#she’s also disabled

[crowned-with-antlers]

Propagandizing about my oc on my main blog? More likely than you think.

if you make an OC that you are genuinely insane over, like you are obsessed with this freak and can't stop thinking about them, then it will rub off on other people. the virus spreads

[demigods-posts]

percy doing better than annabeth in college is one my favorite developments in the rrverse. if we reflect on percy and annabeth's academic upbringing. annabeth living at camp allowed her to receive accommodations for her adhd and dyslexia and surround herself with like-minded campers who had the same limitations. whereas percy was ridiculed, belittled, and routinely humiliated because of his adhd and dyslexia. even more so, percy's friends and family leave him out of the loop on so many important issue (no chb orientation film, no information about the great prophecy) which perpetuates his subpar confidence and self-esteem in his skills as a student and a demigod. but going to college at NRU changes his mindset because he receives the accommodations he should have gotten years ago and fucking thrives to the point of getting higher grades than annabeth — a person he deems way smarter and more prepared than him in every way. the most important thing percy is learning now is that a supportive environment makes all the difference, and he is more capable than he initially thought.

[inkskinned]

"don't make it political!" .... what proportion of death and suffering must occur before politics are involved. if this isn't political, what is even the point of any politics, ever. of democracy. the words are "by the people for the people." if i am going to be left alone by my elected representatives to "figure it out" - to undergo damage, hardship, fear. what the fuck did i elect them for. what was their job. the entire point is that they handle this shit. this is why we were supposed to be electing leaders.

poverty is political. misogyny is political. gun control is political. climate change is political. how much aid a community gets is political. what the fuck are you talking about. it's been political this whole fucking time.

[azuneekun]

Opinions on Caldarus?

i like him a lot.

[caffichai]

Mandragora Arknights good ending

She got got better as a person and also physically :)

[splankie]

is blowing up a volcano after ur first kiss couple goals

[pirateshelly]

As much as nearly every character she meets tends to act like there's something uniquely broken and wrong with Claudia, at no point does it truly seem to me like there actually really is? I mean, obviously she is extremely fucked up, she straight up went through a serial killer collecting trophies phase, but there's a level of fucked up that's sort of the baseline for every character in the show, and obviously being turned into a vampire as a child puts her at a unique disadvantage. But for all that everyone around her spends their time bemoaning how dreadful and doomed her life is, even Louis who genuinely loves her but also builds so much of his identity around feeling responsible for her Terrible Fate™, I really don't think she's like, fundamentally damaged any more than any of the other vampires are.

But Lestat is so unwilling to be wrong that every time her life hits an inevitable road bump instead of helping her through it he points and says "look! see! she IS a monster, I was right Louis, making her was a mistake!" (and I think he sees his own monstrousness in her but fails to also see her humanity)

And then Armand meets her and sees only someone who will inevitably lose her mind, so of course speeding up the "inevitable" and siding with the coven to plan her death is just a mercy, absolving himself of any blame. (and he projects his own frailty and desire for death onto her, failing to see her strength and her desire for life)

Which makes it so cathartic when she meets Madeleine, admits to her how broken she feels sometimes, and Madeleine's response is just. Well that's normal. Who isn't a little broken these days. Let yourself feel it, move on, let yourself feel it again if you need to. After spending her life having others act as if her emotions are something uniquely dark and worrying, Madeleine's incredibly blase attitude must have been such an incredible breath of fresh air for Claudia!

To spend her whole life being made to feel like something is Wrong™ with her, and then meet someone who's just like, "yeah, and?? Who isn't? Join the club I guess"

Which makes her death so incredibly tragic and frustrating because like. She was fine! She was making a life for herself! She wasn't doomed by her nature, she wasn't "doomed by the narrative" (whatever the fuck that even means), she was doomed for no reason other than that everyone around her (except for Madeleine) preemptively DECIDED she was doomed and never gave her a chance to prove them wrong.

[giantkillerjack]

Me: hm, I want something to put on the TV as background noise... Huh. Looks like YouTube is recommending something called The Last Unicorn. That's perfect, it's probably some old shitty animation that has aged poorly! I can watch it ironically!

Me, 2 hours later as the credits roll: *crying, cheering, buying the book, composing the songs*

Me, 2 weeks later: So I have compiled all of the quotes from the book that I think could make good tattoos, and also, HOW HAVE I NEVER LEARNED ABOUT HOW THE LAST UNICORN FUCKING SLAPS??? This gay-ass little fairytale fed my soul! Watered my crops! Transed my gender! Can't believe I heard of this story from youtube recommendations, of all places!!

[bonefall]

i dont think people are upset that the erins "weren't creative" enough with Moonpaw, they're upset that she's just. not a chimera. thats just a longhaired tortie and they justified it with chimerism. which is extremely insensitive because chimerism is a real medical thing that can cause issues in every species, including humans for those that dont know, and thats like. a big thing.

like, yay some disability rep (depending on how they write it. it wont be good. ughh) but like. its not going to be considered a disability when it can be in some cases. they are just going to say "ohh shes so special!!" like some people say with autism in this age (the infantilization of it) and its gonna be. weirdddd

anyways. sorry for ranting in your inbox.

Hey. Woah. THIS is insensitive and I don't know where you're getting this from. NONE of the three types of natural chimerism are a disability and it is extremely rare that fusion chimerism leads to medical complications.

Do not spread misinformation about a genetic condition because you're annoyed about the writing team confusing a common tortie fur pattern with chimerism. THEIR mistake is ultimately harmless. What YOU'RE doing is stigmatizing.

Quite frankly, after seeing a bunch of posts and receiving several asks about this, I don't think half of the people who are getting mad actually know anything about chimeras. I sure as fuck hope it's just ignorance, and that you aren't out here trying to call the state of being intersex a disability.

But I can fix ignorance. No need to assume malice. I will explain what chimerism is, and why you should stop going around implying it "causes issues in every species."

Chimerism is when a single individual is comprised of cells from two or more fully fertilized zygotes. There are two BROAD types of chimerism;

Artifical

Natural

Artifical chimeras are common with the advent of modern medicine. Ever had a blood transfusion? Organ transplant? You are a chimera. Or at least were for a while.

THIS can lead to complications and can cause disability, but it's not what Moonpaw is. She would be a type of natural chimera, which in and of itself has THREE subtypes;

Micro chimerism

Blood chimerism

Fusion chimerism

Microchimerism is so common that I could make a Your Mom joke out of it. It's caused by the passage of cells between the fetus and placenta during pregnancy. Everyone who has ever been pregnant is a microchimera.

While it can lead to complications, it can also be beneficial. Pregnancy could be considered a type of temporary disability, but no one would expect disability rep from every character who had ever given birth.

Blood chimeras are common in species whose twins typically share a placenta, such as cows and marmosets, but very rare in animals like humans and cats which usually don't. It occurs when tissue between two twins is exchanged through the umbilical chord. This type of chimera often ends up with a mixed bloodtype, hence the name.

This is the cause of freemartinism in cattle, when fraternal cow twins cause a sister to share her brother's hormones and act more like a bull. A type of intersex condition, not a disability-- so I sure HOPE you aren't trying to imply THIS should be "disability rep."

And even in the other case, would you automatically expect disability rep from a character that has two blood types?? No. Just like you wouldn't automatically expect disability rep from every character that had ever been pregnant, or every character who had ever needed a blood transfusion

And lastly, the one that Moonpaw ACTUALLY is. A fusion chimera. These are created when two fully fertilized zygotes fuse into a single individual.

These are extremely rare because you can't usually TELL when an individual is a chimera. There is no obvious physical difference between the "halves," with some cases of doctors insisting that patches are just weird birthmarks. They live their entire lives with normal health problems like non-chimeras. It mostly causes complications when DNA testing results in a false negative-- because the offspring of a fusion chimera occasionally end up being their genetic nespring.

Or, the two "halves" are male and female, causing gonadal differences. These people aren't disabled, there's nothing wrong with their bodies, but they're subjected to unneccesary cosmetic surgeries as children because they are intersex.

Say it. SAY IT. INTERSEX. I N T E R S E X. IM GRABBING YOU BY THE SHIRT AND SHAKING YOU THEY ARE INTERSEX.

Can some intersex conditions cause disabilities? YES. Are intersex conditions inherently disabilities? NO. Even when you're discussing infertility as a disability, tread VERY CAREFULLY because intersex people are fighting very hard to lift the stigma over their bodies.

Speak with care. Do not equate being intersex with being disabled. They are two different things.

You can be both and sometimes one could contribute to the other, but BEING intersex IS NOT a disability.

VERY rarely, even MORE rare than standard chimeras which are already very very rare and massively underreported because they are so unremarkable, a fusion chimera will happen LATE in utero. THIS can contribute to a chronic autoimmune condition where the cells reject each other, which is a disability.

And by rare I mean one case. Literally one. Of the 50 reported fusion chimeras in the review I'm referencing, Taylor Muhl was the only one with this. 4 were discovered via congenital abnormalities (unknown if connected to the chimerism b/c they were only tested because something was already wrong), 17 had fertility issues, and the remaining 28 didn't report immune conditions or birth defects but INTERSEXUALITY.

ANOTHER condition is often lumped in with chimerism, by people who do not know what chimerism is, which is mosaicism. Mosaicism, when there are two different sets of genes resulting from the same zygote, is NOT chimerism. MOSAICISM can be a cause of disability. CHIMERISM is usually not.

(Read the review in depth, as it includes mosaic cases for the sake of completion.)

They can both be fertilization errors, but are not the same thing. Follow me, I'm only going to woefully simplify a complicated topic once,

CHIMERA = Two zygotes in one body

MOSAIC = Two bodies in one zygote

CHIMERA = usually fine

MOSAIC = usually bad

And the last possible places you could be getting the idea that chimerism "causes disability" from, to my knowledge, is 1. This study that says the loss of a twin in early pregnancy increases the chance of congenital defects in the survivors (has barely anything to do with chimerism, this link is tangential, vanishing twin syndrome does not necessarily mean it was absorbed by its sibling)

Or, 2, this study of several animals where they correlated rates of benign tumors to % of chimerism based on SPECIES. BLOOD chimeras. It's COWS AND MARMOSETS AGAIN. The study ITSELF calls for further targeted research of chimerism cause of susceptibility to cancer.

It couldn't even link new growths or malignant tumors to chimerism in the mammals of its study. WE'RE mammals.

Correlation does not equal causation. Statistics 101.

So no. That's not "a big thing." Chimerism is fine, they're just very likely to be intersex if they're a fusion chimera of a male and a female zygote. Do not imply intersexuality is a disability. Please get mad about the actual ableism in the series, not the team being clueless about tortie patterns.

Also everyone say you're sorry to intersex Moonpaw. I better see you people making intersex Moonpaw pride flag edits as penance IMMEDIATELY.

UPDATE: Anon apologized! Growth! I still think this is an important post, especially in the context of the wider fandom conversation, so I'm leaving it as-is. Please feel free to reblog.

UPDATE 2: Clarification on infertility as a disability because I didn't word myself very well in one section!

[dykedvonte]

Trans Curly headcanons are fascinating to me cause like… Jimmy would resent him more for it.

Masculinity is a weird underlying thing in their dynamic where Jimmy feels inferior to Curly about not only their job positions but roles in life. The idea that Curly is the better man who also made himself such would be such a blow to Jimmy’s already fragile and unstable ego. Like it’s not just that he’s just transphobic, he hates Curly’s ability to craft himself into what he wants to be successfully, it not about Curly being afab but Curly still being the better man.

But then he wouldn’t get the self image issues one can face, feeling like an imposter in a space you wanted to be in or even scared to be there. He’d just think Curly always gets what he desires and thinks nothing of it like he always has.

[some-pers0n]

I think a lot of people mistake Sunny's resilience and hope in the face of a miserable and bleak scenario as childlike innocence and her not fully comprehending the danger of it all. Her optimism is a response to the pessimistic and nihilistic world around her. She truly believes in the prophecy. It has to work. That's what they've suffered all this time for. Everyone. There will be peace on Pyrrhia and it'll be delivered by her and her friends.

Her own arc in her book, about rising above the expectations placed on her and proving herself as dragon of worth, was foreshadowed a lot with how the DoD treated her. They themselves infantalized her despite being unaware of it. They believed Sunny to be weak and helpless. The little, tiny sister who needs to be protected.

Despite this, she's strong. She's smart, observant, and even Clay mentioned that she's a great fighter because she takes advantage of her small stature and people underestimating her. She isn't childish, but rather she believes that they'll pull through. That they'll bring peace. In the end? They do just that.

Sunny's optimism I feel is a nice breath of fresh air. A lot of protagonists like her go through hell and back and become a lot more jaded. Her? It's her hope for a better future that keeps her going. Even in the darkest of situations, when she should breakdown and succumb to the overwhelming misery of war and tragedy, she. keeps. going. She believes. Despite the cynicism of the DoD, even with Clay at times feeling despondent, she continues. She moves onward. She fights.

And...she wins. Peace is achieved on Pyrrhia. The prophecy came true.

[stromblessed]

Mizu was wrong to let Akemi be taken because they both deserve better

First, a confession. When I saw this for the first time:

I was relieved. I knew that was what Mizu was going to say and I felt like it's what I would have said in that situation too.

When Akemi does this:

I cringed, because if we know anything about Mizu, it's that she (1) isn't quick to make friends (though to be fair, even though Akemi did try to kill Mizu, so did Taigen - multiple times! - and look how that turned out lol), and (2) doesn't take orders.

So when Akemi and Ringo and later Taigen get angry at Mizu, are they being unfair?

Sure, Mizu isn't obligated to treat Akemi - or Taigen or Ringo or anybody else - nicely, or to serve them, or to be honorable, or be a hero to them, or whatever. No human being is obligated to any other human being. We all have the choice to do whatever we want to anybody else. But the point of flawed characters in storytelling is the tension between those characters and their potential. Their growth into someone who can choose the higher, harder path, who chooses to be obligated to others, who chooses kindness and compassion.

Because Mizu's problem isn't revenge. Nobody is preaching at Mizu that revenge isn't the answer. Her circumstances do suck, her life has been incredibly unfair, she is marginalized, and as far as we and Mizu know for most of the season, she is a child born of violence and no one is saying that that violence doesn't deserve to be repaid in kind.

Mizu's problem is isolation. And the fact that she thinks she has no responsibility toward her fellow human beings, because her hatred of her own circumstances and her having no life outside of her quest devours everything else. This is a problem because it turns Mizu into the worst version of herself. A version that hurts the people who like Mizu, the people who care about her.

Practically, Mizu has just taken on an entire army almost by herself. She's hurt. She's exhausted. If she were to defend Akemi now, it'd be yet ANOTHER fight, this time against horsed and armored samurai.

But that's not the reason Mizu gives Ringo. Mizu's ability or willingness to fight isn't even on her mind. All she says is, "She's better off."

"She's better off" is Mizu deciding what's best for Akemi. Akemi's entire story is about her being a caged bird longing to fly free.

One after the other, every man and woman in Akemi's life makes her decisions for her. She has to grovel and smile prettily and lie through her teeth just for the chance to be heard. Mizu judges Akemi for being a rich princess who isn't being more grateful for what she has, all without understanding Akemi's situation, and without any curiosity for why Akemi feels the way she does. From Akemi's perspective, Mizu is just one more person (one more man!) in a long lineup who ignores Akemi's wishes and (casually!) makes a decision for her that impacts Akemi's life greatly.

In the end, even Seki concludes that Akemi should get to decide what's best for Akemi. What others think that Akemi SHOULD want does not matter compared to what Akemi wants for her own life. As Madame Kaji said - Madame Kaji, who despite calling out the weirdness of Akemi's situation as well as the childishness of her decision to run away - is the only person Akemi meets who doesn't try to make decisions for Akemi, but instead only challenges Akemi to work for and be worthy of what she wants - she needs to decide what she wants for her own fucking self, and then take it.

Mizu being born female does not make her automatically wiser for letting Akemi be taken, and it does not preclude her from having a hand in giving Akemi back to her jailers. A patriarchy that Mizu knows full well would stop Mizu from achieving her own goals if she didn't present as male.

Mizu is still understandable here. She just had to kill Kinuyo, a disabled girl sold by her father into prostitution, a girl in a situation so far beyond Akemi's worst imaginings that I can practically feel Mizu's world being rocked just by comparing them in her mind the way she most likely is. That still doesn't make it right for Mizu to let Akemi be carried off to be sold into marriage by her father against her wishes. Those "good options" Mizu thinks Akemi has don't exist, no more than they ever existed for Mizu. Akemi and Mizu both have to get creative, make the best of their circumstances, take dangerous risks, and break rules in order to have any control over their own lives.

Even on my first watch, when at first I thought that Mizu had made the right decision and that Akemi was being unreasonable, Akemi screaming Mizu's name while being dragged, LITERALLY DRAGGED, back to her father was haunting as hell.

Mizu had the power to help Akemi, and simply chose not to.

Mizu lets Akemi be taken, Akemi who has just begun to trust Mizu. Mizu calls Ringo weak and quickly - seemingly easily - turns her back on him. Mizu values her quest over Taigen's life, after Taigen has endured days of torture to protect her, and she not only risks his life in the process, but doesn't tell him that Akemi is engaged to someone else, or that she came looking for Taigen, or that she is in danger.

Mizu's sword breaks because it is too brittle. Too pure. Too singleminded. Mizu only melts down the meteorite metal when she mixes the metal with objects from parts of her life that have nothing to do with her quest. Objects from the people she cares about, and who care about her.

All I'm saying is - Mizu doesn't have to be a hero. But she is the better version of herself when she reaches out to help and connect with others. When she's just a decent, kinder human being. And I think that's what this story is telling us that we should want for Mizu.

[sunlitmcgee]

say No to the supposed toxic yaoi of shipping a rapist abusive creep with a man who enabled him and was then tortured by him for several months.

Embrace, or at least consider, instead, the nuanced tenderness of a woman and a man, both hurt by the same monster, in a kinder ending, being able to heal their bodies from where he touched them. Regaining parts of themselves. Connecting and apologizing and healing alongside one another, growing into happy people who will live far beyond the events on that awful ship.

And have her peg him

[scissorcraft]

so. rescuing kittens, huh.

[nookisms]

Oops. It's a second headcanon compilation!

Don't worry, the next one will be back to our normal schedule of regular text posts and not headcanons

Masterpost

[cupidgnome]

i changed Brent and Madi a lil bit.