#but i am ableist apparently

[maghrabiyya]

One thing I do not miss about tumblr back in the day is how you were just not allowed to disagree with popular takes or you would get dragged to filth

By disagree with I mean have another opinion, I'm not talking about people being blatantly racist, homophobic, ableist etc

Some dude on tiktok made a video calling out the official paralympics account for what they perceive as ableism

I am disabled and commented very respectfully that I disagreed, I found the content playful and lighthearted, disabled people are allowed to laugh at themselves

They dismissed my take in a very hateful manner and blocked me

I thought we left that behaviour behind in 2014?

Growth is learning to listen to differing opinions, learning that opposing views aren't necessarily a bad thing, that it is progressive to consider other ways of thinking

I did not dismiss his views, I simply shared my own interpretation

The Internet gives me grey hairs I stg

[reallygoodguacamole]

hey. don't feel bad about writing submas angst. gamefreak did that to them. exploring that space and playing in it is entirely reasonable. it makes sense to want to look at the twins' separation, and the different ways things could go after PLA/what happened to separate the two of them. just tag it, like you would anything else, and move on your happy way.

it does not make you ableist to explore canon. and hey, as an autistic adult? ive written a power fantasy where emmet gets to be unhinged with an axe! i have 5k of nonhuman ingo human emmet written up and not posted because when i was a kid i always hoped i was some fae thing and not human! my power fantasies encompass those things and so much more.

none of this is inherently ableist. emmet did not go apeshit because he is autistic- he went apeshit because the world stole the most important person out of his life and he would not let that stand. in any of the many aus i have where one twin or the other is nonhuman, it's not because they're autistic, it's because they're copying the other twin, and there's other people in the world that are also like that! it's my personal power fantasy, and I'm going to write it! it's not inherently ableist!

finally, certainly none of this is comparable to an extended hate campaign intended to wipe autistic people out of existence. don't feel bad about writing these things. tag them, make sure you're not doing it Because they're autistic. and then don't espouse any autism $peaks bullshit and you will be fine.

if you try to argue that your experience is more authentic/important than mine i will block you. please learn about competing access needs, and move on

[callie-flower]

"proship dni" this, "comship dni" that, "neutral dni" unfortunately the people you don't like are still human and deserve comfort. my fucking god shut the hell up you're just as annoying as they are and protest WAY too much about it. go unlearn your purity morality shit

[messrsrarchives]

Hiiii!!!

On your tiktok about ai (very well said btw) you said something about rp groups and i was just wondering whats bad about them?? (not all of them like you said)

Because I’ve only really seen rp groups on tumblr and I didn’t join that long ago so I don’t really know much about them

Just curious so I know what to look out for :)

OKAY SO !!! that ai video 😭😭 chat i am fighting for my LIFE 😭😭 essentially i said c.ai = bad because steal content and people decided that i am pro-grooming 😭

i did not endorse rp groups whatsoever !! like hi i have thousands of followers i don't want that responsibility if something goes wrong ! that's not on me. i refuse. i am not your parent.

SOOO roleplay groups are good!! the majority of the time they're fab but i didn't endorse them (or mention them at all) because there absolutely is the potential that you join ones that aren't good and end up being incredibly harmful. it's strangers on the internet, there's always that risk of the wrong people being in them that are bad for you whether that's mental health related or they legitimately want to cause harm to strangers online

that's the issue really, the fact that there *could* be an issue. and my video didn't mention them AT ALL and people took me saying "c.ai bad :(" as "go get groomed in a rp group"

so yk. ai and critical thought don't go hand in hand. BUT ANYWAY ! there's nothing inherently or fundamentally wrong with them, but when it comes to interacting with strangers online there will always be that risk so it's just about finding the right ones for you and taking as many precautions as possible :)

[bisexualgenderfemme]

ftr don't even get me started on my negative feelings ab the always sunny at abbot elm crossover. but suffice it to say

a) wow! that is VERY ableist towards charlie!! & honestly xenophobic or something. he DOES know how to read & write: just gaelic. speaking & reading english specifically is not the only measure of intelligence or literacy. he also is repeatedly protesting as they're forcing him into literacy intervention & infantalizing him. They say he's 'just illiterate' when he is also CANONICALLY DYSLEXIC IN ENGLISH. this 'just illiterate' is treated as a moral failing and something that must be forcibly fixed despite the grown man's protest. they treat him like a baby. they literally dress him up & parade him in front of all those children as inspiration porn. They also pretend like he could just 'learn to read' in a week & they basically just teach him to sight read from memorization this one book. it's gross. (i suspect if the always sunny gang are doing this right they actually DIDN'T have charlie fully learn to read english, he was just pretending through sight reading to get left alone or something. that's why he reads 'ghost' instead of 'guest' in the last scene.)

b) quinta brunson is literally telling people not to watch always sunny & at that point i really have to ask: why tf did you agree to do this project if you hate the other half of the equation and from what i can tell from your late night interviews didn't even watch it til you'd started producing the cross over. & for the always sunny gang. you guys didn't like. check to make sure she actually liked & wanted to participate in your content before you dedicated a full episode of an 8 ep season to a crossover? it feels like neither group respects the time of their crews or fans if so. as someone who has literally worked on tv production sets if the creator/producer/cowriter from a full one half of a production i worked on told everyone not to watch the production i worked on to literally "not to even turn it on" i'd be soooo pissed. i'd never forgive that person. not even a 'ik the crew put a lot of work into it but always sunny has some pretty dark themes so it might not be for all my viewers.' literally "i tell them not to even turn it on." WHY DID YOU WORK WITH THEM? WHY DID YOU TIE YOUR BABY TO THEM? DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW CROSSOVERS WORK? WHY WOULD YOU CROSSOVER WITH SOMETHING YOU DONT WANT PEOPLE WATCHING FROM WHAT I SUSPECT IS MORAL OUTRAGE AT ALWAYS SUNNY'S CONTENT. (not that i think it would be unfair or incorrect or anything to fucking hate alway sunny & all that it's done considering it's history with black people. but then why would you work with them??)

c) tangiential to the other two: if you don't like always sunny ofc ur not gonna b familiar enuf w/ the characters to know charlie DOES read, just not in english. & if you take these meanspirited basically cartoon characters & put them in your more realistic & grounded world & then have them be 'basically just white people' in your more realistic & grounded world, who don't really get called out or punished for their bad behavior (as is the whole thing on always sunny,) YOUR characters are gonna come across more as meanspirited assholes.

[musical-chick-13]

Okay, no, sorry, I’m still mad about this. “Be critical of the media you consume and examine why you react to it in the way that you do, support marginalized and stigmatized identities.” Yeah, until it’s about mental illness.

A woman (or even man, if he’s deemed over-emotional) makes music about suffering from mental illness and people just go, “What are they complaining about, that’s so immature, hashtag wangst.” (And then, sometimes, inexplicably, if the mentally ill woman gets better and writes happier music, they then talk about how artistically bankrupt she is now and that she should go back to hating herself.) People LOVE cis white pRoBLeMaTiC (straight) fictional men until they are realistically mentally ill, in which case they’re “whiny” and “insufferable” and deserve to die violently, apparently (or, if fandom is merciful, they’re ignored). (And then they celebrate when they DO inevitably get killed off.) “Do your duty and watch [thing I, mc13, personally find insufferable] For The (white) Gays because it has Gays.” Sure, will you watch c4 Pure, the ONLY show specifically about OCD, then? (No, the answer is no, it’s always no.)

I can’t get anyone to watch Doom Patrol. I couldn’t get people (in general-I did convince a few irl friends thank GOD) to watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. One of the most popular and acclaimed shows right now has a character with schizophrenia who was turned into the Big Bad Villain for no fucking reason. One of the most commonly-cited examples of Iconic™ queer media involves a mentally ill man being broken over and over and over again before The Ship™ can reasonably happen. DW introduced a major character who was at one point suffering from mental illness in her past, AND THEN ALL MENTION OF THIS WAS COMPLETELY DROPPED IN THE FUTURE, WITH NO BEARING ON ANYTHING TO THE POINT WHERE I FORGOT IT EVEN EXISTED??!?!? R*tched was a thing that existed despite the Sad Sympathetic Backstory treatment being IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION OF WHAT PURPOSE THIS CHARACTER SERVED IN One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. THEY GAVE. A SAD WOOBIE VILLAIN TREATMENT. TO THE /LITERAL PERSONIFICATION/ OF ABLEISM. THAT IS HER FUNCTION. TO EXIST AS A SYMBOL OF ALL THE WAYS SOCIETY OPPRESSES THE DISABLED AND MENTALLY ILL.

I am!!! Literally!!!!! The only one!!!!!!!!! Complaining about these things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one else has said ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one is talking about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[finncakes]

thinking of taking emergency comissions...my work keeps cutting my hours and i haven't been able to make it into some of the shifts i do get cause of chronic pain, meltdowns and mental health. so...i am very tight on money rn. orz

maybe lil $30 colored busts, sorta like this:

would anyone be interested?

[pinkrangerv]

Additional question:

Why is your 'heroic' mentally disabled person completely stupid, perpetually happy, naive and gullible, and spouting off 'wisdom' straight from a Chicken Soup For The Soul book?

And why is your 'villain' mentally disabled person a ruthless, self-serving monster who has no emotions, considers themselves superior to others, and prizes 'logic' that actually has so many logical fallacies that anyone with an elementary-school education can see how stupid it is?

I just think everyone should take a moment to consider the question "what is your visual shorthand for cruelty?" and then follow it up with a critical "and who taught you that?"

specific examples include but are not limited to

why is an evil timeline character design disabled? (why do the heroes go through equally punishing battles and never lose an arm, a leg, an eye?)

why are the futuristic scifi terrorists uniformly darker skinned? (why are the heroes so much lighter?)

why is the greedy boss fat? (why are the heroes skinny?)

why is the criminal mastermind heavily scarred? (why is the brooding, traumatized hero unscathed?)

why is the predatory creep a bearded person in a dress and makeup? (why are none of the heroes trans women?)

who taught you that this is how things are?

how long do you plan on repeating it?

[bagel-lox]

who is gonna bite the bullet and spend the 400+ US dollars to buy a kayama yuzo no black jack DVD for archival purposes

[just-your-average-tangerine]

I do find it amusing that my roommates section of disability twitter is under the impression that any treatment that didn't help them specifically is inherently bad and anyone who was/is helped by it is ableist.

[shhtickerbook]

CONSENT WITHIN AGE REGRESSION SPACES

So apparently this is a controversial take as when I posted about this topic on the agere subreddit, a lot of people didn’t agree which was incredibly worrying. The fact this is even considered controversial is ridiculous.

⭐️

EVEN IF AGE REGRESSION IS ENTIRELY NON SEXUAL, CONSENT IS STILL EXTREMELY IMPORTANT.

⭐️

Age regression isn’t sexual, for most it is a coping mechanism and for some people, something they may not have control over. But when we are interacting with other people and involving them in your regression, said people have every right to be able to consent whether they feel comfortable. Somebody telling you that they’re not comfortable being around somebody regressed is not them being bigoted or ableist. And consent isn’t only ever necessary in nsfw spaces.

(I am not joking this is exactly the words people said)

⭐️

Ignoring somebody when they tell you they’re not comfortable around you regressing, is extremely unfair and disrespectful. Especially if you are in a public space, where drawing such attention (such as loudly baby talking, using pacifiers etc) could possibly put yourself and other people at risk of abuse or even assault. You wouldn’t say that somebody who’s uncomfortable around real babies is a bad person because the baby can’t help being a baby. People also have the right to say they’re uncomfortable around somebody regressing, not to mention the huge amount of pressure of somebody feeling like they’re now responsible for you.

⭐️

Your regression is still YOURS to manage. We may be babies sometimes, but it’s our responsibility to still be aware of those around us. Struggle with involuntary regressing? Try keep a survival kit on yourself of discreet toys and equipment. But another thing

If your regression is to a point where you are constantly involuntarily regressing to the point where you can’t care for yourself, you may need serious medical help. Age regression is a coping mechanism, and if it’s affecting you this severely, it’s likely not healthy for you.

⭐️

So find the people in life who love engaging with your little self, and please don’t make non regressors feel like they’re bad people because they aren’t good with regression. Everybody has their boundaries and they have every right to have such! 90% of the time they don’t hate you, or even regression as a whole. It’s just not for them! Everybody’s comfort is valid, not just ours.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

[bibiana112]

eh fuck it I'm digging two graves

aaaaaaaaand I did something I shouldn't have

[cripplecharacters]

hello!! I am making a rewrite of a. Very very bad comic. Now, my MC is a disabled trans woman (knee chronic pain sustained from a pretty mundane highschool track injury, im not one to do tragic disability storylines, seeing as I’m physically disabled and that trope sucks). This ask isn’t about her, though. I’m planning to add a sort of cameo of a main character from the original comic, Shanzay (the comic spelled it Shanzey but no ethnic group actually spells it that way, so… white ass comic writer). Her original disability is caused from. Ableist trope after ableist trope. It’s not gonna come up how she was disabled, since it’s a cameo of my MC helping her and her girlfriend with furniture around their house, basically a plot device for her to tell her about the club the MC and her friends are gonna visit, which causes the main inciting incident of the story. I would, however, like to change how her disability happened, even if it comes up, because it’s REALLY handing itself over to the ablebodied gaze (essentially, perfectly vertical eye scar and cataract caused by abusive father doing unspecified thing to her eye that only her mom is traumatized by, not her apparently). If y’all can come up with either really stupid mundane accidents to cause it or a way to draw the scar so that it’s not stupid and unrealistic lmk 😅 to clarify my physical disability is POTS, and very likely but undiagnosed reproductive disabilities, so I don’t have the experience that people with half blindness or other eye related disabilities might here

Hello!

So the perfectly vertical scar is unrealistic for a couple of reasons. Main one is that very few scars are perfectly pointed in any direction, especially not traumatic ones (surgical ones might be but I'm not familiar with any procedure that leaves a vertical scar through someone's eye). Second, for the eye specifically, it just doesn't make sense anatomically (?) since eyes tend to be set deeper in the skull so that this exact thing doesn't happen - they're sitting in two big holes surrounded by bone. The third is that if someone did actually get slashed in a face with enough force to make the second point irrelevant they'd likely either die or have something much more significant happen to them (behind eye is where the brain is stored, so...). Or at least lose the eye, since the globe just got cut in half.

With this in mind, you have a few options.

A: Leave both the monocular blindness, scar, and backstory in and just make it make more sense. For example, maybe she was hit (can fit the original cause) and had an orbital fracture (can leave a scar or just general asymmetry in the area), it got infected and she started having eye problems (endogenous endophthalmitis). I'm honestly not sure how probable cataracts would be here since it's really mostly a progressive condition, but if she was to receive some sort of trauma to the lens then a cataract could form there. Just keep in mind that other things would probably happen as well, it'd be impressive to hit only one specific eye structure (whilst doing it hard enough to cause a permanent problem).

B: Leave the cataract and scar. Hell, they can be unrelated. Maybe she developed the cataract as she grew older and also had a scar from, IDK, (there really isn't anything that results in that kind of scar so cut me some slack) a laceration from some machinery that she had when she was younger and had to get it stitched up, which left a more-or-less vertical scar. Keep in mind that if she has an eyelid scar, that will affect its functioning - for example, if it sticks out, she might not be able to fully open the eyelid.

C: Leave the cataract and give her a more common kind of scar instead. This is easy since literally any scar will be more common. Some ideas; hit the forehead on the roof of a car while getting in, had a tumor that had to be removed, born with a facial cleft, got a really bad skin infection, had meningitis, boiling water fell from a stove top, needed brain surgery, born with (anterior) encephalocele, minor injury that she kept picking on and it healed poorly, family dog bit her, broken nose from getting accidentally elbowed in the face by someone, car crash where she hit the dashboard with her head, part of skin had to be removed due to skin cancer... The choice is yours. Literally anything would be more realistic and interesting (since the vertical eye scar is just treated as a visual quirk the same way a mole is rather than a Thing caused by Something most of the time and a Thing caused exclusively by swordfighting the rest of the time).

As to drawing it, you probably could make the scar either less extensive with the same severity (e.g., only shows on the brow bone and cheek) or make it more severe with the same extensiveness (it does show up on the eyelids and general eye area, but there is visible asymmetry, skin/bone indentation, ptosis, etc.).

The thing below is something I drew really quickly right now for reference, IDK how helpful it is but just be aware that the way eyes are placed in the face is designed to specifically avoid things getting into them. So if you're bypassing that, the actual structure of the face has probably been changed.

Hope this helps!

mod Sasza

[someshakespearequote]

Okay, I don't want to give airtime to assholes, but let's unpack this a little.

On the left, for the sexy way things used to be, we have:

Concept art for a Qunari woman, which was shown next to a Qunari guy wearing about as little. This didn't look like how Qunari looked in DAO! Also, this isn't actually a character! I understand that the guys making this video would prefer that women be objects of their desire rather than actual people in any capacity, but this was just an example piece!

Art for Morrigan looking like Little Red Riding Hood -- again, not actually how she looked in the game.

Leliana with a ridiculous glow-up because this is how she looked in the Urn of Sacred Ashes trailer, not in the actual game.

Isabela, okay, you got me, this one is actually an in-game asset, except that no, do not cite the DA2 ladies to me, witch. I was there when they were written. I am old enough to remember when DA2 shipped, and the spiritual ancestors of this asshole posted comments on messageboards saying that DA2 had no attractive romanceable women, because Bethany was your sister, Merrill had elven features, and Isabela was, according to these sad incels, "too exotic." I remember this because I remember saying, "If the dirty-talking sexually liberated rogue with sun-kissed skin and a lip piercing who runs around with no pants is not up to your standards, your standards are bad."

Meanwhile, on the right, for the apparent current non-sexiness, we have:

Morrigan, who a) looks great, to the point where some people are saying she should look older (not me -- give Morrigan the Cate Blanchett/Rachel Weisz "inexplicably hotter as she gets older" treatment, you go, girl); b) isn't a romance option this time; and c) is actually an in-game asset, unlike Little Red Concept Art over on the left.

Neve, using concept art that was meant to show the costume and not the attitude. Because when you see Neve in game sashaying up to you after freezing bad guys, she looks great, and when I saw the bit of her in the lighthouse with her scarf untied and her blouse unbuttoned, I legitimately forgot what the conversation was about. (And perish angry, ableist haters. People with prostheses get to be sexy, too.)

Taash, looking great. We still don't know what's going on with the whole gender deal there, but as someone who was lucky enough to take one random college elective course the same quarter that half of the varsity women's volleyball team decided to do so, if your spectrum for finding a woman hot does not include women who are tall and have muscles, then that's a you problem, not a them problem.

One random chargen Qunari, which, whatever.

Notes about people being trans, which, as with the ableism, perish angry. Trans women are women. And if Taash ends up being non-binary or some other non-cis-woman option, and that is what turns you off and not the muscles, then again, that's a you problem, not a them problem, and those of us who can like boobs even when they're on someone who isn't a cis woman will be over here with Ruby Rose and Demi Lovato.

Oddly not present on the horribly unsexy right:

Bellara, who is adorkable and also giving Neve a run for her money at "most distracting collarbones in the Lighthouse."

Harding, whose smile lights up the room in the scenes we've seen so far and who was called out by fans as someone they wanted back as a romance option after people saw her in DAI, which was before her glow-up.

Like, I understand that the ideal right thing to do is to tell these jerks that the companions of Veilguard are deep and fully realized characters, and judging them just based on which ones you wanna bang is asshole behavior... but this is a Dragon Age game. It is, as the devs once joked, a dating sim with a small "save the world" minigame you do between scenes. And by those standards, the women of Veilguard (either including Taash, or and also Taash, depending on how that goes) look fantastic. I don't know who I'm gonna romance yet, because I fall for a character more while I'm doing quests with them and getting to know them, but this is a squad with many flavors of gorgeous. Sorry it has character art that includes, you know, character and not the creepy sex doll look of one of those Steam games that includes disclaimers about everyone being of legal age and none of the girls being actually related to you.

It's not a them problem, assholes. It's a you problem.

[lonelyroommp3]

i got bollocked on reddit the other day (of course i did not overreact and delete my entire account as a consequence, that would be silly) for saying i stopped watching a particular youtuber because he would frequently do the whole “i’m not even going to try and pronounce that” thing because it always makes me think like, i’m taking 10-40 minutes out of my day to watch you talk about something because i view you as a somewhat reputable source of information, if you openly admit that you can’t even be bothered looking up how to pronounce like, a brand you’re discussing or the name of a person involved, HOW am i supposed to trust your research on anything else.

and apparently the specific person i brought this up about is dyslexic which is why i got scolded and got so embarrassed i wiped my entire presence off the website but okay. in hindsight. and do tell me if i’m being callous and grotesquely ableist here (i’m not going to dirty delete my tumblr though, you’re not getting rid of me that easily) but… i’m not entirely sure it makes that much of a difference. like i’m always quite forgiving when people mispronounce e.g. usernames where there’s not likely to be an easy guide to saying it available online, i honestly don’t even care that much if someone mispronounces something WITHOUT pointing out that they know they’re doing it bc podody’s nerfect, the english language is crazy sometimes, i think we’ve all confidently assumed a word was pronounced entirely differently to how it actually is at least once in our lives.

but when they point it out and it’s a word that other people have said out loud on god’s wide open internet i do feel like. you’re not livestreaming. you’re not being held at gunpoint forced to record this video in one take without stopping to google something. you’re doing your literal professional job of sharing information with other people, i feel like regardless of whether you are someone who habitually struggles with reading & pronunciation if you come across a word and you fully consciously acknowledge to yourself hey, i’m not sure how to say this, and it’s an important part of the narrative you are trying to share with an audience (and get paid to do so) then stopping the camera and googling it is like, the bare minimum effort you can put in?

[bonefall]

it is healing to come onto this blog and see basic respect for diasbility after being in other corners of the fandom and reading the words “snowkit could never be a warrior because he wouldnt know what anything is. he wouldnt even know what a clan is because nobody could explain it to him” said in full seriousness

Im..... That statement is so ableist I cannot even imagine the worldview you'd need to have in order to come up with that.

They really think the only way anyone learns anything is through verbal-speaking-words-noises? No one has ever observed something before? Not even once?

This is beyond touching grass, this person just fell out of the fucking Jurassic Period when all they had was ferns and stegosaurs.

I just...

OH YES. I remember my first day of Society Lessons as a hearing person, where the everything was explained to me. Via Audiobook. FIRST they spoke and said, "you are standing on the ground." It was a life changing revelation, and the world began to spin.

But it did not stop.

THEN they said, "there are fingers on your hands." The sensation of flesh and bone crackling into existence is indescribable, but I did not yet know pain, until they told me, "that hurts." I began screaming immediately.

And yet... it continued.

They explained so much. Chairs. Tables. Walls. The sky. Frogs. Ionizing radiation. Breathing. I was told all of it, in one sitting, and only then did I understand. Only when my ears were bursting with normal hearing knowledges, did they begin... my final test.

A strange wall-chair-finger emerged from the sky-of-the-wall, stood on the ground several times, until it was in front of me. A second one came behind it, this one slimmer. The audiobook gave these things names;

Human. Father. Mother. Door. Walking. It was completely impossible to know what these things were until that very moment.

I watch a human dip a hook into water and produce a fish, and I recall my Society Lessons where they called that "fishing." I am decked in the face by a nefarious hooligan, and I have only the audiobook to thank when I know I have been "punched" by a "bad guy." It was only the magic of verbal-speaking-words-noise that made me understand that there are "other people" and that they "do stuff."

Sometimes, even, in "groups."

Before the Society Lessons Audiobook, I knew nothing. I was pure, innocent, uncorrupted by concepts such as "parents" and "door." I am grateful every day that there is no such concept as "being shown things" or "simple logical reasoning" or "looking."

Blessed be those amongst us who escape the horrors of the Society Lessons Audiobook. I pray that you never learn what anything is. Be free! Free as a bird, which also knows nothing and famously cannot learn. 🤗

DEAF/HOH FOLLOWERS I'm losing my mind do you want me to bump a 'Hearing Disabilities Herb Guide' to the top of my priorities? Something you can use to bludgeon whackadoodles like that. This is ridiculous

Obviously not a MEDICINE guide but like; common causes of hearing disability in clan cats. Accommodations for hearing loss vs congenital deafness. Actual difficulties of not having that sense Clan-by-Clan. Debunking of misconceptions like... not being able to learn APPARENTLY.