#like.. i think some of the theories was better than the real

[archive-of-wax]

I don't even know where to start with my love for this post, I've literally been rereading it over and over all day. This is by far the best interpretation of Trudy's parenting I've ever seen. It really captures the complex family dynamic we see onscreen with the twins, both with their mother and each other.

It's easy to focus on Trudy's evident abuse of Bo in the opening scene, but I think this is the first time I've seen anyone really analyse her interaction with Vincent. It's also one of the few times I've seen anyone speculate about his perspective or thoughts regarding his mother and her parenting, and I think you're spot on. Vincent wasn't showered with unconditional love while Bo got constant abuse. He was smothered with overbearing attentiveness that probably caused more issues than it fixed. Helicopter parenting certainly lines up with many traits fans have inferred from Vincent's portrayal, such as perfectionism, overdependence, and an anxious disposition.

I also felt that his perception of their mother wasn't as idolised as Bo's, and would go as far as to say that during his and Bo's kitchen convo I felt a hint of...exhasperation? Even weariness. At Trudy, at Bo's idolised view of her that he seemingly can't reject out loud, maybe even the purpose of their murderplot. I always imagined his feelings towards her to be something like 'I love you but please stop I'm begging you, why are you like this, why can't you be better for us', and I feel like part of that frustration came from knowing that none of the hovering and fussing was ever really for him as much as it was for her to feel better about herself, so any conversation about his feelings on the matter would have been pointless. If not immediately dismissed it would have just caused an argument, and this family has enough of those already, right? No need to rock the boat.

I have also never seen that newspaper clipping about Victor?! Could I ask where you found it? It completely throws loads of backstory theories out the window. Your version makes the lead-up to the murderplot make so much sense too. Bo and Vincent didn't just wake up one day and choose violence for no reason, but rather the pressure slowly built up: their father passing, the mill shutting down and all the jobs disappearing, then the town's inhabitants leaving, and lastly their mother's death. I imagine they found themselves alone in their now dead hometown, feeling washed up, lacking the practical and social skills to set off on their own (Vincent in particular), grieving the most pivotal person in their lives, and fit to burst with rage at the world. With their minds already cracked from their upbringing, and nothing to lose, it's easy to imagine how one thing led to another...Maybe some lost jackass gets a little too cocky with Bo at his mechanic shop, a fight ensues, Bo doesn't quite pull his punches like he knows he should and accidentally kills him. And then all it takes is a 'Yes, I know this is bad, Vince, but listen. You know how you've been having trouble sculpting like mama used to...?'

Anyway yes all this is to say this was a fantastic read! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, hope you don't mind me going on a mad ramble on your post haha. (Also could I ask you to link that study of a similar conjoined case? I've been looking for a real life counterpart to the twins' condition and could not find one for the life of me!)

Trudy refills Vincent’s cereal. He’s 2-3 years old and blind in one eye. He doesn’t need more cereal, he just needs his bowl rotated so he can see the cereal that was left over on his blind side. Not that we necessarily know how Vincent communicates without speech, but she hardly gives him time to answer her question about more before she’s refilling the bowl anyways. This is her approach to parenting her boys in general.

There’s no interest in fixing their actual issues. Rather than help Vincent to see what he already has in front of him, she’d rather add more, inadvertently also adding more onto the side he can’t see. At some point, this would just add to the issue. Overcompensation into overwhelm. Bo is brought in for breakfast kicking and screaming and it’s sort of evident why Trudy puts all her love into Vincent to the point of it being suffocating and unhelpful. Sure it could be a simple case of favoritism, but with the aspect of overcompensation specifically, it seems that she wants to balance her guilt over failing to parent one of her sons by pouring more effort than necessary into Vincent. Rather than giving the extra attention to Bo, it’s refilling a non-empty bowl of cereal.

I don’t think that necessarily mean she loves Vincent more. She finds him easier to parent. Fill the bowl whether or not he needs it because that’s easier than unpacking where Bo’s massive emotional outbursts are coming from. It seems more like love-bombing than genuine kindness. He’s “being such a good boy today,” but the implied part is an unsaid comparison to Bo. As twins, and conjoined twins at that, they’re not independent of each other. Vincent’s behavior exists only to contrast Bo’s, from her perspective. “Fix” his needs, and she can fix them both. Hence, preferring just to duct tape Bo to a chair than help him any.

Then Vincent grows up to become her protege, starting in his childhood but lasting until even after Trudy’s death. Over thirty years have passed since they were toddlers in those high chairs, but Bo gives a hint about why Vince got that ‘special privilege’ to not be as physically abused. “She always said that your talent would make up for what God took away from you.” Only, God didn’t take anything. Victor Sinclair doing illegal, unqualified surgery on his babies is why Vincent lost half of his face. Trudy only uses God’s name and religion as a shield for her own guilt about how her boys turned out. But it’s more likely she included Vincent in the wax business because she again, was dumping affection onto him over and over as her strategy.

Otherwise there isn’t as much favoritism between the boys. In their childhood photos, they both play piano, both play pool and baseball, both get to sit at the table with their birthday cake (without highchairs or bindings) and they play on the floor together. It's not entirely divisive between them, though it’s still obvious from which brother she’s slapping across his face and which brother she’s love-bombing which she’d prefer to deal with. Just not which she actually cares for more. Vincent wasn’t somehow spared from abuse in a house like the Sinclair household.

Interestingly, when Bo tells the story of Trudy and Victor, he mentions that once the Doc died, they were alone. Except, there’s at least one version of a prop newspaper stating that Trudy created a wax memorial for Victor. So this is just a false version of events most likely. Sure it could be that a decision changed, but there’s also the fact that, in the guns and ammo store, there’s a sign that says “Trudy’s Town or Wax.” And Bo tells Vincent, “We almost finished what mama started.” She’s also much older than the Trudy we see in the family photos and articles (even with the amount of cigarettes that woman smoked.) Ambrose is confirmed to have been abandoned for a decade, but to be turned into wax, Trudy would’ve had to die sometime between the abandonment of Ambrose and the present. Else she would’ve been properly buried most likely. The plan to fill Ambrose was hers, it’s just Bo that suggests using real humans (according to his apology to Vincent, he takes credit for the idea anyhow.)

Which makes her boys at least in their mid twenties when she died. In an older version of the script, Bo had killed her and Victor, but knowing it would put them all in foster care, that doesn’t quite make sense unless they were older. So the order of events is, Doc dying, the sugar mill closing, Trudy planning to reimagine Ambrose, and then dying herself.

The reason that’s important is because it’s emblematic of just how much pressure she was putting on both of her boys. And that’s not love. With two mentally ill, abused sons, (maybe three, since Lord only knows how they treated Lester once he came along,) that’s just manipulation. Victor and Trudy aren’t cartoon super villains for being bad to their boys. But when you can’t even just rotate a bowl slightly for your half blind little one, it’s shallow. Trudy has her cigarettes right in the boys faces in the opening and in most of the photos. Smoking was in one study linked to about 1/3rd of conjoined pregnancies, and in a similar case of conjoinment to the boys, one of the twins had lost an eye and had a prosthetic, but with minimal scarring because of the surgery being done in an actual legal hospital. It’s not about God taking anything, or about which is a little monsted and which is a very good boy- it’s about Trudy and Victor both messing up from the very beginning and causing the boys losses, then refusing to take accountability for it. Or, in the symbolic sense, to just do the right thing and turn a damn bowl of cheerios towards your blind kid.

[narrativeats]

[camzverse]

wish some of u were into typology id love to know how youd type some fnaf chars so bad

[starlooove]

Do ppl genuinely think jinx blew up the council for the liberation of zaun

[unforgivingchorus]

I can’t read wings au fics very often despite loving them because the adhd/autism hits and I inevitably find myself reading about birds instead

[alphascorpiixx]

can’t believe there’s a possibility of totk confirming a timeline theory I had after botw’s release but it’s happening at a time where I have decided I don’t care about the timeline anymore

[stillgeekingout]

#it's very strange #because i often feel like the culmination of those characters arcs #like if the point is they're ace great but like... #the option of lesbianism just *never* occurs #which--and again not to discredit any ace people or ace readings of her work--is such a common lesbian experience! #like myself and a bunch of other lesbians i know had that journey #of going 'hmm i don't like men... guess I'm asexual! (do not ask me about women i will combust)' #like lady bird... whatever #little women... alright i suppose if you wanted to make a comentary on how lma was forced to add the heterosexual romance at the end #and not suggest anything about a real person and also not deviate from the source material #but barbie was insane #the coding was next level #like c'mon birkenstocks??? #and i argue that barbies acceptance of genitalia could be read as an acceptance of sexuality or the very least exploring it #so why isn't she a dyke??? (other than mattel probably giving a hard no on that)

I don’t know, the thing that really bothers me about Greta Gerwig’s films is that there is just this gaping hole where gay women should be. Like, when you’re making these movies about the trap of heterosexual marriage, breaking free of that, and the only concrete answer is to be a single woman over and over and over again, it feels like an intentional absence. You can watch the movie with a queer lens, but it is egregious that you may only consider homosexuality in her movies in this way. It ought to be in them. There is no reason for it not to be there. Women don’t fuck women in Greta Gerwig’s feminist liberations. Often, they don’t have sex at all.

[theonlyadawong]

reading people reviews of home movie and either im a genius and im the only one in the world who understands this movie or im an idiot and everyone else understood the movie and i didnt

[cy-cyborg]

Disability Tropes: The Perfect Prosthetic

[ID: A screenshot from the movie Nimona, showing Nimona, a small white girl with red hair, grabbing the right prosthetic arm of Ballister, a knight in black armour with black hair and light brown skin. He is holding a broken bottle in his prosthetic hand while Nimona admires his arm. Overlaid on the screenshot is white text that reads "Disability Tropes: The Perfect Prosthetic" /End ID]

In a lot of media, prosthetic limbs are portrayed as these devices that act as a near-perfect replacement for a character who has lost, or was born without a limb. So much so that in a lot of cases, the use of a prosthetic has basically no impact on the character beyond a superficial level or their appearance, or it's portrayed as something that's even better than the old meat-limb it's replacing. This trope shows up most often in Sci-fi, but it shows up in all kinds of stories outside of that, even otherwise very grounded ones!

If a story isn't depicting the loss of a limb as the be-all-end-all worst thing that can happen to a person, they almost always default to a perfect prosthetic, functionally curing the amputation with it. But the reality is that prosthetics are FAR from perfect, and as someone who has used them for their entire life I don't think they ever will be. Limb difference is still and always will be a disability, regardless of the prosthetics available, and this really isn't a bad thing.

Why is this trope so common?

I meant it when I said this is a really, really a common trope, so much so that the majority of the media I've seen with amputees and characters with limb differences that released in the last decade or end up using it. Even stories where becoming an amputee is treated like a fate worse than death, ironically, aren't excluded from this. I have a few theories as to why this has happened: The pessimistic answer is that it's easy. You get to have a disabled character and claim you have disability representation, without really having to do much extra work or research because most of your audience won't notice if you aren't accurate - in fact they kind of expect it. You also, for the most part, dodge the backlash other kinds of disability representation (or really any minority representation) usually get. The more optimistic reason is that, for a long time, amputees and people with limb differences (as well as a lot of other disabled people) were predominantly shown in media as sad, depressed and unable to do anything, very much falling into the "sad disabled person" trope. As a kid, this was really the only way I saw people like me on screen or in books. And so, the limb difference community pushed back against that portrayal and were pretty successful in changing the narrative in the public's eye. A little too successful. A lot of creatives were genuinely trying to do right by our community, listen and do better, but many simply overcorrected and instead ended up creating stories where prosthetics were essentially cures instead of the mobility aids they are. I also think the public's general lack of understanding about disability plays a roll in all this. There are a lot of people who, in my experience, believe that the more visible a disability is, the worse it is. Limb differences and amputations are very visible, but prosthetics, even those that aren't trying to be discreet, make them less so. While using a prosthetic is very, very different to a biological limb, you won't necessarily see how in a casual interaction with, say a co-worker or neighbor, especially because there is a very real stigma applied to people with limb differences to keep those things hidden from the public. There are other reasons too, such as the fact that a lot of creatives don't even consider the connection to real amputees when creating characters with robotic limbs in genres like sci-fi and some fantasy, so they never stop to consider that these tropes could be impacting real people. Amputees are also very frequently used in "inspiration porn" content that uses the angle that disabilities can be "overcome" with a good attitude, downplaying the way those disabilities actually impact us. The prosthetics industry - specifically the component manufacturers, often also push the idea of prosthetics being the only way to return to a "normal" life, both to the wider public and to people with limb differences and amputations (which can add to that sense of shame I mentioned when it doesn't play out that way for them). On top of that, I also think the recent increase in popularity of concepts like trans-humanism contributes to it as well. these movements often talk about robotic or bionic body parts being enhancements and "the way of the future", and I think people get a bit too caught up on what may be potentially possible in the future with the real, current experiences of people with "robotic limbs" aka prosthetics, now. There are also inherently disabling things that come with removing and replacing parts of your body, things that will not just go away with some fancier tech.

So How do you actually avoid the trope?

So, we have some ideas about why it happens, but how do you actually avoid the "perfect prosthetic" trope from appearing in your work? The most important thing is to remember that this is still a disability. The loss of a limb, even with the best prosthetic technology or magical item in the world, will always have some inherently disabling aspects to it - and this is not a bad thing. The key is to not over-do it, lest you risk falling into the old "sad disabled person" trope. So let's go over some of the ways you can show how your character's disability impacts them. You don't have to use all of these recommendations, just choose the ones that would best fit your character, their circumstances and your setting.

The prosthetic itself is just different

Probably the most important thing to address and acknowledge for prosthetic-using characters, is the actual ways in which the prosthetic itself is different from a biological limb, and the drawbacks and changes that come with that. For the sake of simplicity, I'm mainly going to focus on modern prosthetics here, but it's worth considering how to apply this your own, more advanced/fantastical prosthetics too. One major thing that most people writing amputees fail to acknowledge is that prosthetic limbs are not fleshy-limbs with a different coat of paint. They do the same basic thing their meat-counterparts do, but how they do it is often drastically different, which changes how they are used. A really good example of this is in prosthetic feet. There are dozens of joints in a biological foot, but most prosthetic feet have no joints or moving parts at all. Instead of having dozens of artificial joints to mimic the real bone structure of a foot, which are more prone to failure, require power and make the prosthetic much, much heavier for very little gain, prosthetic feet are often constructed from flexible carbon fiber sheets inside a flexible rubber foot-shaped shell. This allows the bend and flex those bones provide, without all the drawbacks that come from trying to directly mimic it. Making the sheets into different shapes makes them more ideal for different activities. E.g. feet made for general use, like walking around the city, are simple and light, shaped to encourage the most energy-efficient steps, while still allowing their users to do things like wear normal shoes. Feet made for rough terrain often have a split down the middle of the foot to allow the carbon fiber sheets to bend better over rocks when there is no ankle, and some newer designs also include a kind of suspension using pressurized air pulled from the prosthetic socket to allow some additional padding. Running feet have large "blades" made of these carbon fiber sheets to absorb more pressure when the foot hits the ground, and redirect the force that creates to propel their user forward as quickly as possible.

[ID: A photo of 4 prosthetic feet. On the left, the foot is covered with a black shoe, the one to it's right consists of a small, carbon fiber blade, split down the middle, in roughly the same shape and size as the previous foot. Next to the right is an even simpler and smaller carbon fiber foot with no split, and finally is a very short foot that is vaguely rectangular in shape. /End ID]

These are some of my own prosthetic feet I've had over the years. The two on the right are designed to be used by someone who is less mobile, and the ones on the left are made for someone who is more active. As my needs changed over the years, I've used different designs and styles, and keep the old ones since my needs do tend to fluctuate.

There are also robotic feet available that are designed as a kind of "all-purpose" foot that use an electronic ankle which more closely mimics a biological foot, but they are not very popular as the mechanism adds a lot of extra weight and it requires a battery and power to work, with many amputees feeling the jointless carbon fiber feet do a better job at meeting their needs. The same goes for arms and hands. "Robotic" hands that mimic a meat hand exist, but they aren't really that popular, even in places like Australia where the prohibitively expensive price tag isn't as much of an issue due to government programs that pay for the device for you. Instead, most arm amputees who use prosthetics that I know prefer simpler devices that do specific tasks, and just swap between them as needed, rather than something that tries to do it all. A big part of this is because the all-purpose hands can be clunky. they often require manual adjustment using the other hand to do simple things like going from holding a deck of cards to putting them down and picking up a glass of water, for example. The few that don't require that, I've been told, are often temperamental and don't actually work for every person with a limb difference.

Altered Proprioception

Loosing a limb is a big deal and this is always going to have an impact on the body in some way that won't be solved with a fancy piece of tech. One such example is how limb loss effects your sense of proprioception. This is your sense of where your body parts are in space. It's how you (mostly) know where your foot is going to land when you're walking, or how you're able to do things like lift up a glass of water without needing to actually watch your hand do it. Your brain does this by creating a mental map of your body, but this map doesn't get adjusted if you loose a limb. If that map doesn't accurately reflect your real body, you're not going to have an accurate sense of proprioception. This might look like a leg amputee being a bit less stable on their feet, or like an arm amputee needing to look at their arm or hand to be able to grab something with it. Those born without their limbs who take to using prosthetics often have a lot of trouble adapting, as their brains aren't used to having that limb in the first place, whereas an amputee's brain can sometimes be tricked into using their outdated body map to help them adjust to the prosthetic (though its impossible to line it up perfectly). Prosthetics that directly integrate with the nervous system, while rare, do exist, and even this direct connection doesn't completely erase this issue for reasons doctors aren't quite sure about. This is something that does become less of a problem with time. Eventually, someone proficient with their prosthetic will learn to compensate, but their sense of proprioception will never be 100% perfect. At the end of the day, no matter how it attaches, a prosthetic is still not a natural part of the body, and that will always cause some issues. It also means if they aren't practicing it all the time, they may have to relearn how to compensate for it.

Extra weight

You also have to remember that a prosthetic is not a natural part of the body, like we already talked about, and so no matter how good it is, your brain will most likely always interpret the weight of the prosthetic as something attached to you, not part of you. This means that, even though prosthetics are actually a lot lighter than biological limbs, they feel so much heavier. This is because, while a meat limb is heavier, a lot of that weight is from muscles which are actively contributing to the limb working, so it doesn't really feel like its that heavy. When you have less of your meat-limb though, you have even less muscle to work with to move this big thing strapped to it, so it feels heavier. The more of the limb you've lost, or just didn't have, the heavier the prosthetic has to be, and the less muscle you have left to move it. It's for this reason that a lot of amputees and people with limb differences get tired faster when using prosthetics. Some of us are fit enough where you almost wouldn't notice the extra effort they need to put in, but once again, just because you can't see it from the outside, doesn't mean it's not an issue.

Avoiding Water

Most prosthetics also aren't waterproof, and so prosthetic users have to be very careful about when and how they come into contact with it. For amputees with electric components, contact with water at all will likely damage the device. This can even include especially heavy rain, something I was told to avoid when I got my electronic knee prosthetic and something I assume would also apply to arm amputees with complex, electronic hands. For those with non-electronic prosthetics, water can be hazardous for different reasons. If the prosthetic has metal components, water may cause them to rust, especially if it's salty water. Other prosthetics have foam covers to give the illusion of a limb with the general shape of muscles and fat, but these covers do not come off, and if they get wet enough that water seeps all the way through, it is very hard to dry it and they may become moldy. Finally, cheaper modern prosthetics may also float. Many are made of very light-weight materials and some have pockets of air trapped inside them. For leg prosthetics in particular, this means a user might, at best, struggle to swim with them on, but at worst, may get flipped upside down and become trapped underwater - something that happened to me as a very young child. On the flip-side, older prosthetics were usually made of heavy materials like wood or steel, and so had the opposite problem, acting like a weight and pulling a person down if they were to wear them in the water. Water-safe prosthetics do exist, I had a pair of prosthetic legs as a teenager that were hollow, and designed especially for me to swim with fins on when swimming in the ocean, and Nadya Vessey, a double leg amputee in New Zealand even got a mermaid-tail prosthetic made especially for use in the water. Most amputees though just swim without any prosthetics at all, and in 99% of cases, this is the easiest and safest way to go.

Prosthetic-Related Pressure Sores and Pain

Many people with limb differences also experience pressure sores from their prosthetics. Modern prosthetics typically attach to the body using a socket made of carbon fiber or fiberglass, held on either by pressure, using a vacuum seal or through a mechanical locking system built into the socket. No matter the specifics though, the socket has to be very tight in order to stay on, and this means that extended periods of use can lead to rub-spots, blisters and pressure sores. Many socket prosthetics also use silicone liners to add extra padding, but this means wounds caused by the pressure can't breathe, and bacteria in sweat has nowhere to go, meaning if the person doesn't rest when one of these wounds occur, it can very easily and quickly turn into a serious infection. In a properly fitting prosthetic, used by someone who has fully adjusted to them, this doesn't happen often, but it is something most amputees and people with limb differences have to at least be mindful of. Some new prosthetics use a different method of attachment, called Osteointegration - where the prosthetic attaches to a clip, surgically implanted into the person's bones. While Osteointegration avoids many of the issues like pressure sores that come from a socket, they have their own issues: mainly that they are incredibly expensive, and as of right now, have a pretty high failure rate due to the implant getting infected. Because the implants are directly connected to the bone, these infections become very serious very quickly. Many people with Osteointegration limbs have to be on very strong medication to keep these infections at bay, and they are generally considered unsuitable for anyone who is going to regularly come into contact with "unclean" environments.

Maintenance

[ID: A screenshot of Winrey, from Full Metal alchemist Brotherhood, a white woman with blond hair handing out the sides of a green hat. She is measuring a piece of metal from a prosthetic she is making while Ed, the prosthetic's owner, gives her a thumbs up in the background. /End ID]

Finally, prosthetics also require maintenance from a specialist called a prosthetist, and they don't last forever. Some parts, like a foot or hand, can be reused over an over, but the sockets of a prosthetic need to be completely remade any time your body changes shape, including if you gain/loose weight, you start experiencing swelling, or you're just a child who is growing. Children in particular need new prosthetics every few months because they grow so fast, and as such, their prosthetics have to be made with this growth in mind. If they go too long without adjustment or an entirely new prosthetic, it can seriously impact the child and their growth but even small adjustments can be costly, depending on where you live. While prosthetics are built to be sturdy and reliable, they need a lot of work to stay that way. The more complex the prosthetic, the more work is needed. Complicated electronic components may need to have regular maintenance done by your prosthetist or even the specific component's manufacturer, and depending on where you live, this might mean having to send your prosthetic limb away for this to be done. While my prosthetist technically has the skills and knowledge to do the maintenance on my electronic knee, for example, the manufacturer forbids anyone not from their company to provide this service, meaning my leg needs to be shipped off to Germany once every few years if I want to keep the warranty. This has the unfortunate side effect of sometimes your limbs getting lost in postage (shout-out to Australia Post, who lost mine twice), meaning it can be months before you get it back or get a replacement. Usually, you'll be given a replacement in the meantime if you need it, but walking on a leg that isn't yours, even when its correctly fitted, always feels a bit weird (maybe that's just me though).

Not every difference is Inherently Negative

We've talked about some of the negatives that come from having a prosthetic, but not every difference is negative or even really that big of a deal. In fact, often times, it's these little moments in the depiction of a disability that go the furthest and make it feel the most genuine. My amputations effect me from the moment I wake up, to the moment I go to bed, but that doesn't mean every single way it impacts me is always inherently bad or negative. For example, back when I was working a normal job and going to university, I would often come home, throw my legs off at the door with the shoes still attached and get into my wheelchair, the same way you might throw your shoes off after work and replace them with comfy socks and other comfy clothing. This is something I've only ever seen on screen once, with Eda from the Owl House (and she wasn't even an amputee yet, her limbs were just detachable)

[ID: an screenshot of Eda from the owl house, a very pale woman, laying on the couch in a bathrobe, her hair in a towel. She has taken her actual legs off, throwing them to the other side of the seat. /End ID]

After that, my day mostly looked the same as most other people working a 9 to 5, I'd make myself dinner, watch some TV or play some games, maybe do some extra work at my desk or chat with friends. The only difference is that it would all be from a wheelchair, mainly because my prosthetics were heavy and it was just easier to use the chair around the house. The fact my afternoon and evening routine was done from a wheelchair wasn't a bad thing, it was just different. Likewise, I also don't sleep or shower with my prosthetics on, for the same reasons most other people wouldn't take a shower or sleep in thigh-high, steel-capped boots. In your own stories, this might look like giving your characters similar alterations to how they go about their day. Let them take their arm or leg off when they're resting or relaxing, show them taking a few minutes longer to get ready because they have to put it back on, show them doing some things without it. Arm amputees in particular tend to get very good at going about their days without their arm prosthetics, and leg amputees often either learn to get around more relaxed spaces like their homes using a different mobility aids like wheelchairs or crutches, or just through hopping if that's something they're physically able to do. Even when everything is going well and working as intended, your limb-different character won't wear their prosthetic 24/7, no matter how much they love it. There doesn't have to be something wrong with it or painful about it to not want it glued to them at all times, just like you can love a pair of big heavy boots but not want them on when you're trying to sleep. For more action-focused stories, being an amputee, also changes things like how you fight. The specifics will vary from person to person, but for example, when I did Hap Ki Do, a Korean Martial art, my instructor heavily modified when I learned what techniques. Beginner-level kicks and most leg attacks were impractical for me, as the force from the kicking motion would usually cause one of my legs to fly off. I also couldn't jump very well, due to some complications with my original amputation that made my stumps too sensitive to withstand the force of landing again. So I ended up learning a lot more upper-body attacks much earlier than it is typically taught. By the time I got my green belt, I was practicing upper-body techniques usually saved for black belts - including weapons training that I could use my secondary mobility aids for, like crutches and my cane in a bad situation. Many holds that rely on creating tension in your target are also less effective on amputees, because either the anatomy that causes those holds to be painful just simply isn't there, or the body part in question can just be removed to escape. Whether we're talking about the negative things, or just neutral differences that come with using prosthetics, you don't want to go too far with any one example. The key is to strike a balance. Of course, the old writing advice of "show don't tell" also applies here. It's one thing to tell us all of this stuff, but unless we actually see it play out, it won't mean much.

How NOT to avoid the trope

Before we move on, let's focus for a moment on some common things I've seen that you SHOULDN'T do as a way to get away from the trope.

The Enhanced Prosthetic

A lot of sci-fi in particular will take prosthetic limbs, make them function exactly the same as a biological limb, but add something extra to it. This does change the way the prosthetic functions and is used, but it usually still ignores the actual disabling parts of having a prosthetic. A really good example of this can be seen in pretty much any futuristic setting, but personally, I think Fizzeroli, from Helluva Boss is the best one to demonstrate what I mean. Fizz is a quadrilateral, above knee/above elbow amputee with highly advanced prosthetics that function, more or less exactly like the limbs he lost, but with the added benefit of being super-stretchy. Fizz is an acrobat and a clown in service, at least initially, to Mammon, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. These prosthetics help him perform and we even do see how they change little things like how he walks and just goes about his day, but the show still treats them like natural arms and legs, but better. 

[ID: A screenshot of Fizzeroli from Helluva Boss, a white-skinned imp with 4 black, prosthetic limbs, dressed in teal a nightgown as he lays in bed, reading from a list /End ID]

We see that he never takes them off, even when sleeping, and when he needs to use them as regular arms and legs, they do everything he needs, perfectly fine - at least when they're working correctly. The only time he ever even takes them off or has any issues with them, is when they break in season 2. The word amputee is never used to describe him, as far as I remember, and the fact he is one never really comes up at all, except for when they break or when the story focuses on how he lost them. Which brings me to my next point.

The Glitchy/Broken Prosthetic

One way I see people try to avoid the perfect prosthetic trope, is to take the prosthetic and break it or otherwise make it unreliable by having it malfunction, but not really changing anything else. This approach is heading in the right direction but still kind of misses the point of the criticism a lot of limb different folks have with the depictions of prosthetics in the media. Yeah, prosthetics do break down and some do require extra maintenance, but if your character's prosthetic is still exactly the same as a biological limb (or even better, in the case of the "enhanced prosthetic") when it's not broken, and the only time their disability is treated like a disability, is when it breaks, you're not really addressing the issue. Real prosthetics, like we discussed, even when functioning at 100%, exactly as the manufacturer intended, don't function the same as a meat-limb. They are fundamentally different, and the glitchy/unreliable prosthetic completely ignores all of that. Once again, Fizz is a really good example of this - the only time his prosthetics are not perfect, is when they break or are malfunctioning (despite the criticism, I do genuinely love Fizz as a character, but he unfortunately does fall into a lot of disability tropes).

[ID: Another screenshot of Fizzeroli, this time in a torn up jester outfit, looking down, panicked, at his prosthetic arms which are fully extended and laying motionless on the ground, with his left arm visibly short-circuiting with electricity around it. /End ID]

Now this isn't to say you can't have your character's prosthetics break down or malfunction at all. just that this shouldn't be the only way you differentiate the prosthetic from a biological limb. You should also be mindful of how or why they're breaking. A typical prosthetic isn't going to break down randomly from normal use unless something is very, very wrong or your character just has a terrible prosthetist (which unfortunately, does happen). You might experience issues if you try to make the prosthetic do something it just wasn't designed to do, or expose it to something it wasn't designed to deal with though (e.g. submerging an electronic prosthetic in water and trying to use it to swim).

Just add Phantom Pain

Another common pitfall I see when people are trying to avoid the perfect prosthetic trope, is to just give the character in question phantom pain - which is a side-effect of amputation where your brain's mental map of the body doesn't acknowledged you lost a limb. Your brain tries to fill in the gaps, since there is no signals coming from that part of the body anymore, and assumes either something must be wrong and so you should be in pain, even when you actually aren't. Alternatively, it can also happen when your brain was so used to feeling pain from that area before, in the case of people who had chronic conditions before they lost their limb, that it just keeps remaking those old signals itself. Like the broken/glitchy prosthetic approach, this also doesn't really address the issue with the perfect prosthetic trope, because it has nothing to do with the prosthetic itself. Phantom pain doesn't come from the prosthetic, nor does it effect how they're used, and so including it doesn't really address the issue of the prosthetic being functionally the same as the original, biological limb. This isn't to say that you shouldn't include phantom limb sensation or pain as something your character experiences, but just keep in mind that, when used on it's own, it doesn't counter the trope. Also, just be sure to do your research, everyone's experience with phantom pain is different and it's not something everyone with a limb difference even experiences.

Why is this trope even a problem?

Alright, so we know what the trope is, we know why it became so prevalent, ways to avoid it and also how not to avoid it. All good information, but why is this trope even bad? Why should you try to avoid it? Outside of just wanting to portray a real disability that effects real people more accurately in your creations, the prevalence of this trope actually contributes to a lot of real-world issues, especially when it's as overused as it currently is. I've talked before about "the jaws effect" - where the depiction of something in the media, especially something that the public is widely uneducated on, influences how people see it in real life. The Jaws effect specifically referred to how the popularity of creature-feature movies featuring sharks, like Jaws, caused the belief that sharks were monstrous killing machines to become much more wide-spread, even going so far as to influence decisions about laws and policy surrounding real-life shark preservation and culling in some parts of the world. But sharks aren't the only thing this has happened to.

Disabled people are so thoroughly misunderstood by wider society, that when tropes like this one become popular, people can and often do start to believe the misinformation they spread - in this case, believing that our prosthetics are a perfect replacement for a biological limb, and that getting a prosthetic means you're not disabled any more. While this can be annoying and cause small scale issues for some of us, like people giving us a hard time for using disability accommodations we very much need, it can also impact us in systemic ways too. If the wrong people believe these tropes, it can and does have a very real impact on the lives of disabled people through things like changes to policies to make it harder for amputees and people with limb differences to access financial assistance for other things outside of our prosthetics we may need assistance with.

Conclusion

Despite the very real harm tropes like this can do when it's overused, I don't think it should go away entirely. Some of my favourite pieces of media even use the perfect prosthetic trope and there are even some kinds of media where I even think it's somewhat unavoidable. Characters with perfect prosthetics in kids media in particular, especially when talking about side characters, can help to correct some of the other stereotypes kids may have seen elsewhere - such as prosthetics being "creepy" or "scary" - in a way that is casual and easy for them to understand. The problem with the trope, in my eyes, is it's excessive overuse. It's the fact that it seems to be the only representation amputees and people with limb differences are getting now. Not every story with a limb-different character can or even should delve into the reality of what using prosthetics is actually like, but we need at least some stories that do, without it being this majorly depressing thing.

[creature-wizard]

Continuing on the topic of connection being not a feeling, but a rather a set of circumstances in which you are engaging and participating, I think a lot of people out there just don't realize how dangerous the way many of us have been taught to think of feelings in relation to spirituality really is.

Like Zan pointed out, Evangelical Christians are taught that positive emotions are actually the Lord moving through them, rather than their own personal reactions to their experiences. Meanwhile, Evangelical church services are deliberately engineered to elicit these kinds of of feelings in people. It's pure emotional manipulation.

Similar ideas are found in New Age spirituality, where "spiritual discernment" is frequently boiled down to "does it make me feel good or not?" People are taught to evaluate politically charged information based on whether it, for lack of a better term, sparks joy. Now, determining whether or not something sparks joy is a wonderful way to decide whether you want to keep your old tea kettle, but here we're talking about information that people will base crucial personal and political choices on.

Meanwhile, New Age influencers do everything they can to make sure they're sparking joy for you. Let's take Paul White Gold Eagle, for example. His videos are constantly talking about things that sound exciting, like messages from archangels, dragons of light, and emerald transmissions. This type of baiting - joybaiting, I'll call it - is meant to hook you emotionally and make you think that this has to be true because it elicits that oooough, shiny reaction. Next thing you know, you've been joybaited into falling down the conspirituality pipeline and you believe some version of QAnon's conspiracy theories.

This kind of thinking is even dangerous in pagan circles. You find yourself thinking about a thing and noticing a lot? You feel an intense pull to study it? You'll find people out there telling you that you have a spiritual connection to it, like, maybe you were part of it in a past life. And maybe you go and get a past life reading, or even undergo hypnosis. And now you, the whitest gal in the surburb with zero familial connections to any Native people, feel entitled to appropriate some form of Native spirituality because you felt fascination with it, or what you thought it was, and now you're contributing to white sage decimation and spreading around some sort of Native-flavored form of neopaganism as if it's actual Native spirituality.

Or maybe you fall in with a neopagan cult leader who uses your fascination to convince you that you knew each other in a past life, and you were led to them in this life so you could continue some important work in this life, and they pull you completely into their bullshit.

Finally, it's dangerous because it encourages stalkers. A lot of stalkers are people with incredibly powerful fixations on others. These types of beliefs get them convinced that their victims are actually their soulmates or twin flames or whathaveyou, and make them feel justified in engaging in stalking behavior.

All of this is why it's important to recognize that connection is a circumstance, not a feeling. Your feelings are utterly irrelevant to whether you are actually connected. What most people take for "feeling connected" is literally just fascination or fixation, maybe reinforced by the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. Real connection is something you cultivate and build, and it does not exist outside of your actual, physical engagement and participation.

[aeide-thea]

like, okay, to walk my own talk and do a little fact-checking—here’s a review of hari’s book stolen focus by uk psychologist and academic stuart ritchie, with whom i strongly suspect i've got some political bones to pick, published on unherd, a platform with which i know i’ve got some political bones to pick (tl;dr transphobia ahoy!), but ritchie’s approach and analysis here seem pretty reasonable:

[T]he phenomenon Hari addresses — the feeling that, with so many distractions around in the modern, online-centric world, it’s harder than ever to focus — is one many of us experience. Hari says that he and almost everyone around him feels this way, and describes a several-months-long “digital detox”, where he went to live in a small town on Cape Cod with no smartphone and no internet.

But that’s all anecdotal: does Hari actually present any evidence that shortening attention spans is a society-wide problem? […] It’s not until more than halfway through the book, page 176, that Hari drops what should be a bombshell: “We don’t have any long-term studies tracking changes in people’s ability to focus over time.” In other words, he quietly admits that there isn’t really any strong scientific evidence for the main thesis of the book.

more specifics are under the cut, for anyone who doesn’t feel like giving unherd more traffic (i’m right there with you!), but i do want to highlight the conclusion of the article, which is cutting but seems essentially correct to me:

[T]his is a writer who’s shown himself again and again to be either untrustworthy, unoriginal, or uninformed. If he’s right to say that our moments of focus are becoming ever-more precious, isn’t it time we started paying attention to someone — anyone — else?

and the further pullquotes i promised above:

Most of the book is dedicated to the causes of our collective attentional problems. The first is, unoriginally, social media. Isn’t it very revealing, Hari writes, that there’s no button on Facebook that you can press to help you meet up with your friends in person? Facebook won’t, he says, “alert you to the physical proximity of somebody you might want to see in the real world”. Hari explains that the whole business model of social media precludes the encouragement of joys like looking your friends in the eye or giving them a hug, and instead is based on keeping you fixated on your screen, scrolling endlessly, never leaving the house.

Except Facebook does have exactly the feature that Hari claims doesn’t (and couldn’t) exist. It’s called “Nearby Friends”. It gives you a little map of where your friends are physically at that moment (if they have opted in). It’s been available since 2014. A two-second Google search would have enlightened Hari. Maybe he wrote that part of the book while he was in internet-free isolation.

[…]

[M]any of the other causes Hari identifies are rehashings of previous pop-science and pop-psychology books: we aren’t sleeping enough (Why We Sleep); kids don’t play outdoors any more (Free Range Kids and The Coddling of the American Mind); we don’t eat the right foods (a million diet books). Of course, it’s not a crime to write a book that doesn’t provide any new information. But Hari’s irritating, breathless style turns every single fact he “discovers” into a startling revelation, every single expert he speaks to into the absolute best in the world. Hari’s research — a series of interviews for a pop-psychology book — becomes an intense, globetrotting journey of personal discovery. His mind is so often blown that it’s little wonder it has such difficulty in paying attention.

It’s not just that Hari thinks he’s discovered earth-shaking new information. (As Dean Burnett wrote of Lost Connections, Hari “repeatedly presents well-known concepts and ideas … as fringe concepts that he’s discovered through his own efforts”.) He also thinks he’s a hard-nosed scientific truth-seeker. At the start of the book, he solemnly assures us that: “I studied social and political sciences at Cambridge University, where I got a rigorous training in how to read the studies these scientists publish [and] how to assess the evidence they put forward”.

What makes this risible isn’t just that he’s touting his undergraduate degree as if it makes him an expert (a fairly substantial proportion of the population also have one). It’s that Stolen Focus exhibits no talent for assessing evidence. A few times there’s a small concession to a flaw in a study, or to the fact that scientists disagree on a point — but Hari fails to add any of the necessary uncertainty to his argument. After a cursory mention of the “other side,” he usually just blunders on regardless, assuming his argument is right.

ALT

Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen by Johann Hari

[lullxby]

THEODORE NOTT LISTENING TO RAVENCLAW READER WARM UP TO HIM AND LETTING HER RANT ABOUT HER BOOK TO HIM PLEASE IM BEGGING🙏🙏

—🏍️ (if thats taken? idk lmao)

⋆ ˚｡⋆���୧˚ WHIPPED (t.n.)

summary : in which a boy is willing to do anything to convince a smart girl to go out with him.

w.c. : .8k

a/n : i loved writing this request and no 🏍️ isnt taken!! enjoy! 🤍

should i do a part 2 of the actual date??

wattpad : poeticmystery

warning(s) : none!

| harry potter masterlist | navigation |

theodore nott couldn’t deny how ultimately whipped he was for you. he was in love with everything about you. the way you’d ramble about your books, the certain face you’d make to him after you see somebody doing something less than smart.

he even respected how log. it had taken for you to let him in. he had quite a reputation with women, and he knew it’d make it more difficult to convince you to be in a real relationship with him.

so, he waited. he was patient, he was kind, and he defended you.

he seemed like the perfect guy on paper, but whenever you got close to letting him in, letting him finally take you out, you’d hear another story about a girl he hooked up with then left right after.

the thought disgusted you, and you didn’t want to just turn out to be another one of those girls with a horror story of hoe you were treated by the slytherin boy. you were smarter than that.

that was another thing he liked about you. how smart you were. he loved how you could explain extensive theories and spells to him in a simple enough way to make it easy to understand. it was like a breath of fresh air.

lately, he had been in an even better mood, something his friends even noticed about him. you were starting to finally let him in. you were letting him walk you to class, letting him take you to his favorite hidden spots in the castle.

most importantly, though, you were starting to talk to him. not just some insignificant conversation about homework, or the weather. real conversations.

you were telling him about books you liked, about something funny one of your friends had told you. you were rambling on and on to him, and he loved hearing it.

he loved seeing the way your eyes lit up when you were speaking about someone you were close with, or a new book.

the expression he held when you rambled to him like this could only be explained as pure love. he had waited months to even get you to open up to him, and it was finally happening.

he always made sure you knew he was listening, whether that was by asking you questions as you went, keeping his eyes trained on you, or even buying you the second book in a series you had mentioned liking.

even despite the way you’d protest your rants, saying you didn’t want to annoy him, or something of the sort, he loved hearing tour voice. he’d listen to anything if it was coming from you.

he noticed everything about you.

none of his friends, or even himself, could think off another time where he was this head over heels for someone. it was like his former self went out the window as soon as you walked in. he couldn’t even imagine himself with a girl that wasn’t you, and he didn’t want to anyways.

you were all he need- all he wanted.

“theodore, are these flowers from you?” you called out when he stepped into your dorm.

you gestured to a beautiful array of red lillies, the scent they put off filling the room with a pleasant, light aroma.

“yeah. saw ‘em and thought of you,” he admitted casually, as though he hadn’t specifically looked for flowers of that kind, knowing you paid attention to the meanings of flowers and whatnot.

aside from that, he just thought they were pretty. naturally, you had popped into his mind.

you flashed him a genuine smile, a sight that looked straight out of his dreams.

“thank you,” you grinned, the sentiment behind the flowers being one of the sweetest things you could think of.

“finally gonna let me take you out?” he asked, a small smirk on his face.

despite his confident demeanor, he was one step away from straight up begging. he had waited months, all he wanted was for you to say yes.

you thought over it. you had heard girls in the hallway talking about how he hadn’t given them the time of day recently… and he had been so sweet lately. he had been trying repeatedly, not being deterred at all by your rejections. plus, what was the harm in just one date? one date didn’t mean anything was set in stone.

it was just… one date.

“yeah, that sounds good,” you replied, noticing the way his smirk turned into a large grin.

he felt like a child with how smiley he got around you, especially now that you had given him a chance to take you on a real date.

theodore nott taglist: lmk if you’d like to be added!

dividers made by h-aewo!

[rassicas]

today on splatoon mythbusters: is Agent 4 a country bumpkin?

no lol this is probably the funniest widespread misconception to come out in recent years A big part of it is because people misunderstood this map.

I came across this trivia point on the wiki page for agent 4 while making this post LOL agent 4 has better access to public transportation than 95% of you With all that green on the map and nothing marked in between, It seems that people have been assuming the population density of inkopolis looks something like the image on the left. While it's unclear exactly how big the population is of inkadia and the surrounding area is, going roughly off of how irl east Tokyo and neighboring Chiba prefecture look, i think its safe to guess were dealing with an urban area that looks more like whats on the right.

(side note about population count: i take the account of the Low Water Party with a grain of salt since that isnt even a real number they used. something that is more reliable is that graffiti artist Sally has over 240k followers on social media. while followers can be from anywhere in the world ofc, it sounds like her fanbase is largely in inkopolis. i think its safe to say inkopolis is a very big city!)

If we're to look more at the irl equivalent of the area, it seems the Inkopolis Coastal Connector is based on the Keiyo Line. Following that line roughly to where 4's house is lands us in a ward in Chiba city. It doesn't look like much, but about 100k people live in that area. Not a super crazy urban area like tokyo, but still urban.

(incidentally, a major landmark on the Keiyo line is Makuhari Messe, where 3 of the irl splatoon idol concerts have been held. maybe a coincidence but maybe gives more credence to the idea that that's what the coastal connector is based on?) Apparently on the Japanese side, there's a theory that 4 is from Yotsukaido, which is a little further north of the area i circled. why there? Yotsukaido means "4 town street"...4...haha

Ok enough guessing based on "vibes" and real maps that may or may not be accurate to how things are in the splatoon world. The Actual lore: On Splatoon base it's confirmed they grew up about 40 minutes away from Inkopolis by train, close to the city. That's like a nothing amount of distance.

Another developer interview from 2017 goes into more detail.

Inoue: Agent 3 had a very "I've finally made it to the city" feeling, with a strong desire to become fresh. 4 on the other hand, not so much. Rather than being someone from the countryside, they're more like someone who came from a commuter town within the greater metropolitan area. It's like a place where the limited express trains wouldn't stop at, but the semi-express trains would (laughs).

so agent 4 is very clearly, a city kid. agent 3 is the country bumpkin, from an area so far away its not even on the map. According to splatoon base...

Far enough away that they moved to inkopolis alone. meanwhile 4 lives close enough that they could just go home to their parents after battling.

Also this is something that I never see brought up. Amidst the dubiously canon early concept comics in the back of the artbook, there's a comic about agent 3 leaving their hometown, mentioning they live in a seaside town called [REDACTED] with a population of 5000.

Again, these comics are dubious since theyre so old. but there are ideas in these comics that have carried over to the final games in some form, and this is consistent with agent 3's final characterization that they come from a far away small town and had a longing for the city.

anyway tldr i think its funny how agent 4's fandom characterization/backstory got swapped with 3's all because of a misread map

[hauntedbythefanficsofmypast]

Not so Fake

Masterlist

Tim stationed himself in the third sitting room in the Manor. It was the closest to the kitchen, and furthest from the bedrooms and entrance of the manor. In other words, the perfect hiding spot from his overactive family that have united to try and make Tim rest. The only member that would find him right away would be Alfred, who already left him a cup of tea with a few of his cookies along with one of his laptops.

A note left on top stating that Alfred expected him to actually relax, and spotting the stickers Tim could tell this was his personal laptop. Taking Alfred seriously, Tim booted up YouTube and decided to watch his new favorite, GalacticPhantom, or Danny. He had found the channel a few months ago when one of his search engines caught a mention of Tim Drake and Red Robin being the same person.

The video in question had started off with a very well made video of the camera zooming down from a space view of the Earth to Danny’s home town, through his window and coming to a screeching halt in front of Danny and his friend Wes. The opening was highly impressive to Tim and the twenty-five minute video that followed had Tim wanting to pull his hair out.

Everything Wes said was true, completely true.

Tim was absolutely stunned and terrified because the other teen had managed to fully pull together who Red Robin was without even being in Gotham. The only thing that stopped Tim from calling a meeting about it, was that no one in the comments believed him. Instead Wes was mocked with the tried and true, ‘what do the butts match?’. He ended up watching every video under the playlist, ‘Wes the Detective’ and every single video hit right on the money but absolutely no one believed him. 

Well, no one but his friends it seemed. Tim had a couple theories about it and if it wasn’t for the fact that Wes has his identity clock he’d be staking out the town now. So he chose to stick to the theory that Wes was incredibly smart, but cursed in some way.

However today Danny had posted a new video and Tim could barely wait to watch it. The title was called ‘This thing wont leave me alone.’ and the thumbnail showed a screaming Danny holding a broom with a humanism but clearly not human girl spiderman to his ceiling seemingly hissing at him.

Tim grinned as he pressed play and settled back into the couch to watch. As the intro came to an end it found Danny in the closet of his bedroom speaking into the camera as if he was documenting his last moments.

“Hello everyone and welcome back to my channel.” He whispered softly only stopping at a noise outside the door that sounded like nails scratching against something. “What the—” the chittering of a badger interrupted him to cover his curse. “Today I’m hiding in my closet because this demon thing showed up and won’t leave me alone.” Something being knocked over in the background was heard causing Danny to freeze again. “I am taking my stand though, I have my makeshift weapon and-and I’m gonna face it. In the event that I don’t come out of this alive, Tucker you can have my Doomed character, Sam just ask them out already, Val you can sell all my stuff, and Wes I’m sorry I gaslight everyone in school that one time into thinking you weren’t real.” 

“That was—you Danny, oh you better hope you don’t survive after this!” Wes snapped from behind the camera, his curse being covered by bird chirps, and a second later Tucker’s head popped up from the bottom right screen. 

“You’re focusing on that rather than the fact Danny said that all to the screen like we weren’t even here.” Danny shushed them all dramatically holding his broom in front of him like a weapon.

“It is time. Remember me views, remember me.”

“So—dramatic.” Sam is heard but not shown on camera, soon after Danny is shown bursting out of the closet startling the humanoid creature with white hair and bright neon green eyes. 

Tim assumes the creature is one of their little siblings decked out in a creepy cosplay, a really creepy one that Sam definitely had to have a hand in making.

The girl immediately starts screeching and hissing at Danny who starts screaming back before starting to swat at her with the broom. Only for her to drop on all four and start crawling around to dodge him.

“Why won’t you stay still!!” Danny cried out as he panted slightly out of breath. The girl let out an evil cackle starting to crawl toward him and the others fast as he head began to turn to the point that it was upside down. Everything was silent before Danny began screaming hysterically while hitting the girl with the broom before she managed to jump on him and they began to fight. The video cut off right as the girl got a good hit on his nose, only to come back to Danny back in the closet with a bloody nose.

“You okay man?” Wes asked from behind the camera as Danny just stared dazed ahead. Danny turned to him, eyes unfocused as he stared at the camera.

“Do-do I call an exorcist? Do we have exorcists around us? Bro I have a demon in my house, and my parents who are ghost hunters can’t even detect it. What do I do?”

“Danny, I think she might have broken your Lego space shuttle.” Val was heard and seconds later Danny was shown back outside the closet in a screaming match with her while fist fighting and rolling all over the ground. 

“THAT LEGO SET COST ME FOUR MONTHS ALLOWANCE!!”

“I’M GOING TO MAKE YOU REGRET BREAKING IT!”

“ALL I DID WAS HIT YOU WITH A BROOM!”

The girl seemed to be responding to him in either gibberish, or a language they created. Which only seemed to anger Danny more.

“ENGLISH! SPEAK ENGLISH!!” The girl paused, stopping herself from landing a solid punch to his cheek before grinning at the confused teen.

“No.” Danny seemed stunned before anger took over again and the fight continued.

“You can_____speaking english! You____daughter of a______!!” The feed cut off before returning to Danny who was sitting on the bed of his wrecked room. The girl in question nowhere to be seen as Val cleaned some blood off Danny's cheek with a grin.

“I don’t know where she went, but I know she is still in my house. Tune in next time I find her because she better have some money to pay me back for my lego set. Thanks for stopping to watch this episode of mine and until next time, don’t let the ghosts get ya.”

“That was pretty interesting.” Dick said as he stole a cookie from Tim’s plate. “Are all his videos like that?” Tim didn’t even blink at his brother's sudden appearance as he moved to type out a comment.

“For the most part, ya. He’s a shit poster, his content is just a tun of stuff that is so outrageous and realistic but clearly not real.”

‘That fight gave off peak sibling energy. It’s giving, I’m gonna fight my sibling to the death because of one slight inconvenience.’

Jason hummed as he picked his book back up, dropping down in front of the couch to reread Pride and Prejudice. “Ya he was definitely fighting his little sister. He held back too much and she wasn’t pulling her punches.” 

“Only Drake would spend his time watching pointless videos.” Damien huffed, causing Tim to roll his eyes.

“Awe Dami, you know Tim is on mandatory rest. No work of any kind.” Dick grinned before jumping up, wrapping his arms around Damien and dragging him down onto the couch.

“Richard!! Let me go this instant!!” Damien screamed struggling to get away from his octopus of an older brother.

“No! I need my little brother cuddles and I need them from my Dami! No escape for you now.” Damian kept fighting Dick’s hold for the next twenty-five minutes while Tim put another of Danny’s videos on and rewatched it with Jason and Dick watching as well. The video in question was one where Danny went through a locker with his friends and went back in time to when his school first opened. Jason snorted, commenting on them making everything black and white. Danny meets a seemingly see-through kid named Sidney Poindexter and it ends with the two of them having a dance off.

“Bruce, why the fuck are your kids watching a video of a kid dancing with an Infinite Relams ghost?” Tim paused, staring blankly at his computer screen before turning to look at Bruce and John Constantine. “Wow holy shit, the Infinite Realms rarely interact with us since Luthor let the Anti-Ecto Acts pass. Yet that kid is interacting with one like their friends.”

“You’re saying this shits real?” Jason asked, closing his book looking at the screen more interested.

“Language Master Jason.” Alfred said as he walked in from a tray of tea for everyone.

“Sorry Alfred.” John nodded as he moved closer, eyes trained on Poindexter.

“If it is not real it is still more similar than could be possible. They’ve definitely had interactions with the Realms.”

“Wait, what are the Anti-Ecto Acts?” Tim asked his attention zeroing in on John.

“Well fuck, you don’t know? It affects like all of you, thought for sure you’d know. Shit this is gonna take so long to explain. We’re gonna have to call a JL meeting for this explanation because I’m not doing it twice.”

Of Meetings and Musings

[mychapel-004]

I think the most interesting and under-explored part of gf canon is the formation of the blind eye and I'm tired of pretending it isn't: a long post

Because hear me out here, if we really take a look at the timing of the only concrete source we have (mcgucket's video diaries), it doesn't... line up at all?

The clear implication here is that he started making the diaries after the first portal incident on January 18th 1983, so this would be our "day one"

"For the past year I have been working as an assistant for a visiting researcher... But something went wrong. I decided to quit the project, but I lie awake each night, haunted by the thoughts of what I've done... Test subject one: Fiddleford."

But this makes no sense. We know from J3 that the memory gun was actually invented after a series of traumatic events with Ford, months before he left the project. Further, the timeline the video diaries set up of the blind eye show that he began to deteriorate and founded the blind eye on day 22, which would be February 9th, but in J3 the blind eye is already a full blown cult by then.

In addition, where is he in this video? we know from TBOB that he isn't on good terms with his wife after Christmas of 1982 and he likely didn't leave GF after the portal incident, but he was living with Ford up until this so where is this room? If he had somewhere else to stay, why only stay there now?

Now, realistically the answer here is that the lore was changed and slightly retconned between the writing of this episode and the publishing of the book (which alex discusses in some of the commentary for this episode when discussing fidd's character), but I think a more interesting theory to solve this contradiction can be found in the source material.

If we play this all completely straight, there are two options here, both involving Fiddleford lying in his diaries. this isn't entirely new to the series, unreliable narration is a big theme, especially in Journal 3 and TBOB. the only real explanations are that:

A) Fiddleford was lying about this being the first time he used the gun, meaning this video diary takes place after the portal incident.

B) Fiddleford was lying about leaving the project, and was filming these diaries while still working with Ford.

Now, either of them is plausible, but ultimately Fiddleford is a scientist. He has dedicated his life to engineering, and it seems to be his lifelong passion considering it's one of the only character traits that he continues to practice after losing his mind. Would a man who is this talented, this dedicated, really lie about testing results in a video diary he chose to make?

If he had used the gun before, any kind of result he is trying to observe would be ruined. It would be a pointless venture, since we know for a fact that by the time he leaves the project he has used the gun on himself, Ford and other civillians multiple times. It's a complete failure of the scientific method, and I don't think it makes sense for the character we know, the man who quadruple checks his own calculations just to be sure they're right.

However, the other explanation feels like something he might do. We know he invents the gun after the Gremloblin incident likely sometime in August, and seems to use it immediately as evidenced by J3, on both himself and Ford. We know from the audio commentary that for Fidd, the memory gun is very much an addiction, it's something that he uses to curb his anxiety and appear like a better partner, to try and keep himself together until the project is over. But ultimately, he's known something is wrong with the project for a long time, and Ford mentions his tendency towards self destructive anxiety when Fidd rips out his own hair after Ford reveals the tip of the weirdness iceberg to him.

All this to say, I think it's far more realistic for Fiddleford to lie about leaving the project rather than his results. He knows that something is wrong, that he should leave and be with his family, and on the other side of that we know that Bill is using this anxiety to whisper into Ford's ear that Fidd is unreliable and will leave. He's been through a severely traumatic event with the Gremloblin, trapped for days in his worst nightmares, to the point where he is prepared to cause himself potential brain damage to un-see it.

But despite all of it, he doesn't leave. He is determined to stay, maybe out of loyalty, maybe out of fear for Ford's safety, maybe he needs the money from the project for his family. He has a wife and son who need him and we know that he feels guilt for his treatment towards them, he even cites them as his sole reason for backing out of using the gun immediately before he does it anyway, and uses it on Ford to cover his mistakes up. Fiddleford is a man who is wracked by anxiety and shame and is such a bad way by this point that he is absolutely willing to self-destruct and lie to just get through this project.

I think he absolutely would start documenting his use of the memory gun, even if that meant lying that he had followed his instincts and left the project when he should have done. After all, he says himself that he wants to use this gun on a wider scale as a therapy tool, assuming the gun doesn't turn his brain to mush, surely the tapes of his initial testing will need to be peer-reviewed? He's presenting the reality he wishes was true, the one where he is brave and stands on his principles and doesn't fall into step beside Ford on his path to destruction.

So, where does this leave the timeline?

Finding exact dates is difficult, mostly because the only concrete numbers in J3 are few and far between, but we do have the dates of the tapes to go off as follows. This isn't concrete but it's a fun way to recontextualise the events of J3:

Day 1:

First usage of the gun, followed by it being used on Ford

Sometime after the Gremloblin incident, Fidd's arm is either healed or on the mend from the incident as his cast is gone, so likely towards the end of August.

Note on the cast: It could also be gone as a result of him removing it too early, he doesn't seem to take a lot of time to recover from the incident before he gets back to work in fear of disappointing Ford.

The room he is in is likely his bedroom in the Shack, or whatever location he initially uses to form the blind eye, maybe a room in the museum? The "probability of failure" graph in the back is the same one that he shows Ford the night before the Portal test, albeit a bigger version, meaning he has likely been tracking the output results for a while.

Day 5:

Still exhibiting postive results, no deterioration yet.

Day 22:

First signs of mental deterioration

First mention of the blind eye, Fidd draws the symbol onto a notebook but it is already scribbled in the background over a diagram of the portal. The blind eye symbol is first mentioned in J3, when Fidd hands it to the carny who becomes the eventual leader of the cult, so this diary likely takes place after he has begun using it on other people.

Official formation of the blind eye as a group to help people forget traumatic memories.

His room in the shack is in a state of disarray, his plants are dead and there are handprints in oil or ink on the walls. Notably, he seems to be connecting the idea of a single eye and the portal despite not being aware of Bill at this point, which I'll touch upon later.

The carnival is likely in September according to the timeline by @fordtato

Day 74:

Slight physical deterioration, more physical anxiety

It seems that Fidd has been regularly using the memory gun at this point, to erase even minorly distressing images from his head, and his anxiety has taken a nosedive. Likely explanation is that this diary is after the bunker, where he had another severely traumatic experience (kidnapped by a shapeshifter and reduced to mute from anxiety) and seemed to become obsessed with doomsday planning. During the bunker arc he also used the gun on multiple workmen and Ford once again.

Likely takes place in October/November

His room is a complete mess by now, with the walls covered in papers and "Help Me" scrawled on the walls.

At this point in J3, Ford has made his deal with Bill and is allowing him to possess his body whenever he pleases. Bill has also sucessfully driven a divide between the other two by making Ford doubt that Fidd will be able to make it to the end of the project, and Ford describes his frustration with him.

According to Ford, Fidd is just as agitated and nervous before the portal test as he was during the Gremloblin attack, and obsessively checks and rechecks his calculations, causing Ford to worry for his resolve.

In between this diary and the next are the stolen pages from J3 that are in TBOB, which give us slight insight into Fiddleford during this time but not much. We see that he tries multiple times to reach out to him the only way that Fidd knows how, through invention and creation, with the snowglobe and the six-fingered gloves. Ford, however, treats them carelessly as a result of his increased attention to his muse. At the same time, he tries to visit home but is kicked out by Emma-May after he forgets to get her a Christmas gift. This is played as an example of his connection with Ford, him remembering two gifts for the man and none for his wife, but if he really is suffering from his use of the gun at this time, the forgetfulness makes even more sense and his argument with his family means he doesn't have a support system outside of Ford who is paying all of his attention to the project. After this, Fiddleford is more reclusive than ever as he spends early January compiling a thesis for Ford to publish

Day 189

Physical deterioration is in full effect and he can't hide the result of his addiction any more, even just to keep up appearances.

His arm is broken, likely due to the car accident he mentions accidentally causing, but its the same arm he broke during the Gremloblin attack and could be a result of him taking his cast off too early for it to have healed right in the first place which could explain why he wears it for so long.

Significant mental decline as he has started exhibiting signs of brain damage or swelling (decreased vocabulary, forgetfulness, loss of motor functions) however, he is seemingly lucid enough to question if the memory gun is causing negative side effects.

There are actually bottles visible in the back of the room, possbly referencing the addiction metaphor being used here

This would take place after the portal test, likely late January. Ford is at the height of his paranoia, Fiddleford has left the shack and taken every trace of his research with him except his college picture with Ford, and the blind eye is a fully established and seemingly self-governing cult.

Day 273

At this point, Fidd has relocated to a motel and is seemingly completely mentally gone, ripping out his hair and developing his hunched posture. This likely takes place after the blind eye takes his memories, or he continues erasing them himself. It's possible that the blind eye continues visiting him and taking his memories even after he is ejected as a member, or at least until they forget who he is after using the gun on themselves too many times.

It appears to be snowing outside? Which doesn't line up with either the canon timeline or this timeline, so potentially the days on the video diaries could be incorrect assuming he isn't filming them every day, or has lost so much of his mind by this point that he isn't labelling them right and has lost track of time

The final two entries are a similar story, serving only to show us the end of his decline and him eventually becoming fully homeless, retreating to the junkyard he lives in for the next 28 years (jesus, he really deserved that mansion).

Ultimately though, this timeline asks a lot of interesting character questions.

Why did Ford not realise how bad Fiddleford's decline was becoming? Maybe a mix of circumstances, he was falling deeper into his worship of Bill at the time, to the extent that he was regularly being possessed and judging by the lack of journal entries at the time, very pre-occupied. We also know that Fidd used the gun on him at least twice in canon, and possibly used it more than we know in order to convince Ford he was okay.

If Fiddleford was erasing parts of Ford's memory, did Bill know? Personally, I feel that Bill was aware but knew that ultimately it would serve him. Fiddleford, without ever encountering Bill at this point, created the blind eye symbol which is eerily close to Bill's symbolism, how would he know that when we know Ford is possessive of his muse and doesn't share anything with Fidd about it? How does Ford have visions of Fidd in a red cloak without ever knowing that the cult and Fidd are directly connected? My thoughts are that Bill, who we know has erased Ford's memory himself before when he stole the journal pages we see in TBOB, was using most of this as fodder to drive a divide between the two, mentally creating associations in both of their minds so they stop trusting the other. Chess but with troubled gay men.

All in all I think Fiddleford's decline is such an interesting way to approach a theme of addiction, particularly a high-functioning addiction. If this really is how things played out, we know that throughout his use of the gun and even 30 years later when he is considered a write-off, the one thing he maintains is his engineering prowess and his smarts. It makes sense that even when actively using the gun and hiding it from Ford he would be able to keep up in terms of building the portal, especially when we know he secretly hired workers. It's also a great example of someone drawing others into their addiction, even if it was unintentional and he didn't believe they would be hurt in the long run.

I feel like sometimes there's a lil bit of a push to see Fidd as a naive or morally good character even through his mistakes and to demonise Ford in response, but ultimately both of them are very morally grey and have their own vices that they develop and grow from.

Anyway, interested in this idea?

Well, good news if you are or my condolences if you hate it and want me dead, this is also an au I'm working on and writing at the moment! My fic link is below, the introduction is up right now and the next chapter will be coming out tomorrow with updates every few days now I've finally gotten this post out. The tag for this fic is 'Geiger counter au', hopefully I'll be able to get out some other headcanons I have for this idea because it's been floating around in my head since J3 came out.

Thank you for reading!

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

My thoughts about the Trump assassination attempt

After having a few hours to process this whole thing and see reactions from across the political spectrum, I'm having some thoughts and some feelings.

First off, as I said earlier, Trump is a fucking boss. Take anyone who ran for president in the last 20 years, put them in that exact situation, and I don't think a single one responds by raising his fist and snarling in defiance and righteous anger. They run. They cry. They keep their heads down and the first statement you h ear from them is hours later filtered through 20 different speech writers. Today proved to me that, whatever else he may be, Trump is a genuine bad ass. He's exactly the person I want at the end of a sword pointed the United States. Because he's going to have a sword of his own pointed right back, and he's not going to run and hide when it comes time to use it.

Second, the modern left is full of monsters. The amount of people screaming and crying because this assassination attempt failed actually sickens me. It's one thing to have fantasies about easy solutions to the things that scare you. Hell, I'm not innocent. I've thought about how much better things might be if this politician was no longer around or this activist group got axed. But one of the things I did today was think about how I would feel if the assassin succeeded. And then I thought about how I'd feel if someone took a shot at Biden and he didn't survive. Neither thought gave me any good feelings. Obviously I'd be more upset if Trump died, but today showed me that I don't want us to start down the path of shooting political leaders. But too many people on the left, people who should know better, at least enough to hide their true feelings, have no problem publicly wishing Trump was dead right now. That assassinating presidential candidates was a legitimate tactic--but only against the politicians they don't like, of course.

Fuck that.

Fuck them.

America is better than that. Americans are better than that. We're not some third world shithole like Mexico. We're the greatest country in the world. We're the last bastion of representative government. The last place in the world where freedom exists. And it's time we started acting like it.

Third, I ain't got no time for conspiracy theories. Sorry guys, but this wasn't staged and this wasn't a CIA hitman. Unless real, hard evidence comes out otherwise, you won't ever get me to believe any of the nonsense I've seen floated around. Don't be so lost in the true things the media has dismissed as "conspiracy theories" that you immediately jump to the most conspiratorial explanations first for everything that happens. It's lame and cringe and a lot of people I've seen seriously putting these theories forward should know better. I know we're in our emotions right now, but keep your heads.

Fourth, my heart breaks for the families of the people who were hit with the bullets meant for President Trump. But that's the kind of evil we're facing. Whoever did this decided that the idea of a Trump presidency was so awful that they were okay with shooting innocent people just to stop him. And this is after he was already president and none of the things the media is fear mongering about happened during his first term. Those people just wanted to see a man speak. To have some hope for the future. And some piece of shit shot them because he didn't like a presidential candidate. Or worse, because the TV made him scared.

Fifth, fuck the media. You think you hate them enough, but you don't. The media is the driving force behind our enemies, and there's no such thing as a good journopig. They're all lying propagandists. We just like some of them because their propaganda occasionally hits on the truth.

And that's all I got. None of this is organized, none of this is proofread. These are just the thoughts I've been wrestling with for the past few hours. This is the only place I can get them all down without being interrupted or feeling like I need to censor myself. Do with them what you will.