#that shes just ‘dumb’ (internalized ableism!)

[perenlop]

listened to cabinet man again for holiday joy and i also listened to touch tone telephone again and man the urge to add it to the quinn and atlas playlist…

[blessedbucky]

we tried the world, good god, it wasn't for us! (part 2)

pairing: autistic!satoru x suguru x autistic!reader

word count: 6k!

summary: a glimpse into the time before tokyo

tags: autistic!reader, autistic!satoru, bisexual!reader, bisexual!suguru, ableism, internalized ableism, mentioned child abuse, mentioned bullying, mentioned homophobia

beautiful people who asked to be tagged 💕: @ichikanu, @iceheartsice, @anders-is-being-a-simp-again

author note: i'm not going to stay this every single chapter, but just as a reminder, autism is a spectrum! i was a late in life diagnosis. like, i literally got diagnosed two-ish years ago at 30. so, i don't know what it was like to live a childhood with an actual diagnosis. i know, for most parents, their kid getting a diagnosis isn't the end of the world. i've done a lot of research on how autism is received in japan and it's a lot of mixed reviews. i can only imagine that living in a super tiny town isn't easy for anyone seen as "other" (LGBT, neurodivergent, sorcerers in regards to the JJK world). so, yeah, there's my disclaimer!

translation note: jiheishō is the japanese term for autism

oops done forgot to link part one

oops part duex here's the ao3 link

[SIX.]

“Jiheishō?”

Oh. There’s that word again.

Mother took you on another trip to the special doctor that’s all the way in the city. It takes a long, long time to drive there. Two hours, Mother said, when you asked. You wanted to ask her if she remembered how many times you’ve been to the doctor, but you can only ask one question on special doctor days. Mother has been really sad. You don’t want to make her sadder because you ask lots of stupid questions.

Is Father this sad, too? You wish that you could hug him like you do Mother, but you don’t see him a lot. He doesn’t like to talk to you as much anymore. He must be tired. He’s a farmer and works really hard. You were really happy when he came with you and Mother to the special doctor once.

“Absolutely not!” Father’s voice is loud. You drop your crayon because you got spooked. You’re outside with crayons and the special paper that’s colorful and feels really nice on your fingers. Before you went home, the special doctor let you take all your drawings home. “That’s what that quack came up with?! And you accepted that?! We spent all our money for that?!”

“Dear, please,” Mother says in that way that means she’s crying now. You want to go hide. It’s because of you. “Don’t you think this is the best outcome? We were scared that she had some kind of brain injury! The doctor said that the things that she’s been seeing are imaginary friends, that’s all. She has poor emotional regulation and an overactive imagination, so if we teach her what she can and can’t say—”

“What do you mean better?!” There’s a loud bang that makes you jump. “If she was sick in the head in some other way, we could medicate her! How do we treat this, huh?! What are we supposed to tell people? Do you know the position this puts us in now? This is an embarrassment on both our families! Our daughter will be no better than that Geto boy!”

Father is really, really, really mad. He’s super loud, too. It makes your head hurt more. The hospital had a lot of people, was really bright, and there was so much noise. You don’t know how, but you hurt Mother and Father, and that makes your heart hurt worse than your head. You guess this is because of what the doctor said. He said what was wrong with you, even if you didn’t know what it meant. Before he could tell you what it means, Mother said that she and Father would talk to you about it. She said that it wasn’t the doctor’s place.

You’re dumb. You should’ve known you hurt her when she got in the car after leaving the doctor and cried a long time.

Too scared to be seen by Father right now, you decide to leave. If he sees you, he’ll keep yelling, and you’ll cry. This might make him happier, anyway. He says that he wants you to be more normal. Normal boys and girls go play, right? You don’t have people friends, but you don’t think that matters. You just have to be gone from home until the sun sets. If Father asks where you went, it won’t be a lie to say you were playing with friends.

You walk along the rock road between farms to get to the forest where the river lives. No one waves to you like they do Mother and Father. You know they think you’re weird because your classmates think it, too. It’s not your fault that you have different friends than them. You think they’re jealous that they don’t have as many as you.

Oh!

There are special animals!

Just as they’re about to fly away in the forest, you see a big group of them. These ones look like cute squids!

If you think really hard and call for them like you see classmates do with cats or dogs then the special animals will come see you, but these don’t. “Wait!” They don’t hear you, either. They’re too far away. So, you give chase. You want to touch them and hold them like nothing else. You know it’s mean, but you’ve never seen special animals as cute as these before!

Will these feel like real squid or cooked? You hope it’s real squid. That would be so cool! Maybe you haven’t ever touched a real one, but you have eaten squid, and you hate it. It’s so gross inside your mouth that you throw up whenever Mother makes it. Not even takoyaki can make it better.

You’re on the side of the river when you catch up with the squids. You almost get bonked on the head by something. They’re all dropping stuff on the ground. Fruits and vegetables. They’re dirty and have fur on the end that Father told you were roots. It’s like the squid stole them from the farms. The squids hover in the air, even if they dropped their food. You take the chance to leap up and grab one of them.

You’re squealing at how slimy the squid feels when someone shouts, “Hey!”

All the rest of the squids float over to a boy that’s stomping out of some bushes. You know this boy. He’s the tallest in your class, but also the skinniest. His black hair is at his shoulders and messy. He’s the very first in your class to lose a tooth. He’s making a mean face, so you can see the hole in his teeth. This is Geto Suguru and he’s the only other person in class that people don’t like, though you don’t know why since no one talks to you.

“Let my squid go!” Geto shouts.

Your eyes widen. “You can see them, too?!”

“Yeah. Just like you can, I guess.” Geto walks to stand in front of you and yanks the squid you’re squeezing. “You’re not allowed to eat any of these! This is my food, and these are my squids!”

You’re confused. “Are those regular squids? Do regular squids fly? You only eat regular squids, right?”

Geto squints his eyes at you. “Are you stupid?” He shakes his head. “No. Ocean squids can’t fly. I’m talking about the ghosts.”

“Ghosts?” You tilt your head, trying to figure out what he’s talking about. Suddenly, a black hole opens next to Geto’s head, and a new special animal comes out. This one looks like a really big, ugly fly with teeth and eyes. You have seen these kinds around before. “That’s a ghost? I thought those are special animals.”

Another black hole opens. This special animal has a mushroom-shaped head with a little body and wings. “How does that even look like an animal, dummy? Most of them don’t look like the squids.”

“I know that!” Your cheeks puff out. You’re not dumb. He is! Ugh. Why did you think that he would be different than the rest of your classmates? Everyone calls you stupid! “I call them that because they come when I do. It’s like other kids and their pets. I can do the…the…psst, psst, psst thing.”

Geto finally loses the angry face. Now, he’s confused like you were before. “Huh? You mean…they listen to you?” He points at the bruise on his cheek. “I have to fight them before I can eat them. After I eat them, then they listen to me.”

“You eat them?”

“You don’t?”

“No!”

Maybe you are stupid, but so is he. The two of you stand there and look at each other while you think hard about what you learned. You can both see the invisible things that no one else can. Are there other people like you and him? There has to be! And they all are special because you and Geto are. They come when you call. Geto eats them.

At the same time, you both shout at each other, “Show me!”

“Whoa.” Geto holds his hand out to let you touch the black ball that he turned the ghost animal into.

It took you and him walking up and down the river to find a ghost animal that wasn’t already his pet. He watched with wide eyes and a mouth dropped open as you clapped and called to make the ghost animal come to you. Geto wanted to fight it, but you told him that he didn’t need to do that because it wasn’t going to hurt either of you now. You know that they can be mean when they don’t know the other person, but they don’t fight you.

Then, you were the excited one as you watched Geto show his power. It was bright, but it was so cool that you didn’t even care about that. It’s kind of like the special ghost turned into ashes, just breaking apart before it spun in circles, and it finally formed into a little black ball that Geto now holds.

“That was so pretty!” You’re so excited that you’re waving your arms. “It was so cool, too!” His cheeks are red. He looks away when he pushes the ball in your face. Grinning, you reach for it, but instead of getting to feel the ball, your hand goes through it and lands on his hand. “Oh.” You poke his hand. “Aw, it didn’t work.”

“Eh?” Geto blinks. He pulls his hand away, making sure that his ball didn’t go away completely, and it didn’t. He curls his hand around it over and over. “I guess only I can do it.”

You nod. “That makes sense. Just like only I don’t get hurt by them.”

“But we can both make them do what we say.”

“No,” you stretch the word out. “Um, it’s weird. They don’t see me unless I call for them. And I can make them not hurt me or anyone else and…stay there. But that’s kinda it, really.” You rock back and forth. “I guess I just make them not angry.”

Geto looks at you for a long time without saying anything.

It starts bothering you, getting stared at. You ask, “What is it?”

“Will you help me get bigger ones? You don’t have to do anything but make them be quiet like you did here,” Geto says. “It’s hard for the little ones to get bigger food for me.”

“Why don’t you ask grown-ups to get bigger food for you if the ghost animals can’t?”

Geto kicks some rocks into the water. He doesn’t look at you anymore. “Because I’m not asking for any of that food, dummy.”

“But…that’s stealing, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what else to do,” Geto whispers. “My folks don’t give me food.”

You’re the one that doesn’t say anything for a long time. That makes your heart hurt. Parents are supposed to feed their kids, aren’t they? Sometimes, yours don’t, but that’s because your body is being bad. Mother works hard to make meals and you don’t appreciate that when your body makes you throw up the gross feeling food.

Would Mother and Father let Geto eat instead of you? Geto would probably like Mother’s food more than you. But…no. Father says that he doesn’t like Geto. He thinks that Geto is weird, too. Father might get even madder at you if you tell him that you and Geto are friends.

Kids are supposed to eat. It’s really, really important, your teachers say when you don’t want to eat lunch for the day. That would make it okay if Geto takes some food, right? Farms are big, anyway. Some animals go digging for food. You know that because Father said so. What’s different between a deer and a ghost animal taking food?

“You have to pay me for it,” you finally say.

Geto nods excitedly. “Anything!”

You hold out a hand to him. “I’ll help you if you be my friend.”

[FOURTEEN.]

“You’ve been crying.”

When Suguru cups your cheek and wipes at the tear stains with his thumb, you shrug him away. Not because you don’t want to be touched, but because you don’t want to dwell on what caused said tears. “I brought takoyaki,” you mumble as you slip your backpack off your shoulder. “Had to take a bite, but I know you don’t care about the germs.” Said takoyaki balls are wrapped in a napkin that you pass over to him.

“I almost don’t want to out of spite,” Suguru mutters under his breath.

“Then what? Should I throw it away? They’ll check the trash or check the yard to see if I buried it.” Hugging your knees to your chest, you put your forehead against your knees. “Eat it, please. I just want this whole ordeal to be over, okay?”

“Aren’t you too old for them to be forcing you to sit at the table?” Suguru keeps complaining as he digs into the takoyaki balls with gusto. He tries to be casual about it, but you’ve been best friends for almost ten years. You know when his parents haven’t been letting him eat.

“Aren’t you too old to be asking these stupid questions?” You turn your head to the side to quietly study him. It was nearing midnight when he came knocking on your window. The makeup from the day has rubbed off, so you can see the ugly bruise yellowing on his cheek. “Aren’t you too old to be hanging out with the weird chick? You know it makes their mood worse when they hear I made a scene.”

Suguru chuckles darkly. “They’d find another fuckin’ reason to get pissed off, trust me.”

“How’d we end up with the shittiest parents in this stupid village?”

“Everyone has secrets. They’re cruel to their children, to their spouses, to each other. Just like you and I do, they have their masks, but word gets around. You just don’t pay attention.” He reaches over to flick your exposed nose. “Did you hear about what happened with Endo Iyo’s father? His mistress from a village over showed up on their doorstep, saying she’s pregnant with his child.”

“Eh? No wonder she was such a cunt at school today.”

Suguru laughs quietly. “You’re awful, Squid.”

“Says the person that’s dishing out the gossip.”

“Okay, you got me there.” Suguru stabs the last takoyaki ball with his skewer. Before he takes a bite, he asks, “I’m surprised you’re not saying worse about her. Do you want to talk about what happened today? I heard that you and Endo got into a screaming match in the girls’ locker room.”

“All the mean shit that I had to say about her, I said to her face.” He snickers but stops when you go on to explain, “She was talking about doing mean things to you.” You fiddle with the hem of your sleeve. “I overheard her and all her little friends scheming. She said that when we start high school, she’s going to pretend to confess her love for you. She said that you’re such a desperate loser that you’d accept.”

Suguru doesn’t have much to say about that. He tosses the napkin away. You watch as, one by one, he licks the sticky residue of takoyaki sauce away from his fingers. He’s staring at you thoughtfully while he does. For some reason, it leaves you flustered, so you duck your head back down.

“Is that what upset your parents?” You nod miserably. “That was sweet, Squid, but you didn’t have to go through that for me. I know you hate to yell. But…you didn’t think that I would believe her if she said something like that, did you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? Or…maybe you’d use her like she wanted to use you. We’re at that age, y’know. I hear guys talk about getting a hand up girls’ skirts and stuff.”

Suguru groans loudly. You glance over at him and he’s so disgusted that it makes you huff in amusement. “How low is your opinion of me? I have tastes.”

“How do you even know what your tastes are? Everyone our age is gross.”

“You’re not gross.”

“I wasn’t talking about me and you, obviously.” You unwrap your arms from around your legs, letting them drop. You shuffle around to cross your legs instead. “We start high school next year,” you whisper more to yourself than him. “I guess that I do have to start thinking about that stuff, huh?”

He makes a displeased noise in the back of his throat. “You actually don’t.”

“It’s what normal teenagers do, though, right? Girls think about making love confessions to the guys they have crushes on. They want to date.” You bite on your bottom lip. “That cunt, Endo…she even talked about swindling you into taking her to a big city to book a room at a love hotel. She thinks you have a big dick because you’re so tall. That’s when I snapped.”

“Oh. That was nice of her to say.”

“Suguru! Ugh!” You can’t even believe that he would praise her like that. Suguru is your best friend! This asshole is supposed to be on your side here! “Don’t be thankful for that! One day, you’ll meet a nice girl who will wax poetic about your dick and mean it!”

“Or boy.”

“Or boy—” you blink. Slowly, you turn your head. Suguru is pointedly not looking at you. Because he’s nervous. Your kneejerk reaction is to be hurt that he’s waited this long to tell you, but you understand why. During your first year of middle school, word got around that Kimura Kaito liked boys, and he left for the city without even graduating. “Or boy,” you reaffirm. “I can kind of forgive you for taking Endo’s compliment. It sucks that someone so hot is such a bitch.”

The tension in the air eases. With flushed cheeks and a laugh, he gives you a light shove. “How much did it pain you to lie like that?”

“I wasn’t, though?”

“Oh.”

“I thought you knew,” you admit. “Didn’t I tell you about the day that I was with my mother in the city? It was two years ago, I think? I saw an ad at the subway station with this model and said it’d be nice if she was my wife. My mom slapped me so hard that I knocked my head against a wall and busted it open.”

“No!” At Suguru’s shout, you immediately shush him. Sure, your house is bigger than his, but it’s not that big. He’ll wake your parents if he keeps this up. “I saw that and tried to ask you about it, but you didn’t say shit,” he hisses in a much quieter voice than before.

Oops. “Well, that’s what happened.”

Suguru tilts his head back, looking up at the starry skies. “We’re kind of perfect for each other, Squid. Have you ever thought about that? We see the same things. We were raised the same. We like the same things…”

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” you agree.

Just the thought of a life without Suguru in it makes your chest tight with panic. This is the exact same spiral that you had before you two entered middle school. You were so exhausted that first week of middle school because terror kept you awake all the nights before. You dreaded the change. You thought that, somehow, the rest of the kids in the village would finally figure out how amazing a person Suguru is and take him away from you. Now that you think about it, that might be part of the reason why you exploded on Endo. Maybe she joked about it, but what if someone else didn’t?

“Squid—”

“Suguru—” you stop when you realize that you and he started to talk at the same time. Since it feels like you’ve dominated the whole conversation tonight, you meekly offer, “You first.”

“Do you…” Suguru trails off. Whatever he wants to say, he doesn’t know how to get it out. You patiently wait. It’s like he goes through a lot of emotions, one after the other. Finally, there’s a defeated slump to his shoulders. “It sounds like it was a hard day for you.” He has such a soft smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Do you want to help me catch the ghost animal that I found last week?”

“You went manta ray riding without me?” You can’t help but pout about that.

“Sorry, sorry. I needed some time alone, that’s all.”

Yeah, okay, you understand that. For you, there are days when it’s simply too hard to even talk. So, you don’t dwell on that any longer. You move the conversation forward as if he never said it at all. “We’ll be so exhausted tomorrow,” you warn.

“It’ll be worth it.” Suguru rises to his feet. Holding out a hand to you, he grins wickedly, and declares, “It’s a dragon.”

“You couldn’t have said that earlier?!” You’re so excited that you scramble to your feet yourself. In your excitement, you almost forget that it’s midnight, and everyone else is asleep. Suguru puts a finger to his lips to remind you to be quiet. Eyes bright and vibrating with delight, you whisper-shout, “Let me grab my sketchbook!”

“Reminds me of Hong.”

“Hong?”

“It’s a rainbow dragon from Chinese mythology!”

“You choose to focus on the most random things,” Suguru mumbles. You elbow him in the ribs as a rebuke. He doesn’t even flinch. Since when did this skinny kid get so damn buff? Oh, from his asshole father making his kid do farm work in his place, that’s how. “What makes you think this is…whoever? Hong?”

“You can’t see it?” Hmm, well, you two do only have moonlight and flashlights to guide your way. There’s no electricity left in this old factory. “Here.” You take the flashlight from Suguru and wave it from side to side so that the light catches off the white dragon’s scales and the iridescent sheen that bounces off them. “See? Rainbow!”

Suguru steps forward to glide his fingers over the dragon’s hide. With a hum, he takes the blunt end of the flashlight and knocks it against the scales. The clang echoes in the silence. “It’s so odd that such a tough creature went down so easy.” He looks over his shoulder at you, brows knitted in concern. “Are you okay?”

“I might fall asleep on the way home,” you admit. It’s the dead of winter, but you had to take your puffy coat and the sweater under that off because you were burning with exertion. You won’t complain, though. This has really helped get out all that excess energy that’s bubbled up inside you all day.

“Oi!”

Both you and Suguru freeze at the sound of a human voice. At the entrance to the factory, there are a group of people. There’s one older man that’s dressed in a suit while the other three appear to be high schoolers—on the cusp of graduation, you’d say, based off how old they look. None of them are from around here. Those uniforms definitely don’t belong to your school. Not even from any other schools in your district. You’re not even sure they’re from your prefecture.

And maybe the sight of them wouldn’t be so alarming. Like you and Suguru, they could be some kids looking to goof around at spooky, supposedly haunted places…but one of them has a weapon. Seriously. The boy with spiky brown hair and a toothpick sticking out of his mouth has a katana drawn.

“Get away from that thing!” Katana Boy shouts.

You don’t know if they’re yakuza or some kind of serial killer group or whatever, and you don’t want to find out. Both you and Suguru act. Normal people can’t see ghost animals, but people can still be touched by them. You and Suguru has fucked around with ghost animals enough to know that. So, when Suguru throws an arm out and the rainbow dragon follows, the entire group is tackled by an invisible force.

Heart racing, you throw yourself against Suguru’s side, and the ground falls out from underneath you both after Suguru summons his manta ray. As soon as Suguru gets you both far away enough, he’ll let the rainbow dragon go. After Suguru swallows them, they’ll never leave him again, no matter how far he may go.

And as soon as you’re far away enough, you can freely shout, “What do we do now?!”

“It’s fine,” Suguru tries to assure you. “It’s fine. Take a deep breath.” How can he say that to you when there’s a rapid rise and fall in his chest, too? “Look, there—” he hesitates as he scrambles for a plan. “We won’t ever go back that way, okay? We were in another district, so they would start the search there, anyway. But why would they bother to look for us? What would they tell the authorities? They’d be admitting to crimes of their own!”

“Yes! Right! Okay!” The logic helps calm down the frantic racing of your mind and body. Because he’s right. He is. Those other teenagers would be looked at as crazy as everyone does you and Suguru—wait. Wait. “Katana Guy…he said to get away from that thing. Did he mean Hong? Could that guy see Hong?!”

“No, Squid!” Suguru shakes his head. He knows exactly where you’re going. “We are not going back there! Who cares if they can see what we do? If one of them had a katana, you think the others didn’t have weapons of their own? Whatever they wanted, it’s no good.”

“There are other people like us, though!” It’s starting to process in your mind. This makes your heart soar higher than this manta ray could possibly go. You’re still draped across Suguru’s lap. You pull at his shirt, yanking him away from his thoughts, forcing him to look down at you. “There are other people like us!”

“There…” Suguru’s eyes widen. The epiphany finally reaches him, too. “There are other people like us,” he repeats breathlessly.

“Let’s leave!” The grin on your face is infectious. You are both high off adrenaline and elation. “Suguru, I don’t care if we have to live on the streets…as soon as we graduate, we’re leaving here. We’re getting away from everyone in our shitty village. Let’s run until we find more people like us!”

Suguru holds up his pinky between your bodies. You immediately hook your own around it. “Yes,” he swears. “You and me, Squid. We’ll run and never look back.”

Little did you know, a week later, you and Suguru are given your destination to run toward.

Side by side, you and Suguru walk down the gravel road that leads to your homes. Halfway home, there’s a sleek black car that blocks the road. They’re not from this village because no one has a car as nice as that. You and Suguru plan to go around it, just assuming it’s for one of the farmers. It’s unusual but not rare. Sometimes, corporate lackeys come slinking in to try and buy up farmland.

The back doors of the car open and, with growing dread, you realize that those people are here for you and Suguru. Katana Guy steps out of the car, rubbing the back of his neck, looking like he wants to be anywhere but here. He’s not armed, thankfully. If you scream, will neighbors come running? They may ridicule you and Suguru, but this village protects their own. So, you could make a scene.

“Yeah, that’s them,” Katana Guy loudly announces while he looks over his shoulder at the other person stepping out of the car.

An unfamiliar voice calls out your name, followed by, “Geto Suguru.” There’s a big man that walks around to step up by Katana Guy’s side. This man wears thin, sporty sunglasses. His brown hair is a buzz, shaved close to his head. He’s got a mustache-goatee combo thing going, too. “Don’t be scared. We’re here to talk.”

Behind you, there’s the tale tell sound of Suguru’s rift opening. Nothing gets brought out, though, when you hold out an arm as a motion for him to stop and think. There’s an audience. This isn’t like it was the other night. The neighbors can’t see the ghost animals, but they can see the damage that’s done. They can feel the damage that’s done. Feelings for them aside, it’d bring up too many questions if a bunch of people died. That’s why Katana Guy and his gang aren’t doing anything, either.

“If you have anything to say, talk with our parents,” you state bluntly.

Sunglasses Guy approaches you and Suguru slowly. Suguru takes the arm that you still have held out and tries to tug you behind him protectively. You don’t go. Instead, you just hold his hand tightly, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble. Sunglasses Guy stops when you and Suguru start backing up. On each side of the road, farmers are putting their tools down and walking to meet you.

“My name is Yaga Masamichi,” Sunglasses Guy introduces himself. “I’m a teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu High School.”

Suguru scoffs. “What? Are you here to offer us a spot?”

“Yes, actually,” Yaga answers. “I will speak with your parents, but I can’t give them the whole truth. They’ve never believed you when you told them, have they?” Your hand squeezes tighter as if to say to him, see! See! Just like us! “Behind me is one of our third-years, Kusakabe Atsuya. He says that you two took care of the spirit.”

“Spirit?” Suguru and you repeat at the same time. You think you know what he means, so you ask, “The dragon?”

“Yes.” Yaga nods. “That thing you encountered, the things that you’ve seen your entire life—those are what we called cursed spirits.”

It’s weird. It doesn’t even take that long for Yaga to bust wide open the door to a whole other world. It’s not super detailed, it can’t be because you’re on a time limit with suspicious neighbors, but it’s enough to comfort you and Suguru. You’re told about the foundation of jujutsu—cursed energy that births cursed spirits and the sorcerers that wield it. That’s what you and Suguru are, he tells you. You’re jujutsu sorcerers.

“The school that I teach at…we teach those like you how to hone and strengthen their techniques. We train them to become full-fledged sorcerers that will go on to save lives that cursed spirits threaten,” Yaga explains. “You’ll meet people like you. There are two others that would be coming in with you next year if you decide to enroll.”

“Yes,” Suguru blurts.

“Suguru,” you hiss. To Yaga, you demand, “Come back and be less suspicious about it. We’ll talk more then.”

Yaga accepts this with a nod.

When Yaga and his shady car is gone, Suguru stares at you as if you’ve grown another head. A neighbor calls out your surname, then Suguru’s, but you ignore them by stomping forward down the road. You’re tired of being looked at. Suguru allows himself to be dragged by the hand, but he’s still trying to press you.

Suguru says your name. “This is our way out!”

You’re exhausted. You want to go home, but Suguru’s not going to let this go easy. When you two are far away enough, you stop, and whirl around to face him.

“Did you even listen to what he said? The ghost—these cursed spirits—” all these emotions are starting to overwhelm you. It’s got your hands shaking. “Saving people means these things are dangerous enough to kill us. That’s…that’s scary! What if we fail? How could I live with myself if someone dies because of me?” Your throat is clogging up with emotion. “I want to leave, I do, but I don’t want to fight. I just want to understand!”

Maybe Suguru thinks it’ll make you feel better, but it makes you feel dismissed when he says, “That won’t happen. I’ll always be there to protect you.”

“How does that make things better? Do you not get that the thought of that makes me even more scared?!” You press the heels of your palms against your eyes. Your bottom lip quivers. “What if you get hurt because of me? What if you die because of me, Suguru? What am I supposed to do without you?”

“Squid, if we don’t leave now then we never will. We’ll be stuck here, doing nothing with our lives.”

“Go be a hero without me, then!”

“No,” Suguru answers flatly. “We both go, or we both stay.”

It’s too much pressure. The day weighs down and so does Suguru’s clear manipulation. You explode. “You’re such a piece of shit! This is so selfish! You’re making me decide your future, so I end up being the asshole if I make you stay here when you definitely don’t want to!”

“You don’t want to, either! But you’d rather stay here and let yourself be a punching bag for everyone because you’re scared shitless of change!” When you’re angry at each other, you both get nasty. “Oh, what is poor Squid gonna do if there’s even one little change to her day-to-day? How would she ever survive if something different happened for a change?!”

“Oh, what is poor Suguru gonna do if he doesn’t have someone to take care of out of pity?!”

“Pity?!”

“You heard me!” As you’re storming away, you throw over your shoulder, “Now, leave me the hell alone!”

Normally, crying the way you did when you got home to your room would exhaust you enough to let you sleep the whole night through. Your mind and body don’t want to do that tonight, though. You’re hyperaware of everything—the weight and scratch of clothes against your skin, the constant shudder of your thin window as the harsh winter winds bashes against it, the rattle of the heater in the corner of the room. You have to have a tough debate with yourself over whether to strip all the way down to your panties or to bear the burden of this weight against your skin. It boils down to being kept awake by cold or by fucking clothes because that’s the perk of having a brain like yours.

Can the day get worse? There’s only two minutes to midnight, but you’ve never had luck on your side.

For five minutes, you watch the bright, red numbers of your alarm clock intently. Is this like…what’s that American saying? If you watch the minutes pass by, is it like counting sheep? Will that keep your mind off the guilt that sits heavy in your chest like a stone?

That Yaga guy will be back. What if Suguru sees him before you? What will Suguru say? Will he finally give up on you or will he give up on the chance to break free from his parents and this awful village? You hate both options. It doesn’t matter which one you think about, they both replace that guilt inside your chest with panic.

At this point, you have to decide which option will be the least painful.

And isn’t that a shitty summarization of your life?

What’s worse? Gagging as you try to force down food that you hate the texture of or face your parents’ wrath? Gritting your teeth through days where even an overcast is enough to make your eyes burn or deal with the punishment for skipping school to curl up somewhere dark? Living with a low burn of panic as you let people surround and touch you as you try to pretend to be normal enough for a relationship or become a total outcast with nothing and no one to rely on?

Can you spend decades more in this village with this metaphorical mask that’s been nailed onto your face by your parents because they don’t want you to be seen by the world for who you truly are?

The thing that Suguru doesn’t understand is that if he goes to this high school, the only thing that’s separated him from everyone else will be gone. He will be surrounded by people who can see cursed spirits. He’ll no longer be seen as other. He would shine so bright at this new school.

It can never be like that with you.

Because, at the end of the day, people who are not born like you are all the same. Jujutsu sorcerers will have their own world with their own unspoken rules and their own incomprehensible language that you will only be able to decode when it’s too late and you’ve been stamped as wrong.

You don’t want to be left behind.

But you also don’t want to force Suguru to stay behind with you.

Who doesn’t want to be a hero? Not everyone can be, though. You weren’t built to be a fighter. It terrifies you, the thought of becoming one. You may be even more terrified to face the people than the cursed spirits. How exhausting will this be? You’ll not only be navigating the jujutsu world, but also the unspoken, too. You’ll have to learn new rules, learn to be around new people, and mold yourself a new mask.

You don’t want to let down Suguru.

Ugh.

You may as well go talk to him since he won’t come to you. He always waits on you to make the first move when you tell him that you need to be alone. So, you roll away from your futon, climb to your feet, throw on a few more layers, and climb out of your window into the freezing night.

The Geto house is two down from yours, but in the countryside, that’s a hike. It’s the smallest in the village. Suguru has said he’s lucky that he has his own room, but it’s close to his parents’. You don’t tap on his window like he does yours. Instead, he always leaves the window unlocked so that you can crawl through, as you do now. You don’t need to tiptoe over to shake him awake because, same as you, he never went to sleep.

Suguru meets you outside and brings a blanket with him that he throws over your shoulders and his. The two of you huddle under it, pressed right up against each other, soaking up the warmth from each other. You lean your head against his bicep, break the silence with a sigh and apology. “I’m sorry for being a bitch.”

“Don’t be mean to yourself,” he scolds quietly. “I was being impulsive.” He sighs. “You’re right to be scared. I want away from here so bad that I didn’t stop to think about the danger that I’d be walking us both into.”

“I’ve been thinking about it all and…I’m not sure that it’s dying that I’m really scared of.” You brought a pen with you and click the end. It keeps your hand busy and Suguru doesn’t mind the noise. “I’ve been all over the place, I know. I was excited at the idea of meeting people like us, of getting out of here, and I am! I—” you chew on your bottom lip. “I don’t want you to leave me behind when we get there.”

“Why do you think I would ever leave you behind?” Suguru sounds genuinely hurt which makes you feel guiltier. “Have I been such a bad friend that you think I only pity you?”

“No!” You jerk your head up, looking at him with wide, panicked eyes. “You’re my best friend! The best friend!”

Suguru doesn’t meet your gaze. “You’re my best friend, too, Squid. I don’t pity you. I haven’t stuck by your side because you’re my only option. I’m not going to throw you away at the first sign of attention from people who understand us. You were the first person to ever see me. You were the first person to take care of me. Now, we take care of each other.” He tilts his head down, bumping it against yours. “It’s you and me, Squid. It always has been. It always will be.”

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You didn’t think you had the energy or tears left in you to cry, but maybe you’ve still got some left. You grab his hand like a clingy girlfriend. Your voice shakes as you ask, “Promise?”

“I promise,” Suguru swears.

The next day, after school, you’re called into a private meeting with a counselor, your parents, and Yaga.

And when Yaga offers a full scholarship to Tokyo Jujutsu High School, you accept.

[lit3rally-m1ke-whlr]

guys I accidentally deleted the essay I wrote in my drafts bc I’m an idiot (I’m crying) so I’m just gonna summarize in less words bc whatever I’m not typing several more paragraphs on this. Anyway I just had to say that I feel like there’s an ableism problem in the Stranger Things fandom. Either that or this fandom just doesn’t like when characters show obvious neurodivergent traits. We see this with El being either infantilized or deemed annoying by fans when she’s clearly developmentally impaired and autistic because she struggles with understanding social cues and just wants to be normal and fit in like everyone else. She was raised in a lab, obviously she’s going to be immature and not have a strong handle on her emotional responses to things, and you don’t have to like her but it kinda sucks that she’s being hated for these things when I can relate to her so much. We also see this with Mike, and I feel like the people calling him the worst character are forgetting he’s literally just a teenage boy dealing with trauma. Like it’s as if they were never a teenager before because trust me I was just like Mike at that age if not worse. I’ll admit I used to hate him too but maturing is realizing the reasons people dislike Mike can easily be explained by either internalized homophobia or neurodivergence. He’s a bad friend? It’s because he’s trying so hard to appear straight and struggles to balance his relationships in a healthy manner, and he often speaks before thinking about how what he’s saying comes across to others, which is something many autistics/ people with ADHD do, not because we mean to hurt others but we can often be blunt or brutally honest and come across as rude (or even just lash out when we feel attacked or hurt as a way to defend ourselves but it often comes out harsher than we want it to) in my experience. He’s a bad boyfriend? He’s actually not and even then it’s because he’s gay and not in love with El but just doesn’t want to lose her. Besides he doesn’t have a great model for what a loving relationship looks like because of his parents so he may not be able to differentiate between romantic and platonic love and stays in a relationship that he’s clearly not happy in because of societal pressure to appear straight and it would be suspicious (in his mind) if they broke up because a) El literally is the coolest girl on the planet, how could he not love her and b) he loses his cover and people might start to notice and question his lack of attraction to girls. But not only that, he clearly struggles with describing and expressing his emotions or recognizing those of others (aka alexythemia) which is common in autistic people. So if he didn’t notice El’s obvious discomfort at the skating rink that’s probably why, and it’s also why he couldn’t tell her he loved her (bc it was a lie but I digress).

But perhaps the best example and the reason I decided to make this rant post is Robin’s character in s4. I remember seeing so many people saying that once the writers decided to make her lesbian they realized they didn’t know what to do with her character, some even going as far as to say they made her ditzy and stripped her of her coolness, which basically proves my point about y’all (as in the fandom in general) not liking ND people because god forbid we unmask around you, it’s no wonder so many of us feel afraid to be our true selves in front of other people. It’s almost as if she was hiding behind a persona to seem more normal and not draw unwanted attention to herself because she’s a lesbian, and once she came out to Steve and was accepted she… didn’t have to do that anymore? She felt more comfortable and safe around him to show her true personality? I don’t know but there’s something off about the way people are acting like she’s suddenly dumb or just there for comedic effect in s4 when she’s literally been so useful like she’s the one who realized music could save victims from being possessed by vecna. She’s literally the same except now she’s out to someone and she gets nervous when it comes to girls she likes, big fucking deal. Not only is this mischaracterization ludicrous and flat out wrong but it’s quite upsetting to see as someone who can relate to Robin in season 4 and is also autistic. Yes, not everyone with autism is like that but some are and to say she’s no longer cool because of it just enforces the perception of autistics as weird and unlikeable just for simply being themselves and makes us feel like we can only be liked or taken seriously if we keep the mask on.

look at me I said I would keep it brief this time but I still ended up writing an entire wall of text on this anyway lol thanks for coming to my Ted talk ig

[stobinesque]

27. things you said through a closed door (Steddie)

here you go!! love a good through-a-closed-door convo 💙 rating: M (for frank discussions of sex) | wc: 679 cw/tags: hurt/comfort, erectile dysfunction, internalized ableism

“Come on, Eddie, just talk to me, please.” Steve’s back is pressed against the bathroom door where he feels like he’s been sitting for hours.

“No.” Eddie’s voice is muffled by what Steve is afraid might be tears, and not just the barrier between them.

“You…you don’t have anything to be embarrassed or ashamed of, you know that, right?”

Eddie laughs, but it’s derisive. “Oh, I don’t, do I? That’s real rich coming from King Steve.”

Steve hisses and thunks his head back. “Don’t…don’t do that, Eds,” he says softly.

There’s a weighty silence on the other side of the door. “I’m sorry.”

Steve squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s uh…it’s happened to me before, too, you know?”

“Yeah?” Eddie’s voice is small.

“Yeah, with, ummm, Ali Langfield?” His eyes blink open, and he stares up at the ceiling. “We were making out, and I took her upstairs at whatever party we were at—she seemed down for going all the way, but” Steve twists a wrist back and forth in his other hand. “I’d had too much to drink that night, so I just…couldn’t get hard. No matter what we tried to do. And— yeah, I guess it was kind of embarrassing? But honestly I think she felt worse about it than I did.”

Eddie scoffs. “Yeah, of course she did, Steve. She was probably thinking it was because you didn’t think she was hot enough, or something.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not the point. And it’s not what was happening. I just— I don’t think you think that about me. And I don’t think you’re, like, less of a man, or something. It happens to everyone.”

“Steve, the only time it happened to you was because you were drunk. This happens to me all the time now, and it’s not because I’ve had one too many beers, man! It’s because I’m broken.”

“I don’t care— ”

“Gee, thanks, Harrington.”

“Fucking stop that, okay?” Steve reaches up to yank at his hair. “Let me finish. And stop trying to push me away.

“I don’t care if you can’t get hard, and I don’t care if you’re broken. I don’t think you are, but I don’t think it matters, either. Because if you’re broken, then so is everyone else! That’s what this means, okay? You can’t watch someone die, and find out monsters are real, and then walk into hell, and somehow come out on the other side of all of that whole, Eddie!

“All of us—each and every one—is broken in some way. Some visible, some not. But if you go around slamming doors and throwing up walls every time someone finds one of your cracks, some day you’re not going to have anyone left to help pick up the pieces and glue them back together.” Steve exhales, heart thudding like he’s just run a mile.

“I love you—and I want you—however you are. If you can’t get hard, then we’ll have sex you don’t need to be hard for. If you don’t want me to touch your dick when it’s soft, I won’t. And if you do—I’ll touch you wherever and however you want, for as long as it feels good, because that is what having sex is supposed to be about. Not whatever dumb idea you’ve let assholes like fucking Mike Lewenski or something get stuck in your head. Okay?”

There’s silence on the other side of the door.

“Eddie?”

Steve falls backward with a yelp as the door is yanked open on him.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry!”

Steve rights himself just as Eddie starts frantically fluttering around him, his flapping hands hovering over Steve’s head, patting his shoulders, and eventually settling at the tops of his arms. Steve braces himself as his boyfriend clambers into his lap, and presses their foreheads together.

“I don’t even know who Mike Lewenski is, Steve,” Eddie murmurs.

That startles a laugh from him, giddy and free. “It’s a good thing he’s pretty unimportant, then,” he says, reaching up to pull Eddie into a kiss.

Eddie follows.

send me a pairing and a prompt!

[dirtytransmasc]

i’ve been wondering how quaritch the sullys or norm & the others scientists would react if spider actually got brain damage from the machine, like a speech problem or chronic illness and he becomes shaky, also how would spider himself deal with not being able to swing through trees safely anymore?

I've played with a disabled spider before, though I never posted it, so here's my idea of a potential symptom list; tremors/numbness in his hands, auditory processing issues, sensitivity to light and movement, focal seizures, a mild stutter, and fibromyalgia (cause we have to project a little). another thing is, he just drops sometimes, his legs give out from beneath him and he ends up in a pile on the floor, otherwise completely fine. he also gets phantom pains of the connection from the machine (from what I understand, that machine would feel like pulling your spinal cord out the base of your neck and plugging it into a car battery). Add that to his PTSD from the event, and you get one fucked up kid.

now we just apply this to his family.

for neytiri it's one hell of a wake up call; her neglect for the child allowed him to be kidnapped and he is no physically affected, seemingly for the rest of his life. spider was always weary of asking for help, but now that poses a massive threat to his wellbeing, and the mother in her aches at the realization that she did that to him, she made him feel unable to ask for help. its also really difficult to watch him go through his focal seizures after what had happened to kiri. she know's its wrong of her to want to care for him now after years of neglect, but she wants to right the wrongs. the only problem is, is the boy is terrified of her.

jake is forced to realize how spider is a lot like him, and then looking back and realizing he was always like him, he was just too blind and dumb see it the whole time. now his kid, if he even has the right to call him that (he doesn't), is struggling just to function, and he'd been the one to say 'he's a tough kid' and move on. he feels sick every time he looks at the boy, and he ends up avoiding him just like the rest of his problems.

kiri would be furious with her family for leaving spider behind when she had begged to look for him, and now because they left him with those people, he's in constant pain and fear, frustrated because he lacks control over so much of his body. she would be one of his biggest caretakers, as she knows how to go about it without being patronizing, though even then, her constant help makes him antsy.

lo'ak would feel... upset, angry, sad, frustrated. he doesn't have one word to describe it. I've talked about this with a few friends, but lo'ak, while he may not actually have these disabilities, feels very adhd and dyslexic coded in the way that his trauma and neglect/abuse present themselves within the narrative. especially in the sense that he was never accommodated for his own "shortcomings" and now he has a disabled brother and he's torn between his internalized "ableism" (loosely using that word to run with the example) that stems from pushing his needs below the surface and therefore expecting other's to do the same, and his want to take care of his best friend and brother. it's not that he wants spider to hurt himself by not hiding his disability, its just that he doesn't know what else he can do, because for so long he's tried to do exactly that with no help. it also really hurts watching spider go through his day to day life like that, especially in the early days when he and the people around him didn't fully understand what was wrong so he sorta had to suffer through trial and error.

tuk is a good kid, she probably accommodates spider best because things don't change unless they have to. she still plays with him, nags him, spends time with him all the same. she just adapts to his way of life. she doesn't treat him like he's fragile or in need of pity, and I could see her inadvertently putting him through some sense of physical therapy as she gets him up and about, using his hands, and such. she makes him smile even when he feels hopeless she's the best little sister he could ask for.

norm and max feel helpless, every time the offer to help him he shoves them off (cause they treat him like he's 5 years old and made of glass). they see him fading away, looking more and more dull by the day, they know he needs help or the injury won't heal and it will only get worse, they know they should have done more when spider went missing, but they can't do anything now and spider hates them (he doesn't he just doesn't like his brian being rummaged around in anymore then it has, he doesn't want to be fixed, he just wants to be. he's tired of everyone pitying themselves for not looking for him, tired of everyone worrying, he just wants things to be normal again.)

quaritch would hate himself, he had brought spider to ardmore, even if he hadn't known what the machine would do to him, he allowed it to happen, he let spider to get hurt, and now he tries to do everything he can to make it up to him. he took care of him in the field, pulled strings to get him under the table medical care back on base, was even willing to give him up to the sully's when it started getting really bad, cause even if they were and parents, spider would have a stable life with medical attention. he doesn't have any ill feelings towards his son or his disabilities as many would assume he would; he just wants his boy to feel ok, no matter what that means ability-wise. he's also one of the few people spider lets faun after him because he knows it's not out of guilt for abusing and neglecting him for years but for making a mistake that spider can't find within himself to blame him for.

(including the tonowari family, because I can, I love them too much to exclude them)

tonowari and ronal would throw a fit when they found out spider had been knowingly left behind with the RDA, especially because he knew what they were capable of doing firsthand, but also because he was clearly a worse father than the man he claimed to be running from (quaritch getting a redemption arc and being 'adopted' by ronal and tonowari is my favorite thing, sorry, I just can't leave it out). spider accepts treatment from her because its na'vi medicine, it feels right to seek the Great Mother's help in fixing what the Demons did to him. this quickly turns into him getting adopted, cause ronal has taken to this small human child, and tonowari just wants to see this boy happy.

ao'nung tries to throw hands with jake. that it, he treats spider like he would any other kid, any other brother, he just tries to kill jake for letting that happen to him.

tsireya is just a gentle soul to keep him company. she is a rock in the storm, always calm and caring, always asking permission to care for him, never assuming he wants her help. she holds him steady when the world around him is chaos.

now for spider himself? he feels even more useless and like a freak then before. he feels weak for being so screwed up by what he only lets himself think of as 'a flashy spinning machine' as if it wasn't created to break him. he would hate having attention on him because why should it have taken being tortured to receive this sort of attention? was being a kid not enough, he just has to suffer first? pair that with the fact that he is so self sacrificial and quick to defend the sully's he's shameful of his own anger. he's an emotional disaster, so many different though processes mixing and fighting with each other. but most of all he's frustrated, so frustrated, in the span of a few hours he lost the one thing he had, which was trust in his body, his physical capabilities that allowed him to survive on pandora and be a 'tough' kid that burdened no one. now he needs help with basic tasks and constant supervision so he doesn't just fall down and die somewhere.

[disventure-rewrite-takes]

hopping on the self insert train

if I was in dcas I would be like the 1 person who gets 0 romance drama (bc aro) and that woud be incredibly cool of me. also I'd sweep the flag challenge lol, just nab it and then hide up a tree. watchu gonna do abt it

anyway i would openly be like "yeah romance isn't for me. i do not wana date. i am aro" and the fanbase would be like "what does that mean" and ship me with ppl lol. that could be the Thing In The In-Show Fandom I Complain About. also i'd call out the characters for being dumb bitches, sometimes gently, sometimes. less.

"lmao the attempted murderer is worried about preserving her tv image, give me a break"

"okay don't take this the wrong way. genuine question do you think your beef with the eight year old is justified or are you just upset your pride got wounded."

"ah yes let's all trust the attempted murderer who broke connor's leg she is clearly not being deceitful that's so beneath her" (i would bring up the s2 finale so much just to put things into perspective)

"yul can you die"

"oh my god hes finally communicating honestly with you and you immediately lie about a boyfriend. come on man"

"buddy. bestie. mate. i cannot spell this out clearer. SHE DOES NOT LOVE YOU. NO YOU CANT FIX HER"

"my brother in christ you accused him of cheating on his bf then got said bf voted off for entirely petty reasons why do you think he doesn't like you"

"grett i swear to god you deserve better than this guy"

(btw in that one specifically i would straight up be gabby 2.0 and yul would hurl microaggressions at both of us. except im white and idk if there's any known about derogatory terms for aros but im sure yul would invent some especially for me. although knowing him he'd probably just call me "restarted" and "acoustic". I'd be more offended by the laziness than the words themselves)

"yes i do in fact play an acoustic instrument but somehow i get the vibe that's not what you meant. look if you really wanna add ableism to your pokedex of bigot labels then at least don't be a pussy about it. say the word you really wanna call me. go on. say it. say it you coward."

and in the recent episode (from the peanut gallery, begrudgingly sitting in team ally bc there's more space on the bleachers than team jake and i do not gaf who wins as long as it's not riya) "HEY. HEY KRISTAL. CHECK RIYA AND YUL'S BACKPACKS THEY DID NOT GATHER SHIT WITH THOSE STUPID PLASTIC TOOLS. NO WAY IN HELL DID THEY ACTUALLY MINE TEN DIAMONDS BEFORE SCORPION SHIT WENT DOWN"

- @cornfields-td-nonsense

corn i absolutely love your intern 😭🙏🏼 yul would DEFINITELY make up a new slur for us aros on god

[citylighten]

More Don Facts Nobody Asked For

TW for ableism, suicide mention, teen pregnancy

When he was a teenager, his ex-girlfriends use to try to attack or fight his sister Stella. When she came home, Don would deny knowing these girls.

Stella had a suicide attempt. Don secretly feels it was all his fault because he wasn't emotionally there enough when they were growing up.

Briefly lived with his grandparents when his mom was arrested. He feels his grandma hated him. (But he was always doing something, and she always said he was just like his mama)

His mom always called him dumb when he was growing up and talked about "taking him to a doctor" so she could find out what was wrong with him. He internalized this. She still calls him dumb when she's annoyed by him.

His mother also once said, "since you want to fuck everybody, you might as well have these girls pay for it." Yet another thing to internalize.

The first time a girl came his way saying she was pregnant was when he was sixteen. He was not the father.

Although he's friendly, he genuinely doesn't know how to show love largely due to his mother not being very affectionate. He feels it can be done through sex, but he's already known to sleep around so sex may ultimately mean nothing for the other party.

He doesn’t like to be around kids that much and babies (Rohan) hate him so he’d rather avoid them altogether.

If he ever did some reflection and got therapy and confronted his mother about how she wasn't good to him growing up, her response is: "How am I awful? I bought you clothes. I cried when that bitch from social services took you away. But okay, I'm awful."

[larnax]

ok im not strong enough. hater mode activate.

im only so angry about this because its the first time ive ever seen bottom surgery even mentioned in a fandom context and its to shit on it. im gpnna turn into the joker

easy to DIY" this is dumb for the same reason "DIY wheelchair ramps" are dumb. gcs and making hrt both take skill and knowledge the average person does not have. DIY hrt saves lives and is many peoples' only option i am not disagreeing with that but its not your buddy brent making it in his bathtub its someone who has the medical knowledge who just isnt operating in an official capacity. you cannot do it Yourself unless you want to end up injecting olive oil. this is even more true for surgery. do you think you could perform a DIY vaginectomy????? have at least a baseline respect for the people who developed gcs procedures and the people who perform them

"leaves scars" every non op trans person owes me $500USD. i am so fucking tired of people who never bothered to address their internalized ableism/transphobia about ew yuck icky scars making that my problem by loudly announcing how disgusted they are by an extremely normal part of the human experience. there is nothing wrong with having visible scarring and there is nothing wrong with surgical scarring and acting like there is provably makes people avoid procedures that would unambiguously improve their lives

"certain procedures can be risky" aw cmon bud we all know which procedures you mean! pretty please keep fearmongering about how risky bottom surgery is otherwise someone might decide to actually get a surgery which has an extremely normal success rate for surgeries. yes they make you sign a bunch of forms acknowledging the risk thats called Informed Consent and 90% of the complications are true for literally any surgery or literally any surgery on the urethra/genitals. bottom surgery is not some uniquely dangerous procedure

"implants and bottom surgery highly imperfect" every non op trans person owes me $1000USD. would you say this about any other aspect of transition? is there any fucking room in your head for the fact that postop trans people actually exist in real life and could possibly see you talking about how disgusting you find them? because im 1) real and 2) fucking your mother with my Imperfect Dick right now

"doesnt leave scars/looks completely natural" every non op trans person owes me $1500USD. this stupid fucking idea people have that The Natural Body is 1) even a thing and 2) something we should aspire to or protect is so wildly transphobic and ableist that it, too, turns me into the joker. would you say this to an amputee? to someone who had an organ transplant? because people do and its the same bullshit. the right to bodily autonomy includes the right to alter your body! i dont fucking care if i Look Natural(although its worth noting that most people cant actually tell fully healed phallo dicks and natal dicks apart. i went to a urologist and he only realized i was postop when i told him) and it should not be treated as an unambiguously good thing.

LIKE EVEN THE FUCKING DOCTOR IS NOT ALLOWED TO HAVE MEDICAL BOTTOM SURGERY. olberic had an "averse reaction to medicine" <- directly against canon where he can be healed fine WHOLESALE INVENTED just so that we minimize the amount of people who could theoretically have phalloplasty

also youre lying to yourself and more importantly me if you think ophilia has any medical knowledge whatsoever shes literally a faith healer who cant even deal with poison

like ok "a wizard did it" is better than literally not even acknowledging some trans people want to "switch their junk" like most people do or arguing that its ahistorical to have any medical transition, However this is just having that so you can present it as the better alternative to the inferior gross medical transition which . go fuck yourself!!! go fuck yourself.

again im mostly so mad about this because when i saw the words "bottom surgery" in a fandom thing i was really really excited because i never get to see even other fans who acknowledge that their favorite characters could be like me! i had a solid 5 seconds of just being ecstatic to be represented and then i actually read the damn thing and it was just more of the fucking same.

[creaturebehavior]

i have to start reminding myself that once i’m out, i usually feel a lot better and there’s not usually much to be scared of.

i think if i could go outside without having to worry about interacting with people i would be so happy.

people terrify me. i’m so scared everyone is gonna be mad at me and yell at me and stuff. i know it’s crazy but that’s my legitimate fear is that i’m gonna do something dumb or embarrassing in public and someone’s gonna be mad at me. because it’s happened before. even when i’m earnestly trying my best. communication is so difficult for me. god there was that time that Togo’s employee got so mad at me cuz i was just trying to get a veggie sandwich but for some reason she didn’t understand me and kept asking what kind of sandwich i wanted and she spitefully put a unsliced, unripened avocado on my sandwich because she had gotten so fed up with me. I didn’t know how to be any more clear about my wording at the time. i just wanted a sandwhich with all their veggies on it like. what. a veggie sandwich. can i get a sandwich that just has veggies on it? apparently not. By the end i found out she wanted me to order a cheese sandwich because they don’t have a veggie sandwich. Like... That’s why i was asking if it would be possible to get a veggie sandwich. I wonder what a vegan would have done in that situation. by the end of it when she suggested i get a cheese sandwich i was like okay sure a cheese sandwich. but what if a vegan who’s equally as stupid as i am wanted a sandwich with just vegetables on it. would they have to order a cheese sandwich, hold the cheese? like? i still don’t fully understand what happened that day but i never returned to the Togo’s next to my house ever again. i must have been like 20 years old at the time and i still hold onto this and think about it. along with a couple other situations where there’s been a miscommunication and i seem stupid and seem like an asshole and it pisses off the person helping me, or i do or say something rude accidentally.

the world does not excuse idiots. it makes me feel really insecure. sometimes when i hear or see people venting about idiots they have to deal with at work i get so insecure because i’m also an idiot who doesn’t know or understand anything. you could say something super clear to me sometimes and i won’t understand it at all.

idek i’m trying to learn to love myself enough to not feel insecure about being like, slow. there’s a lot of internalized ableism i’ve been trying to deconstruct and let go of. my dad is really mean spirited and instilled a lot of hatred and judgement into me and my brother’s programming. my brother told me he’s had to unlearn being so judgmental too. our dad always talked to us like we were better than other kids, and would always tell us about how stupid he thought our friends and classmates were, or my mom’s friend’s kids were and stuff. he really othered us away from our peers and instilled insecurity and judgment into us. so core belief/childhood logic: if i act “stupid” like my friends or classmates, then that means i’m bad. that means dad doesn’t love me. that means dad will be angry. that means anyone could be angry.

this is a huge reason why instead of admitting i didn’t understand anything in school, i acted like i was too good to do homework. i acted like i just didn’t care about it. Because i was scared to be honest and say i need help, i don’t understand. because the only way my dad loved me is if i wasn’t stupid like my friends or my classmates or my mom’s friend’s kids.

[grrrasya]

ok, since after my finals I'll get back to working on my story with OCs I wanted to share one concept I really want to explore in future.

I have two interesting characters in the cast: Marcia and Kian.

cw: mentions of ableism and internalized ableism

Marcia was brought up as a noblewoman, child of aristocrats, and they are extremely wealthy. Marcia is the oldest daughter, although not suited to be heir due to being a woman. She is autistic. She was created with savant syndrome in mind as she is outstanding in necromancy. The thing is, she has to deal with extreme skill fade later on in the story. She is very good at masking, although she lacks compassion and sincerity (nothing to do with autism, just her scars from previous life experiences).

And then Kian joins the story. He is autistic too, but he was raised in Circle of Magi, so he was never really seen as an odd one there. He never knew societal norms outside the ones he was taught there. He never had to mask, really. People either like his company or they don't, no point in changing himself for them. He was, of course, hurt with some instances of infantilisation and ableism, but he persists with being himself.

And when Marcia first meets him, she hates him. She can sense that they struggle with the same thing, although she doesn't have the right name for this. From her perspective, they're both freaks. And he is either too dumb or too impudent to even hide it a little. After some time, she realizes that she hates him for just being free of this burden. He doesn't feel any guilt for being himself, any shame. And people around him just get used to it. The world didn't end because Kian didn't mask. It shouldn't end when she'll unmask too, right?

[kirindensetsu]

I don't have enough followers to play this game but I want to answer the question because I so stringently avoid thinking about my disability despite being real Too Crazy To Work.

1. I learned about Mad Pride in like.. 2016? But did not vibe with it because too therapized? And general Disability Pride sometime after that.

2. Hangin' out by myself in my big empty house with nooooo people! No covering, just vibes.

3. Big sunglasses. Too much length or intensity of sun exposure makes my psychosis worse. Also I get migraines without them but those are less bad than than my psychiatric symptoms.

4. No, they are perfect as they are, thank you Julbo and Savile Row.

5. I think? im good?

6. I mean nobody thinks the sunglasses are a disability aid they just think I'm a little Matrix/Trigun/Hellsing/etc freak.

7. I can't answer this because I don't have a community 🫠 I'm gay and trans but I don't go to that Pride either because I am too existentially Alone and it makes me sad.

8. *writhes sideways under the weight of my internalized ableism*

9. No, they always fucking suck. It's always "But you're so [smart/talented/whatever]!" And "Well [so and so] has bipolar and they can--" yeah, I know, I KNOW, every day I have to not think about it or I'll kill myself.

10. One time I had to go for an EEG to see why I was having seizures and the neurologist was my dad's shitty therapist's daughter and she looked at me and told me that there's no meaningful separation between software and hardware and when I think that way I'm just beating myself up.

11. Yes. Psychosis is mostly just the brain finding patterns where there are none but sometimes you and a stranger can get pulled into the same pattern if you have the same seed stimulus and a shared culture/mythology. Also validating to get clocked as a wolf sometimes.

12. White. I identify more with invisibility than with mental illness because I'm not in treatment and my whole life is structured to prevent anyone else from interacting with my symptoms in any way.

13. It's BORING. I spend so much time WAITING IT OUT.

14. Paralyzing fear of the dark in psychosis! I have two modes: "superior night vision, fearless, midnight hikes by starlight" and "the night is full of Horrors I must cover all reflective surfaces please walk me to the toilet"

15. This is dumb, but motion-sensor lightbulbs are extremely helpful to me. An extra layer of reality-checking help.

16. I want to hunt men for sport across the moors.

17. Tylenol and antihistamines.

18. My disability headcanon is that bipolar people have access to shrimp colors a la Van Gogh, I know that's not what you meant but that's how I'm gonna answer

19. New York State Psychiatric Institute babeeeeeey but there was no interacting, just being

20. I wish my IRL life contained more disabled people so someone could have told me that my attempts to ~*overcome*~ my disability were unrealistic but here we are. I spent seven years in undergrad and two doing extra grad school pre-reqs in order to....not be able to work any job because I can't act normal three days in a row! yay!

Disability pride month ask game!

When did you learn about disability pride month/when did you start celebrating it?

Are you doing anything special to celebrate disability pride month?

Do you use any disability aids?

If you have disability aids, do you decorate them?

If you don’t have disability aids, are there any that you would like to have?

Is there anything you consider a disability aid that others may not think of?

What do you love about the disabled community?

Is there anyone you look up to in the community?

Have you had any ableist encounters that were just kinda funny?

Have you had encounters where abled people were great allies to you?

Have you had a nice encounter with a fellow disabled person?

Which stripes of the disability pride flag do you identify with?

What’s something you wish people understood about being disabled?

What’s a symptom you have that you feel is underrepresented?

What would you have in your dream accessible home?

Do you play, or do you want to play, any kind of accessible sport?

What tips have you picked up for low spoon days?

Do you have any disabled headcanons?

Have you ever been somewhere where a majority of the people there were disabled?

Ramble about anything you like!

[cardboard-aliens]

It's so funny how Elizabeth is only allowed to have "cute" character flaws- They make her naive and too nice because that's attractive and easier to sell--look at her she's insecure about her pinky!!! BUT WHO taught her there was anything wrong with her pinky??????? She was isolated enough to not pick up on racism BUT she somehow still got internalized ableism???????? how???? Her only context is herself--even if she read an anatomy book or something to see other people usually have their both pinky fingers the same size how did she draw the conclusion that her slightly shorter pinky was a "deformity" to be ashamed of????? (it's not even that noticeable and easy to forget about--that's why they have that dumb scene where they full stop the story to remind you Elizabeth has a short pinky. Cut off her whole arm cowards.)

It just feels like they were picking whatever traits they wanted with no regard for if it made sense in the context of her back story--Elizabeth can't be racist despite being the heir of a white supremacist city b/c that's not marketable, but some insecurity and pity parties??? throw that in now she's a woobie and that's CUTE.

[redjaybathood]

"Get in, loser," Rose said throwing the passenger door open. "We're going shopping."

Jason hobbled to her car on crutches.

"I understood this reference," he huffed with difficulty after having to fold himself to fit in the Bug.

"Of course you did," Rose rolled her eyes. "We saw it together back in the hospital. Well, you watched it, and I've," she gestured to her eye in the middle of a sharp turn.

Jason clenched his teeth when his side connected with the car door.

"Listened," Rose finished.

"Hey, can you listen to this? Both hands on the wheel. Especially with your now shitty spatial awareness. How did you even get your license back so fast?"

"Fuck you, I drive just fine, and who said I did?"

She gave him a wink. Jason gave her a facepalm.

"We're not really going shopping though," he asked after seeing her missing the turn to Fourth Street. "You're taking me home, right?"

"Right," she said. "But not mine. My father's crashing at my place. Believe me, you want to meet him even less than yours."

"I heard you telling that story," he murmured, squeezing his fists. "There's nothing more I want than to meet him in a dark, empty alley."

"Oh, big bad Jason Todd, you're going to beat him with your crutches?"

Jason hunched his shoulders.

"Maybe. If nothing else, they make for a good blunt instrument."

Rose threw the Bug in the park.

"Hey," she took his face into her hands. "I know it sucks. But you aren't the same guy you were before. You can't just fight your way out of – anything. Life."

"Yeah, I couldn't even when I was..." Jason rubbed his legs.

"Looking for a lingo that isn't full of internalized ableism? I know how this goes."

"Guess you do. How do you do it?"

"I checked out some resources on Internet, talked with people, and there was therapy – I stopped coming though, too expensive."

Jason rubbed his head.

"No, stopped treating everything like a fight. Just accepted that you're going to be a loser forever."

"Jason," Rose leaned into his personal space. "I am never going to be a loser."

With that, she let him go and straightened in her seat, looking straight ahead.

"And I am not going to stop fighting, it's just the battlefield is changed. I am never going to compete in any tournaments anymore – not because lack of an eye makes me in any way unfit. It's just..." She sighed. "It's dumb, alright? I tried so hard to win. Strike hard, strike first, no mercy bullshit all the way. And he was never satisfied."

"Yeah," Jason said. "I know what you mean."

[sokkastyles]

“Criticizing Azula is ableist” and “Azula was just an abused kid nothing she did was really her fault” discourse is ruining the fun of Azula as a villain for me

I mean...I love Azula. And I do have a lot of sympathy for her as an abused kid but I see people saying you can't say she's an abuser herself and that she's "more complex than that" and here's the thing: abuse is complex. You can be an abuser and a victim at the same time. People who abuse others are not evil monsters, they are human beings. And Azula's situation is, unfortunately, not an uncommon one. Azula and Zuko's dynamic with their father is a classic case of golden child/scapegoat and it's pretty common in those types of situations for the abusive parent to convince the golden child to participate in the abuse of the other child. Does that make Azula a victim? Yes, but it also makes Zuko her victim, too, and because she internalized the idea that she had to abuse others in order to avoid being a victim, she went on to find other victims of her own in her friends Mai and Ty Lee. That's part of what is so tragic about Azula.

I do think there are criticisms of her that can be ableist. I have seen people calling her a psychopath, which is casual ableism which is pretty standard with villain characters, especially among casual fans. Psychopath is a loaded word and there's some debate about whether psychopathy/sociopathy/antisocial personality disorder even exists, and a fourteen year old can't be diagnosed with it anyway.

That's also why some fans get touchy about, for example, Iroh saying she is "crazy", but the solution to that is not to pretend that she's just some poor helpless baby and Iroh is horrible for not letting her hurt others. Iroh also has to protect Zuko and he said what he said largely because Zuko was falling into the trap of making excuses for an abusive person that a lot of victims tend to do, because Zuko was socialized to believe that Ozai and Azula were always right and he was always wrong. Zuko needs to hear that it is okay for him to protect and prioritize himself. Azula needs help, but it's not the job of anyone she is hurting to make excuses for her.

That said, I don't think you should let people saying dumb things ruin a character for you. There are always going to be things in fandom that you disagree with. Fandom isn't a monolith, and that's why I get annoyed with the "fans of x character always do y" stuff. Read what other people are saying, especially if they bring valuable perspectives to the table that you might not have considered, but also form your own opinions independent of fandom trends, and then you won't let other people's bad takes ruin or color your perspective.

[moonlight-breeze-44]

Em’s Year in Review

Hey, guys! It’s been a long time since my last personal post on here, but as it’s officially 2021 (thank God), I wanted to do the cheesy Year in Review thing and give thanks to the friends I’ve made, the communities I’ve joined, and the things that have changed me beyond words this year that I want to share with you all. 

To start, perhaps the biggest and best change of the year was when I joined the Shadowhunters fandom. Not to mention the friends I’ve made along the way and the support I’ve received and the amazing community I found my home in, Shadowhunters managed to rejuvenate my love for this site and fandom in general. Shadowhunters transformed this blog from an occasional place that I would visit to kill time into a means of expression that I am extremely proud of. Shadowhunters transformed my AO3 from a practically extinct account with three fics posted to an up-and-running, 80-fics-and-still-going-strong profile that is, truly, one of my biggest accomplishments. 

Shadowhunters also led to several friendships that I know I will cherish for the rest of my life. I would like to take this time to give thanks to some of them, and I apologise deeply if you deserve to be on this list and you aren’t; I know there are probably some people that I’m forgetting. You’re all important to me, and you’re all a part of the reason I am writing this right now. 

To start off, @arialerendeair has been an incredible source of support, friendship, and love for me throughout my journey into the Shadowhunters fandom, and she means more to me than words can say. She is a forever friend, a wonderful person, the best kind of enthusiastic and encouraging, and she is one of the most amazing people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. 

Before I joined the @malecdiscordserver and met a myriad of people that I gladly call my friends, I existed in the Shadowhunters fandom solely on Tumblr, and I would like to give thanks to my very first Shadowhunters fandom friend, @lightwormsiblings, for making me feel at home here and generally being an amazing person. 

@sugarandspace is a wonderful author and an even better person, and my friendship with her has led to many amazing fics, conversations, and sweet words. Her mental health fics and her response to mine are what inspired me to really start writing for this fandom, and as I’m sure you can imagine, that is something that I am very grateful for. <3

I would also like to give a shout-out to my fluffy counterpart, @bidnezz, who created the Fluff vs. Angst Battle 2020 with me, an AO3 collection that has made me smile countless times. Likewise, @aceon-ice deserves a shout-out, as well, for being an amazing person and supporting me despite my angsty tendencies. 

I have @eternallysilvermagnusandalec and @emma-arthur to thank for my love of Autistic Alec, and I want to give them the biggest of virtual hugs for screaming with me, bouncing headcanons with me, and generally being my biggest Autistic Alec supporters. They are wonderful friends, and I’m so lucky to have them both in my life. 

As for friends that aren’t actively on Tumblr, I would like to give thanks to Val, one of my favourite sprinting buddies and an amazing friend, Hannah, my favourite dinosaur-obsessed Among Us murderer and the source of endless support, and Evi, my recently-found friend, writing support extraordinaire, and fellow Team Angst comrade. 

I am extremely grateful for every single friend I’ve made in the Shadowhunters fandom, and every person who helped me feel at home in this community and showed me that this is a place where I can belong. You are all amazing, and I wish I had the words to express my gratitude for you. 

Another thing that the Shadowhunters fandom brought me was a means of self-expression, through a character like no other I’ve ever encountered before. Alec Lightwood and his place in Shadowhunters has brought me endless joy, validation, and hope for the future. Alec Lightwood is a character that I love dearly and relate to strongly, and his happy-ever-after as a gay man in love with a bisexual warlock truly lifted me up when I needed it. His character helped me to start writing things that I love, things that I enjoy, and things that benefit me to put on paper. For that, I am forever grateful. 

This year has brought a lot of changes to my life, but I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Shadowhunters & the friends it’s made me are by far my favourites. 

Other than Shadowhunters, there are a few other things that have shaped my year in large ways that I would like to give mention to. 

To start things off, as most of you know, I’ve been a fan of Supernatural since before I even knew fandom was a thing - hell, before fandom really was a thing. Supernatural and the SPN family and the AKF campaign got me through some of my toughest times, and I will always be grateful to that show for giving me everything that it did. 

Despite the discourse and despite everything that took over Tumblr with the finale and Cas’s confession, I am so happy that I made it to see that finale. It gives me a lot of joy to know that I’ve been here for fifteen seasons of a show that changed my life, and everything that comes in between. I love Sam and Dean and Castiel and all of the other characters that captured my heart in Supernatural, and I’m so grateful that I got to be a part of a family like this one. My experience in and with the Supernatural fandom will always be important and special to me, and I want to thank my first ever fandom friend (you know who you are), who encouraged me to post my first ever fanfiction back when I was younger and taught me what it means to be a part of a fandom community. She is the reason I’m fandom-ing it up today, and I’ll forever be grateful to her for that.

I’ve already mentioned them once before, but I want to give another shout-out to @eternallysilvermagnusandalec, @emma-arthur, and @arialerendeair for being truly amazing, wonderful people when it comes to a certain aspect of my identity that I’ve just started becoming okay with. 

For any of you who may not know: I am autistic. ...damn, that felt good to say. At this time last year, I was still very much “in the closet” about having autism and I was masking so much that I panicked at the slightest hint that I was “different”. I did not like who I was, and I had been conditioned to believe that I had to hide my differences if I wanted to have any chance of being accepted by others. 

These three made me see that that isn’t the case. 

Constantly being told “Quiet hands!” and to just look at somebody when I was talking to them and that it was irrational & dumb to be too overwhelmed to speak took its toll, but the Shadowhunters fandom and Silver, Emma, and Aria helped me realise that my hands can be as loud as they need to be, it’s okay if I stare at the wall while I talk to someone, and sometimes not being able to speak is just the way the cookie crumbles. Their acceptance of me and their incredible support has helped me become so much more comfortable with myself, to the point where I’m unmasking when I’m alone and letting myself stim without fear of repercussions or the feeling that I’m doing something wrong. They are the best kind of people, wonderful friends, and truly incredible. 

It is largely thanks to them that I am even fighting this ongoing battle against my own internalized ableism, and it’s important to me that all three of them know that. <3

For more information on autistic masking and what it looks like and why some of us do it, I recommend checking out this video, made by an autistic creator! 

If you’d like to know the true, harsh meaning of “Quiet Hands”, I recommend checking out this post, which explains the phrase & its connotations better than I ever could. 

Thank you to everyone who has read this far, and I hope you all have a wonderful 2021! This year was hard, but we survived. There have been times when I wanted to give up, and there have been times when you wanted to give up, I’m sure. But we are both still here, and that counts for something. That counts for a lot, actually. It’s everything. I did it. You did it. We did it. That’s something to be proud of.

Going into 2021, I hope that everyone will be kind, do their best to be understanding of other people’s differences, and treat others with the amount of respect they deserve. 

I love you all, and thank you for making this year, despite all of its challenges, one that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life. 

[heyheyimjustalittleguy]

fun rant, yay.

although my friends tell me its okay for me to rant to them, ive been doing it so much that i figured i should give them a break and rant to a bunch of strangers on the internet instead.

so, storytime

strap in, get your popcorn, put on your reading glasses, its showtime baby

it is currently june 26th, 2020

summer of my freshman year. freshman year was a long one, but towards the end, life was amazing.

i was on new meds, parted with a toxic ex, finally metaphorically punched my internalized ableism in the face, and i found someone i really love who actually loves me too.

great, right? well it was, until 2 days before school ended. i thought it was just a weird funk i was in “oh i must’ve slept wrong last night” i thought, “this is completely normal”

i was in pain, first it started as just minorly inconvenient; i would go to school, exhaust myself, come home, take a nap, wake up for an hour or two, and go back to bed.

thankfully school ended 2 days after i started noticing pain, so i was free, i didnt have to wake up at a certain time, i didnt have to run around in PE; it was great.

But the pain was still there, i complained about it to my parents, as any bratty teen would, “youre overreacting” my mother said. i thought she was right, i always exaggerate my emotions for comedy purposes, “im fine” i thought.

a week passed, still randomly in pain, 2 weeks passed s t i l l in pain. i was like “hmm wow this weird pain thing is going on for a while” my friends were all like

“s e e a d o c t o r y o u b i t c h”

but i am stubborn as hell, so i did not.

it was getting bad though, i had trouble eating sometimes, sleeping, getting up to take a shower. i had trouble doing chores and would have to half ass it, and immediately take a nap after. at first it was no naps a day, then one, then two, then i just didnt sleep at night, i couldnt.

i realized a couple days ago “damn, its been a month” it also happened to be the worst pain i’d ever been in, i tried working out, and my body instantly regretted it

and i was like “AYO MA I THINK IM DYING” she was like “ok, where do you hurt” i told her everywhere, she said okay. i kept trying to tell her my symptoms and she just kept scrolling on instagram.

my father came home the next day from a business trip and i was like “hey im in pain”

i do not like my father, i despise this man, hate him, so i do not know why i even bothered to tell him that i was suffering. of course, he did exactly what i expected him to do and went off about how unhealthy i am

“we need to put you on a diet, your mother saw something on instagram about it” and “you only hurt because you lay in bed all day” and “you need to exercise more” and “you also need to stop eating all those processed foods”

so yeah, parents arent the biggest help.

i love my friends, they let me rant to them, and they comfort me when im in a lot of pain, but i know they dont get it, i dont think anyone does.

i dont know what it is, maybe my parents are right and i am just overreacting and i do need to just exercise more. but i think its something more than that, and im really tired of it.

im so bored, i dont have the energy to leave the house, i feel like rapunzel but the only evil witch trapping me here is my dumb body-

anyway, if you made it this far,

congratulations, you must be as bored as i am.

thank you for reading, i appreciate your existence