#physical isolation

[georgiasedify]

Physical Isolation

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[transmechanicus]

I know some people have unfathomable beef with the term but i really don’t see the issue with transmascs describing their specific experiences with societal mistreatment and persecution as “transandrophobia”, like i think it’s good to be able to discuss specific experiences and articulate the problems you’re facing actually.

[warmfuzzyanimal]

you're nice to people who are bald or balding, right? you're nice to people with high hairlines? or weird hair growth? right? you don't make mean jokes about going bald at the expense of people who are going through the very scary and usually very isolating process of losing hair?? right???

[edorazzi]

Page 23 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which Adrien is more interested in his drink than Felix's "villain arc", and back in 1999 baby Felix is having a tough time! 😔🩹

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Weekly updates each Sunday! You can also read ahead early on Patreon, and/or buy me a Ko-fi if you'd like to support my work! 💖

[wheelie-sick]

as Christmas quickly approaches I wanted to give a word to people who celebrate. if you have people in your life who struggle to/can't eat for whatever reason please be kind and patient with them. Christmas is a very food-centered holiday so when you can't eat or have a hard time eating it becomes a very stressful and isolating holiday. when you are sitting at a dinner table surrounded by people eating it's often a cruel reminder of what you can't do and how you don't fit into the group. be kind to your disabled loved ones if they choose to excuse themselves from the dinner table entirely.

to the people who can't/struggle to eat, I know the impending doom of Christmas dinner is arriving. you are part of the group that you chose to celebrate with even if you can't celebrate the same way. it's easy to feel excluded from the group when you can't participate in a core part of the celebration but you are so important to that group of people. you are not obligated to sit at the dinner table if it brings up negative feelings for you and you certainly do not owe anyone making yourself sick for the sake of participating. dealing with gastrointestinal disease is more traumatic than people realize and you're allowed to have a complicated relationship with food that might even include not wanting to be around it. be gentle with yourself 💕

-> this post is about gastrointestinal disorders but people with other conditions affecting Christmas dinner are welcome to relate as well

[bonefall]

I was thinking about your tags, and while I understand the caution, it feels like it would still be a stretch to baseline equate common traits among the clans with eugenics. I know that humans can rly quickly go from everyone has biological differences = there are innate qualities that are "good" and "bad", and there's a quality of fascism in that, but when the clans are fairly isolationist, it seems like it'd be natural for there to be trends among its members.

this is also just me prompting for your thoughts on biology and politics surrounding that, since i appreciate your thoughts on fascism in warriors overall.

I think you're missing a piece in your takeaway that I'm more conscious of-- it's not that I'm wary of population genetics and natural trends; it's that the Clans have an obsession with "blood purity" paired with that.

When you introduce "subspecies" Clans to that, cats who are truly biologically suited to a particular environment, you are inevitably narratively connecting the rhetoric to this worldbuilding fact. Unless you're going to massively overhaul the theme and setting of Warrior Cats, to me it's like looking at xenophobic characters that say "mingling with out-groups is bad" and announcing, "I AM GOING TO GIVE THEM PHRENOLOGY BUT REAL."

Even canon is wise enough to not do this-- Graystripe shows in TPB that it's the oily diet that makes RiverClan's fur so water-resistant. WindClan's lanky legs never get more extreme than a general population trend; enough Clans have skinny warriors that you wouldn't "clock" mixed cats like Jayfeather and his siblings.

But in making those Clan differences MEGA extreme, suddenly, you have taken the irrational social bigotry and turned it into a potentially legitimate practical concern about adeptness in an environment. Not just against an individual, but against that individual's population.

As an example of what I mean, imagine if RiverClan had special, extreme adaptations to living in water. Let's say they're webbed-foot cats who can close their orifices like seals and their coat is twice as thick to keep the water out.

Outcrossing to another Clan means hybrid kittens display the opposite of hybrid vigor-- hybrid depression.

Without webbed feet, other cats are always slower swimmers than their counterparts

Hybrids have thinner fur, making them lose heat in cold water much faster, requiring them to eat more to stay healthy or get sick more often.

They may not have the same muscles to close their orifices, meaning they're more likely to damage their senses by swimming in dirty water.

You can reduce disadvantages with accessibility technology in a more advanced setting like BB, but... they are still born significantly disadvantaged, compared to a ""pure blood"" RiverClan cat.

Doing this also says something you might not have realized you've said at all; Your population is proof of evolutionary pressure. Highly specialized genetics like this (not just trends but HIGHLY specialized) implies there's been something preventing the genetics of other Clans from intermixing with RiverClan.

Which has two implications;

The hypothetical RiverClan cats achieved a positive goal by self-inflicting a selective breeding program onto themselves. (...eugenics. that's eugenics.)

The hypothetical RiverClan environment is so harsh and demanding that it will naturally, swiftly eliminate unfit phenotypes. (The river totally cancels out any secret outcrossing)

(as a side note, ppl tend to misunderstand evolution. Darwin wasn't totally right with "survival of the fittest," I prefer Bill Nye's description of "survival of the good enough." But that's a topic for another time)

Either way, I find those implications DEEPLY unfitting for BB. This is a project which has major themes of exploring bigotry, showcasing its irrationality and digging into how it's perpetuated and exploited in spite of that.

I think BB's themes have a better clarity of purpose if the physical differences between Clans are kept subtle. Never more extreme than what you'd see between ethnic groups-- with frequent reminders about how culture, environment, and politics shape behaviors more than genetics do.

Don't misunderstand me-- I'm not saying that every setting with physical differences between races/sapient species is doomed to this. I actually have good things to say about certain artworks that lean into it (Steven Universe, Beastars, Oren's Forge). I'm saying this specifically about WC and my work within that context.

If you're curious though, I actually have a loose set of "rules" in my head to try and keep my Clans' population differences within my own critiques! I've given a lot more thought to this than I've shared.

There are no "unique" Clan mutations, any trait could appear within any hypothetical kitten.

It's a matter of prevalence. ThunderClan is like 80% Sweetness Tolerant and the other clans are between like 15% - 60%. It's not a sign your mate cheated on you if your kitten likes honey.

But it is something that an accusation can be based on, if your mate is insecure or the Clan's politics are going sour. A "pedigree" RiverClan cat could still have a mane, and it can get used against them.

Some traits do help or hinder ability slightly (ex; thick tails making RiverClan cats better at steering in water), but typically not significantly. I Just Keep It Reasonable.

Most importantly, I just make an effort to have most traits be based on social behavior. Reflect enough and eventually you sorta train your brain to think differently. As a bonus, it helps with cultural worldbuilding.

Related: If you found this insightful, I also dove into fascism and TigerClan in a way that's relevant to this.

[camellia-thea]

i know we talk a lot about the isolation of chronic illness and disability, but i really don't think ablebodied folk get it.

i have made one new friend in person since graduating highschool in 2020. she is my housemate's girlfriend. she stays over frequently, and the only reason we are friends is because she stays over and we have shared university papers. i would not have had the opportunity to befriend her otherwise. that is in the space of three years.

i don't go out much. i cannot guarantee that i will leave my house within any given week. technically i have class i need to go to twice a week for an hour, but those moments aren't time for friends, they're time for classwork and i don't interact with people in a social capacity there.

i simply do not get the opportunity to meet people.

i cannot go out with friends and meet new people that way, because my social circle is already so small, and i don't have the energy to go out half the time anyway. when i do, i suffer for it later.

i don't meet people on campus because i'm immuno-compromised, and ableds seem to have forgotten that we are still in a pandemic.

i don't go to clubs or go out for the sake of going out because i can't. i've grown agoraphobic, because i am so worried that something health related will happen and i'll get stuck somewhere alone. i hate leaving the house because of the guarantee of an anxiety attack which leaves my body more likely to flare. it's a vicious cycle of isolation.

i am not the only one who has experienced this -- i can still leave the house, i can still go and visit friends with assistance. i struggle, but at the end of the day, it's still an option. there are others who are completely isolated.

the worst of it is that people leave. people get tired of the 'i can't come, i'm sorry', of the 'hey, i'm sick, can we postpone?'. even people who you love and hold dearly will stop trying. and it's awful. you have to sit and watch these people who you love walk away because they can't deal with your disability. i don't have words to describe how much that hurts.

it really is impossible for ablebodied people to understand, because for the majority of us, this isn't temporary. this is just how we have to live. and your social circle can only really get smaller.

[backjustforberena]

RHAENYS TARGARYEN: And I must stand alone.

[ophanstears]

i could explain why anyone that says "flowey cant feel (positive emotions) because he doesnt have a soul" is wrong but i dont feel like it. all you need to know that as a fellow trauma survivor he is my puppet to project onto whether he likes it or not

read the tags for more i suppose

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Autistic Meltdown Iceberg

Neurodivergent_lou

[halsaph]

Drew this as painting practice and hated it and then used it as my banner for like everywhere but here and it grew on me so actually I AM going to post it. Big fan of the color palette tbh

[handweavers]

there is a kind of psychological mindfuck about being like fully 'passing' as a cis man in public essentially while being on your period and having bloating and cramps and not being able to tell anyone that's why you're like in pain and tired so you have to come up with other nonsense and hide any and all evidence from most people. like it's dysphoria for sure but its like not even that i feel physically 'wrong' having a period it's the social mindfuck of the whole thing + the alienation of it like feeling like i'm walking around with a gun in my pocket that no one can find out about but i can't leave it at home either and have to carry it everywhere and it's just like background static at this point

[fayevalcntine]

This is what it feels like reading some people's IWTV takes

[visions--of--collisions]

miles opening up to hobie like he can't help himself "how are you even cooler under the mask?" "we got in a fight, but ... they just want what's best for me" "i want to be in a band; i wanna see my friends, and i need a watch to do that" when he knows him all of 30mins and is convinced the guy's his Rival For Gwen's Affections would be so fucking funny if it didn't make me so emotionaL

[ryssbelle]

Some of y’all portray John Dory as so old and yeah he is older and you can do whatever you want forever as an artist or writer but he is 30 years old and yall draw him like his pushing 50

Mans got one foot in the grave and the others going in the second he his 36

Bonus:

[masakianzai]

Sakura: They're all too nice to say it but im sure they'll be disappointed. They left it all up to me and I couldn't live up to their expectations. I'm letting everyone down and burdening them because I couldn't win on my own

Sugishita: IM FUCKING DISAPPOINTED IN YOU. I LEFT IT ALL UP TO YOU WHY ARE YOU PUSHING THIS ON EVERYONE ELSE

Sakura: a