#all two dozen disabilities

[brightlotusmoon]

Halsey diagnosis: Ehlers-Danlos, mast cell activation syndrome, POTS

"The singer saw "100,000 doctors" before getting diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Sjogren's syndrome, mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

...

Halsey later celebrated finally having diagnoses Wednesday in an Instagram Story post, writing that knowing the names of what she's been feeling was a long time coming.

"I just want to clarify, for the benefit of friends of friends who may have any of the diagnoses that I recently shared, I didn't 'just get sick' I've been sick. For a long time," the post read. "My sicknesses just have their names now. I went to doctors for 8 years. Trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I was called crazy and anxious and lazy amongst other things. I changed my entire lifestyle."

They added: "Don't roll your eyes at your sick friends. They could be fighting a battle that they haven't named yet. Ya know?"

#all two dozen disabilities #disabled life #disability advocacy

[bonefall]

Herb Guide: Deaf Warriors and Hearing Disabilities

UPDATE 1: Added more harshness to the lipreading section based on initial feedback; minor rewording of some lines!

A reference for Warrior Cats fans creating characters with hearing loss, blending human advice with cat biology, written for an in-universe perspective on living with and managing such disabilities.

AKA Bonefall casts Spell of Stop Being Weird About Snowkit on all amoebas in 500 mile radius

[ID: A headshot of three cats, a brown tabby with a shredded ear (Strikestone), a solid white cat with blue eyes (Stonewing), and a gray cat with a mane (Dovewing).]

In the five Clans, hearing loss is both one of the most common sensory disabilities, and one of the most intense to adapt to. Through any mix of simple infections, birth abnormalities, or even just getting older, any given Clan can expect at least 1 in 4 of its cats to have some form of hearing loss.

Hearing loss is any impaired ability to hear, defined as not being able to hear noises under 20 decibels. Deafness is "profound" hearing loss, which means their hearing STARTS at a noise that is 81 decibels (ex: motorcycle, middle-distant clap of thunder) or louder. Most deaf people can still hear slightly, but sound is "muffled" and they can only hear VERY loud noises.

Hearing loss = Any impaired ability to hear. Normal hearing is 20 DB or lower.

Hard of Hearing (HOH) = Mild to severe hearing loss; starts between 21 DB and 95 DB.

Deaf = Profound hearing loss at 95 DB or higher; a clap of thunder is a quiet whisper.

MOST hearing loss will affect one ear more strongly than the other, and the cat will be HOH. The vast majority of cats with a hearing disability will still be able to understand their Clanmates, if they're just spoken to louder and more clearly. Cats who are born deaf (congenital deafness), however, tend to have profound hearing loss which affects their ability to understand speech.

Cats rely on their hearing and sense of smell much more strongly than they do on their eyesight. With hearing that's 4x more sensitive than a human's and can differentiate between 1/10th of a pitch, a Clan's healer would recognize hearing loss as a disability long before humans would even notice a problem.

Since hearing loss starts with the high-pitch noises that prey makes, like squeaks and chirps, hearing loss is a major reason for a senior warrior to begin to consider retirement. However, with proper support and accommodation, ANY warrior could adapt to this disability; Especially cats born deaf and younger HOH warriors with lots of time to re-learn.

This guide covers;

Common Causes

Traits and Challenges of Hearing Loss

Communication: Signs, lipreading, and more

Unique Challenges Clan-by-Clan

Sources are linked in a separate post, here, and linked again at the very bottom!

(note: this guide doesn't cover devices of any kind, but one of many reasons why cochlear implants are controversial is because an implant will destroy that remaining hearing. They aren't hearing aids; hearing aids amplify sound. Aids and implants are two different things)

Common Causes

There are DOZENS of ways to destroy the incredibly sensitive ears of a cat. ANY infection or injury can lead to permanent damage. That can include,

Injury gone sour, from battle, hunting, accidents, etc

Concussion, or a hard enough blow to the ear

Ear Mites, especially if the cat can't stop scratching it

Swimming in cold or dirty river water

Fungal or bacterial infections

Allergies, which can lead to sinus infections. Even an infection in the mouth or throat can spread to the ear!

There doesn't even need to be an infection. Around the ages of 7 - 11, a senior warrior may begin to gradually lose their hearing. Sometimes, through genetic factors or degenerative disease within the ear, an even younger warrior will lose it for "no reason."

It just happens, and it's incredibly common. They will usually begin to notice it when they stop being able to hear and hunt small rodents, because hearing loss will start with high-pitched noises.

Healers can do very little about this, besides attempting to clean any wax out of the ear canal with flax oil and a dab (such as moss, wool, or cloth). There are SO many ways for it to happen and so little in the way of treatments, that it's practically inevitable.

The majority of hearing loss is from infection or disease, but the most predictable way to see deafness in the Clans is in kits born white with blue eyes. In fact, ALL pure white cats are more prone to being born deaf!

Pure white without blue eyes: 17% to 22%

White with a single blue eye: 40% (and usually on the side of the blue eye)

White with two blue eyes: 65% to 85%

In an afflicted kit, the inner ear will rapidly degenerate. They typically lose most of their hearing by their 4th day, and will only be able to faintly hear extremely loud noises.

Of course, there's also various other birth defects that can result in deaf and HOH kits, even if they aren't white with blue eyes. The ear canal and hearing organs can just not form correctly! Any kit could be born with hearing loss, and they can have any type!

If the loss came from injury or severe infection, chronic pain in the inner ear is also common. Nothing can be done about this besides painkillers such as poppy seeds. This condition is rare in born-deaf cats.

Most cats with hearing loss will also permanently hear a repetitive, single-note sound. For most it's a faint, tinny "ring," but others can hear hissing, crackling, or humming in high or low pitch.

At first, this constant noise can be distracting or even debilitating, preventing them from focusing or sleeping, until... you just get used to it.

There is no way to turn the noise off. It can get worse or better, but it's forever. Sleeping and not being stressed out will help, but over time, they typically learn to tune it out. Being reminded of it is usually annoying, just like when someone reminds you about manual breathing.

(We call this condition tinnitus. It is up to you what you would like your cats to call it, the same way they refer to pneumonia as greencough. Tinnitus is a LOT broader than this little snippet, but this is not a guide about tinnitus, this is about hearing loss)

So to summarize that,

There's a billiondy-million ways to damage one's hearing.

Losing your hearing from age or disease usually results in being hard of hearing (HOH) as opposed to deaf, and is likely to affect one ear more than the other.

It starts with high-pitched noises like rodent squeaks.

Cats born white with blue eyes have a massive chance of being born deaf; their inner ear degenerates.

But, any kit could be born with any type of hearing loss, not just deafness.

Most cats with hearing loss will hear a distracting, repetitive noise. They just learn to tune it out.

Traits and Challenges of Hearing Loss

Hearing impaired cats are LOUD.

Even warriors who have mild hearing loss will often end up speaking much louder so they can hear themselves, or not notice the sounds they're making as they shift around in their nests, scuffle sand at the dirtplace, or trample through crunchy leaf litter.

If one of their ears is better than the other, they'll usually try to stand with their "good side" facing any speakers or other sources of noise. They might appear to be constantly standing at an angle, with their head turned towards the sound. It might be so second nature that they don't realize they're doing it.

Plus, a cat with hearing loss in only one ear will lose their hearing's "distance perception," the ability to pinpoint a sound's location. EXACTLY like how losing the sight in one eye causes the loss of "depth perception," they will have difficulty telling how far away a noise actually is.

Warriors who lose their hearing later in life typically have years of experience in knowing how prey behaves and what sorts of actions make noise; but cats born deaf have to be taught this.

Instead, born-deaf cats tend to associate "sound" with "vibration." Echoes, rumbles, and the sensation of their own humming or laughter can feel very pleasurable. Their whiskers are so sensitive that they can even feel drafts of air from someone speaking in front of them! Because of that, cats with impaired hearing do better with low, rumbling "sounds" rather than high-pitched ones; even when they can't hear either. They can feel lower pitched noises.

(NOTE: Decibels are the measurement of volume, and Hertz are the measurement of pitch. These are different things, NOT interchangeable. HIGH pitch and LOW volume are lost first.)

This is why hunting is so difficult when cats begin to lose their hearing. Their sense of smell and sight can be perfectly intact, but a lot of how a cat hunts is in listening for delicate little sounds and balancing them in both ears to figure out prey's exact location. So, when a cat is learning to hunt without their hearing, they have to rely on their other senses and keep their whiskers low, dusting the ground with their chops and front paws, in hopes of their quarry making a vibration they can feel.

IMPORTANT: Don't forget that cats have carpal whiskers! They are short whiskers on the front paws of a cat, used primarily for "grappling" with other cats and struggling prey. They are less sensitive than facial whiskers, but still very useful for a hearing impaired warrior.

"Dusting," keeping the face low, is still more effective than relying entirely on "Sweeping" movements with the paws.

The younger the cat is, the more time they will have to practice and master this. Cats born deaf, who have never relied on hearing before, are usually better hunters than older warriors learning completely new techniques.

But. Clan cats aren't the only danger in the forest.

A warrior who is deaf or hard-of-hearing will not hear danger approaching, and is easy to sneak up on. Even if they keep themselves completely quiet, an intelligent fox or an enemy warrior can launch an unexpected attack on their unsuspecting target. The wilderness is dangerous, and it's not feasible to keep one's whiskers pressed to the ground at all times, even if vibrations did carry far enough to detect such danger before it's too late.

So, it would be recommended for warriors with hearing loss to not wander too far without a hearing Clanmate capable of alerting them to sounds.

They also will have a VERY difficult time acting as part of a "battalion," in large-scale battles.

In fights with dozens of entangled warriors, while they're focused on fighting the cat in front of them, they will have a hard time hearing commands. Even if well-trained in visual cues like tail signs, deaf and HOH warriors might fail to respond to yowled orders like, "RETREAT" or "SECURE THE ENTRANCE."

Even if the warrior isn't fully deaf, battles are loud and chaotic! It's very likely that such orders would get lost in the clamor of hissing and screeching cats, if the cat has any difficulties with hearing at all.

In summary,

Cats with hearing disabilities are loud.

Hearing loss in one ear will cause the loss of distance perception, and they will often stand at an angle with their good ear facing the noise.

If they were born deaf, they have to learn what makes noise.

Highly tactile, they tend to rely on whisker-sense to "replace" their hearing.

Keeping their facial whiskers low to feel for vibration, "dusting," is a very useful technique.

"Sweeping" with the carpal whiskers is also useful, but less so than "dusting."

They are in increased danger from things sneaking up on them, and shouldn't go anywhere unsafe without a buddy.

Following battle commands in large-scale battles will be difficult or nearly impossible, making them bad "team players."

Communication: Signing, lipreading, and more

(psst! @twiigbranch has a free-to-use version of pawspeak if you credit them!)

Since the majority of these cats lost their ability to hear later in life, most warriors with hearing loss will speak "normally." By "normally," that means they will talk the same way they did their whole lives, just louder so they can hear themselves better.

Over many years, they may begin to stop enunciating their words, 'slurring' their sentences, and their pitch may be a little off. Even then, it's rare that a Clanmate would be able to "tell" they have hearing loss just from their cadence.

But, meanwhile, cats who are born deaf will have a very complicated journey with speech.

It's PIVOTAL for the kit's development that the family and the Clan takes an interest in trying to communicate with them. Deaf children often become isolated from communities that don't seem to care about them, the same way any other alienated child would. This can result in trauma, lack of self-confidence, and behavioral issues.

Even if your project doesn't have Pawspeak (or doesn't have it yet!), kittens WILL find ways to communicate with their family and Clan. Sign language can evolve organically from home signs, unique gestures that will rise for a deaf child to speak with their family. BUT, the sooner they're introduced to a true sign language, the better they will be able to communicate.

Sign languages can also die naturally, simply fading away if the next few generations don't keep them alive. It's possible for the Clans to have gone through a few, over the years!

(Note: Sign languages are full languages, not just "physical versions" of a spoken one. American Sign Language and British Sign Language are from totally different families, even further from each other than English and Russian!)

It is also possible for cats born fully deaf, who have never heard words, to learn how to speak verbally... but, this takes a LOT more time and effort than using a sign language.

Teaching a deaf warrior how to say words is not quick, or easy, and is a very physical process. It involves a lot of dedicated practice time back-and-forth, with the apprentice placing their paw on their mentor's throat to feel their voice, and being coached on how to mimic the exact inflections of every word. It can be very repetitive, and very boring.

Even with lots of training, speakers born deaf have a noticeable "accent." They pronounce consonants better than they do vowels (aeiou), and often lack tone and inflection. Each warrior is an individual, and using a speaking voice is a skill some will be better at using than others.

Lipreading is very difficult. Most warriors born deaf will never learn how to do this, or even want to, as it takes an immense amount of time, effort, and tutoring. It will be more common for cats with more moderate hearing loss, especially if they lost their hearing later in life.

These are REQUIRED for a proper lip reading;

Clear view of the face. If the speaker is too far away, moving around, covers their mouth, stands in a dark place, or has their back turned, their lips can't be read. There are many ways that the view of the face could be obstructed.

Slow, clear speaking. If they're talking too quickly and mumbling their words, it will be extremely difficult to catch all of what they said. A better lip reader will be able to read faster.

Mental awareness. A cat who is tired to exhaustion, unable to focus, or not expecting to be spoken to will not be able to process what's being said. Lipreading is an action that takes brainpower.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: A single speaker, not overlapping with others. Lip reading is nearly useless during clanwide arguments. If there's tons of cats talking over each other, shouting out and interrupting, responding to unseen lips in the crowd, or even if an important speaker is just at a bad angle for the deaf warrior's line of sight to catch, they will not be able to catch everything.

Lipreading is also an action that takes focus. If the cat is tired, unable to concentrate, or isn't expecting to have to read lips, they won't be able to process what words the mouth was forming. It works best one-on-one, in clear lighting, looking straight ahead at the speaker... and even then, the BEST lipreader might only catch 40% to 50% of the words said.

So, it's truly reading. Interpretation. It isn't straightforward like language is. From, "I see a herd of deer, all of them are bucks" they might only catch, "...a... deer... of them... bucks." They will have to guess the meaning based on context!

(Look into a mirror. Quickly chant "Red right wrong" three times. Do you see how similar your lips look to form those words when you're not trying to clearly enunciate them? That's what lipreaders deal with.)

So, while there are other options, a sign language is absolutely the best choice if possible in your setting. Especially for cats who were deaf from birth, sign language is the ideal solution.

VERY IMPORTANT TIPS FOR WRITING A HEARING DISABILITY:

Please avoid them speaking with broken grammar, in third person, or with overly simplistic vocabulary, as if they are a toddler or a caveman. If a deaf cat is taught to speak, they will also learn grammar. BAD: "Examplefur go hunt. Me catch mouse good." OK: "I'm going hunting. I'm good at catching mice."

They will not suddenly "forget" how to speak if they lose their hearing, unless they have another condition such as brain injury.

Lip reading is inferior to signing.

They cannot perfectly catch every single word spoken in all conversations via lipreading, especially when the speaker isn't making an effort to include them, or it's during a disorganized group argument.

In ideal conditions, 30% to 40% of the words spoken will be picked up, and the reader will "fill in" the missing vocab with guesswork.

Teaching a deaf cat to speak verbally is a dedicated process, not something they easily "pick up."

Cats born deaf will almost never pick up lipreading, it is more common in milder forms of hearing loss.

Showing hearing clanmates making an effort to include hearing-impaired warriors, like doing translations or just making sure they understood everything, is massively appreciated.

A good culture around hearing loss is the best thing in the entire world for these cats. Support, respect, and acceptance are sincerely the most important factor in how well a hearing impaired warrior adapts with their disability.

So with that in mind, let's also explore the unique challenges in the terrains and culture of each Clan.

Unique Challenges Clan-by-Clan

Because of the nature of this disability, certain Clans are going to be more difficult for a hearing impaired warrior to function independently in, both in terms of environmental hazards and of culture.

Deaf and HOH warriors will not hear the sounds they're making if they step on noisy terrain or accidentally rustle nearby plants. Some enemies also rely more on stealth to attack their targets than others, and some territories will provide more places for prey and predators to hide. Water-related hazards will naturally cause there to be MORE disabled cats in some Clans more than others, which could mean that there will be less stigma and better community.

Environment means a lot to a cat with hearing loss!

RiverClan

Because this Clan is notorious for swimming in the river, they would have a massively higher rate of hearing loss (and scent loss) than other Clans; ESPECIALLY in late autumn and winter. This also means their healers would be MUCH more experienced with treating ear problems in general; but that's a subject for another guide!

(to answer a stray question before I eventually make that guide: RiverClan can make primitive earplugs out of beeswax to protect their hearing, but may need to trade with ThunderClan to acquire that.)

The important thing to note is that compared to other Clans, RiverClan has the highest rate of having HOH warriors. This means that there would be better support systems for hearing loss than in other Clans, and a cultural "bank" of techniques and knowledge to be shared.

They still have the same proportion of kittens born deaf compared to other Clans, but apprentices without hearing in RiverClan would have a bigger pool (heh!) of mentors who have experience with accommodating their disability.

Plus, you don't need to hear fish to catch them. While they'd still have issues hunting water voles and other wetland-loving rodents, fishers aren't at a significant disadvantage when it comes to providing food to the Clan.

Advantages--

High concentration of cats with similar disabilities provides community, and influences the broader culture to be more accommodating

Healers would have lots of experience with the injuries and illnesses that lead to hearing loss, leading to better treatment

Hearing is not necessary for catching fish, and thus has almost no bearing on how skilled a hunter would be.

Mentors would have better techniques for teaching deaf apprentices

Disadvantages--

Will not hear drowning cats. If you drop into that water you're on your own, bucko

Winter will be even harder than usual, when the river freezes over and fishing becomes more difficult.

Overall, RiverClan is THE best Clan for a deaf cat to be part of.

WindClan

With wide open spaces and lots of hills that offer a good vantage point, sight and vigilance is much more important for survival in a moorland than hearing. There's even an advantage to Pawspeak here; you can communicate from across the open moor without screaming out your location to all the prey!

On top of that, moorland has low-laying vegetation. It isn't a grassland, or filled with splashing water, or covered in crunchy leaf litter. There's not a lot of things TO accidentally make noise on, unless the warrior is trying to hide in a gorse or common heather bush, and WindClan is notorious for relying on speed over stealth anyway.

The one drawback to being a deaf moor-runner is that they will not hear baying hounds. Dogs are extremely common in moorland, either as sheep herders or as companions to human hunters shooting grouses. That said, the fact that hounds are the ONLY big predator they'll need to worry about immediately makes WindClan's moor safer than any woodland territory.

Badgers, boars, and foxes hate open spaces like moorland. It's just dogs that are a big concern, and hawks for smaller cats. There are very few "sneaky" predators in this area; most rely on speed.

So being a moor-runner is one of the best jobs that a warrior with hearing loss could have in the Clans... but the minute that they start to have problems listening to any orders, a tunneler should stop working underground immediately.

Deaf apprentices should be excused from their mandatory tunnel training, except to learn how to do evacuation drills.

There is no light underground. Even if they're capable of creating rushlights or are willing to sacrifice glowworms, that light will be dim at best, and could snuff out at any moment. Communication will become impossible with a deaf cat, and even moderate hearing loss will endanger any warrior who gets separated from their team.

If something as drastic as a cave-in or a flooding happens, they will be in extreme danger. They can't be properly warned unless they're pushed by a fellow digger, and they will not be able to notice anything that isn't rumbling. If they DO end up getting trapped under rubble, they will not hear a rescue party calling their name.

It's not just themselves they have to worry about, either. Not being able to warn or coordinate with their excavation team will put ALL of them in danger.

Advantages--

Moorland requires sharper eyes than ears to begin with.

Lack of ambush predators makes this territory particularly safe without hearing.

Quiet terrain makes sneaking less neccesary in the first place

Pawspeak is especially useful across wide distances

Disadvantages--

Hounds are still a massive danger; they could get very close before they're noticed, if they're upwind.

Will not receive a warning cry in case of any hawks or approaching predators.

Tunneling would be profoundly dangerous with a hearing disability; should be heavily discouraged.

Overall rating is that this is the second best Clan for a cat with hearing loss. RiverClan's sense of community still gives them the top seat imo, but if the attitudes of their Clanmates are good, WindClan's moor is an easy territory to adapt to.

ShadowClan

This one is going to depend on what version of ShadowClan the Erins feel like writing that day, or which one you've chosen for your own project. Do they live in a dry pine forest? Or a wetland?

If you're using the idea that ShadowClan lives in a dry pine forest, especially if your project exists in Britain where spruces, firs, and larches are non-native and thus the territory is a timber plantation, refer to the new growth section in ThunderClan below.

I do not abide by that idea, because Aengus the Prize Winning Hog did not emerge from a cranberry bog for me to disrespect him in this way <3 love ur local wetland <3

(quick note: a swamp is a wooded wetland, a marsh is an open wetland, a bog is acidic, and a fen is neutral/alkaline. Wetland is the general term here.)

Wetlands are rich with soggy ground, muck, and microbe-ridden stillwater. Though ShadowClan cats don't swim for fun, they would end up with more ear infections than most Clans through accidentally falling into the swamp. It's likely that they have the second-highest rate of hearing loss in the 5 Clans, but still significantly below RiverClan.

The lush, thick ferns and reeds provide lots of cover to the notoriously stealthy Clan, but to a warrior who can't hear, this terrain is loud and frustrating. The squish of mud under your paws and the rustle of undergrowth is very hard to adapt to if you can't hear it. ShadowClan's prey of birds, frogs, and water-rodents will respond to any accidental noises by fleeing, quickly, making hunting difficult.

Plus, ShadowClan doesn't rely on one, large, deep, stony body of water like RiverClan does, which seems to be sedimentary rock and open marsh all around. Predators are lurking everywhere in wooded swamps, and could sneak up on a warrior who can't hear them. Foxes, badgers, and boars are a danger in this territory.

All that said; ShadowClan still doesn't seem to rely on just rodents. They eat a lot of amphibians and reptiles, which are not hunted by sound. Most of the techniques they use to catch them can just be taught verbatim to a deaf apprentice, or continue to be used the same way by a warrior who has lost their hearing.

Advantages--

Concentration of warriors with hearing loss from falling into dirty water may provide community and support.

Has a good selection of prey that doesn't rely on listening to be hunted effectively.

Disadvantages--

Swamps, wooded wetlands, are dangerous and attract predators.

Lush foliage and soupy ground make moving quietly difficult for a deaf warrior; but not as difficult as leaf litter.

So, this Clan would be firmly middle-of-the-line in terms of its accessibility to a cat with hearing loss. It would depend a lot on how you plan to approach ShadowClan in your own project; such as if you plan to build out more campbound activities, see them as being social or antisocial with their Clanmates, and what kind of territory you choose for them to have.

SkyClan

As of the time of writing this guide in 2023, when the only decent description of SkyClan's new territory is from a single chapter of Squirrelflight's Hope, it's very difficult to figure out what sorts of terrain challenges a warrior with hearing loss would face at the lake.

Hopefully I can come back and update this later!

But it's most likely is that they have a diverse, varied territory, involving the climbing of steep hills and gorges. Even at the "gorge" territory, a lot of hunting would need to take place outside of the rocky parts of the ravine, in the sparse woodlands and countrysides nearby.

For hunting on sparse woodland, see the advice for ThunderClan. Most hunting in British countrysides is going to look very similar to WindClan's open fields, so refer up there for that.

Because of how close they are to humans, both in the Gorge and at the Lake, it's HIGHLY recommended that warriors with hearing loss avoid twolegplaces. ESPECIALLY towns. Between cars, crowds, and grabbing hands, these places are already dangerous (and sensory hell) for warriors with great hearing, but outright lethal for a hearing impaired cat who won't hear these things coming.

So while the majority of the Clan is jack-of-all-trades and regularly mixes up the particular terrain they hunt in, this is going to be harder for hearing impaired warriors. They have to invent brand new, unique techniques for ALL of these different environments, some of them more difficult than others. Because of that, it will naturally be easiest for a deaf warrior to "specialize" in a particular type of terrain.

This could result in some pretty intense feelings of alienation, as their hearing Clanmates regularly mix what sorts of places they tackle. Without even intending to, they could end up making the warrior feel very left out!

In terms of the culture though, SkyClan seems notoriously accommodating. Between the part-time-kittypet daylight warriors and the way they invented an entirely new mediator role for a cat who didn't enjoy hunting and fighting, it would likely be one of the BEST Clans in terms of supporting a hearing impaired warrior, even in spite of having a "standard" rate of hearing loss since their territory is not particularly wet.

So, it's very likely that they would WANT to fix the fact they've accidentally made their Clanmate excluded, and seek solutions that work for everyone. If any Clan besides RiverClan had a Pawspeak interpreter translating Leafstar's words, it would probably be these guys lmao

Advantages--

Varied terrain means there will be at least a few places that aren't too hard for them to adapt to

Sparse woods, open fields, and even gorges, the three most common terrain types, are at worst decent for a deaf cat to hunt in.

VERY accommodating culture, the absolute best outside of the Clans with a high hearing loss percentage.

Disadvantages--

Generalist training, where every warrior handles vastly different terrain types, will exponentially increase how much training a hearing-impaired warrior must learn.

Being unable to join with their Clanmates in hunting across the entire territory could feel isolating

Rating: Close to top tier, but variable. It's going to depend somewhat on the personality of the warrior. While SkyClan will likely make a big effort to include them, the reality of needing to learn several sets of parallel skills and the way they might feel like an "outsider" for specializing could cause extra distress. Especially for a warrior losing their hearing later in life.

ThunderClan

Because of their collaborative culture and hunting style, described as snobbish and bossy by other Clans, it's very likely that ThunderClan would struggle the most with a specific type of ableism. Since they value group cohesion, it follows they may force Assimilation onto a disabled warrior rather than Accommodation.

As mentioned earlier, Pawspeak is the best thing for the comfort of a deaf warrior... but it might not occur to this Clan to encourage the majority of the Clan to adapt to a minority of warriors.

But it gets worse. Forests are AWFUL terrain to hunt in if you can't hear. Imagine walking in a field with a bunch of invisible landmines, and if you step on one, it broadcasts your EXACT location.

It's difficult to tell if your mouse is running away because you crunched a leaf and made a sound... or because a bird in a tree SAW you and is now raising up an alarm cry. If you can't actually hear what the noise was that scared your lunch away, you might blame yourself for being clumsy as a fox barrels towards you!

When it comes to forests, there are significant differences between an old growth forest and a new growth forest. BOTH of them are going to be extremely difficult for a disabled warrior to adapt to, but old growth is harder.

OLD GROWTH

In both, ground litter is a challenge, but especially so in an old growth British forest. Natural forests there are primarily mixed oak, which drop twigs, leaves, and acorns all over the ground.

These areas are bountiful, productive, and brimming with life. Both in terms of prey and predators. The varied canopy of natural, mixed-age trees allows sunlight to filter through and create an "understorey," providing lots of food and cover to lots of different animals. Unfortunately, foliage is not a deaf warrior's friend.

As previously mentioned, a mix of areas for animals to hide in and a surrounding of rattling plant life is the worst possible combination for a cat who can't hear. Worse, hunting rodents depends massively on hearing them through the leaf litter, thanks to those high-pitched chirps and squeaks which are the first thing to vanish when a cat loses their hearing.

This would be so bad that it's likely ThunderClan "works" its youngest members much harder than its seniors, assigning apprentices and young warriors to significantly more hunting patrols. Since hearing loss is so common that it's practically inevitable, and the security of a Clan allows these wild cats to live to such old ages, it would be "common sense" to ThunderClan to structure things this way.

Old growth patches are practically food pantries for Clan cats, but hearing impaired warriors will have a HELLISH time trying to hunt in them.

NEW GROWTH

When a forest is new and all of the trees in a stand are about the same age, they create a uniform canopy. Like a continuous tent. This means they're so effective at blocking out sunlight that there's virtually no understorey.

No understorey means no food. Or very little food. But it also means no cover. And, usually, significantly less leaf litter. This is because in Britain, most of these types of forests are non-native conifers. Sitka spruce and douglas fir are the two biggest offenders-- and that's significant because nothing here has evolved to EAT the products of those trees.

In ThunderClan, Tallpines is an example of this, but this type of terrain could pop up anywhere that's seen massive destruction.

No understorey to feed prey, no products of the trees which native animals can eat, a silent floor covered in pine needles which offer no hiding places, almost chilling uniformity of the strange trees in evenly-spaced rows...

All of this to say that there's an irony here, that the hearing impaired warrior will be best at hunting in the most barren parts of the forest.

There's much less things to trip up on, or rustle. Prey can be plainly seen out in the open. Gray squirrels are the most significant prey that can utilize these areas, and they DO make a hearty meal for a Clan cat. Additionally, these areas are particularly silent because they're so barren, which might make them seem "creepy" to hearing warriors, but that wouldn't bother a deaf warrior one bit!

Advantages--

Cultural sentiment of "all for one; one for all" may lead to more dedication from the Clan as a whole in connecting to the hearing impaired cat

Which could be a blessing or a curse, depending on the individual warrior's feelings.

Ability to work efficiently in the most barren parts of the forest

Disadvantages--

Cultural emphasis on collaboration in group hunting likely leads to deaf cats being encouraged to adapt to the patrol rather than their own strengths.

May result in more emphasis on teaching lip reading and 'speech therapy,' rather than the adoption or implementation of Pawspeak.

Very difficult to stay quiet in a forest if you can't hear the crunch of leaf litter and twigs.

Lots of cover means random bullshit can spring out from any corner; abundance of ambush predators.

Cover also means there's a lot of places for prey to hide, and hearing can't be used to pinpoint the location.

Lots of rodent prey, which relies on hearing high-pitched noise to catch.

Rating: F MINUS, SEE ME AFTER CLASS. By FAR the worst Clan for a warrior with hearing loss to be part of, for both practical reasons, AND cultural reasons. Awful awful awful, absolutely abysmal, failing grade. Dark Souls for deaf cats

Though remember! This part of the guide is a suggestion. You do not need to include ableism in your own projects if you do not want to, and I hope with the information that you now have, you know how to better avoid it!

"Sources?"

Right this way~

#Deafness #Hearing Loss #Herb Guide #Clan Culture #warrior cats #deaf warriors #This is not BB but I feel like I should tag it just for the cover art #Since Stonewing and Dovewing don't have hearing loss in canon #BUT I SAY THEY DO #Better Bones AU...ish. kinda #Bonefall's Herb Guides

[villainessbian]

Concept: most aliens can get anxious, can get scared, can get fight-or-flight. What most aliens do not get, however, is stress. Stress is a weird thing even by human standards. It can build up over time or be something tied to a very limited situation. It can be caused by a lot of things, and it comes in a lot of different ways. But it's a core human reaction, when a situation is wrong, it causes stress until it is righted. And it even affects different people differently!

Cue Human Cassandra, on a ship with her friend and co-worker Human Pauline. The ship is crewed with a mix of species. It's a cargo ship - load up in a space port, unload in another, get news and supplies during their stops, and live as an ever-shifting family as some of the two dozen crew members, give or take, get replaced. Some leave come payday, and new ones come looking for the thrill of low-level adventure, experiencing warp drives across the safer roads of the known universe.

But getting the supplies you need, or want, in stops is never so easy. Humans are new to the galactic community, and their needs misunderstood. Most broad-edibility food is bland for them, but that's okay. A big enough bag of their condiments can last them years. But ADHD meds... now that's less easy to get, the further from Earth you are. And a contract too big for their captain to pass on came up, much farther than the two humans expected.

Cassandra's mood deteriorated, her work priorities out of order, her sleep schedule in disarray. Little by little, she grew restless, shifting moods and gears unpredictably. A few weeks in and she was a mess, barely able to keep up with the minimum her job doing maintenance and running safety diagnostics for the route charting team required of her. While Pauline could help with the mechanical aspects of keeping the ship running, picking up the "slack", the safety had to be double-checked by the charting and pilot teams. When the curves of asteroid probability reached beyond a certain level, several hundred simulations had to be run, time-consuming processes had to be used, to avoid any collision at speeds beyond speed c. Some truly exotic things happened to ships that experienced those, but none of them contained the words "surviving crew." A safe route avoided any probability of collision over .1% and when going faster than light, any choice of course required thinking in 3 dimensions plus relative time to navigate dangerous probability fields in one piece, finding time-specific corridors and accounting for a dozen variables at once.

After she had a breakdown over a path she would normally have been able to find in under a minute, Pauline spoke to a concerned pilot team member:

"You have to understand her, this is a stressful situation and she's doing her best..."

"What do you mean by 'stressful'?" Gabalt asked. The furry little creature stood on two arched legs, and barely reached up to Pauline's shoulder, opening three wide eyes with curiosity and concern in equal parts.

"Things are... getting difficult for her, and keep getting more difficult because she does not have medication to help her brain be efficient. It makes her tired, and inefficient, and as it goes on, she's less and less able to cope with the situation. The longer this goes on, the worse it gets, and that is stress. Getting more tired because it takes more energy to deal with the situation, and less efficient because she's more tired, and things get harder because she's less efficient, on and on until something can solve the problem and the stress goes away."

"That sounds... hard. Do all humans have to deal with this?"

"Well, everyone has sources of stress, but she's got a disability. Without her meds, she gets stressed all the time. Not a lot all at once, but it always adds up."

"Oh no! So she'll be stuck like that until we get closer to Earth?"

"Most likely, yes."

But the most momentous thing to happen this day was not her breakdown. Not an hour later, alarms blared up. The simulation holograms all displayed blinking red masses - the less-travelled "safe route" was not as well protected! An asteroid range had been detected cutting through the border field, and it was in their way!

Pauline froze up, not knowing what to do. Gabalt was too surprised to act fast. All the courses from the ship's library of regular manoeuvres suggested a crash chance of over 60%, and mere seconds to act before entering the field!

Before anyone could react, Cassandra came in running from her corner to the front of the bridge, slamming the warp drive shutdown button. Most holograms stuttered and collapsed, the exit from FTL essentially dividing one or several of their dimensions by zero.

Looking quickly at the few remaining ones and gazing at the screens showing the current outside situation like a large window would have - plus a few critical extra points of data - she adjusted the angles manually while everyone still shuddered from the gravitational and temporal whiplash of suddenly coming back into normal time. Unblinkingly, she spotted the asteroids on the route while the ship was still going, if not at relativistic speeds, still fast enough for a single pebble they met to vaporise the Whipple shields, the outer hull, the inner hull, the crew members, and the hull again coming out if they but grazed it. Confirming the angles visually, she played with the reaction wheels, the thrusters, the gravity drives, to divert the ship's course just enough to miss a collision while not risking any grave injury on board. There was no time to react - if anything showed up straight ahead on the "unaugmented" outside view screens, it was too late to not get splatted. After half the crew had had the time to get thrown to the side or on the ground due to the rough handling, she'd managed to avoid any crash.

Gabalt was reeling. While it was surely not impossible, these was the kind of moves experienced veterans would never wish to attempt, and the margins for error were ridiculously low! She'd saved the ship and everyone on it, whereas she'd been unable to do a simple safety run so soon before?

Pauline was white as a sheet, but this was nothing compared to Cassandra, shaking violently and breathing unevenly.

"Pauline? What is she doing?"

"That's... probably the adrenaline."

"What's it for?"

"It's from stress. When it comes it overcharges the body. It's like the traditional, 'fight or flight' instinct from survival in prey-predator paradigms, it lets you move fast but paralyses thought... it feels pretty bad after a lot of it is released though. Now she's crashing down, must be harrowing."

"How did she do that? And you said her thoughts were paralysed for precision manoeuvres?"

Cassandra's voice came, nearly a mutter: "I just... had to. do it."

Gabalt needed to understand what happened.

"What do you mean you had to? Someone had to do it, but why you?"

"It- it was very stressful, I saw you freeze, and so."

"But... but HOW did you do all that? That was extremely complicated, few pilots -whose main craft is directly piloting- would want to even try doing that when given a choice!?"

"I had to. do it, so I did. I couldn't. couldn't make a mistake."

"This makes absolutely no sense."

Pauline interrupted. "She just works like that. Lots of stress and when people freeze up, humans with her condition... sometimes, surprisingly, function better in the moment than others can."

"Ah. So it's a human thing. of course, it's a human thing. NOTHING MAKES ANY SENSE WITH YOUR ACCURSED SPECIES" the diminutive pilot pouted.

And so one more story of the humans doing the impossible spread around. Humans of a subtype, more easily harmed, sometimes unstable and needing help for the simplest things... accomplishing odd, unthinkable, borderline heroic feats under duress none could be expected to withstand - but only then. Cursed, blessed? No story-teller seemed too certain. But the "magical" species never stopped surprising all others. And a new proverb developed: "it's not over until the human says it is".

#humans are space fae #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are deathworlders #earth is space australia #stress response #ADHD #attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

[kyrianne]

[Image ID: A series of screenshots from a Twitter thread by Jason Coupet / professajay.

Text begins: Man voting in Georgia is so different than in Illinois. When I lived in chicago, during early voting, I went to the local elementary school, waited in line about ten minutes, and they gave me a sheet of paper. I checked people off then I put it in the machine and left.

Not Georgia. We drove downtown because *every* other polling place had a line >90 minutes. We paid ten bucks to park. We went in the building, then emptied out pockets to go through a metal detector. We then saw a sign about where to park to get our parking validated. Inside.

We then waited in line ~80 minutes. We got to the end and we were given a form to fill out (?). We were told *not* to sign it until told. Then we were moved into a waiting room where we were given a ticket number, like when you are at the dmv.

We were told to get our IDs out and wait. We waited here for 15-20 minutes. When your number is called they took your form, did some stuff on the computer, then told you to sign the form. Then you get a little green card. You insert it into the machine.

Then you go through three or four prompts, including a very serious™️ warning about perjury, a totally necessary warning given how huge a problem stolen identity is for the purposes of voting on behalf of someone else.

You then finally vote, and after an “are you sure” prompt you get a sheet. You then have to walk the sheet over to feed it into a machine. About half of these were working.

The bottleneck was clearly the weird application and waiting room thing. There are two dozen people at a time sitting to have their stuffed checked. Think of it as regular voting except when you got there they had to run a credit check for *each person* like you need financing.

It was easier finishing my PhD paperwork. Thankful for the kind people (nearly all black women) the shepherded the processes. But man if you are poor or disabled or whatever, good luck yo. That should have been easier. We finished tho. Text ends.

Image ID: Two Black people are standing beside a city street and smiling at the camera, a man and a woman. The man has close-cropped hair and a beard. He is wearing a black hoodie that says Southside and has a sticker on his chest with a peach on it. The woman has large tortoiseshell browline glasses and long twist locs. She has a light brown leather crossbody bag, and is wearing a salmon-colored windbreaker. She also has a peach sticker on her chest, which she is pointing to. Her hand has a wedding ring. End ID]

#us politics #voting #georgia #georgia runoff #black twitter #voting while black #twitter #twitter thread #posting this here because I thought it was already #but couldn’t find it #and this kind of personal account is super important #this is a primary resource on how messed up voting is in Georgia

[undiscovered-horizon]

"Finnish polka" - Ivar the Boneless x Reader

SUMMARY: After helping one of the northern Jarls, the Lothbrok brothers attend a celebratory feast. There, they're faced with a tradition of warriors catching flower crowns that belong to young women. How surprised Ivar is when you almost shove your crown into his hands.

WORDCOUNT: ~ 2.1k

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Ivar is tired.

Of course he's glad that Jarl Thorstein came out victorious. And that his brothers are fine. Still, he feels weary as the adrenaline leaves his body. His legs start to ache. Ivar downs the rest of his mead in hopes it makes him a little more deaf to his mood.

The upbeat, bright music fills his mind like an obsessive thought. His heart beats to the rhythm tapped by the feet of dancing women. They spin, jump and run around with flower crowns sitting atop their heads. How the wreaths remain immovable, he can't quite say.

Ivar is also angry.

As the local tradition entails, when the song ends, all the dancing young maidens will throw their flower crowns to the crowd. Whoever catches it, is believed to be the girl's lover chosen by the gods. However, whether the couple indulges and trusts gods' judgement is a different story. But if the wreath falls to the floor, the girl is said to remain unmarried for the next five years.

Ivar knows the chance of him somehow catching one of those is near zero. He's sitting quite far from the dancers. Even if he did catch it, he's disillusioned about the imminent dissatisfaction of the flower crown's ownert. Not only is he disabled in a way that almost entirely excludes him from fighting but he's also infamous for his ruthless nature and vengeful heart. Hardly a man who invokes desire. Still, some naive piece of him remains hopeful that maybe he's wrong. Maybe he can be terrible and loved all the same.

He shakes those weak delusions away from himself before they sour his mood further.

His piercing eyes have been following one of the dancers for the better part of the song when he catches himself. Her movements look effortless even when the musicians pick up the tempo. Clearly, she's done this dance one too many times to have any doubts about what she's doing. Joy beams from her in a way that makes her appear almost shining. The wreath on the top of her head is mostly green with white and red flowers. It makes Ivar think of the woods surrounding Kattegat; it makes him think of home.

Ivar leans toward Oddleif, one of the Jarl's men, who's sitting next to him.

"Who is she?"

Oddleif looks at Ivar out of the corner of his eye. He scoffs, takes a large sip of his drink and only then decides to answer:

"If you're thinking of catching her flower crown, don't." His blond braids dance slightly as he shakes his head. There's a hint of laughter hiding in the back of Oddleif's throat. "Half of the surviving army wants it."

"I have no care for flowers," Ivar lies through his teeth. "They have no use. They wilt and die and soon no one remembers them. I am simply curious about her."

"Her father is the blacksmith. You might have seen him in the battle, swinging that damned sledgehammer." Ivar silently nods. He remembers that man - tall as a pine tree and wider than a stable. The blacksmith invokes respect even when he's not decimating enemies like a troll equipped with a tree trunk. "He said once that he'll let any man marry his daughter but only if he can lift an anvil. Tried it once myself. Not that I had any success as you can imagine." Oddleif laughs bitterly and continues drinking. His eyes are glued to the dancers but Ivar knows that right now, the two of them are admiring the very same girl with a flower crown like a forest.

The melody continues to quicken. Despite being out of breath, you don't want it to end. Your feet ache but they do not falter nor do they stumble. It seems that their muscles know the dance better than your mind. There are a dozen girls dancing with you but you do not see them. Not really. They appear worlds away from you and the song of bagpipes and strings.

And then appears he.

A slouched, dark figure flies before your eyes as you're doing another pirouette. The man simply sits there, in the corner, but his presence is overwhelming. Or so you think. He does nothing and yet he tears his way into your microcosm of quick footwork, turns and lively polka.

You recognize him. Of course you do. Many whispers, equally frightened and amazed, have spoken of him. You have believed in all of them until the moment you met his gaze for that split second. Right then, somewhere between blinks and breaths, you renounce every gossip you've ever heard about him. A voice in the back of your head, a trickster or an oracle, nags at you to learn the truth yourself.

When the lively, fast melody comes to a stop, you find yourself shaken awake from the thoughts about Ivar the Boneless. The end of the song seems somewhat abrupt to you as you've been letting your fantasy run wild without paying much attention to what's going on around you. Dancing the last part purely by the memory of your muscles. The moment musicians stop playing, a small crowd begins to form in front of you. Men of different class, age and ancestry reach out their hands. Each one of them is more determined than the other to catch your wreath. They start to yell something but considering that the inside of the long hall is awfully loud anyway, you can't make out any words. Reading their lips, you can only tell when they're exclaiming different variations of your name.

They're only pushing towards you, shoving each other away. You keep taking steps backwards but the distance you create with each step is quickly shortened with the men calling out to you. You knew there would be many of them in front of you but never assumed that many. Instead of somewhat flattering, the siege is terrifying and imposing.

Looking for help or advice, just something that will ease your tension, you silently look around the long hall. Your gaze falls on the same slouched, dark figure. Strange peacefulness washes over you when his eyes meet yours.

The dim candlelight seems to bend around Ivar, making his corner appear darker than anywhere else in the long hall. He's simply sitting there. Maybe he's not interested? But the way he's staring at you shows nothing if not burning curiosity. The sons of Ragnar aren't know for their patience. No, they're said to take whatever they want the moment their desire sparks. Despite that, the youngest of them, and arguably the most famous, appears to be waiting. But for what exactly?

The fresh pine needles prick your skin. You furrow your eyebrows. Your gaze falls to the wreath and then comes back to Ivar. Could it be...?

It isn't much of a throw, really. You toss the flower crown towards him without looking anywhere else but into Ivar's eyes. Without as much as blinking, he catches the wreath with ease as though he has been prepared for that. Low murmurs hit your ears but quickly the sounds of disappointment fall silent as it's made clear who caught your wreath. Despite their initial determination, the men who had been reaching out to you suddenly disperse like fog does in the early morning. They knew better than to get under the skin of a Lothbrok. Especially that one.

"I believe this belongs to you."

Ivar is holding up the wreath. Despite his words, he makes no effort to offer it back to you. His eyes are bright and glistening, the corner of his mouth is tugged ever-so-slightly upwards. He appears amused.

At first, it was nice to finally sit down after dancing for what seemed to be hours on end. But now, when you're facing the consequences of your spur-of-the-moment decision, the tension sets in once more. This time, however, it doesn't feel threatening. In turn, the nervousness is somewhat welcome like the jittery state before a surprise is revealed.

"If I wanted to keep it, I wouldn't have thrown it," you answer in a light tone.

"And why should I keep it?"

The blue eyes study you for a moment. It's a strange feeling - you can't help but think that the longer you are in Ivar's presence, talking or not, he's reading your mind and soul. He stares at you in a way that tells you he already holds all the answers but wants you to confirm them.

"It's said to bring good luck." You shrug your shoulders. "Until the wreath wilts and dies, Freya and Freyr will look after you."

Ivar looks at the flower crown again. Only now, when he's holding it, does he realize that for a flower crown, there aren't many flowers. A few sandworts and poppies, yes, but the wreath is made mostly of evergreen plants. It might take weeks until the crown wilts.

The microcosm seems closed again. Now it's not you and the bagpipes but you and him. It's strange and it's new but it's not threatening. It's not the kind of presence a man of his infamy should have. Or perhaps you've simply fallen for his honey trap.

"Why did you throw it to me?" Ivar tries to make the question seem unimportant, just curiosity brought to light. But he can't quite convince himself that he doesn't care. There's a hint of something vulnerable and genuine when the words roll off his tongue. It's easy to miss like a dandelion clock carried away by a gust of wind.

You wish you knew the answer yourself.

"I don't know really," you say honestly. "Perhaps it was one of the gods that threw the flower crown for me." You make a pause. Ivar's face is unreadable. "Or perhaps I have no interest in urgent, desperate men."

Ivar chuckles. A deep shadow is covering part of his face, making him appear kind of sinister. For a moment, you question whether he's laughing with you or at you.

"And what exactly makes you think I'm not urgent or desperate?" he continues. You notice his smile is growing wider. That glint of amusement in his blue eyes has changed in mischief. "What if I'm worse than all of them? You surely know who I am."

"Of course I do, Ivar the Boneless," you drone the words. In a barely noticeable fashion, he clenches his jaw when you say his name. It makes him feel a strange, burning sensation in his stomach but Ivar is left unsure whether he likes it or detests. "The whispers of your ruthless character are unending."

"But you're not afraid?" he asks with both disbelief and suspicion. A girl with a flower crown doesn't necessarily strike him as fearless in any way. Or this whole strange situation is a little too good, too dream-like, for him to accept it at face-value.

Ivar's smile falters when your face takes on a confident, maybe even arrogant, expression. He's taken aback.

"I'm a woman of the North," you say while leaning towards him on the table. The distance between your faces shortnes. "The only person I fear is my own reflection."

The sudden closeness makes Ivar inhale sharply. The strong smell of pine needles fills his nostrils. For a moment, his imagination runs wild but it's not his fault - he has no grasp on it:

How those big eyes glistened in the semi-dark of the long hall as you were staring at him. Your smirk, somewhat challenging and beckoning him to push on. Then, the smell of conifer that shakes all senses awake. His fantasy leaves the northern snows and travelles to forests, to him brushing pine needles from your hair and your naked, flushes skin smelling of evergreen trees.

But quickly his shaken awake, to his utmost displeasure, by you:

"Well, if you don't want it, I suppose I should take it back, no?"

Your hand unsurely reaches out for the wreath in Ivar's hand. He's quick to pull his arm back.

"It's bad luck to take back gifts," he states plainly. In an act of nonchalance, Ivar is playing with the wreath, spinning it around his finger. "I should like to keep it."

Sometimes you come back to the night you've met the infamous Viking, when you're rendered sleepless while he's calmly breathing next to you, getting the rest he desperately needs. How funny all of it seems - that a flower crown in bloodied, merciless hands could lead to having a genuine crown on your head. Maybe you were right, after all, and it really was the hand of one of the gods that threw the wreath for you.

#vikings #vikings series #vikings tv series #vikings fanfiction #vikings imagine #vikings x reader #vikings ivar #ivar x reader #ivar lothbrok #ivar the boneless #ivar the boneless x reader #ivar the boneless fanfiction #ivar the boneless imagnie

[doggirlnarcolepsy]

Help two disabled trans girls make it through July

Me and my wife had to completely drain both our bank accounts at the beginning of the month paying rent and back rent from last month. And we still have $675 in utilities and internet bills coming up in a week. I don't know how we're gonna be able to feed ourselves let alone afford our hormones and my wife's Ozempic($185 per 4 weeks)

We're already been out of hormones for weeks with not being able to justify refilling my prescription because of the financial pressure we've been under. We've both been completely cut off from any kind of familial financial support, mainly my parents essentially just telling us to "figure it out ourselves" when they know what we're living on isn't sustainable at all and not nearly enough to facilitate having savings for emergencies.

Meanwhile we've still had continuing hardships with my wife's dental health, she's still has over a dozen cavities, 4 chipped teeth and a broken impacted wisdom tooth that needs extraction as soon as possible. At this point she can only chew with 1/3 of her jaw very slowly and it really hurts me to watch her go through this every day

I'm trying to get a part-time job but currently all I'm being offered are internships that don't start til the end of July/start of August and I still don't know if there's any chance of me receiving any sort of salary or compensation for the job I'll be doing..

Paypal: @QueenSizedDonger

#please help #please boost #mutual aid #please reblog #trans mutual aid #help needed

[disabled-disaster-king]

Disabled bathroom psa:

When I and other wheelchair users are talking about how abled people should not be using disabled toilets I can almost garente that they are not talking about your standard slightly larger stall in a bathroom with only two stalls. Im talking about separate bathrooms designed entirely for disabled people. Handicap bathrooms are different from handicap stalls. They are a separate room with its own toilet sink and mirror all positioned with the equipment designed for those with mobility issues and mobility aids such as walkers, gait trainers, wheelchairs, and crutches. A handicap stall is a stall ment to be wide enough to alow a wheelchair to fit (most don't though especially if you are fat or in a power chair.) With one or two grab bars placed. I don't care about people using the handicap stall if others are taken, they need the extra room (bags don't count, I mean things like strollers, todlers, fat, and autistic people not your shopping) those who need the grab bars like people with mobility issues, back problems, and invisible disabilities. I also don't care if you use it because all the others are in use. I care when people use it to make stupid videos on their phone, hang out, smoke, or just cause they like it when there are a dozen other stalls available. I swear most of you never think of anything besides making sure that you are never the one in the wrong.🙄

If I'm not talking about you, IM NOT TALKING ABOUT YOU.

I am talking about those who use those bathrooms as a fashion changing stall. The ones who smoke and film tik toks talking about the crazy disabled person knocking on the door. I am talking about the people who, after telling then I am going to pee myself decide that acting like I don't exist or that they can't here me will make me go away and guess what? Make me pee all over myself.

#disabled #disability #actually disabled #wheelchair #wheelchair user #physical disability #mobility aid user #service dog #bathroom #handicap stall #wheelchair bathroom #wheelchair problems

[lazykurocat]

waiting for my fellow gay and trans goyim to actually acknowledge that our people were also victims in the holocaust just as Jewish people were, and that Hamas are trying to do holocaust two electric boogaloo, and so we as queer people aren't fucking safe either and should stand up for Jewish people in the way that many Jewish people have stood up for us as they are the main target here and need support. in the Jewish texts there are multiple genders aswell so they of all people will be more likely to stand for you than... well Islamist Terrorists who hate us. like... if you keep spreading Nazi rhetoric like this and are queer you are calling for your own murder and the murder of all the rest of us aswell. there are many reasons that I could be targeted by Nazis, I'm gay and trans, I'm brown and disabled... so to see so many of my own community hating Jews and spreading antisemitism scares me a lot, you don't seem to get the damage you're doing not only to Jews and their mental wellbeing, but the damage you're doing to your own community. you are giving the far right a valid reason to think the majority of queer people are insane... because y'all are insane! and you don't seem to get how greatly this could impact our already fragile rights in so many places... please just... fucking think? for five damn seconds about what you're doing I am so tired of it all. you say it's not about antisemitism... but if it's not then why are your speaking points all so... Nazi? like what the fuck do you think October 7th was about? cause it wasn't about oppression or colonialism or whatever batshit you keep spouting, it was pure hatred for the sake of hate. it's been months since October 7th which so many of you refuse to acknowledge even happened or try to defend... it's depressing, Hamas were told to give back the hostages for nothing in return ages ago but still have many of them... including children. it's like Felix Cipher all over again but in the dozens... silly little queer kids who don't get that Hamas are just like Nazis and want to kill you, or maybe you think they're cool or freedom fighters?? tf?! there's not a lick of freedom under them! I doubt I'll ever change anyone's minds but I'll keep trying anyway because I love my community too much to give up on it.

#i stand with israel #fuck hamas #free palestine from hamas #free gaza from hamas #antisemitism #pro israel #trans #gay #queer #getting real tired of y'all #ashamed of my fellow goyim actually #like tf is up with you?? #stop jewish hate #free palestine #october 7th massacre #free the hostages #leftist antisemitism #israel hamas war

[chronicallycouchbound]

I refuse to call government assistance programs “welfare” or “benefits”.

I’ve been on government assistance programs my whole life. I have never lived above the poverty line.

It’s a system that doesn’t care about my wellbeing, they care about doing the bare minimum to keep people alive enough to function and work, and if you’re disabled and cannot work, they give significantly less of a fuck.

And benefits?? What benefits?

Food stamps that run out within two weeks because I am budgeting with 8$ a day with literally dozens of dietary restrictions? Or do you mean the housing voucher that I have to never even have a gift card, penny to my name, Sams club membership, phone bill, literally anything that could be “income” in order to qualify? That same housing voucher system that if I mess up even once with I not only lose all government aid for at least 5 years, it’s also mandatory PRISON time for 1 year?? “Oh but they would never do that, right?” Nope! I have several friends who are now felons for minor lease violations and unhoused as a result! Oh maybe you mean the state health insurance that doesn’t cover most treatments, specialists, and testing I need and if I tried to make a gofundme to cover, I would lose aforementioned housing? Oh and we can’t forget all the money I get for being disabled, which is exactly 0$. I’m still fighting for SSI and have been for 6 years! That’s over 6 years with absolutely zero income. ZERO. And guess what, whenever I *do* get on SSI, I will lose my housing voucher. And I won’t be able to afford my current apartment because even in subsidized low income housing it’s too expensive for the maximum SSI “benefit” amount. And on SSI you can’t have savings over 2000$. Oh and they do make housing for people who are low income where you pay 30% of your income but I can’t even be on the waitlist since I don’t have any income. And on top of all this, I can never get married because I’ll lose all of the programs.

I could keep going. That’s not even half of the programs I’m a part of.

• None of them give me cash in hand. Even for vouchers I have to provide receipts for everything.

• Food stamps just straight up won’t even cover ineligible items. Which includes hot foods.

• I genuinely don’t believe that there’s a way to “game the system” and why would you? You would gain literally nothing.

• It’s designed to keep people poor. Once you make over a certain amount, you lose all or almost all benefits. There’s no way to slowly transition out of the programs, if you’re someone who’s able to. It’s all in or all out.

• All of these barriers are made significantly worse while unhoused/homeless. I’ve been homeless for over half of my life and there’s so many fucked up rules. If I missed one night staying in the shelter, I lost my housing voucher because I no longer was “verified as homeless” even if I was sleeping outside still.

#ranting #poverty #public welfare #welfare programs #government aid #government benefits #state benefits #disability benefits #SSI #disability #poor #poverty line #assistance #assistance programs #goverment assistance #usa specific #usa politics #chronically couchbound #poor people #classism #food stamps #ebt #housing vouchers #medicaid #state insurance #healthcare #health insurance #systemic poverty #forced poverty #welfare queen

[mariacallous]

(JTA) — As we mark the grim second anniversary of the Ukraine conflict this Shabbat, I’m reminded of a haunting melody I heard in the city of Poltava last month.

I was standing before Sonia Bunina, a plucky 17-year-old, when she opened her mouth to sing when an air raid siren rang out.

I flinched. Not Sonia — she didn’t miss a beat.

“Kol haolam kulo gesher t’zar meod, veha’ikar lo lifached k’lal,” she belted out before seeking shelter. “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is to have no fear at all.”

Sonia, like so many Jews I know in Ukraine, is many things — determined, grieving, focused — but she’s certainly not cowering.

As she sang those words by Rebbe Nachman of Breslov — the Ukrainian Jewish sage whose followers continue to come by the tens of thousands to his grave in Uman annually — she embodied the prayer’s indomitable spirit.

Sonia and I met outside Poltava’s Hesed, part of the network of Jewish humanitarian hubs founded by my organization — the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC — more than three decades ago. Today they’re a lifeline to tens of thousands of Jews facing loss and strife. Since she was a toddler, Sonia has been attending activities at Hesed — her mother coordinates cultural programs for the elderly, and she connects teen volunteers like herself with isolated seniors, a critical source of comfort these last two years.

These days, traveling to Ukraine feels like a pilgrimage — there’s a pull in my soul to visit family near Lviv, to bear witness to Ukrainian Jewish resilience, and to be inspired by the clarity of purpose that is so palpable there. Since my first trip in 2011, I’ve been eight times. Last year, I wrote about how a year of crisis had transformed the ordinary into the sacred in Ukraine. Now, visiting feels even more essential with the worsening humanitarian situation.

Ukrainian Jews aren’t blasé about these challenges — far from it. Just take the delicate ballet of emotions on their faces when checking their phones during an air alert — contacting loved ones, scrolling through photos of devastation, and analyzing Telegram chats speculating on a given rocket’s make and trajectory.

But life goes on — there’s work to do — and though they’ve lost so much, they refuse to give any more away.

Showing up for each other, whatever it takes, is now baked into their very essence as Jews, and in Ukraine, there are tens of thousands to serve — hungry old women and displaced young families, disabled Holocaust survivors and stunned middle-aged professionals, shocked to now need help when they were once donors and volunteers.

They act fearlessly to ensure their communities make it through this crisis, body and soul intact. Can we expect anything less than boundless creativity from the people who birthed Sholem Aleichem and the Baal Shem Tov?

“These bombings, all these things that are killing people, destroying houses, leaving children homeless … it’s very scary,” Galina Limarenko, an 82-year-old retired nurse, told me in her small bedroom in Berezivka, taking note of the warm blanket, firewood, and other winter supplies my colleagues provided. “Thank God for the Jewish community, which never gives up and always shares even their very last piece of bread.”

I saw that irrepressible spirit again at our Beit Dan JCC in battered Kharkiv — a shapeshifting wellspring of strength just a few dozen kilometers from the eastern border. Shortly after Feb. 24, 2022, the center became a staging ground for truckloads of emergency aid — part of the 800 tons of humanitarian assistance we’ve delivered so far.

A few blocks from missile strikes, it now hosts children’s camps and soulful Shabbat services and operates a “kids hub,” offering academic enrichment to children who haven’t had in-person school for years — robbed of normal childhood by the pandemic and now the ongoing crisis.

And amidst blizzards and blackouts, Beit Dan has also become a “warm hub,” a safe place for beleaguered Jewish Kharkivites to charge their devices and obtain a hot drink and warm meal.

“If you share in our pain, and provide support where it’s needed, I’m forever grateful,” said Nika Simonova, Beit Dan’s program director. “The ability to remain human is the main thing. Done right, I believe that can save the world.”

That’s why we at JDC, aided by a coalition of partners including the Jewish Federations, Claims Conference, and International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, deployed a historic response to this conflict and remain committed to the Jewish future here.

We’re focused on ongoing humanitarian support for more than 41,000 Ukrainian Jews, expanding trauma relief, closing children’s educational gaps, and getting unemployed Jewish community members, among millions of Ukrainians plunged into poverty, back to work.

There is no doubt that the Jewish world is now responding to crises on multiple fronts, including this one, but we have been here so many times before. We must draw strength from our history and from the sure knowledge that this is what we’re built for. Our compassion and commitment, when leveraged with that timeless sense of mutual Jewish responsibility, means we can tackle the challenges we face — and come out on the other side even stronger.

As I walked through Lviv on my last day in Ukraine, I asked my cousin Anna Saprun, a 25-year-old business analyst, how this period has changed her.

“I hate what’s brought me here, but I love who I’ve become,” she said with a fierce and feisty smile. “Nothing scares me anymore. I feel powerful.”

Two years after the conflict began, Ukraine’s Jews are inspired anew each day, resolute in the sure knowledge that they know exactly who they’re working for — each other.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Captivity is a constitutive part of Palestinian life under occupation. Prior to Hamas’s attack on October 7th, Israel incarcerated more than 5,200 Palestinians—most of them residents of the West Bank and East Jerusalem—across two dozen prisons and detention centers. Some West Bank residents are incarcerated due to a still-operant military order issued following the 1967 War that effectively criminalized civic activities (e.g. gatherings of more than ten people without a permit, distributing political materials, displaying flags) as “incitement and hostile propaganda actions.” There are currently hundreds of such military orders, which criminalize anything that might be construed as resistance to the occupation. This surfeit of activities made illegal for Palestinians authorizes mass imprisonment: According to a recent estimate by the United Nations, one million Palestinians have at one time been incarcerated by Israel, “including tens of thousands of children.” One in five Palestinians, and two in five Palestinian men, have been arrested at some point in their lives, and, as of 2021, more than 100 Palestinian children faced up to 20 years in prison for throwing stones.

Not all who are arrested face charges. Israel often and increasingly makes use of “administrative detention,” a relic of the British Mandate era, which allows for indefinite incarceration without a charge or trial, ostensibly for the purpose of gathering evidence. It was a hallmark of apartheid South Africa and has been used to repress opposition in Egypt, England, India, the United States, and elsewhere, especially in the context of anti-immigration and “counter-terrorism” programs. “Since March 2002, not a single month has gone by without Israel holding at least 100 Palestinians in administrative detention,” the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem notes; often the number is much higher. Prior to October 7th, more than 20% of Palestinian prisoners were administrative detainees; 233 of the 300 Palestinians on Israel’s release list negotiated last week were administrative detainees, Al Jazeera noted. According to the Palestinian prisoner organization Addameer, imprisoned Palestinians report being beaten, threatened, strip searched, and denied healthcare and contact with their families. Palestinians currently incarcerated, as well as those freed in recent days, report that conditions have worsened since October 7th. Meanwhile, even as this prisoner release proceeds, Israel continues to ramp up arrests: As of Tuesday, 180 Palestinian prisoners have been released as part of the ceasefire exchange, but during the same period, it arrested Palestinians at nearly the same rate. Today, more than 7,000 Palestinians are incarcerated in Israeli prisons.

Nowhere is Israel’s carceral regime clearer than in Gaza, the 140-square-mile area often described as an “open-air prison.” Gaza’s residents, now an estimated 2.2 million people—80% of whom are refugees or descendents of refugees forced to flee in the mass expulsions surrounding the founding of the State of Israel that Palestinians call the Nakba—have been hemmed in by a land, air, and sea blockade since 2006. As with Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli prisons, who for years have waged hunger strikes, protested, and written about the horrors of incarceration, Gazans have struggled mightily against their confinement. In 2018–19, they held weekly nonviolent protests at the border under the name Great March of Return. Israel responded with brutal violence, killing 260 people and wounding 20,000 others, many of whom were permanently disabled. A week into Israel’s current assault on Gaza, Ahmed Abu Artema, one of the co-founders of the Great March of Return, wrote an impassioned plea in The Nation, calling for the world to “help us tear down the wall, end our imprisonment, and fulfill our dreams of liberation.” On October 24th, an Israeli airstrike severely wounded Artema and killed five members of his family, including his 13-year-old son.

It is precisely in such contexts of radical asymmetry that we find the history of hostage-taking: In the last half-century, under-resourced combatants from Palestine to Brazil to the United States and beyond have used hostages to gain political leverage. Militants, whose own lives are not valued by the powers they face, capture those whose lives they assume are deemed more valuable. This strategy often succeeds in shifting the terms of the conversation—asserting the previously dismissed hostage-takers as political actors whose demands must be negotiated. But the same dynamic that leads militants to take hostages is why the tactic so often fails: The prison state fundamentally devalues life, and ultimately may sacrifice hostages to preserve its rule. Israeli officials have said as much. “We have to be cruel now and not think too much about the hostages,” finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a cabinet meeting as Israel launched its war.

#palestine #israel #gaza #west bank #apartheid #emphasis added

[brightlotusmoon]

On the infantalization of disabled adults. Recommended by my friend, activist D'Arcee Neal.

I will drink my hurricane cocktail a with a straw, and I love Shakespeare.

Don't assume or presume the capabilities of disabled people and don't you dare say "handicapable"

#cerebral palsy and #all two dozen disabilities #cerebral palsy awareness month #say the word #disability is not bad #assume competence

[pinehutch]

When I say that I want to be evil

what I mean is I want to be powerful. What I mean is I want to be free.

Some weeks ago I spent more money than I should have on my first ever (ever!) two-piece swimsuit. You have to understand that as a child I was told I was fat, and as a teen I was told I was fat, and as an adult I've always been fat*, and you can't read your way out of the shame caused not strictly by the word but by its connotations.

(I know, because I've tried. I have been trying for almost twenty years. Looking for plus-sized fashion brought me to the digital 'fatosphere.' It made me a better person as I learned about another dimension of intersectionality and about power and oppression. It made me feel like I could wear clothing that I liked. It made me more informed about the diet and wellness industry. It's been over 20 years since I first read a critique of the BMI; it's been almost as long since I started wondering why gros/se in my close-second language didn't have the same (haha) weight to it as fat does, in my first.)

At the tail end of June, days long and scorching, I stepped into a two-piece swimsuit with a deep-v neckline and my whole midsection exposed and I spent the day in full view of dozens (hundreds?) of strangers. Cold, cold water on the joints; warm, soft pools for the evening. My hair got bigger and bigger. My neck and chest sunburned. My midriff stayed comically, blindingly pale, and everything else? It was lovely; it was fine. I rarely thought about my body, unless it was 'this feels nice' or 'my swimsuit is so pretty.' I took a selfie, even, though I deleted it. I was worried that posting it would count as thirst-trapping; shame has cored out and replaced so much of me. It was a good pic, though, and I wish I'd kept it.

What was true of me that day: I was a quite tall, very fat femme person whose feet swell with arthritis and whose hair takes up the entire frame and who's had cellulite since grade eight. What else was true: many people complimented my swimsuit. I looked out across the valleys and the mountains from the top of my almost-six-feet. I let my shoulders roll back and smiled at the sight of my bare skin gone blue-wavering-dappled beneath the surface. I stood tall. I made eye contact. I enjoyed delightful company, and let that enjoyment extend to the simple pleasure of having a body that felt fairly good, in garments I had chosen for the joy of it.

You can't read your way out of shame; it's only part of the equation. I didn't go swimming the next day with my family members, because I didn't want to feel them looking at my body and being disappointed that What A Beautiful Girl turned out like I did (though: if What A Beautiful Girl then why You Need To Watch What You Eat?). But for an entire day I felt like anyone else, gentle enough, good enough, in my skin.

It would have been good for me to swim with my family that weekend, because I'm finding that - as in all things - the practice is important. You can't read your way out of shame, not entirely, but in working with and through it there's maybe a chance to rewrite our stories.

There's a fallacy that I think a lot of us fall into, when we're trying to counter and challenge fatphobia, both culturally and in ourselves. It's the fallacy of the Good Fat. It's why I want to tell you about how two-pieces are maybe a better swimwear choice for me because of the drastic difference between my tits and hips vs my waist. It's why I wanted to post that selfie, so people could shoutycaps and fire emoji me on twitter. It's why I want to craft this post into a narrative where spending a single day mostly-unburdened by body shame has led to a hot girl summer, and I'm walking for miles every day and going to the pool four times a week. (I'm not. I still have a day job, and writing to do, and a physical disability, and the ol' depression. I'm more active than I was three months ago, and working to improve that, but still. It's not a lot.)

It is, simply, the same lie as we tell ourselves along so many different axes of marginalization: that as long as we are exceptional in a way equal and opposite to our marginalization, we'll be fine. It's the model that says you earn the right to exist fat and unashamed by being healthy, by being active, by being hot. Sorry my hip is squished against yours on the airplane; at least I've got a nice face and good hair and am well-dressed, wanna admire my hip-to-waist ratio about it?

There's no such thing as a Good Fat because we live in an inherently fatphobic world. I mean: airplane seats are too small for anyone average sized. I mean: 20 years ago I was a size 16/18 and couldn't fit into the newer lecture hall seats at my university without a lot of stress and embarrassment. I mean: I can't buy a compression sleeve for my arthritic joints at the drug store. If I ever needed to take Plan B, it might not work because I weigh (as do most adults of my acquaintance) more than 165lbs. You cannot be hot enough or active enough or well-dressed enough to escape from this; the only option is to be Not Fat.

But why on earth would we want to accept this? We know the system is fucked up and evil, and so: we want to be evil. Just a little bit, just enough. We want to be hot villains. We want to serve cunt and to be cunts. We want to nailcare emoji, fire emoji, crown emoji, and we want to take no prisoners unless it's between our thick thick thighs. Sit on their face; if they die, they die. It's fun and sexy, in a world where "everything is sex, except sex, which is power" to dig in and grab handfuls of what looks like empowerment, fuck the rest of it, get what makes you feel best.

It's a mirage; freedom doesn't live there.

Because of course fat people are hot. Fat bodies are desirable. Fat bodies are strong, sometimes, and athletic, sometimes, and powerful in whatever way you'd like to read that. That's true no matter what.

And yet (this will hurt) fat bodies are still (I'm sorry, I'm so sorry) not good enough. If the system is the problem, your individual empowerment is not the (whole) solution.

When I say that I want to be evil, what I mean is I want to be free. I want the strange rare days I've known I was desirable because I was desired, specifically and individually. I want the days where I grant myself dignity. I want the day where I lived peacefully in my mostly-naked body around hundreds of strangers, and went to bed happy.

Reading is input, it's taking in. I can't read my way all the way out of fatphobia, out of body shame because that's like trying to put out a forest fire 2000km away by throwing baking soda on your stove element. (Not harmful, but insufficient and misdirected.) It has been so helpful to know that other people wrestle with all of this, in ways that are more intelligent and expert than mine; it doesn't change material reality, though.

It's not the shame that's the problem, but where it comes from. It's not my internalized fatphobia or low self-worth or lack of body confidence that keeps people from life-saving medical care because their doctors were obsessed with their weight instead of their symptoms. My soft abdomen has never shamed a stranger on the internet, my calves (never in tall boots) haven't forced someone to buy a second seat.

Maybe it's time that I redefine what I mean when I say I want to be evil. I want to be a hot villain that was justified in their takedown of the status quo. I want to put a crown on every head. I want these thick thighs under me as I pull you into my lap and love you, and to use those fire emojis to make room for new growth.

I want us all at the pool together, celebrating as the sun sets.

*I'm using "fat" to here mean something like "size 16 US women's or larger," but there's no good definition

#rambling #fatness #fatphobia #fat liberation #personal #blog post #also tbh: #therapy homework

[opencommunion]

On October 11th the occupation cut off electricity and water from many of the prisons where it incarcerates Palestinians, including children, often without trial or charge, while denying them legal representation. Long before October 7th the occupation tortured Palestinians in these prisons — again, including children — on top of the inhumane conditions that are torturous in themselves. The conditions are getting worse every day, and every day the occupation is abducting dozens or hundreds of Palestinians from the West Bank and occupied interior. The number of abductions since October 7th has reached 1000. The number of abductions since January 1st has exceeded 6000. 25% are minors, disabled, sick, or elderly, and sick prisoners are being denied medical care. Additionally, after forcibly transferring 18,000 Gazan workers to the West Bank, the occupation is now rounding up these same workers and detaining them in existing prisons or new camps, giving the excuse that "it is not possible for them to return to Gaza." The Palestinian Prisoners' and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs Commision estimates, based on occupation reports, that 4000 people are trapped in these camps. In their nightly raids, the occupation targets Palestinian journalists, activists, and representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council. They also abduct the family members of targets to pressure those targets to surrender themselves. During these raids Palestinians are beaten, teargassed, and shot with rubber and live bullets. Then they are dragged to prisons where conditions are worse than ever. Today, October 20th, Qadura Fares, head of the Prisoners' and Ex-Prisoners' Affairs Commission, wrote:

"Developments in the scene inside the occupation prisons compel us to expose the injustices committed against the prisoners. Many prisoners have had their limbs, legs, and hands broken, and after the beatings, their comrades could no longer recognize them. The Naqab prison has become like Abu Ghraib prison, a center of brutality and savage treatment towards the heroic prisoners. 'Israel' is making the Palestinian prisoners pay the price for its failures, acting solely with a spirit of revenge. We call upon all the countries of the world to raise your voices in support of the principles you claim to uphold, or have you returned to your history as colonial powers?"

In short, in the past two weeks the occupation has: - Made the already brutal conditions in their prisons deadly - Created new camps where they trap displaced Gazans - Doubled the total number of detained Palestinians - Kidnapped numerous Palestinian journalists, activists, and elected officials

Given the occupation's practice of "administrative detention," occupation prisons have arguably met the definition of concentration camps for decades, and now detained Palestinians are being deprived of basic survival necessities. I do not know how to describe these facilities except as death camps. A regime does not need to build death camps in order to qualify as genocidal, and the Zionist occupation has been committing genocide by various means for 75 years. That being said, these are death camps or are on the verge of becoming death camps, and I don't think we have time to waste being squeamish about applying that terminology.

Please follow RNN Prisoners to stay informed about what Palestinian detainees are facing.

#palestine #colonialism

[rs-hawk]

Sounds like a stupid idea but what if there was a male god like creature that was 9 feet tall and had a disabled husband. God daddy helps his poor husband around the house in his wheel chair and helps him with physical therapy, and also he enjoys holding his disabled hubby in his lap👀 thoughts?

No this is cute!! For context on this one, I’m Indigenous and I’m gonna make this God Creature believe He’s a child of Wahkontah (the Great Spirit/Creator Spirit). Let’s celebrate Native American Heritage Month a bit. Lol.

Part Two

Your Husband has always referred to Himself as “The Creator’s Child”, well, at least He says that’s the translation. You struggle with learning His native tongue, and have to enroll in some online classes at the Tribal Nation’s Cultural Center. You’re shocked how low the prices are, especially for a non-member. They just smile a closed lip smile and tell you they’re happy someone wants to learn. You know they know you’re learning for someone else, but they keep it to themselves.

When you get sick, you’re worried He will leave you. After all, even if He’s not Wahkontah’s child, He is still a nearly all powerful being. Would He still want you? He never wavers in His love for you. He says He knew this would happen the whole time, but it didn’t matter. You’re still you. You have to adjust to this new way of living, and He is more kind and helpful than you could have ever imagined. Truly a benevolent God. When you lose your ability to walk, He is steadfast. You are His. He is yours. Not even death will change that.

However, one thing He has taken to holding you more often. At first you aren’t a fan, but you get used to it. He holds you in His lap any time He has a chance. When you’re eating. Watching TV. Reading a book. He has you in His lap. You two had never been intimate before as you weren’t sure how, with Him being primarily made of wood and vines, and you’re too shy to ask. He sometimes has a dozen arms or none, and there have been a few times He has forgotten to have a face for you. It’s unnerving, but you love Him just the same. When your wheelchair arrives, He seems disappointed.

“Isn’t my lap good enough?” He asks in a sad voice that reminds you of softly pattering rain.

“It’s great but I have to move around,” you explain as you touch His arm.

That’s when you kiss for the first time. He presses His soft, grass like lips to yours. You lean forward, eager for more. To touch Him. To be with Him. Whatever way that means.

#fantasy romance #monster lover #writers on tumblr #writing #monster romance #monster fluff #monster bf #monster husband #monster kink #monster fucker #monster boyfriend #monster fuqqer #monster fudger #romance #shapeshifter romance #queer romance #gay romance #author #queer writers #writerscommunity #thanksgiving #ask game #send asks #send dirty asks

[scary-grace]

Skin Hunger - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

There's no such thing as a good night at work when you work in the world's most infamous brothel for monsters, but your night takes a turn for the worse when you find yourself serving drinks to visiting half-vampire Shigaraki Tomura. You don't mean to catch his interest, and you don't mean to start a conversation. You definitely don't mean to get him drunk. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1

The ringing of one of the dozens of bells on the wall in your boss’s office startles you out of the reverie you’ve fallen into. It isn’t much of a reverie – you were daydreaming about getting out of here, like always – but at the sound of the bell, you snap to attention. You know what a ringing bell means, even before your boss looks up at you from behind his desk and gives the order. “Suite Twelve needs a mop-up. Get to it.”

You check the floor plan out of habit, and your heart sinks. “Suite Twelve is still in use.”

“And? Clearly they aren’t ready to let the party end, and they’re paying by the hour.” Overhaul shrugs. “It’s not your concern. All you need to be concerned with is not interrupting, and we both know you’re capable of that.”

You bow your head. “Yes, sir.” The warlock looks away, back down to the grimoire he’s studying, and you risk another question. “Who was in there tonight?”

“That’s Chrono’s concern, not mine,” Overhaul says. “Why don’t you go find out?”

You know a dismissal when you hear it. “Yes, sir,” you say again, and you step out of Overhaul’s office, your glamour already settling over you.

A glamour is small magic, and as the lesser variety of half-fey, it’s all you’re capable of – but it’s enough to make your job easier, and to make you Overhaul’s go-to for dealing with disasters in progress. Other maids are obtrusive, no matter how hard they try not to be, and going into a room with a session in progress means risking their lives in addition to the worker’s. But your faint glamour allows you to slip in and out of the rooms unnoticed, clearing away the messes and the injuries. And the evidence. There’s always a lot of evidence. The patrons of the inhuman world’s most infamous brothel find themselves here for a reason, and it’s not because they’re careful.

You learned one side of the story in school in the human world, when you could pass as human, but Overhaul insisted that you learn the rest. You could recite it by heart by now. Humans have always outnumbered inhumans, but for thousands of years, the power held by inhumans – magic, physical strength, other natural gifts – was enough to allow them to act as they wished, without fear of retaliation. When human society advanced, that changed. The inhumans who could do so retreated to their own realms, but some inhumans are too intertwined with humanity to withdraw completely. Something had to be done to prevent their extinction.

The way Overhaul tells it, it was all his idea, two hundred years ago – creating a place for inhumans to satisfy their urges, contained away from humanity and outside of humanity’s control. You’re not sure if it was really his idea, but either way, it stuck. There are places like this one all across the world, in netherworlds and pocket dimensions, places where inhumans come to play or fight or fuck or feed. For some inhumans, in some cases, it’s all four.

Suite Twelve is on the fifth floor, and tonight it contains one of at least nine packs of werewolves. When you stop outside the door, you can hear them even through the soundproofing – human-sounding laughter and inhuman howls and the kind of noises that emanate from the rooms and suites every night of the year. It sounds like nothing you want anything to do with, but it’s the job. You raise your wrist, tapping your master rune against the locking rune on the door. It disables instantly, and you slip through the door without a sound.

You see instantly why one of the guests rang the bell for a clean-up. There’s a body on the floor – the body of one of the workers, a man you recognize only vaguely. He must be new. Then again, most of the workers aren’t here long enough for you to get to know them. You slip around the edges of the room, trusting your glamour, until you’re alongside the body. Legs askew, torso flayed open to the air, eyes wide and staring – sometimes the workers who die on the job have the luxury of an unexpected death, but this man saw it coming from kilometers away. Did he try to stop it? You lift one of his hands idly, checking for defensive wounds, and get one hell of a scare when his hand twitches in yours.

He’s alive. The worker is still alive, and your priorities shift in a heartbeat. This isn’t a corpse you can tip down the disposal trapdoor before you mop up the blood. Overhaul can heal any injury, even injuries as bad as this, which means you need to get the worker out of here and down to Overhaul’s study as soon as possible. But your glamour only covers you, and if the werewolves who mauled this guy half to death realize they didn’t finish the job, you’ll be in trouble, too. And there isn’t much time to solve the problem. If you wait too much longer, the worker will die right before your eyes.

If you had real magic, you’d apply your glamour to your voice and lull the werewolves into calmness, rendering them insensate to any noise the dying man might make as you drag him to the door, but you don’t have real magic. Charming seven werewolves is outside your abilities. Charming one dying man into staying still and quiet is within them. You whisper the instruction in his ear – stay quiet, stay still – and hook your hands under his armpits, dragging him across the floor and leaving a smear of blood in his wake.

There’s no way a party this large only had one worker with them. You force yourself to take a good look at the occupants of Suite Twelve, and in amongst the hulking, heavily-furred bodies of the werewolves, you spot human limbs, human skin. Strands of human hair woven through a wolf’s claws as it cups the back of the worker’s head. Human hands gripping one wolf’s shoulders, human legs hooked gingerly around its waist. At least three additional workers, and none of them are bleeding excessively. The part of you that’s human doesn’t like it, but the rest of you leaves without another look.

In the hallway, you call for help. Each floor of Asylum has a bouncer, hired specifically by Overhaul to deal with that floor’s usual patrons. “Rappa,” you call out. “Over here!”

Rappa’s footsteps are heavy as he comes down the hall towards you. “A fight?”

“Sorry,” you say. Even behind Rappa’s mask, you can tell he’s frowning. You’ve heard that when Overhaul hired him, he promised him a lot of fights to break up, but most of Asylum’s patrons are too frightened of the prospect of getting banned to fight much. “I’m supposed to mop up and the guy’s still alive. Can you take him to Overhaul?”

Rappa tilts his head, confused. “The boss can fix this?”

“If he gets to him in time.” You try to hold Rappa’s attention. It’s not easy. “I can’t get him there fast enough. You’re the only one who can save him.”

“He’s human. Why do you care?”

Your jaw clenches involuntarily, and you feel your glamour ripple. “I’m half-human,” you say. “So are you.”

Overhaul and his right-hand man are both pure human, extending their lives and augmenting their bodies with magic, but almost everyone else in Asylum’s management structure is a half-breed of some kind. Rappa is half-giant, and unlike you, he’s unambiguously proud of his inhuman heritage. Appealing to what he considers as the weak side of himself was a stupid move, but you’re getting desperate, and you try again. “If you help him, I’ll make sure you get the next fight, even if somebody else is in charge of the floor.”

You should have started with that. Rappa’s eyes light up. “Deal,” he says, and hoists the injured worker up, ignoring your requests to be careful. “Make sure it’s a good fight.”

You’ll get Rappa a fight to break up if you have to start one yourself, but you probably won’t have to. “It’s a full moon. All the fights are good.”

Rappa laughs and thunders off down the hall, leaving you to your actual job. You still have a mop-up in Suite Twelve, and possibly a worse one than you left, depending on what’s happened between your exit and right now. You call up your glamour again, confirming that it’s still intact, and tap the locking rune on the door to deactivate it once again. You might have saved somebody’s life, maybe, but that’s not your job here. Your real job is cleaning blood and bodily fluids off of every surface in Suite Twelve before they have time to set in. As the proprietor of the world’s oldest and most infamous inhuman oasis, your boss can tolerate a lot of things – but a mess isn’t one of them.

Most of the people who serve guests or work menial jobs in the oases are here as a last resort, and you’re no different. If you had somewhere else to be, you’d be there. You suppose you could have looked for work in another oasis, but when it comes down to it, you prefer the devil you know to the devil you don’t. You were born inside Asylum’s walls, the daughter of a worker and a faery guest, and although your mother scraped together the money to send you to boarding school in the human world, you’ve never had anywhere but Asylum to come back to. You coming back was a foregone conclusion. You could pass for human in childhood and adolescence, but in the last year or so, the truth’s begun to crawl its way out from beneath your skin. Asylum is your home. You can’t leave. And if you’re here, you might as well work.

No night in Asylum is easy, but full-moon nights are the worst, and the mop-up you’re called to do in Suite Twelve isn’t even close to the last task you’re called in to take care of. A patrilineal half-fey like you has next to no magical ability, but in Overhaul’s employ, you make use of all of it – glamour on your body to conceal you as you sneak in and out of the rooms and suites and hot springs, glamour on your voice to soothe tense guests until a bouncer or a member of Management can arrive to make amends more officially, spilling a drop or two of your own blood to distract an overwrought lich long enough to pry the worker it’s draining out of its grip. You get Rappa the fight he’s after – a brawl between two rival werewolf packs over a worker they both took a shine to – and as you’re helping clean up the mess, he gives you some news.

“Overhaul patched up the human you rescued,” he says, and for a brief moment, you feel better. “He’s already back to work.”

Feeling good doesn’t last. Good things don’t last in Asylum. You take a brief moment to wash your hands in the water of a hot-spring, then wander off to Room 309 on the demon floor. There’s been an orgy going on since the full moon broke the horizon in the farthest-eastern human time zone, and demon cum stains something awful.

You’ve heard from guests who’ve visited other oases that those oases have off-hours, but Asylum doesn’t. Asylum serves creatures of the night, so as long as it’s daylight somewhere on earth, Asylum will be open to receive them. When you asked Overhaul why, he pointed you towards the dictionary definition of the word ‘asylum’ – a place of refuge, a safe harbor. Then another book levitated off the shelf and dropped at your feet, shedding dust. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

You remember looking at it, confused. “Sir?”

“The other definition of the word,” Overhaul said. “They’re all mad here.”

It was a misquote, and you think the original is more accurate. We’re all mad here – Overhaul for building this place, the guests for coming to it, and you, for staying here instead of going somewhere, anywhere else.

The demon mop-up takes forever. By the time it’s done, you smell like smoke and sulfur, and there are still six hours left in the night. Chrono sends you to change into a clean uniform, then corrals you as you’re coming out of the servants’ quarters with wet hair. “Change of plans. You’re needed in the lounge.”

“What?” You know how to tend bar, sure – but not on a full moon night. “Why?”

Chrono doesn’t answer you, and you should know better than to ask questions. “Man the bar for the rest of the shift. You’ll receive instructions from Overhaul or myself if you’re needed elsewhere.”

You nod and set off, but Chrono grabs your arm again. “Change out of that uniform first. You’re front of house for now. Dress like it.”

The front of house uniform isn’t all that different than the uniform you wear on a nightly basis – just tighter and more modern, and with a mask of some kind over it. The higher-up somebody is in Overhaul’s organization, the more elaborate their mask is, but front-of-house wears simple half-masks, enough to match the aesthetic but not enough to obscure the face. You grab a simple black one on your way out of the servants’ quarters, tying it behind your head with a ribbon as you step into the lounge.

It’s empty, as usual. You’re not even sure why Overhaul keeps it open – most of Asylum’s guests don’t come here to drink, and the ones who do can order it brought to their rooms directly – but it’s been here as long as Asylum’s been standing, and just like the rest of Asylum, it’s never closed. Whoever was in charge before Chrono called you in left sort of a mess. Eight or nine dirty tankards, a sticky spill on one corner of the bar counter, and a solitary pickle balanced on top of an empty bottle of vodka. Given what you’ve been cleaning up all night, it could be a lot worse.

The cleaning goes quickly, and then you move on, filling out the restock sheet Chrono’s left for you underneath the ledger where you’d write guests’ orders, if there were any orders. An hour in, Room 512 calls for drinks – one Corpse Reviver, one Zombie, and three El Diablos – and you’re still working on them when the server arrives to bring them up. “Hey, make it snappy, huh? They’re not in a mood to wait.”

“I’m working on it.” You set down the El Diablos and start pouring shots of rum for the Zombie. “Is whoever’s in 512 actually undead, or do they just have a weird sense of humor?”

“Door number two. It’s one of those laughing demons.” Setsuno’s been working here at least as long as you have, but he looks unsettled behind his mask. “You know, the kind who want a performance.”

“I’m guessing the workers ordered the drinks, then?” You wait for Setsuno to confirm it. “Do you know which is the guest’s?”

“The Corpse Reviver,” Setsuno says. You strain the Zombie one-handed and go fishing for the components for the last drink. “Why?” “Are the workers holding up okay?” you ask. Setsuno looks blankly at you. “Did they seem scared or panicked at all?”

“Oh. Yeah. The youngest one looked pretty spooked.” Setsuno holds out his hand and the first four drinks fly from your end of the bar to settle onto his tray. “Are you going to be done with that last one any time this century?”

“Almost.” You’re trying to decide which of the components of the drink will be easiest to hide a glamour on. The gin? The Cointreau? The Lillet blanc? They’re all strong flavors, but demons aren’t easy to trick. It needs to look like a mistake, so that if you’re caught, it’ll reflect on you and not the workers. “Just a second –”

“Hey,” Setsuno protests, as you pluck a maraschino cherry out of a jar by the stem and wrap a glamour around it. “Does the boss know you’re putting spells on the guests?”

“They’re not spells.” Overhaul knows. In fact, he encourages it – your weak glamours, applied here and there, put the brakes on problems that would otherwise require management’s intervention before they can begin.  You drop the cherry in the glass and hold it out to Setsuno. “Here. Let me know if they need anything else.”

“Will do.” Setsuno glances around the lounge and sighs. “Man, I wish I had this gig. It’s a nice spot for a break.”

“You’re telling me. I used to nap here when I was little.”

Setsuno stares at you. “What?”

You shouldn’t have said that. You cringe, and Setsuno takes a step closer – but then another order unfolds itself on the bar counter, and you turn away, thankful for the distraction. When you look up again, there’s a different server waiting, and you breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not that you’re ashamed of growing up here. You just don’t want to spread it around.

Overhaul has strict rules about birth control amongst Asylum’s female workers, but with so much magic in play, things happen sometimes. Usually it results in an abortion – the workers, most of whom are human, want nothing to do with a half-human child – but every so often, a worker decides to keep the baby. The consequences of that depend on the inhuman parent. Werewolves, for instance, treat children they’ve sired with a worker the same as they’d treat children they sire with their mate, and no parent wants their child growing up in Asylum. Workers who get knocked up by werewolves usually leave, becoming part of the pack’s orbit as they raise their children. Workers who get knocked up by demons, on the other hand, typically go into hiding. Demons like their children. A little too much.

Faeries aren’t common guests at Asylum, which means your mother knew who your father was, even though she never told you. Overhaul knows, too, but you’ve never asked him. It doesn’t matter. Faeries as a rule look down on half-fey, and if you ever tried to visit a faery realm, you’d be thrown out at best and enslaved at worst. Only some inhumans are capable of siring or bearing children, and of those species, faeries are among the most disinterested. The only inhumans who take less interest in their half-human offspring are the inhumans least likely to come to Asylum.

You’ve just sent off yet another order of drinks, this time to a siren in Room 129 who really wants his worker to loosen up, and you’re in the middle of adding an instruction to the restock sheet when someone barks a question at you from the other side of the counter. “Does this place have WiFi?”

Guests have been asking you questions since you were old enough to talk, but in the twenty-three years you’ve lived in Asylum, you’ve never heard anybody ask that. You look up from the restock sheet and find the guest in question staring back at you. “What?”

“WiFi. Do you have it?” The guest brandishes a smartphone at you. A really nice smartphone, in a pale hand with dry skin and ragged nails. “Do you even know what WiFi is?”

“I know what it is. We don’t have it,” you say, and the guest swears. “If I were you, I wouldn’t try to use your phone in here at all. The flux field will fry your battery if you don’t turn it off.”

The guest’s eyes narrow slightly. The skin around them is dry and itchy-looking, and his irises themselves are red. He powers off his phone and glances around the lounge, eyes lingering on the light fixtures, on the faucet, on the scrying mirrors that act as a security system and the locking runes on the doors. “Nothing in here is electric,” he says. “It can’t be, if the flux field’s strong enough to fuck up my phone.”

You nod. “You should tell people that when they come in,” the guest says. He looks at his powered-off phone, grimacing. “This was new.”

“If you haven’t been in here long and you haven’t been using it, it should be fine,” you say. The guest doesn’t answer, just tucks his phone into his pocket and crosses his arms over his chest, and the silence goes from neutral to awkward in roughly seven seconds.

It’s the kind of situation you’d bail out of instantly anywhere else – you spend enough time being uncomfortable at your job that you’ve got no patience for discomfort in other situations. But you are at your job, which means you have a built-in conversation topic. “Can I get you a drink?”

“What?”

“A drink.” You gesture at the bar, and the guest’s eyes track your hand. “We have everything.”

“You don’t,” the guest says, and then orders champagne. You’re pretty sure every bar on the planet has champagne. “How do you know I can pay for it?”

“They opened up a tab on you when you came through the door.” You find a bottle of champagne and the correct glass – Chrono saw you pour it into a wine glass once and gave you hell – and pour. “And they gave you a passkey. Show it to me?”

He has it looped around his wrist. You copy the symbol into the ledger and write down the order and the price. The guest is leaning across the bar to watch you, getting much closer than you’d like, and he makes a surprised sound when the order you’ve written melts from the page. “Magic,” he says, and you nod. You’re not sure why he’s so surprised. Then: “You’re charging that much for a glass of champagne? This had better be the best champagne in the world.”

“You tell me.” You slide the glass across the bar and watch as he raises it to his lips.

He’s got to be some kind of inhuman, or part-inhuman – no human makes it through the door as a guest, unless they’re packing some heavy magic. You’d say he was a magic-user of some kind, a warlock or an occultist, except he was too surprised by the flux field and resultant lack of WiFi to be someone who works with magic regularly. Half-demon, maybe. He has blue-grey hair to go with his red eyes, worn long enough to brush his shoulders and slightly too tousled to have done it purposely. His clothes are formal – white shirt, black vest, black pants, black tie. The look should come with a suit jacket, but it doesn’t. Guests don’t exactly show up to Asylum in their pajamas, but it’s rare to see one come in dressed to the nines.

The guest finishes half the glass of champagne and sets it down on the bar. He glances at you and you raise your eyebrows. “Well?”

“Pretty good,” the guest says. “Still not worth what you’re charging.”

“It’s an import,” you say. Technically, everything’s an import when it’s coming to a pocket dimension. “And it was good enough for you to drink half of it.”

“Not much else to do.” The guest takes out his phone, scowls when he realizes it’s powered off, then sits down at a barstool. “What’s with the mask?”

“It’s part of the uniform,” you say. Your usual uniform is a hideous old-time maid outfit, but the front-of-house uniform is sleeker, and the mask is just the icing on the cake. You like how you look in this much more than you do in the other uniform, but that lasts only as long as it takes you to remember that guests like you in it, too. “Everybody has one.”

“Why? It’s not like it hides your face.”

“I don’t know. The aesthetic, maybe?” You have your own pet theory – something about Overhaul being older than you think, and picking up his germophobia during the Black Death – but you don’t know for sure. “It’s the boss’s thing.”

“Yeah, no kidding. He looks like a fucking toucan.”

You almost choke on thin air, and while you’re struggling not to laugh, the guest keeps talking. “I was supposed to stay with my master – to learn – but he kicked me out. What am I supposed to do around here?”

“Find a room and watch,” you say. It’s the guest’s turn to choke. Unfortunately for him, he just took a sip of champagne. “You can tell which ones are okay with it. Look for a green rune above the door.”

That’s all some guests come here to do – you can’t count the number of times you’ve seen a demon drop the entry fee without blinking and spend the entire time indulging their voyeuristic dreams. “I didn’t come here to watch strangers fuck,” the guest says, coughing. He picks up the champagne and downs the rest of it, then shoves the glass back towards you. “I came here to learn.”

You pour another glass one-handed and mark it in the ledger with the other. “Learn about what?”

The guest doesn’t answer, and when you slide the glass across the bar to him, he seizes your wrist. You jerk back, and his grip tightens, but he doesn’t pull you forward – just holds you in place, the fingers of his other hand pressing down over your pulse. “Not a lich,” he says. You plant your feet and yank your hand back again. This time you pull free. “Too strong to be a human. If you were a wolf you’d be howling at the moon right now. What are you?”

“What are you?” you retort. “You first.”

“Guess.”

You don’t have time to guess. Two more orders alight on the edge of the bar, and you get to work, mixing two Mai Tais for one and pouring eight blowjob shots for the other. “I’ll guess for you,” the guest says. “Half-demon.”

“Nope.” You glance at him while you shake the can of whipped cream. “Half-demon.”

“Try again,” the guest says. He takes a sip of his second champagne. “Mer?”

“Do I look like a mermaid to you?” You’re not even going to guess that for him. Half-demon was your best guess. Half-giant is out – he’s not tall enough, and no giant, half or otherwise, would ever call someone else ‘master’. You fall back on a guess you ruled out earlier. He could be a magic-user who’s just really bad at it. “Warlock?”

“Not a chance,” the guest says. “Shapeshifter?”

“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you,” you say, and he snorts. “You’re not a shapeshifter, are you?”

“I wouldn’t tell you, either.” The guest takes another sip of his champagne and props his chin in his hand to study you as you set the blowjob shots down at the end of the bar for the server to pick up. “I’ll give you one more guess. If you don’t get it by then –”

“You’ll what?” You see a smirk cross the guest’s face, his lips pulling back from his teeth, and then you see it. The word flies from your mouth before you can stop it and turns you into one enormous, cringeworthy cliché. “Vampire.”

“Half-vampire,” the guest corrects. His smirk grows. “I can’t believe you didn’t guess. That one was easy.”

You don’t meet a lot of vampires, and there’s a good reason for that. Vampires are bad for a business like Overhaul’s. You’ve heard there are oases that cater specifically to vampires, and you’ve heard that some vampires still like to hunt in the wild, and regardless of what you’ve heard or haven’t heard, you know you’ve seen exactly two vampires in your entire life. Both came uninvited. Both left quickly. And neither of them were turned loose to wander Asylum unsupervised.

Overhaul and Chrono must know there are vampires here. If you needed to know they’d have warned you, and if it comes to a fight between you and a skinny half-vampire who’s had two glasses of champagne, they must like your chances. Still – “A half-vampire,” you repeat, loud enough that the server who’s come to retrieve the Mai Tais can’t fail to hear. “What brings you and your master here?”

“Same thing that brings everybody else who comes here.” The half-vampire finishes his champagne, and before he can ask, you fill it again. “You know. Needs.”

If this half-vampire and his master are here to get their needs met, why is he down here with you while his master talks to Overhaul? Did Overhaul know they were coming? The half-vampire is watching you over the rim of his glass. “You meet weirder needs here. Don’t make that face.”

“I’m just wondering – why here?” you ask. “I know there are vampire-specific oases –”

“Those? They’re just blood banks.” The half-vampire shakes his head. “My master has better taste than that.”

You don’t like the word ‘taste’ in the context of drinking other people’s blood, and your mask isn’t anywhere near enough to conceal your grimace. The half-vampire isn’t paying attention. He’s drinking champagne, talking between swallows. “This place isn’t our first choice,” he says. “Our old arrangement fell through last month.”

“What happened?”

“Why do you care?”

“I want to know,” you say. You do. You don’t meet many vampires, let alone half-vampires who like champagne and are in a chatty mood. “What happened to make us the better offer?”

“The guy who runs the old place grew a conscience.” The half-vampire rolls his eyes. “Apparently it’s more honorable to hunt down screaming humans in the wild than it is to buy one who signed up for it.”

You wish you could say you were horrified to hear that people sell themselves to vampires, but the workers at Asylum sell themselves to all kinds of inhumans. The only difference is that the outcome of an encounter with a vampire can only be death. “So he stopped selling to your master?”

“Yeah. Something about upsetting the natural way of things.” The half-vampire finishes his third glass. You don’t refill it until he nudges it towards you, at which point you fill it to the brim. “My master can’t hunt like he used to. Not for the kind of humans he wants, but he can pay whatever it takes to get them. How much of a conscience would you say your boss has?”

You don’t even have to think about it. “Absolutely none.”

“Then I guess we’ll be seeing each other again,” the half-vampire says. “My master has an appetite. Shigaraki Tomura.”

“What?”

“Shigaraki Tomura. That’s my name.” The half-vampire – Shigaraki Tomura – takes another sip of champagne. “What’s yours?”

“You still haven’t guessed what I am yet.”

“I gave you a big hint. You owe me a hint, too.” Shigaraki looks interested. He’s leaning forward on his elbows, studying you. You wonder if he can tell that he’s making you uncomfortable, and if he can tell, if he cares – or if it’s something he wants to do. “A hint, or your name. Your choice.”

If you were anything other than the type of half-human you are, it would be easy. For most people, inhuman or otherwise, names mean nothing, and neither do lies. The rules for half-fey are blurry. You don’t want to find out what they are while dealing with a vampire. Because of that, you fall back into proper customer service. “Our names don’t matter at Asylum, Shigaraki-san. To us, it’s all about the guest.”

“If it’s all about the guest and I’m a guest, you should answer my question,” Shigaraki says. He’s smirking again. “Since you tried to sneak out of it, I get to pick what you tell me. And I want your name.”

“Why?” You can see that the question throws him, so you let it stand, and top off his glass of champagne in the bargain. “It makes sense for me to know your name, Shigaraki-san, but you’d have no use for mine.”

“Says who? I decide what I have a use for.”

“Why?”

Shigaraki takes another sip of champagne. “Why what?”

“Why would you have a use for it?” You sound like you’re bantering, but you want to know. Need to know, more accurately. “Most guests don’t concern themselves with the existence of servants.”

“If that’s true, then you shouldn’t wear these.” Shigaraki taps his own cheek, drawing attention to a scar over his right eye. It takes you a second to realize that he’s referring to your mask. “It makes it look like you’re hiding something. Like what you are. Or your name.”

“I’ll tell you my name,” you say, and you give Shigaraki a few seconds of triumph before you add the condition, “after you tell me why you want it.”

He opens his mouth. “And don’t lie,” you add. “I’ll know if you lie.”

“Witch.”

“No,” you say. You’re surprised he didn’t guess that sooner, but he’s still wrong. “What? You don’t want to know my name anymore?”

“I want it,” Shigaraki says. He picks up his champagne and drains the glass in one swallow. You refill it partway before he stops you. “I don’t see why I should have to tell you. I’m the guest. If it’s about what I want –”

“I’m giving you what you want,” you say. “You just have to give me something in return.”

Shigaraki watches you over the rim of the glass, and you look back. You’ve heard that full vampires can exert control over others through prolonged eye contact, but the same is supposed to be true of fey, and you’re not feeling inclined to do what Shigaraki wants you to do. He glances away from you first, takes another sip of champagne. You don’t look away, and when he looks back and makes eye contact again, you see his face flush.

That’s – weird. The words leave your mouth before you can think better of it. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t look at me,” Shigaraki snaps. He stares down into his glass, and you busy yourself putting away the almost-empty bottle of champagne.

You hear the whistle of something moving at high speed through the air and barely whip your head sideways in time to avoid the wing of Overhaul’s messenger slicing into your cheek. You don’t like spilling blood on the job, especially not when there’s a vampire nearby. The messenger flies past you, then comes back around, and this time, you catch it in midair. Shigaraki’s noticed it, too. “Origami?” he repeats. “Is that part of the aesthetic?”

You shrug. Almost everything travels on paper in Asylum – orders, bills, memos, contracts, and messages. Each type of communication comes folded into a different bird, but the only person who uses paper cranes folded from purple paper with gilded edges is your boss. The crane unfolds in your hand and you read the message in Overhaul’s cramped handwriting. Find the half-vampire Shigaraki Tomura and return him to my study. His master is ready to depart.

You’re about to look like the world’s most efficient employee. You tuck the paper into your uniform and turn to Shigaraki. “Your master’s ready to leave. If you’ll follow me, I’ll escort you back to him.”

“Great.” Shigaraki drains his glass of champagne, gets to his feet, and nearly tips over. He has to grab the bar to steady himself, and even then, it barely works. “What the hell?”

You make your way around the bar, waiting to see if he’ll straighten up on his own. You wonder if he’s faking it, but given how skinny he is, how much champagne he drank, and how quickly he drank it, it’s not a stretch at all that he’s pretty drunk. It’s clear when he straightens up that he’s still dizzy, and you duck in to support him. “Here. Lean on me. If your master’s anything like my boss, he won’t like being kept waiting.”

“What did you do to me?” Shigaraki mumbles as he slings one arm over your shoulders. When you wrap your arm around his back, you can feel his ribs through two layers of clothing. “You said you weren’t a witch. You lied.”

You have to laugh at that. “This isn’t magic. You’re just drunk.”

“Vampires don’t get drunk.”

“Humans do,” you say. “One of the downsides of being half-something else.”

Shigaraki makes a noise, but you can’t tell if he’s responding to what you said or to being drunk in general. You hustle him through the hallways as quickly as you can manage. Overhaul hates having to give the same order twice, and you can feel the unfolded message fluttering in your pocket, trying to fold itself again and tattle on you that the task isn’t complete. The faster you move, however, the more it seems like Shigaraki’s trying deliberately to obstruct you. More and more of his weight falls against you with every step.

You’re strong enough to carry him, but it starts to bother you. “If that champagne made your legs stop working, I really need to know about it so I don’t poison any more guests.”

“I’m conserving energy.” Shigaraki hiccups, then groans. “My master can’t find out. He’ll be pissed.”

There’s no way Shigaraki’s master isn’t going to find out. If you let go of him he’s going to go face-first into the floorboards. “How pissed is he going to be?”

Shigaraki doesn’t answer, but the way his shoulders tense tells you everything you need to know. You’re almost to Overhaul’s study. The door’s open, and you can see the weird light leaking through, the kind that means someone’s using magic. Inspiration hits. You shift Shigaraki so he’s leaning against the wall, shove him until he stands up mostly straight, and call up every ounce of glamour you have.

It’s not much, and it won’t hold long, but as long as Shigaraki manages not to say or do anything too weird, it’ll keep his master from noticing how absolutely plastered he is. Shigaraki stares at you as the glamour settles over him, clearly confused. “What –”

“It’ll hold until you’re by yourself as long as you keep your shit together,” you say. You pull him upright again, shifting position so it seems more like you’re escorting him than like you’re dragging him along. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

“Why?”

You could ask for clarification. Instead you ignore him. So far tonight he’s asked you multiple questions you don’t want to answer, and even though this is the one that’s least likely to get you in trouble, it’s the one you’re most likely to lie about. Shigaraki’s head, which he was holding up under his own power until two seconds ago, tips sideways until his cheek is resting against the top of your head. “You don’t smell like a witch.”

“That’s because I’m not a witch. Stand up straight.” You’d also like him to quit sniffing you, but you’re not going to win that one. You reach out with one hand and knock on the open door. “Sir, I’ve brought the half-vampire, as you requested.”

“That was fast.”

The voice that responds isn’t Overhaul’s. Shigaraki jerks out of your grip and stands upright, your glamour clinging to him, while you tense every muscle in your body, trying to hide the shiver that runs through you. Most inhumans leave some sort of calling card of their presence – a scent in the air, a shift in the temperature of a room, a momentary change in the light or shadows. You’re used to that. But the aura emanating from the vampire who must be Shigaraki’s master is intense enough to crawl under your skin, and it’s ice-cold. Barring two things you don’t think about, it’s the worst feeling you’ve ever experienced in your life.

Overhaul is responding to the master vampire. “The staff at Asylum are well-trained,” he says. “Shigaraki Tomura, welcome back. I trust you enjoyed your self-guided tour of our offerings.”

You linger outside the door, unsure of what you should do, but then Chrono sticks his head out into the hallway, spots you, and gestures sharply for you to leave. You don’t need to be told twice. You hurry back down the hall, down a set of stairs, and through a staff-only shortcut until you’re back at the lounge, with five drink orders folded into the shape of swans bobbing up and down at the end of the bar for your attention. You’ve finished all five and two more besides before the chill begins to seep out of you.

There’s nothing about what happened tonight that you’re comfortable with. Wire to wire, it’s been one of the worst full moons you can remember, and it doesn’t improve when Overhaul and Chrono step into the lounge at the end of your shift. Overhaul sits; Chrono stands. “Explain yourself.”

You could ask for clarification. You could do that if you wanted to spend the next decade paying for it. “The half-vampire came to the lounge. I thought it would be best to keep him there instead of letting him wander around.”

“How did you keep him there?”

You hesitate, and Overhaul steps in. “He was covered in your glamour when he came in. I want to know if we undercharged his master.”

Your face goes up in flames. “I didn’t – no,” you say. “I got him drunk.”

Overhaul coughs. Chrono’s shoulders shake briefly, the way they do when he’s trying not to laugh. You reach behind the bar and produce the mostly-empty bottle of champagne, followed by the ledger. Overhaul peruses the ledger while Chrono continues the interrogation. “If all you did was pour champagne, why was he wearing your glamour?”

You could get away with not answering Shigaraki’s question. Not answering your bosses isn’t an option. “He said he was going to get in trouble. I didn’t mean to get him in trouble, so I thought –” You can’t see Chrono’s eyes, but you can see Overhaul’s, and Overhaul’s looking at you like you’re out of your mind. “I thought if I put a glamour over him, his master might not notice.”

Overhaul doesn’t say anything. Neither does Chrono. An echo of the shiver from the master vampire’s aura runs through you. “Did his master notice?”

“His senses are too dull to hunt for himself. They’re certainly too dull to capture a glamour as weak as yours,” Chrono says. “Shigaraki Tomura escaped detection, at least while on the premises. And it seems he now owes you a favor.”

“No,” you say without thinking. “It was my fault.”

Chrono scoffs, then returns his attention to the bottle. Overhaul focuses on you. “Does he know what you are?”

You shake your head. “Good,” Overhaul says. “Next time, save your glamour for yourself. He and his master will return at the next full moon.”

Your stomach lurches. “They’ll be back?”

“The offer the master vampire made was quite lucrative. It would have been unwise to refuse,” Chrono says. “Serving vampires en masse is bad business, but on a limited basis – very profitable.”

You don’t even want to know – but you’ll find out. You’re dead certain of it. You grew up here, and you know where to listen to hear every secret told within Asylum’s walls. And even if you didn’t, even if you put your hands up over your ears and walked away from anyone who spoke of it, you know exactly who you’ll hear it from – the half-vampire Shigaraki Tomura, the next time he steps into the lounge with a bad attitude, a useless smartphone, and a list of questions you’re already dreading being asked.

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