ("we fixed discrimination, yay!"). This is the only LGBT character in the story.

Keep in mind that there are people similar to this in real life, living with extreme internalized homophobia.

Is this, in your opinion, realistic and thoughtful representation? How does it feel when written by a cishet writer, versus a gay writer who is recalling his experiences? Do you think that it's reasonable for the majority of media representation to be like this, or very close to it? How would it affect younger gay people who might already be uncomfortable with being queer? Are gay men the target audience, or are they not even considered as a group of people who read books? Is this helping or damaging the general public's idea of how it is to be gay? Why or why not?

The Masterpiece

[large text: The Masterpiece]

From 13 to 19 of May, we are celebrating Face Equality week (what a coincidence!). It’s important to me in general - and I wish it was more important to abled people, but I digress - especially its theme for this year.

“My Face is a Masterpiece”

Great statement, it represents the community well, I do enjoy how bold it is. Very cool stuff, I love the work our advocates are doing!

But why do I bring this up?

Well, to very non-subtly show that we aren’t a self-hating group of people. We are a community, a community saying “our faces are beautiful, look!”, we are saying “treat us equally, and do it now!”. Our activism isn’t about self-disgust. It’s about fighting your-disgust. 

Why can’t writers keep up? Why are you still stuck decades behind?

Is this the only reason I bring it up?

The Call to Celebration

[large text: The Call to Celebration]

FEI, the org behind organizing it, asks a very simple question (emphasis mine):

“Why do we so often see stories about facial difference as a ‘tragedy��, when they should be about triumph?” “Calling all artists, allies, creatives, galleries.  You can rewrite the story to bring about #FaceEquality and celebrate the unique artistry found in every face. Your participation this #FaceEqualityWeek will help to tell the real story, that there is a masterpiece in every face.”

Here. We are calling for you to stop. Directly from the biggest international advocacy alliance group that's out there. If you create, this is for you.

The last argument to not have your character with a facial difference hate themselves? Because we don’t want this. We are tired and frustrated. For me personally, I’m also offended by this kind of assumption. We aren’t tragedies or cheap entertainment for abled people to pity or be horrified by. We are people, and if you can’t internalize that, you have no reason to write about us.

For once, celebrate us. Happy Face Equality Week!

mod Sasza

[tavyliasin]

Disability Pride Essays - Lae'zel, Ableism, and More Neurodiversity

As we continue through Disability Pride Month, we reach the latest of the Origin characters to face my analysis microscope~

Lae’zel’s story is very much shaped by her upbringing. Her entire identity has been crafted by her people’s customs and culture, the Githyanki focus on strength and the need to win the fight against the Mindflayers taking precedence over absolutely everything else. But how does this tie into disability, you may be wondering? Well, we will be going over some heavier topics again today and in a fair amount of detail. The reliance on strength in a society to this degree can end up with ableism and eugenics, because in their single-minded pursuit of victory there is no room to care for the disabled in their community. We’re also going to take a look at some character traits from Lae’zel herself that some have mentioned feeling a connection to in terms of neurodiversity representation. So, with that in mind, let’s take a closer look at Lae’zel of Creche K’liir and what her story can tell us about disability and ableism in societal structures.

I just have to mention how odd it was that doing the GIF search for "Lae'zel" had so little of her and multiple Kermit the Frog GIFs instead...ok back to the essay

What is Lae’zel’s Disability?

Lae’zel herself can be representative of some features of how autism can present in people. She shows a preference for clear rules that can be followed and structures that are ordered and logical. She also struggles to adapt to a sudden change in those same structures, when rules change or things do not match up to what she believed them to be, it can be hard for her to accept that. This was actually one I hadn’t picked up on myself yet until talking with a couple of people whilst doing a little more research on her character and story for writing this very piece, and it’s really interesting to see. There is also the potential for her to be injured and receive a permanent stat debuff from the Zaithisk in Act 1. This can also represent a permanent disability from a medical procedure, potentially even mirroring some more traumatic and outdated “treatments” that are no longer in use, or even some that are still used today that cause significant harm and distress to autistic people. A lot more of what we’ll cover here is more about the society she was raised in and how this reflects her own views and attitudes, both towards herself and others.

How Do We See The Disability In The Game?

The autistic features mentioned in the previous section are more present in how Lae’zel is very single minded and certain about things, and how it takes a lot of evidence to persuade her that the systems she has trusted and relied upon for her entire life are not what she thought. Even with a lot of concern and evidence around the Zaithisk, it still takes multiple rounds of persuasion to get her to fight or leave the device before it does that long term damage if all the checks are failed and she stays inside. This same reliance on power structures and established rules and roles almost gets her killed again when we meet Vlaakith and face that particular truth. It’s a genuine struggle to accept that everything is not how it was supposed to be, that all those comfortable support structures are just…gone. It’s a lot for her to go through, and understandably it seems as if falling back on battle skills and strength bring Lae’zel the most comfort particularly in the beginning where she is living her worst nightmares - stuck in a strange land with the looming possibility of becoming everything she has fought against and feared since she was old enough to understand the world around her.   If we fail the Zaithisk checks and Lae’zel is hurt, we see that very clearly in the permanent debuff to her stats and abilities. There’s no undoing damage like that, and it will impact her for the rest of her life much in the way that an incident causing disability could.

How Does This Reflect Real Life?

Autism has a lot of very different ways that it can present in people and in how they experience it. There are plenty of autistic people who might feel like Lae’zel and her story don’t represent their life in any way at all, but there are at least a few who might well pick up on those connections and find comfort in them. Some autistic people do feel, like Lae’zel, that having a rigid structure is beneficial to them. They prefer to know where they stand, what the rules are, because it is much easier to have things laid out in black and white than to try and decipher it from wider context or trying to read in to people’s reactions and hidden motivations. Part of this can present in being very trusting - it is easier to believe that a person is only saying something because it is true, than to try and see past any lies or read between the lines if there’s a difficulty in doing so from the neurodiversity. Similarly, having a routine can also be very comforting to some autistic people. They know where they are meant to be, what they’re meant to be doing, and why. Change can be distressing and take a more time to cope with, whether this is a change of surroundings (like finding yourself in a whole new world), a change in routine (going from daily battles that are expected to having far less solid plans that keep changing), or a change in the established rules/reality (finding out that long held beliefs and facts were never true). It can also be very difficult to accept that a figure that was admired - possibly to the point of fixation - is not at all what they were supposed to be. Losing that person to look up to can feel like a huge shaking of someone’s foundations, especially if they have built their whole life and goals around doing what that person expects of them. This could be a parallel to a parental figure for an autistic person who has always trusted them, followed the given rules, but then feels a betrayal or a change from the expectations of that parent, or even finds out that the parent they admired has done something they strongly disagree with. Similarly it could be an idol, someone they look up to, who equally does something unpleasant. Like, perhaps, a famous author who wrote books that became a hyperfixation turning out to be deeply bigoted against certain communities. Hmm. I’m sure I’ve heard of something like that somewhere… The rest of the parallels to real life will come more from the society and raising than from Lae’zel herself, as in some routes she shows a lot of ability to grow and change past those ideals and find her own path. Even if it still has some of those same structures, she can come to accept the changes in her own way.

Githyanki Society and Eugenics

This one is quite heavy, but it’s so important to touch on. Before Githyanki are even born, they are judged. If an egg takes too long to hatch, it’s deemed weak and discarded or left to die. There’s little room for any weakness at all in Githyanki society, because they need every member to become strong enough to fight and win against the mindflayers, but this also means that at any stage of life they can forfeit their lives. Even as children they are encouraged to fight - sometimes even to the death - to ensure the survivors are strong. Old age doesn’t bring a peaceful retirement either, there’s only fight after fight to look forward to, and the most relaxing job you might end up with in Githyanki society is becoming a tutor to the younger generations. Which is hardly a peaceful role to take. The entire reliance on strength is such a parallel to eugenics - the theory that those who are disabled or “flawed” are not worthy of surviving, that if you do not provide anything to society that you do not have a place within it. It goes without saying that it’s deeply ableist and completely flawed as a concept. It goes against how even prehistoric human society worked - there is strong evidence that we took care of our wounded, elderly, and disabled. Naturally a fantasy universe is different, and there are of course some humans now who advocate for eugenics like not allowing disabled children to even be born…but that is wrong on every level. There is worth to life beyond what we are able to contribute to society. We also see this in the use of the Zaithisk - the Githyanki are almost all of the complete belief that the device will help them, will cure them of the mindflayer parasite, but the reality is that their leaders were never looking for a cure. The device is a euthanasia machine designed to pull everything of use from their mind and soul before killing them. It’s brutal, but it is just another example of ableism and eugenics in action. It is more efficient to the Githyanki to destroy any perceived weakness than it is to try to help. We can, to a degree, look at it objectively - they are taking away a risk that could very well put far too many lives at risk. They’re in some ways isolating a terminally ill patient before they can become contagious or harmful to others. Perhaps, in some ways, using the Zaithisk to prevent Ceremorphosis is akin to something like rabies, which is incurable once the first visible symptoms appear and can lead to the patient becoming desperate or suffering psychological symptoms that lead them to harming others, so the only option is to isolate them and try to reduce their suffering until the inevitable. 

Strength and Attitudes To Disability

Reliance on strength, and a tenacity to keep fighting, can be very beneficial to a society and lifestyle that are focused on an endless war and surviving it. Being able to push past pain and use every last ounce of that strength and courage can be the difference between life and death in a battle…but not everything is a battle, and that same determination can be genuinely detrimental long term. We can see this with Lae’zel being determined to endure the Zaithisk, until (if not convinced otherwise) she is permanently injured by it. But the same tenacity can also be detrimental in other ways, too, particularly when disability is involved. A lot of chronically ill people will easily be able to tell you that whilst an otherwise healthy person might be able to “push past it” and keep doing things when injured or sick with something short term (like doing housework when they have flu, or trying to work when they have an injury causing pain), this cannot work long term. If the condition doesn’t have an end, you cannot keep pushing through it. You can’t just force yourself to get better or be able to do what your body is unable to. Even if you manage one day, you’re making it worse for the days that follow, which will reduce what you can do overall. The best thing most people can do to manage chronic conditions is to pace themselves, ensure they’re working with and around their symptoms rather than against them. There’s a difficulty there to accept any weakness within an individual in Githyanki society - you have to be at your best every day, in every fight, or you might not live to see the next. Pride, honour, and tenacity - they are admirable traits, but might not be compatible with disability.

What We Can Learn From Lae’zel’s Story

I feel like we see the real downsides and brutality of a society that values only strengths and supports eugenics. Even from not helping eggs that take too long to hatch, they’re losing what could be valuable members of society. It’s a difficult one for most of us in the privileged position to be sat here reading (or writing) this piece to compare to real life, given the very real dangers and war that the Githyanki face are quite far removed from our daily experiences, but it is important to recognise that eugenics and ableism are still quite prevalent in our society. This can even come down to some screenings, or selective genetic testing in advanced IVF procedures that eliminate the natural possibility for children to be born with certain conditions and disabilities. Whilst on the surface this might seem “logical” or even “kind” to wish for children to be “healthy” and abled, but that really devalues the lives of disabled people in our society. Disabled people who have found value and worth in their lives, some of whom have contributed immensely to our society. Granted, not all disabled people will be able to change the world or reach lofty goals, but that doesn’t make their lives any less worthy - plenty of abled people do not have a list of incredible achievements either and we don’t suggest that they should never have been given a chance at life in the first place. And that really is what's vital about speaking out during Disability Pride Month.

How we talk to and about disabled people and our society's attitudes to disability can have a huge impact on those lives. We need to recognise the worth in life beyond what each individual can contribute, and know that a society with compassion, support, and care for all of its members is better and stronger overall.

[tellmeomuse]

Phaidros, Neurodivergence, and the Unlovable Other

So I have a new essay up on Patreon today, and it's a pretty long one. It's sort of a spiritual successor to the foreword of this story, We Must Imagine The Minotaur Loved, so I've placed it on the free tier so everyone can read it.

This is an essay that I've been sitting on for a long time, but readers are finally starting to notice and comment on the way that Phaidros talks about himself. I think some people have been puzzled by his strange internal insistence that he and Asterion could never work out, and... I mean, to some degree, that confusion is intended. It's supposed to stick out as odd now, and it's going to be explained a bit more as the story continues.

I'm not sure that I would place a modern label like "neurodivergent" on Phaidros, but he's not NOT, either. I realized as I was writing this story that my own experiences with neurodivergence and physical disability were coloring the way that I was writing the characters, and by the time I finished writing, those parallels were very much intended.

So I guess the secret's out. This has actually always been a story about two men who both feel like monsters and how they come to love, support, and accept each other. Asterion may physically be inhuman, but Phaidros, due to his own life experiences, has come to feel the exact same way about himself.

And uh. That's going to cause some problems eventually.

But that's getting ahead of things a bit, I think. For now, here's a very long essay about the many ways a person can be made to feel monstrous -- and how we deserve to feel capable of being loved despite that.

[nobleelfwarrior]

In response to This post.

I want to establish a few things before I go on.

people can be both oppressor and oppressed because their are different axes of oppression

witches, anthropologically speaking, are a cultural phenomenon where someone, frequently but not exclusively a woman, is blamed for causing misfortune/bad luck.

I am white, so I'm coming at this from a different perspective from the women in the video.

Now, with that out of the way, European women are oppressed on the basis of the sex. When the European witch trials were underway we have evidence that they were targeting

women who were in medicine so that male doctors could force their way into the field.

women who were outspoken or political

women who owned land

women who were "strange". We would now consider these women disabled, homeless, or chronically ill.

The werewolf trials targeted those same women.

This was a femicide and I think it is insensitive to say white women have no claim to a legacy of witchcraft. This is especially true, because, as I mentioned earlier, witches happen in many cultures. In some parts of Africa today there are witch accusations that result in children and women being stoned to death or fleeing their home and family. I know there are other examples in other cultures if you care to look into that. I didn't know about the magic hair beliefs mentioned in the video I linked, but that is also a good example. In the Salem witch trials one of the first women killed was a slave women of Barbados. It is unclear if she is black or indigenous, but the point that white women were not the only targets of witchcraft is true. Any woman could be targets of witchcraft unless she fell in line with what her society demanded of her. If she didn't, if she resisted, then there were multitudinous painful ways to kill her.

Having said all that, there is definitely a discussion to be had about women who claim to be the "daughters of witches you couldn't burn" while also attacking women like Amber Heard or JK Rowling for not falling in line like they "should". I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that these have been modern day witch trial. These women are blamed for all sorts of misfortunes and perceived wrongs because they didn't bow to men. Where stoning and crushing and hanging and burning are now outlawed, internet threats and canceling and doxxing have had to do for a symbolic execution. Also I consider it appropriation if a trans women were to say that.

The witch trials of Europe and the early Americas have been trivialized and appropriated by men. Salem, MA is a tourist destination with haunted tours. Former President Trump called the investigation against him a "witch hunt" despite ample evidence of actual wrong doing. People write stories about the witch who was hung and now haunts the town. The witches are actually magic in the stories, and evil, instead of what they really were: human women that didn't fit with a man's perfect narrative. Women wanting to put the focus back on the misogyny that perpetrated the genocide is not unreasonable.

I had ancestors in the early North American colonies. Those grandmothers of mine didn't live in Salem, but they would have heard. They would have been afraid. I hope they would have been afraid because they didn't want to become smaller and not because of magic, but I don't know. Looking back on the stories I have of those grandmothers, I know they weren't perfect. I know they were racist, just like all the white people then, and I know I'm not perfect either, but I'm trying, and I can see that they were like me: loud, passionate, angry, forces in their own right and if circumstances had been just a little bit different, they would have burned.

I am the daughter of witches they couldn't kill, and so are you.

[anniefebruary]

also bats eyes reptilian blink style. 2 & 5 😈

now these i shall answer while stimming bc i care SO BAD abt these wips. not to say idc abt the other ones but these are near and dear to my heartttt

#2 is a power rangers au of stranger things and its the lore bible for the au that i plan to write fics based off of bc im back in my power rangers hyperfixation era (dare i even say special intrest because. i kept my power rangers knowledge from childhood to this day feel free to ask my opinions)

#5 is fic based on the 2012 movie Chronicle thats SO good and kingsley vanweezer for sure put me on i definitely reccomend watching it

posting snippets under the cut but. does a little dance

#2

The best scientific minds of the time came together to create a type of mobile armor that allows for the wearer to have more of an edge in combat. More agile, more focused, more resistant. Rumors are that the primary creator based each on positive traits when the team behind the devices assumed the users would be young adults. This gimmick wasn’t well known, but as the testing of the devices progressed, having a mindset that matched each device benefitted the user in more of a psychological manner than physical. However, the colors of each device and armor were made to simply keep track of agents and what they possessed. Each device contained a tracker to find the others if they were lost. 

The first agent found was assigned the first device, Red, once he exhibited exceptional abilities in both powers and combat. Therefore, Red was associated with leadership, and Agent One, Henry Creel, was destined to be at the head of the task force along with seven other members. More than seven people were found with strange powers, and the unfortunate motivation for training as many as they could find was for…security, in case the other agents were to be inadequate in combat to the point of, for lack of better phrasing, death. But the agents were trained to avoid that at all costs. Perhaps they were trained too hard.

When Agent Eight, Kali Prasad, escaped, she stole the Purple device to aid her. Of course, since her abilities were tied to altering perception, she took the one colloquially referred to as “Mind” and disabled its tracker. Authorities are still searching for it, but in the meantime, all evidence of her and the stolen device were wiped from the data kept by Hawkins Lab, just to cover their tracks. Training became harder, security became stricter, and Agent One was integrated into said security. 

This was a grave mistake.

#5

Andrew's eyes scanned Steve's face, then flickered his eyes to the ground. "Stop looking at me like that." 

"Like what?" Steve moved his hands back to his sides, but kept the same proximity.

"Like...that." He wanted to say like that sunset we watched, all bright and blinding. Pure radiance. Like I'm worth looking at. 

Steve lowered his brows and head, trying to catch Andrew's eyes. "Do you not...like me looking at you?" he asked cautiously.

Andrew looked up into soft brown eyes. Ever since they'd gone in that cave, he's felt more connected to Matt and Steve. Not in the bonding time way, but in the actual mental link. The more they hung out, the more he could feel the subtle ebb and flow of their feelings; it created a fun feedback loop when they were giddy, but overusing powers had them all reaching for napkins. Right now was no different. Steve was so vulnerable, so earnest that Andrew could feel the slight spike in anxiety in his chest (or was that his own?) yet the cautious adoration in his eyes.

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Like, literally all of them? Go fuck yourself?

"Less representation than Gravity Falls..."

So...

I guess all of the crippled queer kids are just going to have to be okay with Tyrone (strangely appropriative and fetishistic name for the disfigured clone of your 13 y/o white boy character) happily exclaiming something like how he's apparently "Better Off Dead!" when he gets a soda poured on him and destroyed, huh? Oh Wait! I forgot.. That was Paper-Jam Dipper!

Nope. I think crippled queer kids would much rather appreciate Toby and Minty being there just fine. After all, I think that it must be the first time we've ever seen any visible wheelchair users in a Queer Coded Disney Show since Kim Possible. Let alone this queer coded and let alone twice. And they're two separate characters existing at the same time and their presence doesn't even revolve around teaching anyone anything! They're just ALLOWED to EXIST!

Didn't see anything like this in Grabbity Balls though, did see a stereotypical man-ish little girl with a big, deep man-ish voice be implied to have "something wrong with her" by an adult authority figure character who's voiced by the same straight, white, openly anti-black Canadian man that you all have been heralding as the ultimate alley for your fictional LGBTQ+ Cartoon Characters' rights, for some reason.

At least the Star Crew tried to give us this:

Which in my opinion was a bit more forwarded and impactful than some dude bro frat boy "love guru" type character just wearing a bunch of symbols and ornaments around his neck, even if they both didn't get through the censors ... You all know this is way more explicit than that.

Speaking of in your face and explicit Queer Coding:

Golly gee... I wonder why such cute and beefy but shy Little Leather Monster Complete with his own Harness and what appears to be a Gimp Mask just had to be regulated to the back?! So funny how Daron Nefcy literally said Disabled Rights, Trans Rights, and Leather/Kinkster Rights while Alex Hirsch only said Eugenics, "Trans Rights" (if you can pass to him, if he can pronounce your name, and you don't say "bae" ) and of course, let's not forget Cops at Pride, despite how little they could apparently both get away with... :)

... But of course, the last and most important Queer Reading to me in Star vs. :

The whole idea of being forced to be with someone you don't love to the point where you have to take a Secret Lover and elope with them and preserve your own sanity because you're a"Bad Girl" who likes a lot of dirty, kinky things to the point where your own voice actress is herself an open kinkster who likes dirty kinky things and that shows through her fun performance, as well as the canonical writings of this kinky character.

And we're not even getting into all of the WAM and Food Fetish stuff in Star vs. The Forces of Evil but it's there, and it's 'glorious'

And after the show is over ,like the actual Queen of Darkness you are, you gotta go sue your old washed up has-been rock star ex boyfriend for misusing the forces of what he says is kink to abuse you ... Because kink is great actually and he's just evil.

Anyway, Esmé Bianco is amazing.

Don't even get me started on Meteora and the blatant disrespect. Especially after Jessica Walter's passing.

I'm writing this post because I'm just ... So fucking sick of people shitting all over the wonderful representation that Star vs. was able to even achieve in favor of praising Alex Hirsch, every time... When in reality, Star vs. The Forces of Evil has overall better representation and overt, and, as some have even said, both in out the show, literally abject Queerness in it than Hirsch will ever have in whichever eye y'all tried to put the eye-patch on your sexy twink Bill Ciphers only to have Hirsch shit on all that and immediately "fix it" by redesigning it as some disfigured ablest caricature before literally switching over to yet another anti-black one.

Dana broke up with Hirsch for a reason: He's a jerk!

If you think that Daron didn't do a "queer enough" narrative with Star vs. despite it being so by it's nature since day one, despite that being already being promised by it's very nature in it's influence being Sailor Moon and Scott Pilgrim, and if you read the Book of Spells even and still say shit like: "I don't see how Star vs. is QUEER????"

Then like, I'm sorry you can't look a little deeper to find that queerness already everywhere in the narrative all around you and if you actually think that Alex Hirsch ever did Representation TM better than Daron Nefcy, all I can say is that I'm sorry you're like a misogynist with shit taste in men and I'm so glad Dana Terrace is free from her shitty boyfriends shadow now at least.

Saying something even more petty about this because I'm gay: A giant, "Size Shifting", People Eating, Purple Pussy Monster who spends his time in mostly just booty shorts, his Chocolate Fountain Jumping Wife who orgasms when she eats candy and left her arranged marriage so that could have more orgasms, and their Giantess, Purple Pussy Monster of a daughter who sucks the souls out of people and spent most of her life as the Milfier than her own Mom, Terrifying Headmistress of a reform school, where she sucked the life of her own students in a Bathory-uqse fashion, before blowing up her cyborg simp, with his own heart, then probably being able to use the severed arm of her Lizard Cyborg Ex Boyfriend as a make-shift dildo to get a final wank in before ultimately experiencing a growth spurt, losing her mind, and killing everyone ... Will always be more Queer in their very nature, than a floating stale dorito in a top hat and two "gay" cops that are designed to be classicist, racist stereotypes for the sake of the unspoken running "joke" that they could even get along, ever were...

And again... If you're an adult and 'Star Vs.' still isn't enough for you... Then maybe you should STOP looking to cartoons and Disney for your ideal representation and make your own...

I'm done.

[miss-saytr]

You’re a strange specimen of a person.

During a period of time, I wanted to feel your lips against mine as you mispronounced hard English words in your daffodil-coated accent. A week after that, I wanted to punch you in the stomach for making such insensitive assumptions about me. We still talk nonstop and you tell me about something that saved you and I tell you about something that broke me.

I don’t think I ever understood “love-hate relationship” like I do now with you. You’re a bitch at times and you own it, having your own ground on things you are sure you won’t change your mind about. I feel like you’re a princess in a castle who ran away from home, and you have no one to tell you that you’re pretty so you start to believe the harsh things you tell yourself because no one is there to ground you in reality. Like, God damnit, why won’t you just take a compliment instead of insisting you’re such a bad person?

I think the way you write is beautiful and I want to help you grow that. You should consider publishing a fantasy book about children who have no mothers so they find themselves as a family and rescue other children in their position. I think the way you make me see people in a different perspective makes me realize that I can take a deep breath and not be so anxious. I could feel you write yourself into that story you made. I could feel you hug this version of the person who saved your life somewhere in the world when I was just born.

You didn’t have to be so vulnerable around me when you told me about your backstory. You could have kept that to yourself, but no, you used it as fuel to the fire to write so passionately that you forget how an English sentence should be structured. Sometimes I want to do the same thing back, but that’s when your bitch comes out and you have very different things to say about how I handle my depressive episodes in life. And after you’re done being a bitch you apologize to me that it happened and I didn’t deserve it as a person. I wish you could say that to yourself.

Maybe I’m being too judgmental and I just don’t understand or remember that your upbringing made you like this. Maybe I’m just not meant to try so hard to find a way to make you feel comfortable and or relate to you because you’re not from my generation. It’s strangely comfortable to have a friend more than a decade older than me like you. If we disagree on something, I don’t have to worry about you having a serious tantrum and breaking off contact over something minor. If I told you I was going to hurt myself tomorrow, you would spit on my face and call me stupid for even considering it, but then the next day I would catch you coming over and forcefully pull me away from that cliff, purring like a panther to get me to stop.

Maybe I do deserve the bitchy part sometimes. Maybe I do deserve the comforting part sometimes. I have a disability that makes it hard to communicate in the way that I’m actually thinking, so I spew nonsense. Hopefully I don’t use that as an excuse every time I say something awry. I just want to be honest, but the truth is both multiple things and yet nothing at all.

[winterandwords]

🌃 Bridge From Ashes Update: 11 January 2023 (with now traditional bonus doggo content)

Genre: Cyberpunk, neon-noir Audience: Adult Working title: Project Frequency Tags: #bridge from ashes and #project frequency More: WIP summary and tag list

📝 Status

Read through of latest draft complete Guess who actually managed not to look at her book AT ALL for a whole month between drafts for the first time ever? I really struggle with letting projects sit, so that's a huge deal for me. I've spent the last week reading through the most recent draft and it felt so different from times when I've gone back to a WIP after only a week or two. Not quite a reader's eye view, but almost.

✅ Next step

Line editing This is probably my favourite part of the writing process because I adore obsessing over details. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into it this week.

💜 Feels

I got the fucking 'rona and it kicked the shit out of me. It's still kicking the shit out of me. I don't talk about health stuff much on here and I'm not going to start now, but this has impacted my writing so it's getting a mention. Covid heavily exacerbated a lot of chronic illness/disability crap, my baseline for absolutely everything has been obliterated, and the most irritating part is the cognitive impairment. I can handle my body being more useless than usual, but I'm kind of attached to being able to do things with my brain.

I've adapted to living with some cognitive impairment all the time anyway because of ongoing neurological shit, but covid has taken it to new levels and it's frustrating as hell. It took me a week to read a 71k draft of BFA. I wasn't casually looking at it here and there. This was big effort. I haven't been able to write anything new on either of my other WIPs and I've had to abandon the extremely flexible low-pressure schedule I'd created for the next few months of writing.

The only thing making this less annoying right now is that line editing is a slow close-up activity anyway, so even though I most likely won't be able to work on it the way I usually would, at least I shouldn't feel as held back as I might if I was doing something that usually moves faster.

✍ Snippet

Inside, he says, “This is your home?” and nudges an empty bottle with his foot into a pile of more empty bottles. “This is where I sleep.” I lock the door behind us and drop my coat on the couch. Suddenly I have no idea where to put myself and I’m acutely aware of the history of that coat. What it meant to him, what it meant to me then and what it means to me now. “Turn on the lights,” he says. “I’d rather not.” “I wasn’t asking.” In some ways, we’re still the same people we were the last time we saw each other. Our past together, as brief as it was, still lives in the way we speak to each other and there’s a strange comfort in how that hasn’t changed, even if so much else has. I tell the lights to come on. Cold eyes sweep across the room. “Apparently this is where you drink.” “I drink in other places too. This is the only place I sleep.”

👀 Bonus bits

Shadow being an absolute brat. I told her to stay in her nest (cleaning was going on and she'd been 'helping') and you can see the "Well, technically..." going on here, complete with too-cute-to-be-pissed-off-at face.

💜 Tag list

Thanks for your support and encouragement! Comment or message me to be added or removed.

@drabbleitout @ezestreet @i-can-even-burn-salad @kaiusvnoir @manathen @thegreatobsesso

[justaduckarts]

A Look At Next Year

I know that we are literally only halfway through December, but I will be travelling for the holidays to see my family, so I wanted to go ahead and get this sort of technical type post out of the way.

Here you will find details about plans for next year’s projects! 

This includes: Upload schedules, goals, and projects I plan to start next year! :)

Long Post Ahead

Current Projects

Dirty Night Clowns: Uploads every Sunday and Wednesday, chapters generally avg at 4k words (but can be as long as 10k if that’s what the pacing demands). 

One Who Holds A Star (Star Holder AU): Plan to upload at least once a week, I’m thinking Tuesday or Thursday... Maybe Friday. Word count goal? As long as it’s at least 1k we’re gravy. (But we should try for 2-3k)

Help! I’m Trapped In a Fanfiction: This will continue to upload sporadically, as I have to be in a certain mood to write the silly stuff. No word count goal, this project is just something to make myself (and others) laugh.

Project Goals: 

Finish DNC before the summer. Assuming the story doesn’t shift dramatically, I suspect it will end up being right around 50 Chapters. 

Finish Star Holder. I can’t imagine it will take the WHOLE YEAR to write the story. It will probably be pretty long, but I think we can do it. 

Figure out where the hell H!ITIAF! is going...

New Projects: 

Outlining some projects in my drafts/WIPS that I would like to start sharing next year! 

Project: Personal Care Unit: This is an idea I have for a series of shorter fics all set in the same universe. A Personal Care Unit (hereafter referred to as PCU) is an animatronic designated to care for one who needs care. This can be anything from a little extra help around the house to aiding people with disabilities etc. etc. 

Glass Walls and Study Samples: This story actually has 20 chapters already drafted that I wrote in like August but I hit a wall and I want to heavily revise the story before I begin sharing. Here’s the concept: You know how people often write fanfics where the DCAs are strange creatures that Y/N discovers or is studying? Well, what if Y/N was a little space explorer? What if they went to a planet they’d been told had no sentient life? What if that planet DID have sentient life? What if YOU were the strange creature captured for study? What if you fell in love with the scientists that were studying you anyway? :) (This story might contain spice, I’m on the fence)

Pluto Initiative: This is actually something I’ve got a few pages outlined for already. It’s my hope to eventually make a short comic that introduces my DCA OC Pluto! The comic would explore her story as an animatronic learning about things like friendship, love, and what makes a person good or bad. I won’t give away too much, but I will say that the story isn’t a romance and I actually don’t ship Pluto with the boys. Her character arc is very important to me and I hope to portray it well. This comic will probably have some horror elements. :) 

Miscellaneous Goals:

Try to draw one thing a week! This can be related to any of my projects.

Oh my gosh please learn to pace yourself :) 

Finish sewing that Sunny Plush. 

Start the Moom plush :) 

Get caught back up on my fanfic bookmarks so I can shower all my moots and favorite writers with love <3 

Make more fanart for all the incredible AUs and fanfics I’ve read. 

Find people who will just yell with me about the DCA boys (and possibly their OCs and mine) 

Participate in an art/writing event! 

I think that just about covers everything that I have cooking or hope to accomplish. It’s going to be a year. I look forward to next year! Thank you guys so much for all your support and I hope you’ll stick with me for even more in the future!

[jankwritten]

You can say tsats has bad writing but you are purposely being obtuse when you say nothing from will’s narration shows how much he cares for nico. first of all why are you limiting attraction to just physical features? (and will does compliment on Nico’s features btw 🙄). will mainly compliments Nico by who he is as a person but is horrible because he didnt talk about nicos hair? And how was will there to “baby” and “heal” nico when the majority of the time they were in the underworld will was weak/suffering and NICO was the one having to help him?? Nico LITERALLY took care of Will more than vice versa. And when did Will ever say he is not comfortable around nico di Angelo?? WHAT?

1) I haven’t personally finished the book yet, so most of my interpretation on Will’s narration is from the people around me who have finished the book/made it further than I have. I’ve only made it through 1 of Will’s POV chapters. Could come out of this agreeing with you, though I don’t think I will.

2) I didn’t mean to say that Will’s narration makes it sound as if he doesn’t care about Nico AT ALL (if that is actually something I said). From what I’m hearing from those around me who have finished the book however, it often feels as if Will is insensitive to a lot of things about Nico, which is strange considering they’re a couple meant to be a year into their relationship. I didn’t say Will was horrible for not talking about Nico’s hair, I meant it’s strange that Will seems to constantly step on Nico’s toes and doesn’t seem to have a lot of care for Nico’s feelings with some of the things he says (which, I’d the book was going for that, then fine, but I don’t think it was)

3) Nico di Angelo should not be struggling this hard in the environments this book puts him in, even in the context of him struggling with his mental health and reliving his traumas. A specific example of this is how the demon who was cursing him and Will with nightmares when they first enter the underworld somehow manages to COMPLETELY render Nico useless during their fight, meanwhile Will randomly unlocks an ULTRA POWERFUL new ability that lowkey doesn’t make sense. Nico is an extraordinarily strong demigod who has proven time and time again he can hold his own against gods and titans, a demigod who doesn’t run away from a battle, and yet in TSATS, as far as I’ve seen, he’s not had that same Vibe.

4) the PJO series is based around the characters and their disabilities. For Nico’s powers and trauma to have been dialed ALL the way back to what it was in TSATS, it starts to feel like the narrative is purposely weakening Nico to make him seem more “damaged” and traumatized. That’s infantalizing.

Also - Will babying Nico can be seen in his reluctance to let Nico use his powers, as if he knows what’s better for Nico than Nico knows himself. When I say babying, I don’t mean “who is taking care of the other more”, I mean who is treating the other more like that person can’t take care of THEMSELF. And, from what I’m hearing from those I trust, Will (and largely the narrative itself) is CONSTANTLY making it seem as if Nico can’t take care of himself.

5) isn’t the literal whole premise of the book Will coming to terms with being uncomfortable in the underworld, which is a MASSIVE part of who Nico is? Isn’t the whole thing based around the idea of Will having to come to terms with the fact Nico has “darkness” in him, and that Will has some of that darkness too? Will is explicitly uncomfortable with parts of Nico that make up a big chunk of who he is. Like that’s a HUGE part of the book.

(Apologies if this is incoherent, I just woke up and am writing this on my phone. If I get further in the book and realize I’m wrong, 🤷 cool. However, from what I’m hearing, I don’t think I will be)

[cripplecharacters]

I want to write more disabled characters but my story takes place in the 60s… so far it hasn’t been an issue because the disabilities included would historically either be undiagnosed, kept secret, belong to characters already at the fringes of society, etc

I really want a specific character to have Down’s syndrome but it’s not the sort of story that would at all be benefited from the inclusion of an institution. For personal reasons, I don’t want to touch that. I’ve been writing him with just undiagnosed autism that’s left him socially outcast from his peers. The most extreme his ableism gets is being seen as the local weird girl (as he’s a closeted trans man)

The story is decently realistic for what the queer and intersex characters would experience, imagining doing the same for disability feels bad… at least, to the level of ableism someone with Down’s syndrome would experience. His parents are notably shitty, rich, and care more about their reputation than their kids so I don’t see a way he wouldn’t get that treatment.

Is there a way I can still write this or similar characters without delving into heavy ableism? What are your thoughts on historical stories that ignore or downplay historical ableism?

Thanks, @interroblog

Hello asker,

I'll start first with a small note: It's better to write Down Syndrome as opposed to the possessive Down's Syndrome, since John Langdon Down didn't have DS.

So, with this story there is one general concern:

It feels strange to depict period-accurate intersexism and transphobia and homophobia as core parts of the story, but downplaying ableism when it's as period-accurate as the other -isms. In this case, it can definitely feel like you're glossing over a very relevant part of history that would have been part of your story. Yes, queer and intersex people have faced some really difficult things and still do. But the same is true for disabled people. Ignoring this can feel revisionist.

If you're going for a very realistic story, but you don't want to write ableism at all, it is probably better to just skip the DS aspect. People with DS have faced some truly intense ableism throughout history (and they still do), as people who have intellectual disability and facial and physical differences, two things that lead to some pretty intense ableism from many, many people. It's fine to not do this if you're not comfortable writing ableism, but again, intense ableism was widespread and common.

However, if the only thing holding you back is institutionalization: Not every single person with Down Syndrome was institutionalized. Yes, it was very common, and would probably be thought about, suggested, and even encouraged. But not everyone institutionalized their children with DS, for various reasons.

If you want him to still have that type of parents, perhaps the reason they don't institutionalize him is in fact for the benefit of their reputation. Maybe they want to be seen as 'saintly' for raising a visibly disabled child or something – still shitty, still caring about their reputation more than their actual kids, like you intended; there is just a different outcome.

Now, to my personal thoughts on historical stories that ignore or downplay ableism, as someone who loves historical fiction: It depends on how historically accurate the story in general both is and aims to be. But I don't like stories that completely ignore ableism, especially the more realistic they aim to be. It feels like glossing over history. Even modern stories that completely ignore ableism I don't like. I still recognize that downplaying historical ableism can be a useful tool for authors, especially for disabled authors' own comfort. And, also, while ableism was very common in the past, it doesn't mean every disabled person ever always faced the worst possible ableism ever.

Basically: you, and other authors, can acknowledge historical ableism accurately without making it the main point and focus of the story. But if your focus is a story specifically about discrimination, which it seems like it is, it feels irresponsible to gloss over an extremely common and pervasive form of discrimination.

Hope this helps,

– mod sparrow

[magpies-gold]

I have both eyes and they're both technically functional but I still relate to a lot of this because I also have monocular vision. In my case, the problem is with my brain, actually. It can only process images from one eye at a time because of a defect when I was born that required surgical intervention. Even after the fix, my brain just never learned that I still had two eyes, so it has no capacity to combine the image data like normal people do. As a result, I have no depth perception and I have a dominant eye that I use 90% of the time.

I also have visual snow that's especially noticeable when I close my eyes and at night in the dark, but as there isn't a lot of research on visual snow, I'm not sure if that's related or coincidental. In case people want to know a bit more about life as a person with monocular vision in a two-eyeballs kind of situation: I have a weird trick that I can do that seems to astound folks with binocular vision: I can consciously switch eyes. It's like flexing a muscle and I can decide to use the left one or the right in the same way that I can choose to wave my left or right hand. Trying to use both at the same time just doesn't work, though. If I really try, there's just this pressure feeling in my head, like I'm trying to imagine a colour that doesn't exist, but I can't make the two work together at all. This is likely just a me thing but my non-dominant eye is much worse than my dominant eye, and its been getting worse over the course of my life. It's still useful, but extremely near-sighted, so much so that it alone is legally blind and makes my optometrist and all their staff wince. But I can read very, very tiny close-up writing with it, so it comes in handy when I'm doing things like reading. My dominant eye is a little near sighted but not much. It's pretty stable. Also probably just a me thing: I have one lazy eye, but it relates to the monocular vision. It's my dominant one. If I use the non-dominant eye, you can actually tell when I've switched to it because my dominant eye "switches off" and rolls a little bit up and out. It was worse when I was a kid (my mom saying "Meghan, are you looking at me?" was a common thing) but it still happens nowadays. My non-dominant eye isn't lazy, so when I'm looking around normally with my dominant eye you can't tell that there's anything different about me than your average Joe. It's a mostly invisible disability for me (and I still feel strange calling it a disability because it's just how I've always seen, and yet here I am making a list of complexities regarding my vision, so....) A final possibly-just-me thing is that I hold my pencil like a space alien and always have. The reasoning I've given since I was a kid was because of which eye I use, I wouldn't be able to see what the end of my pencil was doing if I were holding it "correctly", so I draw and write like this:

(Video here, if you want to see the rest of that: https://www.tumblr.com/magpies-gold/699322866172346368?source=share) Can confirm from the above that head-tilt is a thing when one has monocular vision, even with two eyes. Because of the head tilt, I also get people startling me on my non-dominant side a lot, possibly because with my "blind" side tilted back and away from what I'm looking at, they think I'll see them sooner since that eye is closer to looking behind me. Therefore they don't think they're sneaking up on me. That is, right up until they appear, as if by magic, in my field of vision and I go AAAA!

Depth perception problems that I personally encounter: I don't drive so I don't have a lot to add there except that trying to learn scared me too much to proceed. I was not comfortable with how much slower my reaction time was on my left side or how I couldn't accurately judge where exactly objects in front of me were, so I gave it up in my teenage years in favour of a good pair of sneakers and a transit pass. But I will loudly say that going down stairs sucks. I am very opinionated on how much I love and appreciate when stairs have the bright yellow stripe at the edge, or some other marker to aim for. If stairs are all one uniform colour I am hesitant as hell putting my feet down because I can't tell how far a drop it is. I'm slow on descents on unfamiliar stairs and I desperately need the railing to hold on to. Going up stairs isn't bad because I have other visual cues to help me, and I'm much faster there. I also don't do well on really uneven terrain, like the rocky shores we have on beaches here. Watching my fiancé go hopping and skipping over rocks like a mountain goat gives me light wistful despair because I know if I tried that I would miscalculate almost immediately and break all my bones. My tactic is to get low and go slow if I have to cross anything where distances get tricky to guesstimate. I become a crab. I also have friends who know to slow down and will also let me hold their hand (bless). I do have peripheral vision ghosts on the non-dominant side even with two eyes. The most common thing I see is ghost cats. I'll see my cat jump up on a counter in my peripheral vision only to turn and find nothing there. Sometimes my brain will also suggest there might be a person walking in my peripheral vision. It's just overcompensating for what it has to fill in the blanks on. I can't catch things that are thrown at me except by sheer luck. Sports like baseball and badminton were brutal in high school and I got into many a verbal confrontation with my teacher while trying to explain that I had a very good reason to be afraid of the projectile coming for my face. I told him more than once to go close one eye and try it for himself and see what it's like. No peeking! I can't peek. Similarly, I can't fly a drone. I learned that very quickly when I accidentally flew Tim's full tilt into a wall. Oops. >> Drone was okay. I, on the other hand, was absolutely boggled by how I just could not tell where it was in space until boom, I'd crashed it. And that's because another thing is that I was personally born the way that I am, so I'm fully acclimated to it. I know nothing else, and I don't notice all the micro calculations that I do to translate my 2D view into 3D space so that I can move around in it. At least, I don't until I have a situation where the object I'm working with suddenly has no context, like a drone in mid-air, and then I suddenly notice my limitations. 3D movies largely don't work for me. They're basically just regular 2D movies involving stupid glasses. -shrug- Finally, video games with a lot of icons around the edges of the screen are a nightmare for me because I can't see all of my monitor at once. Again: slow as balls reaction time because I have to re-calibrate and turn my head a lot. The concept of a wide-screen monitors makes me go "Jesus, why?"

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[darkdelilahdays]

[SYSTEM LOGIN]

Username: DarkDelilahDays Password: ********** >> Accessing Profile >>>> LOADING... >>>> LOADING... >>>> ERROR: Glitch detected... ACCESS GRANTED.

[WELCOME TO MY SYSTEM]

Name: Jax Age: 23 Status: throuple [bf+gf] Orientation: pan/ace ID: Creative, Queer, Chaotic

[SYSTEM PREFERENCES]

Likes: anime, rainy days, drawing + painting, living in creativity mode

Dislikes: the cold, people (mostly)

[SAFE ZONE ACTIVE] This is a safe space for LGBTQ+, POC, and Disabled communities. If you’re MAP/minor-attracted, LGBTQ+ phobic, racist, ableist, sexist, anti-stoner, anti-age regression, or just a sh*tty person, DO NOT INTERACT.

[USER FILE] >>> SYSTEM BIOGRAPHY

I’m trans and use art & writing as my main methods of expression. I’ve created this space to be a safe replacement for my old vent page. If you want to find my previous profile, check out @jax-does-life.

I use age regression to cope with anxiety, depression, and general mental health needs. If you need someone to vent to, I’m here. DMs are open (I may be slow, but I’m listening).

[KIN DATABASE]

Haruhi Fujioka (Ouran High School Host Club) – Adaptable, true to self

Chihiro (Danganronpa) – Gentle but strong

Kenma (Haikyuu) – Introverted strategist

Kirishima (BNHA) – Loyal, unbreakable

Eugene (Underworld Office) – Reflective, a bit haunted

Denki (BNHA) – Chaotic, electric energy

Nagisa & Karma (Assassination Classroom) – Compassionate, cunning

Envy (FMAB) – Complex, misunderstood

[VISITOR NOTICE] >>> System Notes

If you’re here to vibe, talk anime, vent, or get lost in some late-night rambling, welcome. This profile is dedicated to healing, honesty, and keeping the shadows at bay.

>>> Log Out? NO. On a more serious note, Starting Fresh:

It feels a little strange to be starting over. I still Have access to my other account if I really want, but its just… a dead account ya know? I haven't posted on it since 2022, I don't roleplay anymore because of the death of a friend, so the side profile is dead; a friend made me that account in 2015, nearly a decade ago. I'm emotionally attached to that account, but I think it's time to start fresh. I have changed as a person, I have changed as a poster, my online presence isn't like it once was. Most of the accounts I loved on my other page are also dead and gone, with hundreds of accounts with only maybe a handful active. There's just so much junk and trash on that account.

I haven't been on here in a long time… and frankly, Tumblr drags up some pretty shitty memories, but the app, Vent Express yourself, is being shut off on Monday, so I'm moving back here. Other socials don't allow me to vent and talk about the negative the way I want to, the way Tumblr and Vent allow me to. That and I prefer smaller communities over larger ones, and tumble is, well, let's face it, not many people's first choice in social media.

Im not sure how much I'll actually post on this account or how often I'll repost things, but hey, I'm back. I think I'm gonna use it as more of a blog that I write on and less of a blog I repost to. I kinda plan to post the same kinds of things I would on vent. Having said that if you're interested I also have an account to talk about my gorgeous beautiful stunning partners @writteninembers and will make more in the future probably

[mumblingsage]

Yay! We are going to get gold stars for this discussion, something it is normal to want and possible to achieve! :D (In all seriousness, I love it when talking and writing about something extensively leads to clearer understandings of ourselves and each other!)

-I am really gun-ho about making better sex education available and having more sex-positive erotica (not to the exclusion of erotica that explores stranger or darker areas, but enough that it's easy to find) for this reason. I am fortunate for all the ways my own sex ed was good, mad about where it failed, and frustrated by the limited, often inaccurate and unnecessarily alarming depictions of sex I was able to access in my reading mainstream-published books from my library. (I think it's fine to write about alarming sex and to not be wholly accurate in your fiction! I'm mad that those were the only depictions I could come across until I learned, like, specific search terms and sources of recommendations thanks to the Internet.) And I know other people have had it much worse than me! I'm hoping future generations have a better time of it.

-A number of rebloggers have talked about the wish for more language and nuance to explore the gray areas of "not trauma but it left a mark" and "not trauma but I didn't enjoy it" (these aren't the same thing; if a horror novel doesn't leave some mark on me, I feel I'm not getting my money's worth, it's fun when I set out with that intention). I don't think I have a ton more to contribute here myself, but yeah, "it fucked me up" is a great phrase. One person said "small-t trauma." And maybe I want to point to resilience again: people go through a lot of strange, uncomfortable, and even (in real life) dangerous stuff and make it through...not quite in the shape we went in, but still okay.

Or to be metaphorical: I have a scar on the back of my hand that is purely cosmetic; I took off a layer of skin when a heavy door closed on it in high school. That's the physical version of a psychological "It left me with some quirks." Actual trauma would be where scar tissue disables me so that I couldn't move my hand/wrist/arm the way I want to (or lost a hand entirely). [IIRC something like this is the actual definition of physical trauma. My sister knew an EMT who defined it as "bodily trauma is where the body's topography has been re-defined." Yowch.]

(Also, someone might start off thinking they have Quirks and then hit the point where they realize they've got Trauma and do need to see a therapist/some other source of healing, just like you might need to see a doctor or physical therapist if the cut on your hand is healing weirdly. A story might be the immediate cause of this realization--that mid-scene moment of "Wait, I'm really not doing okay." But the story is still a very a bit player in the drama, and its role strikes me as helpful rather than hurtful. The hurt already happened.)

-I keep saying I don't intend to talk much about my own baggage, but [curtain descends]

Solidarity, because I will say I have also had the "I can't find this loved one, have they Disappeared Forever (died, hurt themselves, been abducted by human kidnappers or by aliens, something else)?" feeling after reading some Unsolved Mysteries books as a kid. And then as a young adult and full-on adult I've had the Bigger Post-Trauma version of that feeling, which I will say has caused me a lot more distress (I am lucky to have friends and loved ones willing to check in with "Hey, Sage, I get why you're doing this but you're catastrophizing, you can probably chill.")

-"morbidly funny" is a good word. I'm sorry you have to carry that around with you, but glad you've found a way to carry it. (more suicide talk incoming of the "that reminds me of..." variety, if you want to skip, no sweat) It also sort of reminds me of a scene from A Single Man where the character is trying to shoot himself but can't find a comfortable angle between his head, the gun, and the pillow. I don't know if that's saved anyone's life, but it may have made them think twice about how much bother it would be -- and hitting the breaks on a suicidal impulse can be enough. Like how Jeanette Winterson credits her surviving a period of her life to the change in gas stoves in England at that time so she couldn't follow Sylvia Plath's method. Dying got too inconvenient, so she didn't do it! While I'm dumping associations, the director for the tv version of 13 Reasons Why says he deliberately chose to make the suicide scene highly distressing because he hoped it would deter people from doing something like it in real life: "This is actually really painful and inconvenient, you do not want to try it at home." In the words of Dorthy Parker's poem "Resume," "you might as well live."

-Also OCD has intersected with this discussion at some points: I'll just say that "This image is stuck in my head" can be a VERY different phrase when said by someone like me who doesn't have OCD vs someone who does. The difference in degree is like wading into a kiddie pool of cold water vs being dropped in the middle of the North Atlantic.

(Oh God help is she still going on about it--)

That post has developed some healthy discussion of what constitutes "trauma," but now I realize there's the mirror/shadow discourse that isn't being had, but could be equally clarifying, namely "What is the normal amount of emotional reaction to a book?"

[johannestevans]

for anyone who types out ofmd characters' accents in their fanfic

when you phonetically type out someone's accent in a piece of prose or fiction, i need you to understand that what you are saying, what you are showing in your work, is that:

this person's way of speaking is strange, unusual, and/or funny

this person's way of speaking is uniquely strange, unusual, and/or funny compared to the rest of the cast of characters

that you can't imagine someone speaking "with an accent" unless you're typing it out sound-by-sound

if you have a cast of characters, all of whom with their own unique accents and inflections in the way you speak, which characters do you pick to spell out their speech phonetically, and why them? why is that character The Other?

if you're doing it because you think it's funny, why is it funny? what's funny about that person's accent versus the other characters?

and to bring this back to OFMD, like

if you write Ed and/or Fang's Kiwi accents out phonetically, but you don't write out Stede's, why?

what is it about Stede's Kiwi accent that is less unusual or funny to you? bc Stede does have a posher accent than Ed and Fang, but he still has many of the same Kiwi inflections when speaking English.

think specifically about the fact that Taika Waititi and Dave Fane are Māori and Samoan, and the distinction between rural and more metropolitan NZ accents, and how race and class intersect here

when it comes to Buttons and the distinction between Scots dialect and writing an "accent", just think about what that means - are you actually using different verb and word forms (eg how Buttons uses the pronoun "ye", which is pretty common in a lot of Scottish-English and Irish-English, but isn't so common elsewhere), or are you just sounding out the words you think are funniest to imagine him saying?

do you sound out Buttons' accent, but not Wee John's? why, why not? when you listen to Wee John's accent, do you know where in Ireland he's from?

have you perhaps searched the history of Ireland, and why Ulster accents, especially Northern Irish accents, are mocked and othered in the ways that they are? especially thinking about the typical differences between how Catholic and Protestant northerners talk, and why they're mocked in very different ways? all the class and sectarian implications of that?

if you're taking the piss out of Izzy's accent, do you know literally anything about the North of England and the historical implications of that?

do you know that accents like con o'neill's, let alone ewen bremner's and kristian nairn's, are still looked poorly on by a lot of posh people and english people, to the extent that broadcasters and presenters are pressured to present themselves with more "neutral", "easier to understand", and generally "less poor", "less regional" voices?

i haven't seen anyone take the piss out of Oluwande's london accent or Frenchie's west country one, and none of Jim's, either, which is good, but like, here. ask yourself this.

when you're about to phonetically write out someone's accent, what is the history of the accent that you're pointing out as unusual or funny?

how do race and ethnicity come into it?

how does class come into it?

how does religion come into it? (i don't care if you're an atheist: religious sectarianism is a huge part of class perception, and of how people talk and their accents)

are you mocking the character's perceived lack of education? do you assume any of the characters in the show are poorly educated because of their lower class or regional accent?

are you mocking character's disabilities or signs of neurodivergence? (eg with Pete's lisp)

this applies to basically everything but like, esp in ofmd where we are blessed to see this gorgeous array of accents and styles of speaking, and then i read fic where it's like "Oh well some of these people just talk funny and i'm gonna make the whole thing about that" is uncomfortable

there's nothing wrong with commenting on accent, comparing accents and speaking styles, or having characters tease and comment on each other, etc! there's also nothing wrong with specifically phonetically spelling out one or two words when a character is commenting on it, or having certain characters notice inflections and stuff

but when you write out someone's whole accent, you're basically saying "this person just talks sooo weird compared to everyone else i have to make a whole thing" about it and. feels bad, man