#though some people have certainly been ableist ABOUT it

[howdydoodydodis]

I see where you’re coming from! Context does matter a lot here, and that’s one of the reasons why I find the “sharks are smooth” prank funny where other “innocent” lies or insistence on falsehoods is frustrating.

I grew up with a big loud family of engineers with autistic traits if not autism itself. We split hairs and argued over semantics ALL the time, and those kinds of verbal spars are still something that happens with me and the people I’m closest with. Sometimes that sort of pedantic nitpicking is a fun kind of playfighting, but like physical playfighting sometimes it goes too far and becomes frustrating and hurtful when one or both of us begins to get too caught up in the weeds of who’s right. The biggest difference that takes it from fun to infuriating is when I can’t tell that it’s playful.

That’s why the “sharks are smooth” never bothered me, even though I otherwise relate: the troll made it increasingly transparent that his “evidence” was coming from made up, badly photoshopped stuff. People who kept coming back to argue repeatedly and putting a lot of time into correcting him even in such a long-standing and public refusal to see the light on a clear factual matter made it a little bit more clear that it was a troll.

I don’t think people who offered one comment, or even a second comment with a source, especially near the beginning of the thread, should be targeted for being “annoying” because that does disproportionally hurt autistic people. But the thread DID ensnare some people who are of the unhealthy personality type where they HAVE to be right. Learning to recognize when someone won’t change their views and when to stop putting effort into an argument is a skill that both neurotypical and autistic people can learn. So I can’t blame anyone (especially a neurodivergent person) for being “oh let me offer a helpful correction,” but there’s definitely a limit where the doggedness in trying to correct someone who refuses to listen does become funny (and a little sad) regardless of the corrector’s intent (or neurodivergency imo). It’d be a different story if one individual was gaslighting another individual about sharks being smooth, and if the whole debate wasn’t public, and if the troll hadn’t given clearly doctored evidence.

Not to say that you “should” find the joke funny or anything! And the fact that their skin is teeth IS fucking cool as hell! I wish that had been a viral part of that meme…

But maybe I just found it amusing to look into a dark mirror and remind myself how it looks from the outside when I try to be the one who’s RIGHT goddammit! I’ve certainly fallen into the trap before… in more subtle contexts of course, but still :p

The joke about smooth sharks has never been funny to me, partially because "insisting on something wrong and making fun of the other person for trying to correct you" was constantly used against me when I was an (autistic) kid and as a teenager I often assumed people were arbitrarily lying to me when they made innocuous statements. I was afraid to respond sincerely to anything and often ignored advice and information people gave me because of the chance it could be a joke at my expense.

It's even more grating in this case because people explicitly say they think the joke detects and entraps people who are already "annoying" and "need to be the smartest person in the room."

(Never mind that the "outcome" is entirely contingent on subtle differences in context and how social rules in the exchange were followed; the person that said honey is made by putting bees in a bee grinder got ridiculed even though they were doing the same thing—confidently asserting something stupid on the internet.)

The other reason I hate the "sharks are smooth" joke is that it obscures the reality that sharks are literally covered in teeth. They evolved from teeth, they are morphologically teeth. TEETH

[cripplecharacters]

Probably not an ask you'd likely get I assume, but...what re your thoughts on people using the word "delulu"? What exactly does it mean to say that?

I'm asking because it almost feels like a slur, but most people who use is are disabled, so idk what to personally think of it

Hello,

Okay, so before I get into answering this, warning for uncensored use of ableist slurs, though briefly and to compare histories.

Objectively, yes, "delulu" is a slur. A slur is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as an insinuation or allegation about someone that is likely to insult them or damage their reputation or a derogatory or insulting term applied to particular group of people. When using the firts definition, the word "delulu," derived from delusional and meant to act as though someone is merely delusion rather than being worthy of being listened to, using the misrepresentation and incorrect public image of people whoe experience delusions to discredit the person they're attacking. In calling someone "delulu," they're basically using a medical symptom as an isult. It basically says "This person is severely mentally ill with delusions that make them paranoid (or other things,) so they have absolutely zero valid points and we should not listen to them at all." They compare people they don't like to a stigmatized group to both drag the person they're arguing down and to further perpetuate the stereotypes around delusions and thus impacting the lives of people who have them.

When using the second definition, it's a bit more complicated. My research has showed that, while some people who have delusions are fine with the word or even use it to refer to themselves, it's generally seen as an ableist insult when used by an abled person against them. For example, like how the term cripple is regarded by the cripplepunk community- we can use it, maybe even to describe ourselves, because we know the weight and struggles behind that word. When someone who isn't physically disabled uses the word, they don't ususally, if ever, understand the history behind the word and what it used to be used for, as a weapon against the physically disabled.

"Delulu" is a slur, yes, but it's not yet a major one. It's a very new thing and, while it certainly has done damage to the community, doesn't hold the same weight in innocent blood as a lot of the bigger slurs do. Cripple and retard have some incredibly disturbing history and a horrific amount of innocent blood spilled using them because they've been around for so long. "Delulu" is only one of many pop psychology terms that are becoming slurs when used by those to whom they don't apply (for example, the term brain-damaged is quickly becoming a word used against people with TBIs, and is slowly becoming something people without TBIs are learning they shouldn't use, but those of us in the TBI community can use it should we so choose.) I don't know if they could progress to the same severity as cripple and retard due to how different medical science is today, but I think everyone would rather not take that chance.

Anything that uses a sign, symptom, or name of a mental disorder as an insult is a slur. Such as the word autistic in certain contexts. It's very much not a slur on its own, but when used by one person to insult another, it becomes a slur. If you see a weird word like that, or a psychology term being used like that, it's probably being used as a slur.

Other things you might want to look out for are the context behind people using words like narcissist, psychopath, sociopath, deranged, psychotic, compulsive/pathological liar, etc- those are the ones I see most often being used in ableist ways (at least the only ones I'm allowed to say,) because they're easy to villainize. If they're basically anyone other than someone with the corresponding disorder who's using the term to refer to themselves or the comunity should be considered untrustworthy until you can find a legitimate, science-backed reason for them to say what they did, and as long as they aren't misusing the terms and speculating on what shouldn't be speculated about, like the mental health of people they don't know and can't possibly accurately diagnose. It's best to avoid using signs, symptoms, and conditions as insults, even when replaced by cutesy terms (delulu, restarted, aucoustic, etc.) Tha's basically turning that word into a slur and one really shouldn't do that.

When in doubt, take a step back.

Mod Aaron

[marbles-for-breakfast]

Thoughts/Arguments about Endogenic systems:

(for context, I’m probably best described as “quoigenic”, but I don’t really identify with any origin label because I think they ultimately cause more confusion than clarity)

Firstly, for those who don’t know, the term endogenic is about the narrative of your own existence. It was created by a diagnosed DID system which believes they were born plural and would have been plural regardless of the trauma they experienced. Whether you personally believe that to be true is your business, but I fail to understand how people think that idea is harmful, ableist or anything else. Not everybody wants to conceive of the origin of their existence in the same way. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Trying to force people to adopt a certain narrative about their own life doesn’t help anyone or prevent any sort of harm.

As far as willogenic systems go (because they’re under the endo umbrella, I’m pretty sure), I really don’t know enough about them to have a super definitive opinion. People seem to have mostly positive experiences with it, and it sure doesn’t affect me whether somebody I don’t know tries to make headmates through things like meditation. It’s obviously something quite different than DID, but I imagine it could work similarly in some ways, so I don’t really mind them using terms like ‘system’. I do understand the aversion to willogenics to some extent, though. I feel that sometimes too. And ultimately I think that’s because they get to make a choice that I wasn’t given. And they get to skip syscovery, and probably a lot of dissociation on top of that. It’s tempting to resent them, to assume they see it as a fun or frivolous thing, and are totally ignorant of our problems and suffering. But I don’t think that’s true.

They know what DID is. They know it’s usually caused by trauma, and often serious abuse. They know it is a serious disorder that can make life very difficult. They also know that they created headmates through meditation or something, and now they’re a system. Why should that upset us? Why do we think we own plurality just because we suffered more on the road here? Maybe you think they’re wrong about having headmates, but…. how would we know? Just because an experience isn’t accepted or understood by the field of psychology doesn’t mean it’s not happening. And I make a point to believe people about their own minds.

Just because they don’t have DID and have very different experiences to people with DID doesn’t mean they can’t acknowledge that those experiences do have some similarities. And it certainly doesn’t mean they can’t find community with OSDDID systems who want to normalize plurality itself in order to make life easier for all systems. It may seem “weird” to us, we might not understand it, but that doesn’t mean we should deny just because we originally learned that DID (and therefore plurality) can only form through extreme trauma. Aren’t a lot of the things we originally learned about DID wrong? Aren’t a lot of the things we assumed about it wrong? We, as a species, have never understood the human brain. Even doctors and educators make assumptions about what’s impossible without looking into it enough to prove that.

But when tons of people tell you they created headmates on purpose, and you don’t really have a reason to think they’re wrong other than “I don’t think that’s possible”, maybe it’s time to switch to, “idk how that works, but you do you”. It’s time to acknowledge that someone living their life in a way that you wouldn’t choose for yourself is actually completely fine. I mean, as long as they’re not hurting anybody obviously, but willogenics are not hurting anybody by being openly willogenic.

So yeah, endogenic systems are not inherently a threat to you or anyone else.

This post sums up my thoughts pretty well, so I might just refer people to it in the future. If you’re here from that, thanks for hearing what I have to say. I hope it helps you refine your worldview in some way. You don’t have to agree with everything I said here. I just hope you at least interact with people with more good faith (believing what they say until they give you a reason not to).

[lime-bloods]

some less cohesive thoughts wrt something touched on in that last post.

i have assumed in some previous posts that by killing Calliope, Caliborn carves out some essential part of himself, and is thus cursed to an eternal Lack no matter the effort he might put into self-improvement. and while this is at least one interpretation proferred by the text, there is a fair argument i think to be made that it's a cruel or even ableist one. the idea that Caliborn is "stunted" is ultimately a bit of poking fun (possibly even at the author's own neuroses). while Caliborn makes it easy for us to come away with the impression that he's stupid, he's clearly not: his original plan to pass on the assassination of Calliope's dream self to Jack Noir is, yes, an evil plan, but it's a clever one! Calliope's underestimation of Caliborn's twisted genius is clearly a part of what allows the plan to work in the first place, and in retrospect this subterfuge clearly prefigures the kind of underhanded dealings that allowed Caliborn to take such complete control of Alternia.

I think it's very tempting to see Scratch's knack for manipulation as something Caliborn "stole" wholesale from Dirk-as-AR: the "Land of Someone's Handicrafts I Took" certainly comes across as a suggestion that Caliborn is incapable of truly creating anything for himself. but this too is just making fun of Homestuck's long-standing love affair with the Google image result photobash, and in the end the copy+paste only serves as one small step in Caliborn's creative journey. Lord English is a dark mirror of Hussie, after all, and to accuse Caliborn of being creatively bankrupt is to suggest Homestuck itself of lacking originality... but of course that's all part of the point. we can't necessarily assume Homestuck's default position is one of self-confidence; while it's never been particularly shy about the bits and pieces it aped from the works of fiction that came before it,* the comic crucially does set out to question the ethics of reusing ideas, or even of telling a story in the first place. that Hussie didn't even "create" his own characters - that they originate as some kind of timeless Platonic ideas that one merely plucks from the void when they're needed to tell a story - is essential to the comic's mythology; hell, how much of Homestuck even is there that isn't just a remix of Hussie's own previous work?

I asserted a couple years ago now that Homestuck is "only superficially" about creation and reproduction... but one particular rebuttal, that Homestuck actually very much is about reproduction in the sense that it is about the reproduction of images and ideas, has stuck with me since i first heard it. and though conversations about the difference between stealing / copying / learning / coming up with an original thought are obviously a LOT older than modern machine learning, given that Caliborn very literally goes on to become a Terminator-esque AI singularity (in a setting where all AI is just direct copies of living people's essences, no less!) and even played with early examples of tech bro grift a couple years before the debate really took off, I find it a fun thought exercise to ponder the ways in which Caliborn's contribution to Homestuck preempted the current discourse on algorithmically-generated art... which I suppose grows not just out of the more pedigreed argument about digital art as a medium, but probably stems all the way back to the dawn of comics as a medium, in all their entanglement with the burgeoning pop art movement. but that's about where my area of expertise ends.

*it's probably meaningful that the name of the planet Lord English "stole" his ideas for Alternia from, "befor-us", is so widely reinterpretable as referring to pretty much anything that came "before us".

[menlove]

thank you @therealsaintscully for tagging me !! i always love writing tag games asjdfajsdf

how many works do you have on ao3?

on naturechild, i have 8. on my older, multi-fandom account (jamestkirk) i have 13. thennnn i have 2 orphaned ones in the star wars fandom & then on an ancient one i abandoned in 2014 i have 21. and i know i orphaned at LEAST 3 others at some point. so that's... like 44?

what’s your total word count?

141,179 on naturechild, 139,838 on jamestkirk, and then i have no idea what the password for my old one is so idk there. but at least 281,017. even though i had 21 on that super old one, they were all really short, and the orphaned ones i have are only a few thousand each. so probably around like the 290-300k mark.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

and oh, my heart was flawed (aziraphale/crowley)

is it a great or little thing we fought? (han/luke)

i'm not trying to write a love song (steve/bucky)

and all i ever knew (only you) (aziraphale/crowley)

the star to every wandering bark (aziraphale/crowley) (abandoned)

do you respond to comments? why/why not?

i try to !! i certainly read them all. i tend to get overwhelmed easily by responding to people, like just in general, so like any inbox i have (email, text, tumblr, discord, etc) i have a ton i haven't replied to. but i try for the first few weeks after a fic drops at least fjsdfjasdf

what's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

oh hm. well, i need you (never leave me alone) ends on an angsty note but there's the third installment planned where john survives getting shot and they wind up fine, so while the fic ends sad their arc isn't. so with that excluded, your midas touch (quentin/eliot) is probably the winner. it's just really angsty sex where they aren't together but they know they want to be together but eliot turned quentin down (like in canon for those of u who were wise enough to not watch the magicians) so it's just. smut and sadness.

what's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?

uuuuh hm i tend to write a lot of like mid-canon fics i guess or angst or like fics that finish off with a Hopeful tone but not happy or sad but i guess the one that i'd say is the happiest ending is probably i'm not trying to write a love song. it's a stucky fix-it fic bc i was so mad about endgame that i had to make myself not mad by writing this, but it's essentially just. 5 times bucky "jokingly" asked steve to marry him and one time steve actually asked him. i'm gonna be so real i do not remember the plot of this at all beyond that.

do you write crossovers?

not anymore, no! i wrote some waaay back in the day on deviantart- most notably i was kicking around a star trek/beatles crossover as a kid where spock, bones, kirk, and uhura swapped places w the beatles. i don't remember where i was going with it at all, but i wrote it in a notebook at summer camp lol

have you ever received hate on a fic?

yeah lmfao most recently i had someone tell me i was ableist for not tagging a 7k fic "slow-burn" bc they didn't get to anal sex right away. mind you, they were still fucking, there just wasn't anal. and this meant i was ableist. absolutely insane comment i still think about it like weekly.

do you write smut? If so, what kind?

yeahhhhh most of my fics on naturechild are explicit. and idk i'd say usually just Porn With Feelings like i love using smut as a way to explore characters and relationships rather than just straight up being hot. which is maybe my downfall but hey i'm having fun

have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of!

have you ever had a fic translated?

i don't think so? i think i've been asked a few times but no

have you ever co-written a fic before?

yeah! i co-wrote a beatles fic w a friend in middle school, i co-wrote the star to every wandering bark w my ex, and i'm writing i want you, need you, i love you with @forthlin. there's ALSO in the works a thing i'm co-writing w @dykebeatles at some point that exists in our minds and is very beautiful such a beautiful world

what's your all-time favorite ship?

i truly couldn't answer this w a gun to my head this changes frequently. but my ones that keep returning are: kirk/spock(/bones), (redacted star wars ship u could all figure out w the slightest sleuthing), charles/erik, and john/paul. and then i'm also huge into mulder/scully, twelve/clara, and doctor/master, but i don't tend to read or write fics for those i just witness them on my screen and go crazy.

what's a wip that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

the star to every wandering bark will never get finished bc we broke up and then we were Planning on finishing it and he didn't get back to me lmaoooo. but also the universe for is it a great or little thing we fought? i thought was very neat and wanted to finish and then never got around to. given that it's literally 8 years old at this point i don't think i'm ever going to but i loved that little world!

what are your writing strengths?

i've been told i'm good at dialogue and i think i'm good at painting emotional pictures honestly !!

what are your writing weaknesses?

i get really bogged down sometimes and it's hard for me to know what to cut to make the action flow so it's not just chunks of rambling that take too long to move from one action/scene to the next. i'm trying to Actively work on this and get better though so ! i'm also not the strongest at smut bc again, i use it as a character study more than anything. trying to improve on that as well!

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

like prev said, depends on how well it's done. i've seen it done really well and really poorly. regardless i definitely think you should probably try and find someone who speaks that language and not just use google translate bc oh boy.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

fasdfasdf kim possible when i was 9...... first time i started taking fanfiction SERIOUSLY though was the beatles when i was 11

what's a fandom/ship you haven't written for yet but want to?

ohhhh hm. i really wanna write a mcharrison fic but they're so bittersweet to me and idk if i could do them justice. i've also only ever written one cherik fic and that's criminal, i'd love to write another one

what's your favorite fic you've written?

okay i know it's recency bias but it's between cut to chord: subliminal flash of love-making like i don't think i've ever been as proud of a fic as that one, and then i want you (every time that you're near) was just so fun to write and so adfasdf i love them

tagging: yall don't have to do this but tagging some ppl i know have published fics and may not have been tagged ! @forthlin @wronglennon @dykebeatles @sgtpeppers and anyone else that would like to do this can say i tagged them <3

[liskantope]

I of course agree about disliking this thing where people go "X political opponent of mine is weird and awkward, haha", including when it comes from Democrats. In addition to it simply being ableist and hurtful to people who have struggled with social skills - I'm certainly no fan of J. D. Vance, and I imagine you aren't either. But I think there are lots of very intelligent, thoughtful people who would make great policy decisions but aren't especially socially charismatic. (1/2)

(2/2) I really don't think it's a good idea for liberals to reinforce a norm that such people should be disqualified from office.

(This is regarding this post from 10 days ago -- I've been really busy with the new academic semester and so am struggling to find time and the right mindspace to respond to stuff on Tumblr.)

You're right that I'm no fan of Vance: his book that made him famous might have some merits for all I know (I haven't read it), but at least since then he seems to be a completely phony chameleon, and, worst of all, he's chosen to run on a ticket with Trump, which is pretty automatically disqualifying for my respect. That, and all his vitriol towards childless people and cat ladies and so on is much worse than any of the specific examples of ableist undertones I see from the other side.

I'll also say that all the ridicule of Walz's son for standing up and tearfully shouting "That's my dad!" a bit non-neurotypically after Walz's words of love for his children (ugh! God forbid! actual exemplary family values are just dumb and cringey, at least if they come from Democrats!) made me far angrier than any kind of ableism that would come from David Pakman. The only reason I didn't go on a rant about it here is that I already got it out of my system on Facebook. And there's plenty of other garbage coming from the Trump/Vance side about Harris laughing a little strangely (supposedly? her laugh seems pretty normal to me) which makes her intolerable and so forth.

Still, two wrongs don't make a right.

And anyway, I agree that social skills shouldn't be considered such a huge factor in what makes for a qualified politician -- it does need to be somewhat of a factor, but I wish we didn't live in a world where most public support for politicians is based on vibes and most vibes come from superficial mannerisms. It wasn't true 150 years ago and is an unfortunate product of our modern technological world.

Also, if Pakman and his ilk want to point out that Vance was very awkward in the donut shop by typical politician standards and this doesn't bode too well for him because that's how politics works, I wouldn't really have a problem with that. (That's essentially the treatment they gave deSantis.) It's the "ha ha ha, nyah nyah nyah" -flavored mockery, which comes across as being independent of the context of politicians being held to extremely high standards of charisma, that gets to me.

I also might as well mention (though this is less in response to your ask) that this came somewhat in the wake of an earlier Pakman clip that I mentioned in the other post that I was even more annoyed by, didn't bother to post about it at the time, but I just recovered it. Seriously, Pakman, in an uncharacteristically halting way, says the following in anticipation of showing Vance issuing a few kind of evasive and sub-par answers at an event and being a little awkward by politician standards but still less awkward than most ordinary people in their everyday lives:

The only -- uh -- how can I even say this?... The only people I know personally who are this uncharismatic-seeming... Man, it's just so hard to say this without sounding so offensive. There's, like, some explanation, um, that sometimes is... medical in nature... uh, it just sounds so horrible to say... I-I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's... it's a personality that he seems to have that is really an edge case. It's a fringe personality of some way to be this unappealing as a person, some traits of which sometimes connect to medical explanations -- I don't believe they do with JD Vance -- I think he's just really a horrible person, is what I'm trying to say. I hope I'm being kinda like sensitive and not offending anybody.

He can worry as much as he wants about coming across ableist, but, well, what he says is still what he says.

[justanotherjaydrawing]

Long post of headcanons incoming. (mostly SakuAtsu but shh) (CW for ableism and brief discussion of homophobia? Probably not necessary but better safe than sorry)

- Sakusa has EDS (specifically hEDS)

- ^^ he has thin and stretchy skin (and visible veins)

- ^ might have been self-conscious about that when younger (but Atsumu loves tracing all his veins so he’s less self-conscious about it these days)

- Ushijima was his first crush, though I don’t think it is that deep necessarily, but more that Sakusa finally saw another boy who cared about hygiene and was like thank fuck I’m not gonna be stuck with the gross boys I’m surrounded by, there’s a chance for me lmao

- ^ connected to that, I do think that Sakusa is only attracted to men and found it very distressing, not for homophobic reasons but simply because women are usually cleaner and the idea of dating someone who doesn’t wash their hands after peeing horrified him lol

- Lots of his joints are prone to dislocation or subluxation. Specifically his shoulders and knees.

- he used to avoid carrying heavy things with his left arm because it would just pop out of the socket.

- Sakusa grew up in a very ableist household. Rich parents insisting on having perfect children resulted in Sakusa pushing through a lot more than he should have

- a doctor suggested he was autistic and his parents asked if it could be ‘fixed’. When the doctor said no, they just claimed he wasn’t autistic and moved on.

- Sakusa didn’t address any of his mental health issues until his second year of university. He only realised because he was talking to his doctor about his symptoms, worried it was some underlying disease, only to be told it was anxiety and suggested to see a psychologist

- Sakusa almost didn’t see a psychologist, but ended up doing it out of rebellion against his parents.

- Rebel. Take care of yourself. I believe in you.

- It took him a long time to get confident enough about his disability to tell Komori that saying things like “its usually just in his head” is a pretty shitty thing to say to someone who has chronic joint issues. Komori is super apologetic because he hadn’t realised he was belittling Sakusa’s problems.

- Komori feels super guilty about it and ends up going down a rabbit hole of disability rights research and makes sure to speak up against ableism at every chance he gets. (not me, wishing for a Komori in my life lmao let me have this)

- Sakusa is very popular among the girls while in school, partly due to the fact he doesn’t hit on them but also they find him hilarious when he rags on the other boys in their classes.

- In university Sakusa and Yachi become friends

- idk who came up with the idea of Sakusa and Yachi being besties but I have seen it in so many fics and it honestly is the greatest thing to me and I adore it so fucking much. I love Yachi and her ability to befriend the grumpiest men.

- It has been said before, it will be said again. The Miya twin’s have a single mom. Honestly, this is just canon to me.

- I am leaning to thinking their dad just fucked off and was a complete deadbeat. The twins seem to have the sort of underlying rage that comes with being let down by father figure.

- They are both major mama’s boys.

- Atsumu gets irrationally upset about yo mama jokes. It doesn’t matter that he understands it is just a joke format, the idea of someone being mean to his mama makes him wanna throw hands

- this has been said before, but Osamu’s love of cooking came from helping out his mom in the kitchen as a kid

- later on this translated into him cooking for his mom when he was old enough to cook on his own. He loves taking care of people by feeding them. He loves that food can be a way to communicate and show love to people.

- The twins would join their mom for pamper nights

- this almost certainly started with their mom being like “I just need some me time” and Atsumu being like “ok but can I join?” “But Atsu, we’re gonna wear sticky gooey face masks~ and watch gross romance movies~” “...ok but can we have popcorn too?” “… yeah we can have popcorn.” so it turned from me time to Miya time lol

- Osamu sometimes joins but not always

- the twins have seen all the twilight movies so many times they could quote it from memory

- they quote it to each other as an inside joke but they are respectful when watching it with their mom because it is her favourite movie series.

- The Twins have very good hygiene routines due to being raised by their single mom.

- this does not translate to eating politely though.

- they do both have very good skin care routines though since their mom helped them sort it out

- Osamu is more lax about it because he doesn’t really care.

- Atsumu finds it soothing though

- Atsumu is weirdly good at “girl talk” because their mom started dating again once they were in high school, but she didn’t like keeping it hidden so she would come back from dates and just gossip about it with the boys. Osamu just listens quietly, but Atsumu loves ragging on the men if they don’t meet their standards lol

- I don’t think Atsumu would ever be in the closet really. This is based off of him not caring if people like him, but I think once he figured out his family would care he just wouldn’t feel the need to hide it. He would get in fights because of it and he had terrible survival instincts with it all, but he isn’t one to hide who he is (even in situations where it might be safer to do so).

- I don’t remember who said this but it is canon to me, Atsumu is hard of hearing. I hadn’t even considered it until I saw someone post about it and I can’t remember who it is OP I am so sorry, you changed my life and I don’t even know your name!!

- but hard of hearing Atsumu makes so much sense to me. Him being “too loud”, him being so attached to Osamu (probably due to having trouble communicating people when he was younger and feeling like Osamu was the only one who was on his side)

- this is just a reminder to me that I should draw him with hearing aids

anyway this is too much information and my head is still bleary with sleep so like if it doesn’t make sense im sorry lmao but I wanted to share my thoughts because I have too many and I am obsessed with these dumbasses.

also I said this is sakuatsu but really it is just Sakusa and Atsumu, not much about their relationship lol my bad

[roachliquid]

On the subject of Lovecraftian "madness" and ableism

A lot of Lovecraft's fans and defenders like to say some shit along this line: "Lovecraftian madness isn't mental illness! It's when you see something your brain wasn't wired to understand/when aliens start influencing your mind/(insert circumstance here)!"

This is an incredibly funny thing for me to see, because what all these folks are forgetting is that in The Call of Cthulhu, the story that introduced everyone to the trope of "seeing weird alien visions and losing your mind about it", Lovecraft never referred to this phenomenon as madness. He uses the word in the story, certainly, but not in this context - it appears as a sort of synonym for 'nonsense', just like in the title and story of At the Mountains of Madness.

So what does he call it? Well...

The cuttings largely alluded to outré mental illnesses and outbreaks of group folly or mania in the spring of 1925.

On March 23d, the manuscript continued, Wilcox failed to appear; and inquiries at his quarters revealed that he had been stricken with an obscure sort of fever… …His temperature, oddly enough, was not greatly above normal; but his whole condition was otherwise such as to suggest true fever rather than mental disorder.

The press cuttings, as I have intimated, touched on cases of panic, mania, and eccentricity during the given period.

New York policemen are mobbed by hysterical Levantines on the night of March 22–23.

So we have a bevy of terms here, most of which suggest (or deliberately avoid suggesting, in the second example) some kind of mental dysfunction. Most importantly for this post, Lovecraft specifically, explicitly, used the term "mental illness". This isn't a case of modern readers misinterpreting archaic language. He was fully capable of writing "mental illness" when that was what he meant, and he did so.

So was this ableist? I mean, yeah. Lovecraft refers to the effects of Cthulhu's psychic broadcast as "mental illness", "mania", and "hysteria". None of those are really appropriate terms to be slinging around outside their proper context (though in the case of "hysteria", the proper context is "never", given its misogynist origin).

However, I do believe I should speak in defense of Lovecraft here. Not because he didn't do anything wrong, but because this was one of those moments when he was, in fact, being a product of his time. The 1920s were, to put it mildly, not great for the mentally ill. The entire field of mental health was still in its infancy, and even the cutting-edge knowledge coming from there was inaccurate, deeply harmful, and marginalizing. Which isn't to say that it's fine that he did this, but you can at least skip adding it to your list of Reasons Lovecraft Was A Giant Piece Of Shit And I Hate His Guts.

Besides, using period-typical language isn't even close to the most ableist thing Lovecraft did in this story. No, the real kicker is when he declared that one of the demographics most vulnerable to Cthulhu's psychic outburst was patients in asylums:

And so numerous are the recorded troubles in insane asylums, that only a miracle can have stopped the medical fraternity from noting strange parallelisms and drawing mystified conclusions.

I mean sure, Lovecraft considered himself part of a demographic that would have been affected - seemingly the only people to get through this event unscathed were total normies - but given that he also singled out Jews, colonized Indians, and folks living in Haiti and Africa, I have to say damn it, dude.

Anyway, yes. Lovecraft was being ableist when he wrote this shit, and I'd appreciate if more people just put on their big boy pants and made the effort to account for that in their derivative works instead of trying to dance around the issue by claiming it never happened.

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

Chapter 2

Give it up for part twoooo

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

From what I know, very few blind people actually perceive their surroundings as complete darkness, and it's more common for people to still perceive changes in light.

For Byakuya, he has low vision, so he can see color and vague outlines, but finer details are more or less impossible. Get Gaussian blurred, idiot.

I'll include content warning tags before each chapter but if I miss anything please let me know.

Content warning tags: mild ableist language (from Byakuya towards himself). Let me know if I need more

< previous - from start - next >

'A killing game!'

The irritating voice of that teddy bear principal is still ringing in Byakuya's head, in time to a sickening, dizzying migraine as he navigates the hall, looking for his room. He grits his teeth with it, feeling fury, disgust, and unease prickling along his skin.

It hadn't even been that long since he was subjected to his family's own inheritance battle, and here he was again in another high-stakes game. With a disability, no less, though Monokuma hadn't mentioned anything about it during his whole spiel about 'graduating' and such. It was entirely possible that Monokuma hadn't planned for it, or else, wasn't responsible for it happening - the bear's personality didn't strike him as someone to be polite enough about someone else's misfortune to not make a show out of it, and Byakuya was sure that if this was part of the game, than everyone else would have some kind of impairment as well, though no one had mentioned such a thing at all.

It was fine. Or, it should be fine; after all, he was Byakuya Togami, the sole heir and savior of the Togami name. He’s survived worse situations. He was the only one out of his father's 16 children to prove themselves worthy, and it was by virtue of his own superior blood and talent, and there was a time where there was nothing in this world that he couldn't conquer.

But now...

He makes it to the end of the hallway and stops, exhaling slowly to calm himself. It was no good. Walking at a normal distance away from the signs made it hard for him to make out who the little pixel icons were supposed to be, much less read the names written on each of the plaques, and the fuzz of pain in his head was blurring his vision even more. He bites his tongue and turns around again. At this point, it was supposed to be nearing the ten PM mandate, so hopefully everyone should be in their rooms, and wouldn't bear witness to his pathetic wandering.

As he turns the corner, he nearly collides with a small shape. As it is, his clumsy attempt to sidestep the incoming figure leads to him stumbling slightly against the wall, and a hand reaches out to catch him by the elbow.

"Hey, are you okay?!" Makoto Naegi. Byakuya bites his tongue on a curse; this was the last person he wanted to run into. "I'm sorry, I was just trying to figure out where everything was, I didn't get a chance to earlier, because, of, you know..."

Byakuya did know, in fact. Earlier, when tensions had been at their peak in the gymnasium, it would have been wiser to stand back and listen as they tried to decide what to do next, but he had been uneasy. He tried to rationalize with himself that the snide comments and casual insults he threw were simply a means to establish himself as what he was in the eyes of others; capable and above all their concerns, and certainly not worried in any way himself.

As a result, he'd provoked Owada, with some snub that he didn’t even remember - something about plankton? Arguably not the best he could have come up with in the heat of the moment. - and Naegi, trying to diffuse the situation, had gotten smacked, and knocked out cold. As Owada took responsibility for his mindless violence and took Naegi to his room, it was decided that everyone should be accompanied by at least one person, at least, with the reasoning that no one would be stupid enough to try and go killing at this point anyways. Byakuya reluctantly agreed, and followed Asahina and Ogami.

Ordinarily, he might have insisted on moving alone, to try and discover anything regarding the mastermind responsible for their situation. But he felt too vulnerable as it was, and paranoid about what might happen if he was on his own again. It made most sense to try and stay by the side of the strongest person here, after all, and Ogami seemed too honor-bound to be intent on killing anyone and Asahina seemed too kind-hearted to begin with. Owada joined their group shortly after, though he had calmed down at this point, and both he and Byakuya pointedly ignored each other throughout the exploration.

Their search was rather fruitless, however. There was no way out, and no way in; windows were sealed by metal plates, doors and exits sealed by steel, and Byakuya suspected that even punching through a wall would be a pointless endeavor, given how the Academy was built to withstand even a bomb.

And this place was Hope's Peak Academy, or at least, a very faithful rendition of it. Kirigiri had gone off on her own and returned with a map, somehow, of the first floor, and it supposedly matched the layout of the original Hope's Peak Academy to a T, aside from the metal barriers. In any case, that meant that the mastermind had the wealth and resources to imprison them in a very secure place, with no hope of escape.

It was another bombshell on top of all the shocking news they had already received, but Byakuya found he could hardly be surprised about it. At this point, he was tired, and more frazzled than he ever had been in recent memory, and wanted nothing more to sleep. He glares at Naegi. "Let go of me."

Naegi does, dropping his arm like a hot pan and stepping backwards. "Um...what are you doing here?"

"None of your business." He snaps. He needed to avoid observant types, like Celeste and Kirigiri, and most importantly, like Naegi. The two girls seemed too smart and calculating, but that meant they weren't likely to reveal his secret yet if they already knew, not unless they had something to gain from him; he had no doubt that the Ultimate Gambler, at the very least, would try and blackmail him somehow before blabbing. Naegi, on the other hand, was also observant, but also stupid and hopelessly honest, and if Byakuya wasn't careful, the idiotic Ultimate Luckster would tell everyone about his affliction before he could do anything about it.

He straightens up, and starts walking again, trying to ignore the sound of Naegi's footsteps pattering after him. He needs to find his room, and quickly, and preferably without drawing the other boy's suspicion - but it was no good. The nameplates were still little more than black-and-white blurs, and he wasn't about to do something as demeaning as reaching out to feel the letters...

"Oh, hey! Your room is next to Mondo's!" Naegi chirps up, and Byakuya freezes. "You're the third door on this side. I'm diagonal from yours, but I'm only second from the hall entrance, so that's not as good..."

"What are you talking about?" In any other circumstance, it might have just been a meaningless comment from a meaningless person. But because it came from Naegi, it only served to set him further on edge. "And why are you following me?"

"I'm just...trying to get back to my room?" Naegi hurriedly explains. "I...my mom always said three was a lucky number, and your room is third from the entrance, so..."

But Byakuya doesn't relax. He thought Naegi stupid earlier, and he still clearly was, but apparently he was slyer than originally thought. This blunt and clumsy kindness was either a ploy to get his guard down, or else, a poorly-concealed attempt at misplaced pity. Either way was repulsive to him, and he cringed at the thought of needing to take handouts from a commoner brat.

"Go away. I'm sick of looking at you." He snarls, and in better circumstances, he would have a better comeback. But Naegi takes the hint and scurries off, bee-lining for his door; which, sure enough, was second from the hallway's entrance on the opposite side. Byakuya waits until his door is entirely closed, before turning to the room that the other boy had pointed out, tracing fingers over the nameplate.

Sure enough, there were the characters of his name, stamped neatly in the wood. He tries the handle and finds it unlocked, and as he enters, he sees the layout of a room - nothing extravagant, but everything seems clean and orderly. He runs his hands over the white sheets of the bed, and finds them soft and of decent quality.

His key is located on the small table in his room with his name engraved on the keychain. His bathroom door doesn't lock, but the amenities are all there. There's an unopened toolkit in the nightstand. His clothes were clean and folded away neatly in the drawers. Everything was as the others had said.

He settles onto the bed with a sigh, falling backwards. It'd been a long time since he felt so exhausted. That throbbing pain was still pounding at his temples, and he wonders if there were painkillers in the school somewhere. He'd have to go looking for them later, somehow...

But he doesn't spend long pondering that, before the room flickers to darkness, and he falls asleep.

Once he managed to get a sense of where everything was, it became much easier to conceal his impairment from the others.

It all came down to a matter of confidence, purposeful movements and good timing, things that already came naturally to him. The good etiquette practices of his upbringing helped too, as during the mealtimes he was always careful where he set down his utensils or his cup, so he was never fumbling around for them. After a few laps around the school in the solitude of the early morning, he became familiar with the locations of the first floor facilities and could locate them by memory. When it came to finer details, like laundry, he carefully made sure so as to be in the room at the same time as Ishimaru, whose moral code would keep him from being a real danger, and whose habit of moving like a exaggerated robot made it easy for Byakuya to figure out how to do the laundry himself, though he ended up ruining a few of his shirts until he got it right. Even Monokuma proved to be a help, making timely announcements in the morning and the evening, which saved Byakuya from needing to rely on reading a clock.

There were some things he couldn't overcome, however. For one, pretending to be normal was exhausting, and keeping his eyes open for long periods of time, trying to focus on all these vague, wiggly outlines without obviously squinting often led to pulsing, insistent headaches that made him feel lightheaded and ill, and he would often collapse into bed as soon as he reached his room, exhausted. Furthermore, his E-handbook proved to be a nightmare to try and navigate. The words and icons were indiscernible to him, and he couldn't even begin to try and find the settings to increase the display size. If he held it close to his face and squinted, he might make out some vague shapes that could be puzzled into the letters of his name, but all-in-all it was impossible. He spent a good portion of his second night struggling over it before he finally gave up and tossed the thing onto his nightstand, frustrated with it and himself.

But it was fine even with these hindrances. Ishimaru's insistence on morning meetings included a thorough read-through of any new changes made through the handbook, which saved Byakuya from having to puzzle over it himself, and most new events were also announced by Monokuma, who was quite thorough in ensuring that no one could make a claim to ignorance when it came to new developments.

It was through one of these announcements, that they learned of the first motive.

Byakuya does not approach the box of discs in the A/V room.

Everyone else had already grabbed theirs and was watching their assigned videos. And already, their previous optimism was falling apart, and giving away to despair. He could hear cries of disbelief and outrage, amidst the quiet murmur of the videos' narration, and could make out the way their forms hunched over in grief, or jerked stiff in shock. At this point, his would be the last one in the box, so he wouldn't need to sort through it - but he had a feeling he knew what he might see.

He couldn't imagine it'd be anyone in his family. His mother was long gone, and his father was as distant to him as a statue; something to be respected, certainly, but not to be loved. That had always been their relationship, and even if he saw that man dead, he doubted he'd feel much more than a brief blip of surprise, and a passing acknowledgement of the transference of his titles.

But he doubted Monokuma didn't know that, and probably chose video subjects with the intention to shock and dismay. If Byakuya had to guess, the subject of his video would be his butler, Pennyworth, and probably the only person he had ever really cared about for a long time; but even if he watched the video, it wouldn't do much for him. Togami servants were expendable, and no matter how much affection he had for the old man, he knew that Pennyworth could never be an exception to the rule.

He only half-listens to Enoshima's attempts at getting everyone to calm down and talk, before a blur of dark blue and white clips him on the shoulder, speeding past him for the door. Sayaka Maizono, the pop star, had just about bowled him over in an attempt to escape the room, and he catches himself with a grunt, bracing an arm against the wall.

"Whoa, are you okay?" Asks someone, Hagakure, and Byakuya scowls and smacks away the hand that goes to help him up. 

“I’m fine.” He spits. Of course, lesser people would be affected by such pathetic attempts at riling them up, and it wasn't surprising that Maizono was one of them, considering her position. People that deep in the entertainment industry always had something big to lose.

"Byakuya, what was your video about?" Asks someone else, and he clenches his teeth. He wants to get out of here, and from what he could tell, a good few others have already left. But he needs to get rid of his own DVD first - even if he had no plans on watching the thing, he had no intentions of letting anyone else do so, and possibly gaining any kind of leverage over him, no matter how small.

"Who knows." He replies curtly. He heads for the box, and sure enough, there's only one video remaining. He picks it up and turns on his heel.

"Where are you going?"

"Where else?" He pauses at the door, one hand on the handle as he glances over his shoulder. "To burn it."

He doesn't burn it, in the end. He considers it, but then realizes he actually wasn't sure how to work the incinerator, and wouldn't be able to read the instructions anyways. Instead, he tosses it at the trash can in his room, and he sits down heavily on his bed, fatigue lapping at his limbs.

It was too good to hope that everyone would be able to keep it together after this. Despite the optimism, tensions had been running high, and now there was no way someone wasn't going to snap. Byakuya could only hope he wouldn't be in the vicinity when it happened.

Who could he stick next to now? Previously, he had opted to spend his time either in his room, or when the boredom had become too overwhelming, in the company of at least one of the others. His list of 'safe' individuals included Asahina, Ogami, Fujisaki, Ishimaru, Hakagure, and Yamada, and as annoying and frivolous as they were, they were at least either too principled or too stupid to be threatening, and could make for some decently amusing entertainment. He usually spent his time sitting silently in the same room as them, with a book or a magazine open in his hands as they talked and blathered on about whatever concerned them.

Now, however, his safety with them was compromised. As usual, the only one he could rely on was himself.

Except he wasn't reliable anymore either. Without his eyes, he could no longer be certain of anything. He couldn't even read, and that fact frustrated him to no end. He presses the balls of his palms to his closed eyelids, feeling the warmth of the pressure bloom in his skull.

What am I going to do?

He couldn't remember the last time he felt so unsure about anything.

These thoughts turn over and over in his head, as he considers every possible course of action, mostly finding only dead-ends. If only he could lock himself in his room forever - but that was a coward’s choice, and a shameful one to take. If only he could know what everyone else's motive was, it would help him gauge their threat level - but no, that would mean having to get close enough to them in the first place to get an honest answer, and that might end up revealing his sorry state. If only he could see - but of course, that was impossible, and just wishful thinking rather than anything helpful.

It was circles within circles, and his head was beginning to throb again…

He must have fallen asleep, because when he wakes up, it's to a tinny ding-dong ringing from the speakers in his room.

Disoriented, he half-thinks it's Monokuma's nighttime announcement. But no, it didn't sound quite right, surely he hadn't been asleep for that long? And then it happens again, and it finally clicks together. The doorbell.

He's on his feet in an instant, pulse rocketing. Has it already started? Was someone here for his life?

No...it's too soon, he reasons with himself. No matter how desperate someone might be, it had been clearly stated that the killing needed to happen discreetly, so that a class trial could occur. To try and attempt a murder so soon after the revealing of the motive was too careless, too obvious; and there was no way he could have been targeted as that easy a victim already. Not when he'd been so careful.

But even so...

He opens his nightstand drawer and fumbles for the toolkit, ripping it open with clumsy fingers and retrieving a thin screwdriver that he grips tightly in his right hand. It probably wouldn't do much good against an athletic person like Ogami or Owada, but it was a reassuring thing to have, and he feels the ridges of the handle digging into his palm as he reaches for the doorknob.

The doorbell is chiming again just as he rips the door open, screwdriver half-raised in warning, and the figure who had been standing there yelps and falls backwards. It doesn't take long for Byakuya to recognize that annoying voice, or the ugly green-brown mush of his clothing.

"You." He says stiffly, and the cowering shape of Makoto Naegi flinches on the floor in front of him. He lets the hand holding the screwdriver drop to his side, though his grip remains firm. "What do you want?"

It's a redundant question. He suspects that he knows what Naegi plans to ask, being the nosy, deceitful peasant that he was. Naegi was the type to go around, check on how everyone was doing, ask politely what their videos were about, with seemingly nothing but good intentions and complete honesty. He would try to offer support and encouragement, all while trying to know more, weaseling them for information for the sake of his own curiosity and use; Byakuya hated people like him the most.

"I...I just wanted to check in on you?" His voice is nervous, a little squeaky, and he clears his throat. "You didn't come for dinner."

Was that right? He lifts his wrist on habit, about to check his watch, before remembering he wasn't even wearing it. There wasn't any point when he couldn't even use it anymore. "Don't tell me you're all still having dinner together after all that," He laughs back, voice cold and unamused. "Are you really that stupid?"

There's no response for a moment. "N-no, we didn't. Just about everyone ate back in their own rooms. But I didn't see you go to get food, and neither did anyone else."

"So? What does that matter to you?"

"I'm just worried," There's a stern sort of gentleness in his voice now, and one that throws Byakuya off much more than it should. "Ishimaru said that even if we were shaken up now, we should eat something tonight so we can be strong for tomorrow morning...and, um, we should do our best to get through this together."

"'Together?'" Byakuya repeats, disbelievingly. "Are you even hearing yourself? We're supposed to kill each other." He huffs another mirthless laugh. "I can't tell if you're actually that stupid or just insane."

"I know, I know, but still. That's no excuse to not eat." Naegi shuffles to his feet. He stands nearly half-a-head below Byakuya's eye level, but his back is straight and resolute. It strikes Byakuya then, that he must be determined, because there was no way he missed the screwdriver in Byakuya's hand, or the threatening undertone of his voice, and yet. Here he was, still with the gall to stand in front of him. "Hifumi and Enoshima made ramen soup, but if you don't want it, there's also a lot of packaged foods if you want to prepare something yourself. At the very least, you should get something and bring it back to your room."

"I don't need-" He starts to say, but at that moment his stomach takes the opportunity to gurgle audibly. He feels his face heating, and he scowls. He hadn't eaten since breakfast, given Monokuma’s decision to reveal the motives just before lunch. "Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?" Naegi's face might just be a hazy blot hovering in front of him, but he catches on the slight tinge of amusement in his voice. "Come on. I'll walk with you to the cafeteria."

< previous - from start - next >

[smosh-fessions]

confession: I understand ableism as a concept and it's not an energy I wanna put on people or lead people to think I'm about that. I don't wanna be about it. but also, I don't understand why some people are so quick to say that any opinion of Damien might be ableist, but handling him with kid gloves and the smol bean demeanor isn't ableist? where's the line?

I'm also neurodivergent, and I've been told by two therapists that we can speak our own ND languages fluently, but part of the ND experience is often a loss in translation, especially between two or more ND people. and that certainly could be the case here and I don't see it rn. I know that. this isn't meant to be hateful to anybody, I just don't get it and was curious about your thoughts. if you feel like it's not the place to share I totally get it!

I think maybe it comes from most people seeming to think ableism is only something bad? Like bullying or neglect, for example. I think a lot of people don't realize things they think they're doing that are good can also be ableist. Like grabbing the handles of someone who is struggling's wheelchair handles for example! It's ableist as hell even though you did so with the intention of helping and not hindering.

Hating on his ND traits and the way they shape him is ableist(such as the way he talks, his fidgeting, his inability to sometimes read a situation, sometimes saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and how strongly he feels things for example), but so is treating him like he needs his hand held for everything and jumping to fight every battle for him, refusing to believe he can do anything wrong because he's autistic, and infantalizing him like he isn't a 30+ year old man who is clearly doing very well for himself and is capable of taking care of himself and has the ability to as well to recognize when he can't.

It's not that any opinion on him is ableist. It's when your criticism and refusal to even try and understand that there is a legitimate, diagnosable reason someone has done or said something that it becomes ableist.

The simplest example I can think of is thinking someone is an asshole because they shout "bitch" all the time, rather than acknowledging that they have tourettes and this is one of their loud tics.

I hope that was coherent all the way through and I didn't talk in too many circles. Thank you for the discussion!

[veliseraptor]

i've just started CQL (spoiled to hell and back but having a grand old time) and i wanted to know what you thought of Xue Yang and ASPD? (not trying to call him an ableist slur in a roundabout way, i potentially have a big scary PD myself [though likely not ASPD] and i just think he's neat)

I think I've answered a question like this before (and it's also come up for other characters) and my general policy is like...when it comes to fictional characters I generally don't want to put specific modern diagnoses on them, for a number of reasons I'm just averse to doing so as a rule.

I think some of this has to do with how...culturally determined specific diagnoses can be - not saying that diagnoses aren't real or helpful, just saying that there's so much overlap and intersection and the specific way people get their stuff named and identified can have a lot to do with where they are, when they are, and who they are.

so basically...sure! maybe! certainly if it resonates with someone who is carrying around a specific diagnoses of one kind or another and that is somehow helpful or meaningful to them, I'm not going to say they shouldn't roll with the headcanon; more power to them. but for myself specifically I just tend to leave it at "Xue Yang's got some weird brainstuff going on that impacts how he relates to other people" and write/analyze that in the ways it manifests in his behavior, rather than putting a specific diagnosis name on it and claiming that as my definitive headcanon.

(I do have headcanons about how in a modern AU I think Xue Yang has been thoroughly pathologized throughout his life in a way that is very ableist, but also nobody can really agree on what, exactly, is pathological about him, and certainly there's not a lot of interest in helping. it's basically a lot of "people just trying to pick a specific name for what's "wrong" with him" and it stopping there.)

[septic-skele]

US - Odds and Evens

Summary: Blue has a downward spiral after getting a diagnosis.

A/N: Warning for internalized ableism and some ableist language stemming from it, though it does get firmly shut down and refuted

It turned out the humans had a term for him, for people like him. Blue hadn’t even imagined there could be others like him. Despite the never-ending tension needling at his back, reminding him of all the ways the world around him could go wrong, he had tried to twist it into a positive thing. He wasn’t anxious; he was staying alert and aware of any and all possible problems—qualities a royal guard should certainly have.

The phrasing of these papers explained it differently. The wordage may be neutral and clinical but he understood what it was really saying about him, how it branded him.

Obsessive—domineering, all-consuming.

Compulsive—ungovernable, out of control.

Disorder—confusion, chaos.

All this time he thought this was a strength, that he saw things more clearly than everyone else, that he could work hard and course-correct a messy, complicated reality, when he was just too blinded by his anxieties to realize he was the problem.

Disorder. Disarray. Wrongness.

“There’s something wrong with me.” His voice sounded as distant, weak and shaky as he felt.

“Hey, that’s not what this means,” Papyrus protested, despite all evidence to the contrary spelled out in black and white. “You look at things differently, think about them differently, and when they seem off somehow it can stress you out. This isn’t about judging you for that, it’s about making a plan to help you destress.”

“My stress? My stress is the last thing that matters! What kind of stress have I been causing everyone else without ever realizing?! I’m supposed to be helping! I’m supposed to do good, make things better for everyone, for you, but according to this I-I’m simply some overbearing control freak!” Letting the papers slide out of his hands, Blue pressed them to his stinging eye sockets. “H-How many times have I barged into your space because I thought it needed cleaning? Fixing? Because I thought I could do it better. Am I really so blind and egotistical that I thought I was better than you? How many times have I nagged at you for how you eat, how you dress, your posture, your—everything? And you just stood there and took it, as if I had any right to—I never—I thought I was—but I was just making it worse, I make everything worse—!”

“Sans, stop it!”

The ferocity of Papyrus’ tone and the use of his actual name startled Blue out of his wild storm of realizations, though he continued to stammer in a panic until Papyrus pulled him into a tight embrace. The smell of smoke on his jacket made him balk and hold his breath by instinct. The firm, near painful grip Papyrus had on him didn’t ease, however, even after he fell silent.

“That’s enough, Sans, okay? I’m not just going to stand here and take this, like you apparently think I take everything else, so listen up. Listen carefully. You’re not a freak. You’re not making things worse for me. If anything, it’s my fault I’m one of the messes that’s always stressing you out.”

Blue tensed. “N-No, brother, it’s not—”

“Listen. There’s a lot I ought to be working on and I just never seem to know how to get it together. Never have.” Papyrus’ voice softened briefly to more of a mutter. “Actually, I’ve…kinda been thinking about asking the doc if there’s something different rattling around in my skull too. But that’s beside the point. You think I’d be half as well off as I am now if it weren’t for you? You butt into my space to keep it clean because I know how but a lot of times I just can’t. Even when I try really hard, it takes me twice as long as it takes you. I dunno how you do it.”

I do it because I have to.

“And you see things, tiny details that I forget or just completely miss. You think of things I never would, you have a full picture. You know what needs to happen, you get it planned down to a tee, and all that detail, that structure helps keep me on track. You also know all the ways it could go wrong; you’ve got backup plans for your backup plans and those keep me safe. You think my 1 HP and I can’t appreciate that?”

Blue swallowed hard, turning his head to better detect the faint thump of that fragile soul behind his brother’s ribs. Ten beats. Count them.

“And sure, there have been times it was annoying ’cause I felt like you were pestering me over nothing; I didn’t get why it was such a big deal. But I don’t resent you for it and I don’t think it’s 100% full-stop a bad thing. Juggling all these moving parts like you do, it’s actually impressive. The bad part is that your head drives you to do it all out of fear. When you’re scared and worried, it scares and worries me.”

Four, five—oh, stars. Blue’s nonexistent stomach turned as he lost count. “I-I don’t mean to do that to you.”

One of Papyrus’ hands finally loosened from his shoulder to gently flick his skull. “I’m worried about you, bonehead, because I want to help. Now that we’ve got an idea of how your mind works, you don’t have to do it all on your own, you know?”

He’d lost count again but that surge of shame was unfortunately second fiddle at the moment. “You shouldn’t have to, starshine. If it’s really that hard for you to look after yourself…”

“We take care of each other. That’s what family does. And who knows, if there ends up being a word for what’s up with me too, maybe we’ll hash out some ways to help that’re easier on both of us. We can figure it out together.”

Together. Eye sockets slipping closed, Blue let that idea sink in between each soft soul beat as he counted. …Eight, nine, ten. Success, finally. Relief.

Ten was a pleasant number, two odds made even when united.

[sophieinwonderland]

Dang did you know the system behind KipAndKandiCore had been traumatized due to people spreading rumors about them in the past? I follow their multiplicity account and it looks like they were badly triggered and ultimately hospitalized due to the false accusations you made about them.

Will you apologize? Looks like they never reported EeveeCraft at all (they said as much on their blog), but you said they did? Also is it true that you block evaded to view their blog?

It’s really scary to see that a blog I follow had the owner of another blog I follow sent to a crisis unit. I really hope the system that runs KipAndKandiCore (and Multiplicity-Positivity) are okay! It’s not good to make assumptions about other people. You never know what they’ve been through and how they’ll handle being lied about!

I wish that systems weren’t so quick to judge other systems. And I especially wish that systems wouldn’t say things about other systems that they aren’t even sure are true. Looks like you really hurt that system with your words… Yipes!

I’d like to know if you plan on apologizing. Because if you’re not, I don’t want to follow you anymore. What you did was really hurtful and I’m so scared that something like that could happen to me too!

I'm sorry that things got to this point. And I sincerely wish them them a speedy and healthy recovery.

I used to enjoy seeing their posts. We weren't friends exactly. Never really interacted outside of public reblogs. But their posts always put a smile on my face.

Then around December they started reblogging posts attacking me. In May, they @'d me, calling me transphobic and bigoted. They've accused me of supporting zoophilia. Actually, in the same exact post where they tagged Eeveecraft while having Eeveecraft blocked and accused Eeveecraft of being racist, they attacked me and Cambrian Crew, calling them a longtime ableist, and repeated the zoophilia line and called me a "proud racist." (I don't think classifying me as a "promoter of transX" is accurate either, just because I've listened to the transX community and am generally neutral on the subject. But I'm also not too offended by that one. 🤷‍♀️)

I would hope someone with trauma relating to people spreading false rumors about them would be more careful doing the same to others.

For the record, I didn't do that.

I said they attacked Eeveecraft, because yes, their post is attacking them. They may not see their character assassinations and accusations as personal attacks, but I certainly do. And I think many others reading that post would as well.

I also never said they reported Eeveecraft. Someone asked me if I knew falsely reported them, and I said the following:

Sorry, I have no clue who was responsible for falsely reporting them. 🤷‍♀️ The problem is that it really could have been anyone. When I said “attacking,” I’m referring to the fact that this happened shortly after an argument with Kipandkandi hurling accusations of racism at them. Could they have falsely reported @/eeveecraft? Maybe. Not long ago, they reblogged a post I made that called out SAS’s hypocrisy on posting screenshots of Tumblr posts, and tagged it with “#sophie get banned challenge.” So would they be willing to report someone who said something they didn’t like, even if it didn’t violate any rules? I think so. But just because it’s something they’d be willing to do doesn’t mean it’s something they did.

I then went on to list other possibilities.

My belief is that Eeveecraft wouldn't have been banned were it not for them instigating anti-tulpa rhetoric and tagging Eeveecraft in a post accusing them of being racist that made it easy for potential harassers to reach them, despite knowing Eeveecraft had them blocked.

If you look at Kipandkandi's blog though, you will find months and months of attacks against me. Some made directly by them. Some reblogs of attacks against me. Reblogs of reblog of my own posts. And that's not to mention the callout post on their positivity blog.

I'm not sorry that I mentioned them twice after months of enduring constant damaging personal attacks and character assassinations from them in silence.

I'm sorry things escalated to this point. I'm sorry I ignored a problem and let it fester until now. Maybe addressing things earlier would have been better. Maybe I should have talked to them a long time ago. Maybe I ignored things too long and that's how we got here.

But as for what I posted now...

I would ask anyone out there how they would feel and react to an account that is constantly spreading rumors about them, attacking them, reblogging posting attacking them, calling for them to get banned, etc.

How would that make you feel? How would you respond?

Because personally, I think I've shown a great deal of restraint through this. More than most people would in the same situation.

It hurt, but I bottled everything up and let all of the constant personal attacks slide off for months, only actually acknowledging them when they switched their focus to attacking other members of the tulpamancy community like Eeveecraft and Cambrian.

I never want to hurt anyone. But I'm also not going to remain silent while they hurt the community and people I care about.

If you don't want to follow me because of that, then that's your right.

But I wanted to give you the context and let you make your own decisions.

Having said all of that, I really do wish them the best. I'm angry and frustrated with them. I've been confused why they seemed to develop such a deep, personal hatred of me over the past months. But I don't hate them. I genuinely still care about them and want them to be happy, healthy and safe.

[enchi-elm]

Having some Turn thoughts tonight.

Between Benedict Arnold’s half-deranged-with-fear speech about “the smell of weakness” he was exposed to as a druggist’s apprentice, “the same stench that now emanates from my leg” and Lucas Brewster’s “What do you know of sickness” and Caleb’s aunt, uncle, and father being afflicted with palsy and his own brush with PTSD, not to mention Thomas getting a cough and it being one of the few moments we see Abe and Mary united in purpose in early season 1, Judge Woodhull’s bullet wound and his inability to rest... I’m sure I’m forgetting more, anyway, I could probably write a whole sickness-themed fic at this point

Did you know the historical Caleb Brewster suffered a back injury during the war that affected him for the rest of his life, enough to go through the hell of trying to get a disability pension from both the New York and Connecticut governing bodies, a process so frustrating and fruitless he wrote to George Washington personally asking for help?

People who’ve read my stories know that I like to bring up the wellness concerns that would have affected canonical and historical Caleb’s life, but maybe the others need a go too. Especially with what I’ve learned about the prevalence of tuberculosis in the 18th and 19th Centuries and what an absolute shit-show it was (Thomas getting a cough would have inspired a deadly fear in his parents, certainly. No wonder we see them so alarmed.)

Arnold’s speech, especially, struck me tonight as I rewatched S02E04: Men of Blood. I’ve always been painfully affected by that scene, though I know that many in the fandom use it as prime material to call Arnold a “creep”. Granted, he’s overstepping boundaries but his desperation is real and, to me, cuts straight to the bone. I think not being American and not having the complete understanding of Benedict Arnold the Historical Figure really helped me when I watched this for the first time. Instead of a great traitor, I just saw a man unravel from losing his purpose due to illness, something that will always resonate with me. And certainly considering the sliiiiightly ableist overtones in the show whenever it comes to strength and service, I’m always tempted to do a re-write or just do my own take on sickness in the American Revolution.

You know... maybe there’s something there. This whole spy thing is now on my mind too. Did you know that in the Cold War, homosexuals and queer folk were recruited to be double agents and informants? Specifically because it was suggested that they already had a skill-set that allowed them to live double lives and safeguard secrecy. Consider that. What if there was a story that explored that in the American Revolution? Queer or sick, hidden or dismissed. An infirmary is a haven of information anyway, you’ve got officers coming in and out of rotation. There’s something there. What do you think?

....

After I finish Wind and Water, which will be after I finish this semester. Cause priorities and sleep.

[unconditionalcaretaker]

I just saw your post about OCD and moral scrupulously, and I feel for you! I have similar intrusive thoughts of being a horrible person, though in my case my emotionally abusive religious upbringing is at fault. I’m usually able to get over it pretty quickly, but when *someone else* seems to confirm it by actually calling me a bad person…even if it’s just online and they don’t actually know me or anything about me…that’s when I am sent spiraling.

I don’t know if this will be any help to you, but something that helps me is to separate the subjective and the objective. You have these thoughts that you are a bad person, and it’s okay to own and acknowledge those thoughts, they are yours and completely eradicating them might be a full time job, if not impossible. But also recognize that they’re not objectively true…that if you look at yourself and your life objectively and compare yourself to people as a whole, you are at least an okay and probably even a pretty good person. Then if you can objectively accept okay to pretty good as good enough, that you don’t have to be a perfect saint, that might go a long way toward being able to live your life and be mostly okay on the day to day, even if your subjective thoughts sometimes insist on torturing you. At least that’s how it is for me, I’m sharing this just in case it might help you too. Sincere best wishes.

Thank you so much for this! I really appreciate such a thoughtful offer of advice. I wish that worked for me, honestly. But to try to judge whether it's objectively true that I'm a bad person, to try to compare myself against others…that just leads to hours and hours of rumination for me. Who's to say what is objective? I certainly don't trust myself to do that - that's subjective as heck. My own mind picks out a million valid reasons why I am worse or better than other people as a whole, and neither is ever enough to give me certainty.

But I do have something that works for me. Oversharing below the cut - don't feel obligated to read it! This gets really specific and personal and talks about my history growing up with ableism against cluster B people in my home.

It's true for me as well that hearing outside observers confirm my "you're-a-bad-person" thoughts makes me spiral. I'm going to talk a little bit about why that is, because it feels relevant. I grew up with a father who had NPD/ASPD, and a mother who berated him for it, used a lot of ableist, anti-cluster-B language, and said that I would not be her child anymore if it turned out that I was the same as him. He also did some genuinely awful and abusive things, not excused by his diagnosis. So a lot of my thoughts revolve around suspecting myself of a cluster B diagnosis which, according to therapists, I don't have, while other thoughts revolve around doing those terrible and abusive things that he did (which I have never done or wanted to do).

But (and this is a really triggering thing for me to say but it shouldn't be so I'm going to say it anyway) my OCD is actually so similar to cluster B stuff. I have that perceived lack of safety. That fear of abandonment, of disapproval, of shame, of breaking with the community. I may present it by frantically trying to fix things, as opposed to lashing out, but it's the same root. The fear for me is that, if I don't prove I'm the "right" kind of person, then whoever I'm talking to (my partner, my friend, my online community, even myself) will completely reject me just like my mother always threatened. And maybe I'll find that I've been hurting them, too. Maybe I'll even do those things that cause real harm, and I'll never be able to go back.

So, I try to remind myself that when I'm assessing my "goodness" in some intangible, unprovable way, I'm really assessing whether other people can love me. Whether I'm in danger of being rightfully abandoned. So what helps the most is to remind myself that, unlike my family, most people will not leave me over the moral mistakes that I make. I often say on here, "I love you more than I hate myself," and that is such an important phrase for me. That phrase gets me through everything. "Yes, I hate myself, I feel like something has to be done about that, like something has to be destroyed to prove I'm sorry, or I have to hurt myself or exile myself, but nobody has asked me to do that. They love me and I love them. I can't take myself away from my loved ones. Maybe I am heartless in some way that I hide even from myself - in fact, let's assume that I am and call it a day just so I don't keep ruminating on it. But people need me and that's more important. My loved ones do still want me, and until the moment they send me away, I'm staying." When I don't want to think about who I am, when I disgust myself too much, I think about who my loved ones are. Some of them, because I've tried very hard to do exposure therapy and overcome cluster B stigma, actually are NPD or ASPD or BPD. And see, I don't hate them for it. So why should I hate myself for it, even if it were true? It wouldn't make me an abuser.

Anyway, that's how I cope! It came to me after a lot of exposure therapy and basically it amounts to: "assume the thoughts are right and just roll with it -> notice that no one is running screaming from you like you expected (or whichever consequence you expected) -> carry on." So far, it's the only thing that has helped, and maybe you'll find it useful too. Sincere best wishes to you as well!

[theultimatenonbinarynerd]

May 2024 Reading Stats

The Calender

🍉🍉Before I start this calendar I want to start a disclaimer and remind people about what's happening in 🍉🍉 Country and that Disney and Marvel should be held accountable. Therefore I will not be recommending The Disney Novel or Marvel Comic. Disney and Marvel need to divest from Is**el for me to fully recommended and show them physically on camera. Please buy Marvel and Disney books second hand if you must have them.🍉🍉

What a month it has been, with how much I've read this month I'm definitely dubbing it the gay month. June should really be the Gay Month but it sadly won't be so I'm glad I made May that month. Starting with the beginning of the month. My reading pattern is that my last read of the month will very clearly dip into the next one but it doesn't bother me. Pageboy was very easy to finish and whilst I got everyone's criticisms I thought they were exaggerated. It's a really good Trans Memoir but not the best. This Arab Is Queer is something I had for my Readalong for Palestine I'm doing and although no one took part I go alot out of this collection and it was a 5 star all the way. Only took 2 days to finish in May and I'm happy about that.

After finishing the 8th Doctor Adventures first season, I decided to dip into the main range and listen to the first too and they were pretty great in my book. The Sirens Of Time was easy to listen to whilst I did an oc sketch and it felt very much like the Classic Who version of Day Of The Doctor. 5,6 and 7 had amazing chemistry together so even though it's the very first audio your bound to gain some laughs. Phantasmagoria is probably one of the best Mark Gatiss content I have consumed and it was very spooky. It was supernatural with that ever loving Doctor Who sci-fi charm that you know and love. Will definitely pop in to more of the main range in the future. I'm only listening to 8s for now.

Cabin At The End Of The World, loved the book but towards the end I didn't enjoy it as much. Let's just say I hate ambiguity, I also hated the audiobook narrator so I had to read along in a quicker speed which was quite the challenge. So as a result it was quicker than my usual 300 + page reads. Welcome To St Hell was another one of my most anticipated reads and it highly delivered. It took a measly Ten Days which was an achievement itself as without chapters it was hard to split up my read as I'm certainly not the finish in one day type of reader. Still though for my first graphic novel it was very very good.

My side reads for this month exactly were very different. One was terrible for its last very transphobic and ableist story and the other was a very educational jam-packed nonfiction about the situation in Palestine and how simple it is thanks to brainwashing. In the end as good as the other two stories were Happs gave me massive brain rot. Fnaf fans are way too forgiving to Scott. On Palestine was great forever to the point I want to give it to my friend to help him understand the situation. I was able to get through it quickly and absorb alot. It was a good recommendation.

Finally my reads tipping into June. Yep no not until Marvel and Disney divest. I feel okay talking about Star Wars cos alot of authors are anti-israel and anti-zionist. If Daniel José Older gets fired I'm going to be done with them too. J.Elle is a really good writer though and I'm definitely gonna look at more of her books.

June's Stats

Wow just wow. May's stats were like a lightning bolt. I did a lot of reading this month and I expect stats like this will be ever so common in the glorious summer stats. So let's break these chunky stats down.

I read 8 books including 6 physical books/graphic novels and 2 Big Finish audios. That's just chock a block impressive and I'm very proud of myself as that's my highest number yet. As pages that too was my highest yet with 1,477 pages which is 489 pages up from last May. Interesting I also only read 3 books in May last year. So this is a very positive sign at how my reading journey is evolving. And of course my highest hours stats with 3.6 hours logged. I dipped into longer big finish audios this month so it makes a lot of sense.

Up next Genres. When I said this was a very gay month I mean it. I read many genres this month; LGTBQIA+, Science Fiction, Memoir, Horror, Young Adult, Thriller, Politics, History, Graphic Novel and Essays but coming on top with a whopping 4 reads was LGTBQIA+. It makes sense I have a lot of lgtbq+ representation on my tbr and this just happens to be a lucky month where I've gotten through quite a few. It also for the first time topped Science Fiction which is not an easy feet to do trust me. In joint second place with only 2 reads was Science Fiction, Horror and Memoir. I'm so glad that I was finally able to get to have a reading month with more diversity in genre. Let's see what June brings.

Mainly reads is still the same for now. I love my adventurous, dark and mysterious books as well as my medium paced books that are under 300 pages.

Again for moods for the first time in forever Reflective comes at top. The moods this month Reflective, Dark, Informative, Mysterious, Funny, Emotional, Adventurous, Tense And Inspiring. As a result of reading a lot of nonfiction this month I was finally able to tip away from my usual adventurous mood. All the nonfiction reads I had were very indeed thought provoking and reflective. In joint second place was emotional and dark which ie expected as I love books that hit me hard in the heart.

Star ratings were all over the place this month it was a very mixed bag month some amazing, some average, some terrible. My overall star rating for the month was 4.22 a minor improvement from May last year where the average rating was 4.17. There's always next May to get the average score up as long as I pick good books. We had two five star reads in This Arab Is Queer and Welcome To St Hell which was well deserved in my opinion. For the first time ever two 4.75 star novels in Phantasmagoria and On Palestine they were close to being 5 star but not quite there for me. Again two four stars in Pageboy and The Sirens Of Time. One 3.75 star thanks to the icky ending and rushed past and of course one 2.5 star novel that deserves the rating. It'll be interesting to see how June's stats compare against this.

May's Reads/Listens

A jam packed reading month indeed. This Arab Is Queer was an incredible Anthology that heavily educated me and sheeded any internalised bigotry over queer arab folk. It was also a very thought provoking and powerful collection of essays it really helped reshaped alot of the views I've had. The Sirens Of Time was a delightful timey whimey multi-doctor story that basically is the classic who version of Day Of The Doctor. Peter Davison, Colin Baker And Sylvester had amazing chemistry, I definitely want to look into more of the main range now.

Pageboy was definitely overhated it did not deserve all the hate and disappointment in my opinion. Its really not that bad at all. I think people are just fustrated about the non linear and him talking about his experiences prior to his transition but I felt like it was a hundred percent nesscary. Trans experiences aren't linear and Elliot did his absolute best trying to show that in his memoir. Phantasmagoria was a really good Big Finish listen and I heavily enjoyed it. Its one of my favourite project of Mark Gatiss's that I have ever seen, he's an absolutely fantastic writer, I don't care what people say I love his stories. This was a really cool supernatural story with Five and Turlough, the twists were generally shocking and it was a fun ride. Highly recommend giving Phantasmagoria a listen if you haven't done.

The Cabin At The End Of The World was better than the movie until a heavy tragic ending that differed from the movie and absorbed the bury your gays trope like a bubble. I love how Wen's povs were actually written in the style of a six year old girl. It was disturbing yess but made this story way too bury your gays trope than it already is. Might be controversial but that's my whole opinion. I also felt like the message contradicted itself is it about the desperation of religions cults or it a positive normalising gay families and about how gay love it powerful enough to save the work. On Palestine is the best book tok recommendation that I have ever been given. I wanted to fully understand the g-side happening in Palestine and all three authors summed it up perfectly. It was also interesting to learn about Propaganda and how its seeded into Israeli youth from a young age. It also heavily talks about the US and other countries and why they ally with Israel, its not what you may think. Props to Noam, Ilam and Frank for their hard work and important discussions.

Finally Happs and Welcome To St Hell. One of these two is 💩 and the other is 10/10. Yeah it's not Happs. What were Scott and team thinking, I know it might not have been intentional but Transphobia is Transphobia regardless wether or not intentional. It made me feel violated and sick and spoil my enjoyment of the other two stories in the collection. It was horror but not in a good way. Welcome To St Hell was my first graphic novel and it slapped. This was another one of my impulse purchases and I'm so glad I did indeed buy it. Terfs tried to review bomb it but I don't give a flying f** about their opinion. The Art was beautiful and I loved that Lewis didn't primarily feed into the Trans trauma trope and tell a sad story. Also The panels where he narrated and talked to his past self had me in tears of laughter cos as a semi masc Nonbinary person I found it so relatable. It's also really educational. A five star that I highly recommend.

Conclusion

A very very good reading month and it might not be a big deal to everyone else but I'm really proud of myself for what I've achieved, I literally think since I first got back into reading its an absolute record for me. Maybe it's a sign I should go out more but honestly I'm not fussed and couldn't care any less.

Big Finish for the future we're tipping into The Charley Arc as I want to listen to more 8 and one 12 and 11 multi Doctor short trip. Crazy thing is though with my audhd brain I already have next years listens planned. Expect a lot and I mean a lot of Big Finish reviews that might just be paced from Storygraph but who cares.

My next five reads as of this blog are Race To Crashpoint Tower, Jamie, A Test Of Courage, War Of The Worlds and Doctor Who: The Deviant Strain. Very excited to see how the rest of the year goes and I'm absolutely loving the lovely templates I've got from @LEEBEE_READS. So much more to come and I really love looking back and reflecting on my reader tastes.

Have a happy Pride Month everyone 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

-Melody-

They/Them