#writing with a learning disability

[astrolavas]

thinking about the... potential clawthorne woodcarving mentorship.

+ bonus cuz also thinking abt how if hunter ever met dell's palisman and got reminded of flapjack, he'd probably feel bad abt making that association cuz he knows what it's like to be seen only as someone's different version (even though the bird wouldn't mind much so lol)

[radley-writes]

I don't understand people who say things like 'but it doesn't matter if we don't pay artists/writers for their labour, or use free AI programs to replace artists/writers to improve our profits, because in a perfect world everyone would have UBI so it wouldn't matter xxx'

like. yes. but until we reach that perfect world, artists and writers need to eat?

why are you promoting AI replacement of creative people instead of working towards UBI? Until we have UBI, supporting generative AI in the creative field is no different to supporting supermarkets laying off all their till staff to turn to self-check out, or supporting factories who shut down and move overseas to exploit workers in countries with fewer human rights legislations?

Yes, in a perfect world, everyone would receive UBI. Therefore, people across the globe couldn't be exploited by corporations, and artists could create for the joy of it, in whatever way we desire - including with AI!

But we do not live in that perfect world.

Do you seriously expect this move towards generative AI to encourage people to support UBI, as opposed to people being forced into jobs they hate to make ends meet or no longer being able to support themselves financially?

Especially all the disabled people who make a living creating art and writing/editing, because that is, in fact, a career that is often far more available to disabled folks than a regular 9-5 or a retail job where you're expected to be on your feet all day (miss my disabled ass with the 'anti-AI = ableism' stance lmao).

This is not going to create your army of revolutionaries. This is just going to result in more independent creators being crushed under the boot heel of capitalism, as anyone who would've hired them flocks instead to the free alternative, and they're forced back into an incredibly exploitative labour market.

I agree that generative AI by itself is just a tool and is not inherently a problem.

But it is being abused, in ways that hurt creators.

If you support generative AI... what are you doing about that?

[babyseraphim]

a title card transition for a oneshot i'm working on. i thought it was funny lol

also 100% possible i did my math wrong so don't @ me

[saturnniidae]

Modern au with a strong theme of Hiccup coping with his leg better than all the people around him and it's low key pissing him off

[hypermascbishounen]

There's a deep irony in Berserk being so admired by people who really really hate what Berserk is about on an emotional level, but especially when writers want to take influence from it. Because Berserk is very strong thematically, and someone who can't acknowledge subtext is going to whiff on emulating anything good.

[seveneyesoup]

ngl i’m still worried. like i Do have complete faith in ncuti gatwa but what i Don’t have is much faith at all in rtd’s writing about race

[aleck-le-mec]

It's wild to me how some able-bodied people only think of disabled culture as a concept and they haven't ever actually experienced it. To me the biggest tell that somebody has never experienced disabled culture is their lack of knowledge about something I call Societal Manufactured Disability Theory.

This theory posits that an aspect of disability is manufactured by societal norms, stigmas and labeling.

People with disabilities like myself will tell you that people do treat you differently based solely upon the fact that you are disabled. When my hand writing is too messy to read do to Dysgraphia people assume I'm not trying hard enough to be neat, and if I'm lazy enough to slack with hand writing I must always be lazy. When I tell people I have Dyslexia they think I'm less intelligent, unable to read or incapable of understanding the written word. When I tell people I have a connective tissue disorder which is an invisible disability they think I'm a liar, scheming to take resources away from "real disabled people".

The societal norm here in America is to push forward, laziness is not an option we see it repeatedly in the rhetoric surrounding young people. News sources constantly talking about how "no one wants to work these days" or "young people are taking everything for granted".

There is a huge stigma around having Dyslexia that most people don't notice. In American society where we have a 79% literacy rate it is expected that you can read, so when you can't or you have trouble people think you have a lower IQ. Dyslexia can be genetic so I'm actually a fourth generation Dyslexic from my dad's side with all of them men being the ones to pass it down. My dad has always said that my great grandfather had no support for his Dyslexia, nobody cared and in fact the term Dyslexia was only coined in 1887. When my dad went to school they attempted to alleviate some of the symptoms of Dyslexia by making him watch his hands as he crawled on the floor, believing that the root of the problem was in a lack of eye coordination. To this day I and many other Dyslexics will avoid talking about our diagnosis because of the stigma behind it. I have had many experiences in my life where as soon as people learn that I am Dyslexic they assume that I can't spell anything or that they need to read everything to me. That's what stigma does, it makes people hide away just so they can live in peace and be respected.

It is extremely common for people with invisible disabilities to be labeled as liars, this is mostly due to a lack of education and representation. The general public's idea of disability is limited, but the truth is that disability is one of the most dynamic aspects of human beings. Invisible and dynamic disabilities make up the majority of disabilities; in fact, 1 out of every 3 Americans is in fact disabled. When people see me, a young, healthy-looking man, they never think I'm disabled. If I tell them I am, they may think I am lying. People generally do not like liars, and having such a label attached to your name can be detrimental to your social integration.

You can see that none of those setbacks I mentioned are symptoms of my disabilities. The perceived deviance, stigma, and labeling are not things you'll find on a medical report. However, they do harm me socially and potentially medically when it comes to stigma; these things disable me. Thus, part of my struggle as a disabled person is manufactured by society itself, in the norms we hold and the way we treat others.

I have come to that conclusion repeatedly, as have almost every other disabled person. It's a conclusion that is often reached in the community as a whole. However, it is in able-bodied culture where these stigmas, labels, and perceived attacks originate. So, if someone is completely averse to accepting the Societal Manufactured Disability Theory, it suggests that they have probably never fully been a part of any aspect of disability culture.

[running-on-coffee-and-anxiety]

Noticed But Hoping For The Best Part 5

There was nothing wrong, Danny knew that! He was just getting more and more tired as the ghost attacks ramped up, but it wasn't like he could explain why he was so exhausted. What would he even say? 'I'm the one fighting all the ghosts and going home was stressful until Jazz managed to set the home security system to not target me'? No, absolutely not. Because of that, however, he was forced to endure people acting like he was sick or something!

Well, Jazz didn't at least. She was just doing her general check-ins after his fight, always fussing over him and yet they quicky figured out that any injuries he gains as Phantom? They show up as bruises of varying severity when in his human form! As the bruises faded, the wounds Phantom had slowly healed, though they of course looked how they were supposed to on his ghost form. It was actually really cool to know that he wouldn't end up severely scarred from any injuries he got defending Amity Park!

Still, his sister used any day after a fight as an excuse to fuss and make sure he was okay, even if it was something simple as making him a smoothie for breakfast- when did she start doing that, anyways? Did they really have enough non-sentient food in the fridge, or was Jazz keeping her own personal store of stuff-? Actually that would make sense, maybe he should start doing the same. Sometimes she went a bit overboard, though, like insisting she was the one to comb his hair or tie his shoes before they went out the door. Danny wasn't a toddler, there was no need to go that far!

Still, he good-naturedly rolled his eyes and grumbled, occasionally fighting it- she once tried to zip up his jacket for him! Just because his fingers were clumsy from not getting enough sleep doesn't mean he was unable to do it himself- but otherwise the teen let his older sister fuss, knowing it made her feel better.

Thankfully, Tucker wasn't acting any different, either! It would have been easy to see, since they were spending more time together while Sam was away, but there was no change- except for teasing about his appearance, or about his handwriting. Danny had noticed that about his handwriting as well, lines never seemed to come out straight when he started writing or tried to draw, but that was another thing explained away by exhaustion. The lack of sleep affecting small motor skills was something he'd heard his parents warn each other about when growing up, and after the portal opened Jazz had lectured them about it and forced them to go to bed several times so they wouldn't hurt themselves in the lab.

Sleep felt like a bit of a luxury at this point, like going a week without a ghost attack or a test somehow being cancelled. Sure, he wasn't going sleepless, Jazz would never allow that and the ghosts tended to attack during the day, but apparently six hours weren't enough. Why else would he be nodding off in classes? Or maybe he was just bored, Danny could easily find that to be the case.

And yet when he was Phantom? Oh, he felt fantastic! Completely full of energy, his hands seemed to obey his mind, everything was clear and sharp, it was like he'd downed a coffee just before starting his fights! However, that made everything so much more prominent when he switched back. His left side randomly twitching- probably from overuse, his muscles did tend to feel sore around those times- but at least his right side didn't seem to feel it. It was probably just because the shock entered from his left hand, it would make sense for things to still be healing, even if turning half-ghost fixed most of the damage.

But it really seemed like having to deal with the ghosts invading the town was effecting his life more and more. It was taking longer to heal from any injuries he got in his human form- Dash tripped him once, Danny faceplanted into his locker, got detention for finally yelling at him and the busted lip he got took over two weeks to heal, it wasn't a good day- his grades were starting to drop, Mister Lancer seemed to be increasingly irritated with him. It was so frustrating! He was trying his best!

At least everything seemed to be alright in science class, it was as enjoyable as always. Sure, he always had to ask his lab partner to handle the finer details, like anything involving pipettes, but it was still fun! Even if he didn't enjoy his parents flavor of scientific curiosity, that didn't change the fact science was one of his favorite subjects. So of course, it made sense his luck would work against him and ruin one of the few good school-related things he had.

it was just a normal class, and his hands were steady enough to accurately poor things and use pipettes! Danny felt like he was on top of the world, he hadn't had a good day like this in awhile! There was an idle smile on his face as he worked, his arm wasn't sore- there was no warning when his body decided to betray him. No heads up, none of the soreness he had been using as an indicator to avoid breaking things. His left arm jerked, a stinging sensation streaking up his arm, fingers reflexively unclenching-

The only thing he could think as the beaker shattered on the floor was that he was glad it was empty. The chattering in the room fell silent as everyone turned and just... Stared. It was only for a moment, but it was still unnerving, then Mister Lancer spoke. "Danny, clean up the glass and see me after class- and for the love of Shakespeare, don't handle any more of the glassware."

That... that hurt to hear, in a way Danny couldn't explain. Sure, it made sense- why let someone handle fragile things when there was a chance of it breaking?- but that limited his ability to participate. Was he just going to be forced to watch everyone and do nothing whenever they had lab? The frustration spiked, causing the teen to pause and take a breath as he felt tears prickling his eyes. It was an accident, it wasn't his fault! Still, he managed to take care of the glass without getting any cuts.

There was a feeling of quiet dread, though, when he stayed back after everyone else was dismissed. Was this the final straw or something? Or would it be yet another lecture? He'd been getting a lot of those recently, on top of all the detentions when Mister Lancer decided he'd had enough of Danny dozing in class. It was a complete shock, but also a weight off his shoulders when he heard the magic words, "Calm down, you're not in trouble." So no detentions, and no consequences, fantastic! But of course it couldn't end there. "We just need to talk about something."

Right, of course, his teacher wouldn't hold him back just to say he wasn't in trouble. Still, the moment of silence where it looked like the man was actually thinking about what to say? Terrifying. It was like when his parents gave him The Talk, and while he knew Mister Lancer wouldn't do that it didn't decrease the nerves. "I won't ask for any details, but clearly something has happened."

That was not good- sure, Danny didn't think it was being guessed that he was Phantom, but the fact his exhaustion made someone think that something bad had happened meant he'd probably need to come up with some sort of cover, maybe lie about a lingering flu-

"I have been harsh due to believing you were slacking off, but if this is a genuine problem, it's my job as an educator to make sure any special requirements you have are met." Wait- waitwaitwait, that was as good as an apology from the man! It was impossible not to look at him with wide eyes, but no, it was too good to be true, unfortunately.

"Now, the ban on you handling glassware will exist and stay in place-" That was one of the worst things Mister Lancer could have said. That would effectively ban him from participating in labs, removing the fun parts that made science his favorite class! It was just one accident, it wasn't his fault! It wasn't fair! "-however, you will be given paper assignments you can fill out instead of doing the lab. Partner with someone and watch the experiment, then fill out the sheet your given."

That felt like being kicked when he was down! He couldn't actually participate, but he'd be forced to watch others do things without being able to join in, and then he'd have to write about what he saw! Danny didn't want that, especially because writing causes his hand to cramp severely, no matter which hand he uses! Usually he would be upset, yeah, but... it felt borderline tragic. It had been his first truly good day in a long while, everything was going perfectly, why did something have to go wrong! And Mister Lancer was still talking.

"Every time you submit a written assignment, I would like you to stay back and help me read it; your handwriting is like another language to me. Understood?" It felt like there was something trapped in his throat, to the point it felt hard to breathe, doing his best not to cry as he nodded. On top of not being able to participate in lab, he'd always have to stay back after every end-of-day class because his teacher couldn't even read his handwriting anymore! Why was everything going wrong?!

"Good. You're dismissed." It took all of Danny's effort to choke out the words expected of him, "Thank you." It took all of his effort not to run as he stepped out of the classroom and started walking to his locker to get his bag. He felt a sick, squirming feeling in his stomach, mind twisting itself in knots after that interaction.

And last but not least, there was Dash. The bane of his school life, the closest thing his human half had to a mortal enemy other than Vlad. It seemed like he upped the mockery of his appearance- "Did you run into that lunch ghost on the way here, or do you always end up dumping food on yourself?" "Is it a hurricane out there or did you not bother to brush your hair?" "Jeez Fentoad, you're makin' it too easy if your trip yourself on your own laces!"

Sure, he wasn't the neatest-looking person around, but Danny didn't think it was that bad. Maybe it was because his mind had been looping around after the mini-meeting with Mister Lancer, but he never really focused on his food when eating, and that often led to spilling food. As for laces, it just felt like more effort than it was worth the retie his shoes every single time they came undone- they never seemed to stay in place anymore! But it was just so tiring, dealing with the taunts and jabs, the sore wrists and occasional busted lips from tripping that took forever to heal...

Eventually, Danny stopped jabbing back. Maybe it was because Sam wasn't there to keep encouraging him that that trouble was worth it, maybe it was his own exhaustion, but there were no more verbal responses to the taunts, nothing more than a huff when being shoulder-checked made him stumble. Dash seemed to be getting bored, though that didn't decrease how often he decided to be a pointless jerk all at once. The blonde was determined to drag him down it seemed, though. In the normal day-to-day, the taunting and shoving was decreased, but on the rare occasion Danny was having a good day? Everything went back to normal, and it sucked!

When he wasn't having a good day, though? Everyone was acting like he was sick- he wouldn't say diseased, though, since they didn't avoid him or anything, but the changes in how people looked at him and sometimes even interacted with him was. Conversations that suddenly dropped when he entered a classroom, people whispering to each other every time he passed by, barely concealed looks of pity. The weirdest part? Even Wes was giving him space! Wes! Explained with a handwave and a 'Obviously you can't be Phantom in your condition'. What did that even mean?!

Danny couldn't wait for Sam to get back, maybe she could help figure things out, everything felt like it had become twisted and everyone was acting like it was normal, he was going to go mad at this rate!

Previous Next

[sevenangrybees]

On one hand I'm so so excited for more people to meet mithrun in the anime and go nuts over him.

On the other I am so worried about folks not being cool about their bad ass fucked up fave needing caregivers.

[whumble-beeee]

The Waiting Game

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 3

Contains: disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, PTSD, past captivity references, needles mention, tied up/retstraints, blood, collar

* * * * * * * *

[As the warden of your captured hero, you are responsible for their health, for better or for worse. So it is generally advised that you should make a habit of tracking what injuries you cause on or in the hero’s body. Write it all down in a journal!

Another reliable approach is to examine them physically. This approach is best used if you think the hero is lying or trying to hide a physical ailment they so stupidly caused to themself while you were away. There will usually be resistance from the hero to such an approach, so you may have to restrain the hero to use this method. This also comes with the drawback that only external ailments can be detected, so you will likely have to also pick up on cues in the way the hero acts to detect more invisible sicknesses; Are they dizzy, lurching around, or exhibiting other signs of illness? Then they might just be ill! But be wary of faking! How stupid they’ll feel when you don’t fall for it because you’ve read The Unofficial Guide to Hero-keeping! (for more information, turn to ‘Identifying Faked Behaviors’ on pg. XX)]

* * * * * * * *

Stan felt like he was dying. 

The way his arms wrenched behind his back had him constantly readjusting just to find even a semi-comfortable way to lie on the hard flooring. Every time he readjusted, the horrible aches and pains marring his body lit up as if it were the first time all over again, continually reawakening him with an infuriatingly small shot of adrenaline that only served to make him just conscious enough to feel the buzzing agony anew. He wove in and out of consciousness like a speedboat hurtled over the waves of choppy storming seas.

Genuinely a waking nightmare.

A bitter feeling at the top of his mouth stung lightly, clouding his mind, pulling him away from the terror, the torture, pulling him closer to an uneasy unconsciousness before the ever-present danger of the situation stormed back to the front of his mind and jolted him back awake.  Because yeah, the mercenary was still here in the room, sitting in his stupid chair and scrolling on his stupid phone. At least when he wasn’t standing up every so often to bounce around the room like a bouncy ball, or restlessly spin around in circles like a toddler or quietly seethe in a sort of Spanglish about “¿por qué tardan tonto?” and “God, are they fucking with me?” and “Ughhhhh, I’m bored.”

The intermittent movement only served to constantly remind Stan of his place on the floor, tied up, beat up, ankle chained, dizzy, collared, and without his cane.

Oh, and the collar. It sat heavily on his throat, restricting any and all use of his powers. Making the possibility of fighting back stretch ever farther away. 

He swallowed. Pushed the thoughts away. He tried not to think about it too much. The memories returned in the form of twisting waking nightmares if he thought about it too much. He did his best to just focus on the good things instead;

The fact that Chloe, his amazing little sister, didn’t seem to be involved in any of this. And if he ever found out she was, he would burn this entire place to the ground. He’d done it before for her, and he’d do it again. For her.

The fact that when (not if) he got out of this situation, he still had his fiance, Marcus, to go back home to. And in fact, Marcus was probably planning a rescue mission right this second, and when he saved Stan and put this Deeby guy in prison, they could all go back to normal and Stan could forget any of this had ever even–

“Oye! Chico! Stan, you better not be dying on me!”

Stan flinched out of his half-asleep daze and tried to move his hands out from behind him. His shoulders felt so stiff.

Didn’t work. 

Right. 

Then his eyes focused on the bounty hunter, and a glaring jolt of danger danger danger made him avert his gaze downward. The action made this vision swim, and he swayed. Had he always had a headache this bad?

The bounty hunter snorted at him.

“You givin’ me the silent treatment or something?” He started a slow meander toward Stan. “I was just checking up on you, bud. You stopped twitching and whining and shit, thought you were dead.”

And suddenly Stan found out that, in fact, there was a much more comfortable position for him to take in his bound-up state, that being him scootching back as quickly as possible from the encroaching mercenary until his back hit the wall. 

“I wasn’t–!” Stan did not want to be a part of whatever recreational activities he would come up with to stave off the aforementioned boredom. Especially now that he was so defenseless. “Just–... I just– tired… and hurting. Wasn’t ignoring you.”

He stopped in his tracks and raised an eyebrow. “Okay, I can understand the hurting, considering…” he gestured vaguely to all of Stan. “That. But you’re tired? Really? You’ve been sleeping since you first got here.”

Stan took a deep breath and managed to roll his eyes against his better judgment.

“Getting kidnapped, beat to shit, and tied up so you can barely move really has a way of doing that to you, I guess…”

Stan knew his mistake as soon as he voiced the thought. Then it all but was confirmed when he saw the way the mercenary perked up, that lively glint in his eye, the way his smile widened just slightly. Stan found himself tensing and pressing even further into the wall, as if that would help at all when the mercenary came over to do whatever tortures he saw fit.

Instead, the man quirked his head at him. “When was the last time you ate? You hungry?”

Then he didn’t wait for an answer before rushing to leave the room.

Stan had to take a moment to process.

“I– What?!” he tried to call after the mercenary, already feeling his heart pounding in his chest. The bounty hunter reentered the room again with his hands in his jacket pockets, and Stan couldn't cover up the small whimper that escaped from his throat when Deeby trotted up to him and pulled out that same horrible pocket knife from before. 

“Turn around.” The bounty hunter ordered with a little twirling motion of his blade.

What was happening?

“A-ah– What?! N-no!”

His mouth pressed into a straight line, an agitated huff leaving his nose at the challenge. Though, the shine never left his eyes even when they narrowed.

“I’m gonna undo the cuffs, turn around.”

What?

Stan balked. “Why would–... What’s the knife–!”

The mercenary surged forward and reached for the back of Stan's neck. Stan ducked down with a screech, more out of instinct than anything else as he braced himself for the pulling of the strap around his throat, his breath being stolen away from him as it tightened, constricting his windpipe, cutting off his air supply and inevitably wrenching him around like a ragdoll. 

Only for the pressure to instead pull on the back of his shirt. 

And sure, yeah, he was still wrenched forward so that he splayed out onto his stomach, barely avoiding smacking his face into the ground after a blinding white light filled his vision when he fell hard onto his injured, overworked knee, and a hoarse cry forced from his throat when the bounty hunter's own perfectly working knee dug into his upper back right between the shoulder blades. But Stan could barely even find it in himself to be mad about that over the overwhelming and very confusing relief he felt at not being choked out.

He still squirmed and struggled to get out of the pin, though the struggle was very short-lived as he fell into a forced freeze when the point of the knife rested threateningly on the small of his back. Right above the cuffs.

“Cálmate! Jesuchristo,”  the hunter’s voice sounded from above him. “Sit tight and shut up, I’m doing you a favor.”

His wrists lifted up and the sliding shing and clicks of metal against metal sounded out, the cuffs shifting and clacking against his wrists as Deeby worked. Then one of the cuffs momentarily tightened before clicking open and wrenching off, and before he could even think of struggling again, the knee on his back swiveled around, grinding painful bone into bone as his arms swung above his head and were recuffed there. 

Stan grit his teeth against the various pitiful noises threatening his vocal cords. If he wasn't going to fight back, he at least wasn't going to yelp like a wounded puppy.

Even if the man sitting on his back did make him agonizingly reaware of the beating he took earlier, the punch to the liver, the throws against the wall, the sprint on a knee that barely worked. And newly aware of a few possibly cracked ribs that shot lightning-quick stabs up through his chest and arms.

The manhandling was truly a gift that just kept on giving.

“There, that wasn't so hard, was it runt?” The bounty hunter said smugly as he pinched the back of Stan's shirt and pulled him back upright to his knees, which Stan quickly readjusted to sit crisscross. He had to bite his tongue from another defiant ‘yes’ and possible ‘that's what she said’ joke. 

The mercenary nudged his leg with his boot. “Verbal response, bud.”

Stan pursed his lips as he inspected the cuffs adorning his wrists, noticing for the first time the dark fuzziness that clouded the edges of his vision. “You… you could have just… let me just turn around…”

He squeezed his eyes shut and blinked rapidly, shaking his head to clear the fuzz. Unsuccessfully.

“I gave you two chances. Told you what I was about to do. Plus, you need to learn to just do what I say. We can practice now actually! Eat this!”

A protein bar fell into Stan's lap. He stared at it. 

He hadn't really noticed over the various screeching aches consuming his body which warranted more immediate attention, but a small, almost unbearable void was starting to take the place of his stomach. Maybe that's why he was so lightheaded. He tried not to dwell on how long he must have been here for the hunger to get that bad, and very tentatively picked up the bar to inspect it for… tampering he supposed. Poisoning.

As he turned the bar over in his hand, a small flash of dark red blotching his hand caught his eye; A little smiley face, lightly bloodied and scabbed over carved into the back of his hand. Taunting him with its joy.

He gawked at it, clenching his fist and watching the scab move lightly over the tendons. This must have been what the mercenary had carved into his hand that made him freak out when he'd first woken up. A perversion of everything the symbol was supposed to represent.

A fucking tiny little smiley face.

“It's not poisoned or anything.” 

Stan practically jumped out of his skin as the mercenary appeared right beside him and deafeningly thumped one of the chairs down.

“If I wanted to drug you, I'd just–” he pressed the side of his fist into Stan's flinching arm and made a small popping sound, pantomiming a syringe. “Works a lot quicker than orally. And I can control the dose better.”

Oh. Oh no.

If the mercenary was ever going to drug him– Which there was almost no doubt he would try at some point–

He would use a needle.

“If– If you…” he was breathless, head spinning all of a sudden, vision tunneling on the death grip he held the protein bar in. “If you try to give me a shot, I'm going to– gonna freak ALL the way out. All the way. The entire way.”

He chuckled. “Damn, maybe I should poison your food then, calm down runt. Just sit in your chair and eat the protein bar.”

Stan wrenched his gaze up to the chair. He felt so hot. Was the room always this warm? He did not want to sit back in the chair. What would the bounty hunter do to him if he sat in the chair? What would he do if he didn't? Tie him up again? Torture him? Or maybe the plan was to poison him with the food. Deeby must have known he'd be hungry, he must’ve been here for hours at this point, if not a day. Or days?! He wasn't sure he could take much more of a beatdown, he already felt like he was teetering on the edge of a never-ending spiraling hole that he would never be able to escape from if there were any more restraints, more pain, more collars and taking away his powers so he couldn't defend himself even though he tried, more nonchalant bantering as if his entire life wasn't being torn apart at the seams, as if he weren’t in chains on the floor of some unknown warehouse with a collar forced onto him again with absolutely no chance of escape and no chance he would ever see any of his family ever again, no way to protect Chloe from the same fate, no–

“--Chico! STAN!!”

Two thunderous finger snaps shot through his consciousness. Stan screeched and tried to slam his elbows back, straining against the cuffs and shoving back into the wall as hard as he could, breath shuddering, feet skidding across the floor, eyes darting around trying to see through the pinhole that his vision provided for the source of the noise as the world spun on its axis around him.

Then his vision locked on the source of the noise, darkness slowly receding back to the edges of his vision. The source of the noise stared at him with a probing look on his face. Stan shrank even further into himself, if that was possible. He had curled up into a little ball at some point.

“Let go of the collar,” the hunter said, voice scarily even.

Stan felt his heart skip a beat as he realized that he was indeed white-knuckling the collar. He pried his hands off of his neck as his heart pounded in his ears, only barely drowning out the deafening sound of his own gasping breaths

“Wait wait, I didn't–!...” The mercenary stalked toward him, and suddenly he felt like a trapped animal again, collar and chains and all. “Please, I– I'm sorry! I didn't mean to, I wasn't trying– trying– I wasn’t–!”

The hunter squatted down right in front of him and sharply held up a finger, and Stan slapped his hands over his mouth to stop any more words from tumbling out at the command.

“Follow my finger with your eyes, yeah?”

Stan jerkily nodded. Tears burned his eyelids and wet his hands.

Deeby moved his hand around and around in front of Stan's face. Stan did his best to follow it. The motion made Stan's head spin, as well as the piercing red gaze of the mercenary staring into his pupils that he did his best to ignore. 

“Oof, yeah,” Deeby said finally, resting his arm back down on his knee. “Concussion.”

Stan finally removed his hands from his mouth just enough to squeak out a response. “Concussion?”

“Concussion. You're off balance even though you're literally sitting down, staring into space, spacing out. Not making eye contact. Swaying. Plus your pupils are all blown up and you can't track for shit,” the mercenary laughed. “Maybe tossed you around a bit too hard back there. But hey, I told you what would happen if you tried to escape. That's on you, bud.”

Stan’s breath hitched on a light growl bubbling up in his throat. So it was his fault that he was beaten so badly that his brain literally rattled around his head? His fault that he was having a very understandable breakdown?

He wiped at the tear tracks running down his cheeks and around his eyes. Snorted, tried to get his chronically hitching breath back to normal. He couldn’t even remember what normal breathing felt like. The metal of the cuffs was surprisingly warm as they accidentally scratched at his face. 

“So… What're, uh…” he whispered breathily. “What’re we gonna– gonna do about it?”

“The concussion?”

Stan nodded.

“Nothing to be done really. Just don't try anything stupid and you won't get tossed around again, I guess. But you can’t really treat a concussion.”

Stan clonked his head back against the wall with an exasperated whine. The mercenary just gave an amused shrug in return with an almost empathetic smile. “Maybe don’t do that though. Want some painkillers?”

“No,” Stan growled at the air. His vocal cords sounded strained and whiny from the crying, and he cleared his throat to get his voice back to normal.  “I want you to let me go–” 

Deeby scoffed, but Stan reinterrupted the interruption before he could start with another quip. “– OR failing that, I want you to leave me the-the hell alone!”

“Hm. Yeah, no. I'm bored. I’ve left you alone for the past day, and I think you're supposed to stay awake for a bit if you have a concussion anyway. So you're not going back to twitching on the floor for the time being. And I’ll assume you’ll get snarky if I say I wanna do something more physical…”

The mercenary stood up and went to go grab his chair, setting it down just a few feet away from Stan before patting the seat of the chair that he’d set down earlier, the one Stan had previously been tied to, flashing a smile that Stan could have almost mistaken as friendly with all the brain fog.

“So sit down, eat your protein bar. Let’s just have a chat.”

* * * * * * * *

Next

Taglist: @flowersarefreetherapy

[thatonebirdwrites]

Mercury Poisoning and LOK Book 3 and Disability Justice

I want to talk about disability representation and healing in Legend of Korra and its relation to disability justice.

(Note: Plot of Book 3 of LoK is about rebuilding the Air Nation and dealing with a villain that wants to destroy the Avatar. The villain, once he captures Korra, does this through poisoning to force her into Avatar state. Once there, if she dies, it ends the Avatar forever.)

I know Legend of Korra only calls the poison "metal" and doesn't ever identify it, but based on these facts:

silvery-grey

Is in liquid form at room temperature

Causes neurological symptoms

Causes inability to feel limbs

Causes inability to walk or loss of coordination and/or balance

Vision problems

Severe pain

This all fits with Mercury poisoning. Now mercury poisoning is a slow neurotoxin killer. It has to build up over time in order to kill someone, which is why Zaheer and his lackeys put a shit-ton of it into Korra. She had to have so much in her blood for it to work fast enough to actually take her down in the Avatar state. This also accelerated her symptoms.

And it's why she is in a wheelchair unable to move or feel her legs, why she has neurological issues afterward, and why it takes her so long to recover and learn how to walk and have coordination and balance again.

Mercury poisoning if left in the system for a long time can cause kidney and brain damage; however, lucky for Korra it's not in her system long enough. Barely an hour or so I think? It's hard to say about passing of time in that show, but Team Avatar and others got to her pretty fast. So that means it wasn't in there long enough for permanent brain and kidney damage.

However, she'd still need to be regularly checked for any neurological issues that might pop up overtime. This could include vision problems, nerve issues such as nerve pain or tenderness or numbness, tingling in her extremities, and others more specific to the brain or nervous system within her spine.

This doesn't mean she'd die at a young age. A person with these issues can live to a ripe old age as long as they continue to be monitored and given the care they need. Korra has that care with all the people who love her, and I'm positive Asami (her girlfriend) would make sure Korra has the best care in the world (considering Asami's wealth). So Korra could easily live to an old age with Asami.

She would still be able to do Avatar duties as well, even if she ends up with some neurological issues down the line. She just needs to adjust her approach to compensate and allow others to aid her in her duties (like Asami helping her and the brothers and Air Nation, etc). It's okay to rely on others.

This is all to say that Korra is disabled now, and that's okay. Disabled people like myself exist and we deserve love and care too. We deserve to THRIVE. There is nothing bad or evil about disability.

I know that our society tries to shove 'disability=bad' down our throat, but that's to justify the horrific treatment society does to us.

Anyone can become disabled at any time. Maybe that might instill fear into some people, but I can assure you that it doesn't have to be scary. If we build systems of care instead of systems of harm, we wouldn't have to fear becoming disabled because that system of care -- like the one Korra has at the end of the show -- would help us thrive to the best of our ability.

We deserve those systems of care. We deserve love. We deserve good healthcare, housing, food, and other necessities for free/low-cost.

We don't have to live in systems of exploitation that throw away our lives because the capitalist overlords deemed us non-productive and worthless. We can take their shitty ideology and throw it in the wastebin.

And instead build up communities of care and mutual aid. We see how Korra's PTSD and her symptoms improve once she is back in the circle of her community of care with Asami, Mako, (eventually Bolin), Tenzin, Jinora, Ikki, Meelo, Pema, Kya, Bumi, and even the Beifong family and Lin. All of them provide care and support. Through that community of care, Korra learns how to thrive again.

That is what we need to build up. That's why I love her arc.

I too went through that dark period of pain and isolation. I too ran from my PTSD, literally as in ran to a different state to escape it, which like Korra discovers, doesn't quite work out well. We can't escape it. We have to face it and choose to heal.

It is only when we choose to heal that we experience true character growth. We don't learn and grow because of suffering in or itself. That's a lie told to us by society to get us to stay in suffering, to not choose to heal, to not choose to tear down the exploitation that hurts us.

No, we learn and grow because of our choice to heal and build ourselves up in a healthier and more just and kinder and more loving way. Often, we make that choice because we have support to aid us in that healing, to give us what we need to follow-through. (And yes, sometimes we can't make the choice without having that community of care, because we need assistance in ways beyond what we can do for ourselves, and that's okay too!)

Growth and learning cannot happen until we choose them.

Korra choose to heal when she's with Toph, and in doing so, she reconnects with her community of care, who in turn helps her recover and helps her learn to thrive again. So no matter what the long-term repercussions of mercury poisoning is for Korra, she will have her community of care to help her get through that and continue to thrive.

That is what I wish all disabled people could have.

[thebluestbluewords]

re-reading Mal’s Spellbook

Evie should be meaner, actually??? But also, a) Jay has totally fine handwriting in the spellbook, the font they chose for his writing is way more legible than the one they chose for Mal, and b) is this what the kids are mean about these days???

[literaphobe]

random but that episode where it’s revealed to ms bustier that chloe’s been having sabrina do all her homework for most of their lives -> i truly do not believe that they were trying to make fun of chloe for having a learning disability. in fact I don’t think they were trying to assert that she had any sort of disability at all, to me it was more so commentary on like. corruption. aka how the Rich have so much money and power that it ends up shooting themselves in the foot and they and their children and generational wealth pushes out people who don’t apply themselves. because if you can buy up the inventions of smart poor people, why bother being smart yourself? many easy irl examples that parallel the situation here but yeah I felt marinette standing up being like hey why the fuck are we going out of our way for her is essentially them saying we shouldn’t make excuses for how the 1% operates, and give them concessions when the 99% who actually need it get overlooked. obviously you don’t have to interpret it that way but ngl take one look at astruc’s retweets (or idk the state of society) and tell me he wasn’t trying to make a comment about capitalism

[asairayn]

Everything hurt. It wasn’t exactly a new feeling, but one that had been slowly escalating in the months since that alternate Sun had broken something in him. Eclipse was used to it by now, surely, but sometimes it still… caught him by surprise.

because apparently i really really really wanted to project about having chronic pain, and eclipse was right there, and i just had to!

[doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter]

Do You Know This Disabled Character?

At the moment, Roronoa Zoro from the live action version counting is debatable. Vote how you see fit if you only know him from the live action version.

Roronoa Zoro is visually impaired and has various scarring.

[eye-devourer]

Hi, thanks for doing this! I know it's a pretty broad question, but what kind of representation for tics and/or learning disabilities would you like to see more? (Also, I think a sideblog might be good for this? As like an archive thing and to make the posts easier to find?)

you are so right, an easily searchable archive will be beneficial.

Here: @writing-tics (i'm so excited for this little project)

As to the other part of your ask:

honestly? Any kind. As i said, i have seen very little representation of my conditions, so i'll take breadcrumbs.

But in a better world I’d love to see more main characters who tic. POVs of different people who have different tic disorders. Especially if represented casually. „the road within” is good, but i want to see a story where fixing/accepting your condition is not the biggest focus.

i’d love to see people who don’t have the most severe of cases, who went a long time without getting diagnosed

same with specific learning disabilities. Here i'd love to see characters using accommodations. A spellchecker, a screen reader, using a laptop instead of writing by hand, using little drawings/emojis instead of written words. i have been struggling for so long (i thought that the only accommodation allowed for me is 10% more time during exam), but NO! there is so much stuff i can use, and i've only stated discovering it at 20.

i'd love too see more characters who are not MC, and are a more casual rep. Some wizard using magic to read a book, because reading it quietly is too annoying, too slow, too difficult; a shopkeeper who tics, and no one ever mentions it; some random character waiting for the ticcing to stop before they pick up their hot drink and go sit in a cafe, someone at the counter before MC in line misreading their order and saying stuff like ''sorry, dyslexia''; someone trying to spell your MCs name and then showing the paper to them because spelling is hard; someone who is clearly in pain after writing by hand, etc. small stuff like that, are so important to me

or even some unimportant background character. i crave anything

*i heard that one character on doctor who has dyspraxia, but it's a bad rep, and basically the show forgets about that immediately. I haven't watched doctor who tho, so take this with a grain of salt