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#but I think made mine better than those

intothe-reverie · 1 month

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It’s finally happened. Despite 500 hours romancing him in bg3, I made Astarion as my pawn character in Dragons Dogma 2 and my husband said he is now officially jealous 😂

Listen, I told Astarion we would continue adventuring and be heroes together, you think a different gaming universe will stop me?!?

#sorry not sorry that you’re the second husband now #don’t worry it’s all good fun #he then sent me links for astarion pawn templates like the good sport he is #but I think made mine better than those #astarion #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 astarion #baldurs gate 3 #astarion ancunin #dragons dogma 2

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thesandisfalling · 11 months

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my official take on the moon/qibli/winter love triangle is that winterwatcher is a much grander, epic romance, and moonbli is a much more level, sweet-and-simple romance, but ultimately i think it was a better decision to have the latter be the canon romance in a series primarily marketed towards children and teens than fall into the "bad boy" romance trope, and instead romanticize the earnest, genuine, sweet relationship

obviously there's way more nuance to this involving internalized/unconscious bias, and winter doesn't even REALLY fit into the "bad boy" archetype, but purely based on genre conventions, the gruff, rude, brooding, tortured hero VERY often falls into that category, and at the ages of 7-14 most of us were very LIKELY to be romanticizing that archetype, which again is very often treated as interchangeable with the "abusive bad boy" trope, and while i might have a few gripes with the writing of moonbli and i ENJOY winterwatcher a whole lot, i DO appreciate the more gentle, "safe" romance being treated as the ideal, rather than the tense and angst-filled nature of the alternative

#i could talk about this way more but im in the middle of rereading dod so itll have to wait #what i DO have to add is like. something something the ideal romance being the calmer safer one and how - for me at least -#those years of my life were so complicated and difficult and i made this image of romance out to be this massive painful epic tale #of heartbreak and passion and huge declarations of love and everything #but ultimately; imparting the lesson to children that a romantic relationship should be SAFE - it should be your comfortable place #where youre happy and content and feel warm and secure - is MUCH better #than pressing upon them the idea that it should be this epic battle of tension and painful pining and everything #(whether its something simply overlooked in the writing or not; the fact is winter also DIDNT ever apologize to moon for #all the hurtful things he said or did - which isnt to say hes a BAD GUY i love winter so much -#but i think romanticizing those kinds of dynamics - which is tricky but CAN be done - is better saved for works marketed towards #more mature and emotionally intelligent audiences than i think wof might be meant for)#ANYWAY I HAVE LOTS OF THOUGHTS #god im so glad i got back into this series. the literary love of my life #mine #wof #winter #moon #qibli #wings of fire #winterwatcher #moonbli #meta

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blorbosexterminator · 1 year

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if alex pina makes a sequel to lcdp in the future, do you have any idea what they would steal? do you think all the surviving characters would be there? the new fic you writing would be a relatively likely scenario imo, well, not necessary with berlin surviving the mint but somehow connected to his death and also the part with spain moving away from gold and that they are in danger again.

Honestly, I have no idea. Obviously, I had to come up with something for the fic, which I don't want to spoil for you. But I think it's something that works best with a fic, I don't know whether it would fit with an actual sequel.

I do think all the surviving characters would be there, yes. Obviously, unless the actors themselves don't want to be and the characters have to be written with some excuse or the other. But maybe other than Rafael and Tatiana.

In my fic, it fits that they are there because the story still very much has Andrés in its core and also because everything is very closely tied to the Gold. But I do think if Alex Pina wants to do a sequel, which he might and why I think is partially the reason he didn't kill anyone after Tokyo, it will somehow has to answer the question of the gold. It does make sense to me, at least regarding the fic, that Spain will easily move on from the gold but not from what the banda did, which isn’t really a very secure position. If anything, they were more secure at the end of the mint heist than at the end of the gold heist. If you're technically and legally already dead, then what are the actual reprecussions to you getting killed? Especially by the people (very powerful people) who invented the identities you live under? If there is ever any continuation to La Casa de Papel, I think those would be interesting questions to cover.

#I mean he did leave the door open with affirming Sergio's personal love for theft and everything too #Alex Pina is a pretty smart writer and I do think he left the door open intentionally #and whatever idea he can come up with for a continuation would probably be way better than mine haha when it comes to what they will steal #but interestingly enough I was thinking of this regarding the new ocs I made #and I find it interesting that if this was an actual sequel with so many new characters I would find it off putting to a sense #like realistically I do need those characters. because there is just not that many original characters left and this heist operates on #a bigger scale than the previous ones #but for a tv show to bring in so many new characters at the end it's definitely a much riskier decision because people don't move on easily #I still miss Moscow imo #The Swan's Symphony #Anyway I do hope you find the answers the fic itself provides satisfactory enough #and hopefully I'll manage the second chapter (that will bring up what they will steal) in the next few days

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mugmegan · 7 months

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I have shit(canvases) in my art program(ibispaintx) that I apperantly worked on for more than 14 hours and didnt even actually finish in the end. They are all old canvases from when I first started making digital art. None of my new projects take that long and get abondened nowadays. Because now, I kinda know what I am doing and learned how to use digital art tools more effectively and productively. So they take less time and come out better looking.

But I cant help but admire amateur me for powering through and working diligently for that long without even getting an actual end product that looked good. In fact, they looked pretty bad. And still... right now, working on a single project for 14 hours seems so hard to me but apperantly I did it without even noticing not even a year ago. Weird shit. I kinda wanna be like that again.

Being a beginner sure was a magical thing...

I am going to do something about those abondened projects old me worked so hard on. I think they deserve it.

(But I am not going to get rid of the unfinished versions. I dont wanna forget those)

#I was just going through my art on the ibispaint app #I was wondering which canvas I worked the longest time on #I didnt think anyhing of mine was gonna hit the 10 hour mark but as I started looking at projects further back I was just really surprised #I had MULTIPLE projects with more than 10 hours on them #and I didnt even remember them very well #that kinda made me sad #I worked so hard on those. gave so much effort and time and forgot about them #they ARE kinda bad but also kinda charming in a way because I can recognize all my rookie mistakes #like looking at a kids scribbles #the intent is there #its cute #but will be better as they learn #as it is now... they are just a show of love and effort #my art #art

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bekahdoesnerdshit · 9 months

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When Cog summons her wings, they come to her easy as breathing. The shadows around her gather at her back and unfurl into feather-light, barely corporeal raven wings- black as night and held together by magic. Cog asks for her wings, and they materialize for her.

Acedia's wings rip from her back, tearing open the skin between her shoulder blades and sending rivulets of hot blood running down her spine. Her back hunches, her shoulders jerking, and as the wings unfold it's clear that every moment of it is intensely painful. The wings themselves are a mockery of a willowy tree, once draped with vines and moss, now skeletal branches.

Cog's wings are a gift from a god who grew to love her like a daughter. They're a part of her, just like the rest of her magic.

Acedia's wings are everything she's perverted and betrayed, a pointed reminder of her place from the god she sold her soul to.

#i am! cleaning out my drafts! hooray! 🎉🎉#(please read those party horns as the sound telly makes in chibi robo when you go up a rank. it's celebratory but a little pathetic)#throwback to the ace/aceida fight where acedia summoned her wings and ace shook off the fear effect and said:#'...eh. I like when cog does it better' KING #wasteland campaign #mine #cog #acedia #bekahdoesnerdshit does meta #alternate title: hey bekah can you make a wasteland character who DOESN'T have wings. and the answer is no 💖#this is a PREVIEW of the (post i'm never gonna write at this point lbr) about how cog and acedia are SUCH good foils #i can't even take credit for that one it was on accident i just wanted a hot evil lesbian paladin #like. they've both sworn themselves blindly to a power they didn't fully understand. and cog is continually rewarded for her faith #and acedia is continually punished for hers.#they both made their pacts to have power to protect what they love; can we really crucify acedia just bc her world is smaller than cog's??#cog wanted to save the whole world. acedia just wanted to save her friends and her home. I think they had more in common than they knew #ANYWAY thanks for reading I love you. I'll never be normal about wasteland and that is a Warning and a Threat #💖💖💖

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dolldefiler · 2 months

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Another incest piece, at the risk of my asks being filled with very questionable shit. The daughter’s at least 18. I created her so I can make that decision.

C/W: Incest, Rape, Somnophilia (is this the right format?)

It’s alright, baby. Drink as much as you want. I’m here for you. I’ll keep you safe, I promise. Daddy’s not going to let anyone touch you. Well… except myself. Mhm? Nothing, puppet. Drink up now. That’s a good girl. Don’t worry, this will be our little secret while your mother’s out of town. Well, it would be a secret if she hadn’t encouraged me to do this… Nothing, sweetheart, you’re hearing things. Now let’s get you back. You look like you’re half asleep. Honey? Honey?

Oh, you silly little girl. Falling asleep while you’re out drinking with Daddy. Now I’ll have to carry you back. It’s a good thing I’m not one of those evil, perverted men that would ruin your pretty fuckholes, princess. Aww, you sound so cute when you slur your words like that. You sound just like your mother, the first time I raped her. Just go back to sleep, my love. It’ll just be a bad nightmare when you wake up, won’t it?

Now that you’re in bed, let’s see what you have under that dress… Oh my. I didn’t realise my pretty little princess was wearing such adult underwear. Did you know I would be the one taking your dress off tonight? Did you know Daddy would be the one to strip you naked, sweetheart? Is that why you’re wearing that? Aww, you didn’t need to do that for me. I’d fuck you anyway. I’d breed my own daughter regardless of what she wore.

Oh, fuck. Shit, even when you’re asleep the lips of your cunt kiss my cock perfectly. It’s like… it’s like you were made for me. Oh shit, look at that. Your creamy cunt’s slathering my shaft, even when you have no idea it’s happening.

I knew you were a pervert, just like your parents.

And what if I… did this- FUCK! Oh fuck, yes. God, you’re even tighter than your whore of a mother when she was your age. God, I don’t think I’m going to last long. I’m using my fucking daughter’s pussy to jack off in. Shit, let’s release these tits. Ugh, you’re perfect. They’re beautiful. God, but they’d look so much better with my cock thrusting between them and your pretty eyes looking up into mine. I’m fucking cumming, princess. I’m so sorry, I can’t help it. Just take it all. Take all of Daddy’s hot seed in your fertile womb, as nature intended. You were designed to be mine from the start.

Perhaps you’ll learn that when you realise your belly and tits are swelling up.

#cnc somno #somno breeding #somno fantasy #breeding k1nk #fauxcest #rapekink #r@pe kink #intox cnc #intox kink #rough daddy #bd/sm daddy #daddy k!nk

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wonderfultoweird · 1 year

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So I've seen people talk about silas the thief episodes and I want to give my two cents on them even though it's like been a year already since the episodes came out and I'm barely catching up. I've seen that a lot of people find it weird that khoshekh [SPOILER] was a human man the whole time, and maybe it's just me but I didn't find it weird or gross or a bad plot twist at all.

For anyone who owns a cat (especially an antisocial one) you get that they are just Strange. They act hoity toity and rude and pretentious and sometimes you think they are too human sometimes but you love their weirdness anyway.

Yes it is a bit sad that he was in that bathroom the whole time but he did deserve it. He was an asshole and a narcissist and he could have changed at any time but he didn't. And thats okay! He was still loved by Cecil and and now he has kids and he's learning and he is taking ownership of his mistakes and the fact that he is just a cat now.

And that's okay too! It's okay that he is now a cat, and that he always was a cat with a human mind and that silas and khoshekh are one and the same, always were. Khoshekh was never depicted as nice, he was always rather vicious and seen as like a hostile cat. He still was adored though of course because he's adorable! For me, it doesn't feel like too much a strange step. If anything it made me love him even more.

#it's all Sandrine's fault not mine at all #oh i did this to myself #silas the thief #khoshekh #wtnv 196 #wtnv #welcome to nightvale #also I like to think that being sick made him go back to some of his old mentalities because he's not feeling well #which then made him feel guilty for being an asshole again #which then made him question more than he had before why he's like this #just because like he went through a lot of mental gymnastics in those episodes #from to #and being sick makes you grumpy so #idk i like to think he's been doing better for a while but just never had that aha! moment #also he's very sweet and caring to his kids which as someone who has a narcissist dad #the steps he made were huge and like. idk seeing that moved me #it's really obvious he loves his children and actually listens to them and sees them as individuals #which is more than I can say for my own narcissistic dad #and he also admits!!! that he's a narcissist and that he's the one who is at fault #anyway i love silas #and i love khoshekh #and they're the same and always were and it's very clear to me at least #hopefully it will be the same for cecil as well!!#alex says a thing #wtnv spoilers

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ioniiaa · 3 months

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My Darling, My Honey

Alastor X Fem!Reader (Part 7)

Quick Notes:

You, the reader who is an artist, and had become Alastor's sweetheart, have just died.

Alastor is about to find out.

Part 7:

The sound of a singular gunshot rang clearly in the night that had been so peacefully quiet up until that moment in time.

Alastor, with the engagement ring in his pocket, who had been peacefully reading a novel within the confines of your shared home, nearly ripped his book in half upon hearing the sound of a gunshot in these woods.

The forest around here was part of his private property, anyone who dared to trespass or hunt in his neck of the woods was shot on sight. Many people ignored the plentiful and very obvious warning signs, so it wasn't his fault so many people ended up becoming your and his meals. Everyone else just thought the law didn't apply to them, straight-up criminals. In his eyes, they all deserved it.

Thinking it was just another nuisance, a "tsk" left Alastor's mouth as he grabbed his shotgun and headed into the woods.

After a few minutes of walking, he finally caught sight of the transgressors. Two men that he, unfortunately, recognized right away as the men from the bar who liked to push his buttons by harassing you.

The seething rage pooled in his core, bubbling up into his chest. This was his chance to get rid of those nuisances once and for all.

They would trouble his darling no more.

For him to get into a better position to take the men out, he crouched down and quietly circled around them like a hunter playing with his prey.

After circling around to position himself behind the men, what he wasn't expecting to see was the most nightmarish sight he's ever seen.

His beloved sweetheart, soon to be betrothed, all disheveled and tied up against a blood-splattered tree with a bullet lodged in the middle of their forehead.

Your eyes were lifeless. There was no doubt about it, the love of his life was dead.

Alastor didn't need to even think before pulling the trigger on the men, shooting one after the other, over and over, even after their bodies had hit the ground.

He. Was. Enraged.

By the time Alastor was done with them, they looked like Swiss cheese, barely strung together.

Alastor's breath was heavy, his chest heaving, near hyperventilating, his eyes were enlarged and his mind was focused on one thing. You.

His beautiful love, he couldn't bear to see you in this state.

In his oddly manic and shocked state, he untied you from the tree and took your body back to your shared home in the woods not too far from here.

For a few moments, his rage was replaced by sorrow and mourning as he buried you in the backyard. As fucked up as he was in the head sometimes, he would rather die than think about eating you. You were sacred to him.

As he laid you down into the ground, he embraced you once last time and took the ring out of his pocket. He placed the ring onto your ring finger and kissed the top of your hand, "In life and in death, I am forever yours, as you are forever mine. I love you, dear."

After you were buried, the rage returned like a vicious tsunami. Oh he wasn't done with revenge just yet.

Every single man or woman that ever mistreated you or offended you, was put on his list.

This night was the catalyst that gave birth to the serial killer known as the "Bayou Killer".

Alastor stopped visiting Mimzy's bar since your death, with his sole focus and dedication in life going to hunting down those that had harmed you in life. After all, they deserved it, you were like an angel to him.

But what Alastor didn't stop doing, was broadcasting his radio show. So many of his connections were made because of his show, so it was a valuable resource to keep active, to use to his advantage.

Alastor continued living his life like this until every single name was crossed off his list.

It was then that it was time for his luck to run out.

Right upon the killing the very last person on the list, was Alastor also shot right square in the forehead.

Before his consciousness faded into black, all he could hear was the muffled panic of a stranger who seemed to be apologizing for mistaking him for some sort of animal.

All Alastor could do was chuckle at the irony of the whole situation, the maniacal laughter was the type that only a madman could produce- before everything went dark and he died.

He thought he would never see you again, because surely, his beloved sweetheart would end up in heaven right?

The answer to this would remain a mystery for many decades to come as Alastor descended into Hell and became who is now widely known in Hell as "The Radio Demon".

-> Part 8

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submalevolentgrace · 1 year

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Hi! I'm very interested in attempting to write a disabled character (not for this blog, I assure, for an book I'm writing) in which the story doesn't fetishize/objectify her prosthetic limb. I'm in many writing circles and have been for a long while, but I've never seen this issue brought to light which I realise is a very important one. I have much to change in my thought process, and thank you for bringing this issue to attention.

I'm curious, and I apologise if this has been asked before, but what sort of design could you see for a functional prosthetic that doesn't go for a plainly aesthetic appearance, or is soully to please others? I do note that you said prosthetics are generally... not that helpful. So is there a way that it could be? Or do you think it would always generally be better to not use a prosthetic, as its mostly for aesthetic purposes, as you said?

I apologise if this ask is too outright or anything, and I don't mean to intrude. Thank you for your time and have a beautiful day!

okay, i want to answer this as in depth as possible, because whenever i talk about having a prosthesis, someone will always tag some variation of "#writing reference" and i do wonder what message they're taking away, and i want to get as much of my experience out as possible to maybe help shape how this is all portrayed in the future. and yeah… this is gonna be one of those rambly smg posts that the expand feature was invented for, so i'll start with the very abridged TL;DR:

if you're writing a character with an upper limb prosthesis; don't. arm amputees are unicorn level rare even compared to leg amputees, and i've never interacted with or even heard of an upper limb amputee that regularly uses a prosthesis, let alone relies on one. fiction has lied to you for the sake of cool aesthetics, don't repeat the cycle. more in depth writing advice including nuance and "but i waaaant to" will follow.

that said, grab your donning parachute and let's get started...

context for everyone involved: i am an upper limb amputee that rants a lot about how prostheses suck, i lost my right hand roughly five years ago at roughly the age of 30 after a very rough decline in health… it was pretty rough. this question is being asked in the context of a previous rant post of mine, and i checked that the ask is about an upper limb prosthesis in particular.

the situation regarding the usefulness of lower limb prostheses is totally different; i am definitely no expert, but by all accounts, prosthetic legs are incredibly useful for many people. getting a good leg can be absolutely life changing and more or less necessary for day to day life for some; mostly because infrastructure and society is just so fucking hostile to wheelchair users. being able to walk - at the cost of pressure sores and rashes and increased residual limb pain - is a preferable option to many people than being unable to fit through a doorway or in a bathroom stall or find out that the key to unlock the only elevator is in the admin office up three flights of stairs (true story).

but upper limb prostheses… see, the thing is, hands are incredibly complex organs that rely on a lot of immediate haptic feedback to work at all. hand dexterity is all about control, you need fine granular movements of the digits yes, but you also need the subtle sensations of pressure and proprioception in order to adjust your movements on the fly. i speak from experience, in the years leading up to the full loss of my hand, i was slowly losing function of it, usually swinging between numbness that made it clumsy at best, or screaming overstimulation from moving it at all resulting in unpredictable spasms… and let me tell you, a half working hand is infuriating to try and deal with. you can never know if you have a good grip on something or if it's slipping because of the wrong amount of pressure, and there's only so many smashed bottles of pickles on the floor before you give up using it all together… so amputation wasn't a great loss there, i had time to adapt.

a prosthetic hand of any kind has all of those issues and more. they're heavy and bulky, the cosmetic faux fingers or gripping claw have crude movement at best, and there's zero feedback (put a pin in this). 100% of the time you're using a prosthetic hand you have to keep your eyes on the grip and visually guesstimate whether or not the thing you're carrying is held tight enough but not too tight, that is if your "heavy duty" prosthesis can even support the weight without the servos disengaging or the wrist attachment socket just busting loose. i dropped a whippersnipper on my foot last week when my socket couldn't take the weight and i think that was the final straw in me desperately trying to prove to myself that there is a single task my prosthesis actually helps with.

this is usually where fully two handed people start talking about bleeding edge DARPA tech, and how we just need to invest more,research more, develop more. better tech, more tech, neural integration, more more more. okay i promise the writing advice is coming! for starters on tech, my experience is already with a mid-to-high end ottobock terminal device: i've got a myoelectric nerve-signal operated proportional control heavy duty greifer; about the only upgrade left for me to get would be a rotating wrist joint if i could coflex. it's not military, it's not "rockclimber that owns a prosthetic company", but it's quality tech. it still fucking sucks. secondly, that high level military tech exists primary for PR purposes so they can say they treat their discarded casualties well, "we can rebuild him, we have the technology" style. every war vet i've read about or heard from that's been gifted that high level tech also abandons it for the same reasons; it's imprecise, there's no feedback (or the haptic interface has to be fully recalibrated every time they put it on), but mostly they're more capable without one.

okay, the transhumanist ableds say (i should know, i used to be one), what if we did more ~research and development~ and got that neural feedback working? then we could have fireproof superhumanly strong robot arms to fix up everyone! here's where i take out that pin we put up before and i tell you that a class of prosthetic arms/hands already exists that has perfect proportional control, fine motor control, and physics perfect pressure feedback piped directly into the patients' existing sensory systems! they're called body-powered prostheses, and they were invented in like the 1600s. you strap a whole bunch of stuff to your arm and shoulders shoulders, and control the operation of the terminal device and elbow through cable tension by flexing your shoulders. they do take a considerable amount of training to operate - though hell i spent 18 months training to use my myo - but based on everything i've read, body-powered prostheses are the best option if you're an upper limb amputee and absolutely need a second hand for some reason.

but they don't look cool and futuristic, and according to my prosthetist, most people give up on using them too. we all give up on our prostheses, no matter the type. my rehab OT was impressed i lasted the 18 months of my training. towards the end, they even asked if the clinic director could drop in to one of my sessions to see my progress; he expressed genuine amazement at me casually using my bulky robot claw to use a brush and dustpan, and made an offhanded (hah) comment about what someone can achieve "if they stick it out to the end", implying it was somewhat of a rarity for me to have done so. several years on, and yesterday i wedged the dustpan between my ankles to sweep up into it, awkward but exponentially less effort than putting my dusty robot arm on. which, by the way, is a whole thing. look up some videos, they're all awful to don. i don't actually know the official technical name of what my clinic calls a "parachute" but it's a bitch to use! have you ever tried to pull back with your arm whilst also pushing it forwards at the same time, and simultaneously lean in to and away from an external force pulling on you? that's how you get a myo socket on.

bare with me, i promise writing advice is coming, and i promise it's more than the tl;dr. but. remember when i said a half working hand is infuriating to deal with? any prosthesis, from fancy myo tech to pirate-era body powered, will only ever be half as good as a working hand, and being juuuust within capability to do something but not quite able to is maddening! but you know what works way better than a half working hand? no hand at all. using whatever residual/vestigial limb you have - whatever "stump" you have, i hate that word - is pretty much always better than trying to use a prosthesis. i can use the inside of my elbow to grip and carry things, i can use the nub of my arm to apply pressure to hold things, open doors, use a computer mouse, turn on taps and lights, if i put a glove over it i can use it to prep for cooking. i have full proprioception and pressure feedback with skin contact, i don't think i've ever dropped and broken anything from my elbow, unlike countless things slipped from my greifer - which, by the way, absolutely will start clenching as tight as it can if i get even slightly too sweaty around the electrodes, which has both broken things i'm holding and also injured me, because surprise surprise but servo operated robot claws have pinch points on them right near the "emergency disengage" lever for some reason!

but i am exponentially more capable without it on than with it. no, i'm not fully independent, i rely on housemates and loved ones to help me out with some tasks that simply just need two handed dexterity, but none of those tasks are things a prosthesis makes me able to do anyway. i used to imagine my prosthesis would be like a bra; a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but i'd wear it throughout the day because it's helpful and take it off in the evening to decompress. in reality it's actually exactly like a bra: an absolute bitch to put on one handed, unbearably uncomfortable because it never sits right, ugly af unless you're a millionaire, and absolutely useless except for the fact that i get gawked at and judged by strangers if i leave the house without it on.

and if you really want to discover how far "no hand is better than a half working hand" goes, brace yourself, and look up the patient's stories (not medical system stories) of people that have had hand transplants. the first man to receive one hated it, he was promised a return to normal function, and what he got was a nightmare worse than being one handed; he wanted it removed again but the doctors refused because it would undermine their grand achievement of the first hand transplant. the doctors and society wanted him to be fixed, they wanted him to be normal, they wanted him to be abled. they failed. they made him less able to do things, denied his autonomy, and left him with someone else's hand slowly rotting on him, prioritising the idea of "scientific progress" and "two hands good" over the physical health, mental health, and ability to function of this man.

he's not alone; every story from the patients' perspective about hand transplants that i've read goes this way, including a woman who was born quad limb different and was promised hands would improve her life, pressured into a double hand transplant, only to find herself after the surgery essentially experiencing disability for the first time ever, because she had lived her whole life getting by just fine with her 'underdeveloped' limbs, but half working hands are worse than useless. you can try to find these stories yourself, but i'm not going looking for sources on any of these cases, because if you look back through enough of my posts you'll get a glimpse of the horrors and abuses that i too was put through by doctors who prioritised trying to "fix" me at any cost, rather than providing me the best quality of life, and in turn traumatised me and left me more broken than any loss of limb on its own could. dear goddess, i promise the writing advice is coming.

so. why do upper limb prostheses exist at all? if they're so terrible and useless, what is their function? i want to borrow something someone else left in the tags of a previous rant here, from someone who i believe works in prosthetics and/or rehab, cleaned up and anonymised at their request:

"upper limb functions are wildly more complex than: 1) bear weight static, and 2) bear weight moving. but every single upper limb amputee i know has a fancy expensive prosthetic just gathering dust in the closet because there is literally nothing it can do like a few years of adjustment and if needed non-dominant hand retraining can't do. the existence of forquarter prosthetics to begin with is just kind of silly and useless and entirely to make OTHER people feel comfortable, especially considering they universally are UNcomfortable for the amputee. i hate the notion that as soon as you get the amputation the prosthetic is The Thing That Will Fix You And Make You Feel Normal again because it universally isn't! but every forequarter person i know had like this ideal of Being Fixed By Magic Prosthetic that they were then obviously wildly disappointed by and had to do yet another grieving process with, versus if the dominant narrative were just one of: yeah. it'll take time, there is no magic fix."

and i think that really nails down what the actual purpose of upper limb prostheses is: they're not for the user, they're for the sake of other people. and not just their comfort when looking at our bodies, although based on the pressure for both amputees and people born limb different to get functionless cosmetic plastic hands, there is a lot of that. but it's not just that.

i fully believe that the reason prosthetic hands exists is to comfort the fears of the two handed. "don't worry", they say, "we can fix you again. you don't have to fear becoming Disabled, you don't have to worry about adapting or your life changing. we can make you Normal™ again."

you would not believe the number of people that have approached me to shower me with pity, to tell me how horrific my life is, how they can't imagine it. people have told me, apropos of nothing, that they'd kill themselves if they lost a hand. indirectly, that my life isn't worth living. unless, of course, i happen to be wearing my cool as fuck looking robot prosthesis! then they tell me how wonderful it is, how lucky i am, how glad they are that we have the technology to fix me. that's what a prosthetic hand says, what all the happy fishing photos on limbs4life posters at the rehab clinic say: don't worry, we can fix you. that's what the bleeding edge DARPA flexi-whatever fully articulated neuro-feedback hands say: don't worry if you get IED'd while hunting civilians for us to drone bomb, if you get hurt, we will fix you, we will fix the fuck out of you, we will motherfucking adam jensen you into a cool as fuck cyborg that your son will idolise; come on boys, don't you wanna enlist just for the chance at being as cool as this? join the bomb squad for a ticket to the upgrade lottery.

and so we arrive at fiction. as much as his dialogue options protest, adam jensen loves his robot arms, they punch through walls, turn into fucking swords! they make him the most special man in the world. what would he do without them? learn to cope? grieve? practice acceptance? take up poetry? just, be disabled? there's no power fantasy for ableds in that.

in fact, can you think of a single fictional character that's an upper limb amputee that's, well, just an amputee? they all have robot arms. not realistic prostheses, not medical devices; robot arms. sleek or bulky, top of the line or broken down self built, steampunk or nanomachines or magitech automail; they're never without them. never just an amputee. never born limb different either! there's always that element of tragedy to overcome, always suffering and misery porn, always focus on the pain and the helplessness without the absolutely vital robot arm that makes them Normal and Whole. the closest amputee example i can think of is furiosa from mad max, who iirc fucking punches max in the face with her residual limb like a motherfucking badass! i can barely lean on mine wrong and she punches a guy! but she still apparently needs a dieselpunk robot hand to drive a truck, something you can do one handed so easily most drivers don't even notice they're doing it! please don't, by the way

and so many disabled fans love to point to robot armed characters as disability representation; the winter soldier, luke skywalker, edward elric, misty knight, that genderswapped furry girl from ratchet and clank, jet cowboybebop, finn the human, and yes, adam jensen…. these are all characters that someone disabled i know has told me they love because they "represent disabled bodies"…. and i know nobody wants to hear this, because i've been screamed at for saying it before, but… they do not. they are not disabled, functionally or within fiction. they are either perfectly able bodied Normal people with chrome paint on an arm, or tortured misery porn we are supposed to pity and feel lucky we're not them. sometimes both!

also you ever notice how it's basically always arms? lower limb amputations are orders of magnitude more common than upper, my prosthetist said i was probably only the 4th or 5th upper limb she'd worked with in her career, with literally hundreds of lower limb fits. but fiction doesn't seem to reflect that, huh? or any other part of the reality of disability. it's always cool as fuck robot arms, never cool as fuck wheelchairs or crutches or dialysis machines or colostomy bags. a fair few "i was blind but now i can see with Robot Eyes and also infrared and xray" around, which again, plays into that "we can fix you and make you cooler" propaganda.

by the way, up above when i was describing body powered arms, if you wondered to yourself why i went with a myoelectric one instead when i clearly believe body powered is better… yeah. i am not immune to propaganda! i too wanted to be cool as fuck. i spent years with deteriorating function in my hand for reasons that are still unknown, was misdiagnosed and medically neglected to the point that removing my hand seemed to be the only option left to offer some relief, and even that was a clusterfuck that left me worse than ever… of course i wanted to believe in the power and prestige of a cool robot arm that fiction promised me.

but fiction promises fantastical lies. and so.

we get to the writing advice portion of the novella that is this post. you asked for advice on how to write a disabled character with an upper limb prosthesis. you've read the tl;dr, you've read everything above i assume, you know i don't want you to do it. the obvious twist is that it's been writing advice all along, me trying to share my perspective on what it's like being an amp with a robot arm and how shitty it is, implying how almost any fully realised and realistic character that's missing an upper limb would give up on a prosthesis at all. you can already tell that every value judgement in me says "don't give her a prosthesis, no matter how functional or cool you make it. don't try to make the tech better to justify it, just let her be one armed, one handed. just let her be disabled, but not helpless. let her show off her elbow or underarm carry strength. let her love interest appreciate how soft and squishy her residual limb is in a moment of tenderness. let her natural disabled body be respected and valued."

but that's a personal value judgement from me, and you are the author of your own work. i know it's trite to say, but you are! even the act of deferring to someone with lived experience in the hope of doing a better job at representation is a value judgement, a good choice in my opinion, but one you needn't necessarily take. maybe you do want to write a character that has a cool as fuck unrealistic robot arm as a power fantasy, or a comfort blanket… i did.

i've been slowly writing my own probably terrible scifi epic for over a decade now, and when my arm was giving me hell back then, i'd take great comfort in this fantasy of my protagonist with her chunky robot arm, the terrible traumatic suffering of her loss, overcoming, the power and ability her advanced prosthesis gives her over others, that she alone has access to, because others are not willing to make the sacrifices required. inspiration porn. awful stuff to me now, but empowering to me then. as i grew and gained direct experience, i slowly reimagined her, rewrote her, ship of theseus'd her into an entirely new character; a reflection of me now, bitter at the whole thing, spiteful that her natural flesh arm evokes fear and distrust, but unwilling to suffer the pain and frustration of her unnatural prosthesis just to make others comfortable and respect her as "whole", however artificial that whole is. and as with the ship of theseus being two ships, once i realised the transformation, i re-added the old protagonist back in whole cloth as a separate character; proud of her robot arm and its power, but in new context, as a foil and antagonist, an in-universe military prosthesis propaganda figure to reflect how i now feel characters like her exist to us, the readers.

i'm not just sharing that as egotistical self promotion, but to highlight that, even if i sit here begging you all up and down not to write characters with robot arms for how bad and unrealistic they are; there's still something genuine and true that their inclusion can say. the great thing about the story that you're writing is that only you can write it, as they say. but i whole heartedly believe that to write to your best, you have to be aware of what you're writing and why. as tempting as it is to feel these characters form naturally in us and therefore we're averse to changing traits about them that feel organic and self evident; as authors we have omnipotent control over the text, every trait and detail is a reflection on us, so we'd sure as hell better understand why we're choosing to write a character with this trait. because anything you write without being aware of intent will take on its own meaning in the space between.

and on that note, if i don't say this, i'm leaving it to be inferred: i definitely don't want to appear to come down on the side of saying "you cannot write an amputee unless you are one", because we are rarer than single young bisexual unicorns! and it would be a tragedy if anyone read through all this and then turned away in fear, deciding to never write an amputee character (with or without robot arm) because they feel they can't do it justice… believe me, no matter what anyone says, some hack writer somewhere is going to keep writing adam jensens and winter soldiers. don't let them be the only voices in fiction! just try to do your best.

so my ultimate advice on the topic of writing a character with a prosthetic limb is to ask yourself one question in two different frameworks, and meditate on what you feel the answer is:

why does she have a prosthesis?

from a doylelist perspective as the kids say, as an author with omnipotent control, why are you choosing to write about this topic? why are you choosing to give this trait to this character? what does it say about how you view ability and disability, what makes a person normal, and what our society values? will you let her be in her natural body? or will you give her a prosthesis, force her to wear it by authorial fiat, or author her a meaningful reason to choose to? if yes, be sure you know; why did you give her a prosthesis?

and from a wastonian perspective, diegetically, inside the story, why does she choose to wear a prosthesis? what does it say about her inner character, and how she interacts with the world? how does she feel about doing it, is she prideful and loves the attention she gets, or does she resent whatever necessitates its use? how do people in this world view ability and disability, what does this society value? and above all, whatever the answer to these questions, whether or not she uses a prosthesis or is badass without one, how does she deal with the eternal freezing cold that every amputee ever feels constantly in their residual limb and why does nobody make a heat pack that fits over a nub without drafty gaps???

i can't outright tell you how to write a good upper limb amputee, but if you at least know why you're writing one and for what purpose, you're on track to write the best character that you can. that's the best advice i can give… other than, like, this whole rambly mess.

and, as a reward for reading this far, please have a very blurry cryptid photo of my cat doing his old man sit:

#prosthesis #prosthetic #disability #ableism

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