#not only that but some of you are straight up just ableist

[cripplecharacters]

Salutations! I’m in the process of creating a story wherein both characters are missing an eye. One has a prosthetic, but is presently isolating themself in the woods, and wears an eyepatch to protect the eye while alone; the other’s socket is either empty, or they have a glass eye with no actual details (iris, pupil, etc.). I’ve struggled to find references for the latter, and fear it may come off as unrealistic. I understand prosthetic eyes keep the eyelid from collapsing, but aside from that could a person just not wear one? If these options are unrealistic, please let me know. I can supply you with concept art if need be.

The story itself centers around these characters after one of them finds the other by accident. They’re painted as foils—the one hiding out in the cabin adhering to a self-made sense of logic that centers on cycles and confirmation bias, while the only who takes refuge there after running away is deeply paranoid and prone to hallucinations. The first character is missing their left eye; the other their right. I don’t want to make a symbol of their disabilities, but I feel their designs simultaneously stress their opposing perspectives, as well as the fact they paradoxically still manage to see “eye-to-eye.” Their visual impairment is just one of many ways they’re able to connect across the story, as they also bond over their obscure passions and delusions, and respect each other’s warped worldview to such an extent said worldviews start to blur together. In addition to this, the story places an emphasis upon an entity known as the “ocellus,” which is basically the “false eye” you see on moth wings. In my outline so far, it’s the name of a mysterious band which the pair discover in a record collection, and resolve to solve the mystery of (regarding the members, music, etc.) One of the characters also sleeps with an eye mask with the pattern of moth wings and their respective ocelli overlaying their own eyes; their paranoid counterpart also sees eyes in the trees and wood of the cabin.

Absolutely none of this is set in stone; before it is, I just want to know how much of it is fine, which parts “moralize” or make a symbol of a disability, and what is straight-up ableist. Please let me know if you need more details.

Hi!

The prosthetic eye has two main functions: 1) to keep the eye area stay in shape, 2) to protect the socket. Both of these can be achieved by conformers (it's like a big contact, except it goes into the socket and not on the eye) which I talked about here!

A blank prosthetic eye would probably be fine. The process of getting it custom painted is expensive from what I know, and IRL a lot of people will decide on the generic kind rather than a custom. If in your world the generic happens to be a blank, there's no problems I can think of? Potentially, you could explicitly say that it's not how most prosthetic eyes look like (maybe someone else knows a person with an eye prosthetic and they comment that it's unusual?). You mentioned that the character doesn't have it in all the time, so I don't think the trope of "blind character has blank/white/milky eyes" applies here because it's clear that it's a prosthetic.

A person could decide to go bare, but the sensation of blinking could be uncomfortable, and they would need to clean their socket more to get rid of anything that could get inside. Normal saline could be used for that.

I don't think there's an issue in them missing different eyes at all. If you want to make sure it's not giving "Just Magic Symbolism" energy then you could incorporate some boring everyday things that would make sense. If they go somewhere together, they could decide to walk missing eye-to-missing eye, so that they see what's going on the sides rather than in the middle, things like that. It could make it feel more grounded, so to speak.

I don't see any issues with the moth fake-eyes symbolism either, I think it makes sense for the story you're trying to tell.

If you want to be very safe, I would have a character (can be minor, or background) that's also missing eye(s) that's not connected to any of the potential symbolism and is more of an average Joe of Not Having an Eye.

In case you decide to get into that, it would be nice for them to have different causes of why they don't have eyes. It feels like in fiction it's always physical trauma, but there's a whole more that could cause someone to not have an eye;

anophthalmia,

retinoblastoma,

severe eye infection,

elective enucleation (removal) of an already blind/painful eye,

just to give you a few ideas! Giving them "boring" everyday reasons of eye loss will also make it feel less symbolic and more like a regular disability. Think "dramatic swordfight with Huge Meaning" vs "yeah I had cancer in my eye when I was 2".

I hope that this helps; if you have any further details you'd like to ask about feel free to send another ask!

mod Sasza

#mod sasza #anonymous #face difference #prosthetics

[trimmedarmor]

doing the equivalent of gripping something intensely hard then forcing myself to let it go every time i see something about the stupid fandom drama i got pulled into earlier this year

#nothing bad ppl just... bringing up its existence...AGAIN...... #every time i see it i wanna go on a rant for a billion years but the worst place to do that would be on tumblr #I rly don't wanna see anyone talking abt it unless it's to criticize the ppl who started the false accusations or to apologize to us #for the harassment #Buster: You Really Think Someone Would Do That? Just Go On the Internet and Tell Lies? #anyway I cant believe ive had the misfortune of interacting w some1 who has to b vindictive toward others to quell their own insecurity #to accuse us of racism because he wasn't allowed to be in a personal friends discord group... #and then saying that we didn't wanna let him in bc he wasn't a 'popular' account? 1. he has way more followers than some ppl in the server #hence why he was able to get so many ppl to attack us #2. he can't keep his own story straight. First we're racist then we're ableist then we gatekeep popularity? #Dude... we don't like you because you're vindictive and take minor slights way too personally...hence...everything that fucking happened #anyway idk who reported him but i thank them for it and i hope that was worth their account getting suspended for getting paid to harass us #to anyone outside of all this reading this mess... please question the validity of ppls accounts if they don't offer concrete proof #and the only proof is based on assuming that certain actions COULD POSSIBLY line up to the accusations #this includes if multiple people have the same accusation without proof because that's EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED #except it was dumber because several of their accusations literally contradicted themselves #wowww people apologized and informed their audience about possible microagressions once they were informed. they MUST be racist! #and if you don't want to dig into it that deep..then by all means mind your own damn business before you join in on someone else's witchhun

[sweetandsavageautistic]

(CW: Cringe, Autism Parents stuff, drunk mention, infantilization)

So I don't have a degree in Graphic Design, but I do have a sense of general aesthetic. I figured that it's April. Let's rate, and potentially verbally tear apart and drag through the mud, some autism shirts and graphic designs, and I'll probably do a part 2, these scores are only semi-arbitrary: First up is this:

Already off the top, I am confusion because it seems to read "I wear puzzle cousin autism awareness". Sounds like whoever made this was drunk.

Puzzle pieces, ew.

The red, yellow, green, and blue look like the shades you'd see in elementary school, so that seems pretty infantilizing.

Autism Awareness, I am very much aware of my existence.

Final Score: 0 out of 10. Designer, go home; you're drunk.

Next we have this:

This one already has a slight advantage over the first because it's at least coherent in terms of the message.

Elementary school colors, but make it extra tacky.

Puzzle pieces; don't try to bullshit me by putting the autism awareness banner over it, I can see the other indents that make them puzzle pieces.

Once again, I am well aware of my own existence.

At least it's a smaller design.

Final Score: 0.5 out of 10, and that's being generous.

Next one's not a shirt, but it still counts:

No blue so thank God for that.

This is up to personal preference, but to me, the person-first language is giving "I need to be reminded that someone is a person."

Puzzle pieces. Ew. Don't BS me, I can see them.

Walk down Autism Lane. (it's right below the word LOVE) Sorry, but we don't allow ableists on Autism Lane; you need to be a premium member and to be a premium member, you need to not be a dick.

The pumpkin disturbs me for some reason, and not in the Halloween way; I mean, it just straight-up disturbs me.

Final Score: 0.5 out of 10. Bury it in a shallow grave.

Just found this one:

It's easy on the eyes at least.

No tacky elementary school colors.

No puzzle pieces.

The bunny's cute, but this also seems very infantilizing.

Person first language is a no for me.

Why are all of the is lowercase, but the others are uppercase?

Final Score: 5 out of 10. Not great, but not terrible.

Here we have simple:

Elementary school colors, but credit where credit's due; it's not terrible on the eyes.

Why is blessed on there three times?

One big-ass puzzle piece.

"Autism blesses" Yes, because being bullied by my peers, being indirectly told who I am is wrong, having the worst time making friends, always feeling like I'm never truly part of a friend group, being confused when some adults got mad at me, not having anyone to play with at 4 years old is an absolute fucking blessing. /s And that's the tip of the iceberg.

"Fun", "Sweet", "Cute".....it's the infantilization for me.

Final Score: 3 out of 10. No further elaboration.

Then there's this monstrosity:

I call this color Patronizing Paraprofessional Blue, aka the tackiest shade of blue ever.

It looks like something one of those older white suburban millennial moms would wear. Like something a Karen would wear to one of those autism walks or one of those social skills teachers who talk in that slowed-down patronizing kindergarten teacher tone with that fake-ass smile, no matter how old you are. You know the one I'm talking about, right? Yeah, they'd wear this.

Puzzle piece. Light It Up Blue. Ew.

We all know what organization this supports.

Final Score: -10 out of 10. Burn it.

Let's get in a good one to counter that abomination of a shirt and end part one on a higher note:

Nice simple design with a black background.

No tacky elementary school colors.

Identity-first language.

Really counters the....what the fuck would it be called? The UwU autism parent thing? ("I am his voice, he is my heart," "See the able, not the label," etc,.) It counters that.

The light sparkle around "a bitch" is chef's kiss.

Final Score: 11 out of 10. Perfection.

#autism awareness #autism acceptance #autism #autistic #actually autistic #actuallyautistic #sweet and savage autistic

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

a certain type of (typically white lower support needs speaking) autistic people: autism is not a disorder because there’s nothing wrong with me and a disorder implies there’s something wrong with me that needs to be cured😫😫people treat me bad because they see it as a disorder instead of the correct thing of difference or a neurotype!!!

half of this type of people: autism is not a disability because there’s nothing wrong with autism i’m not disabled i can do everything just like a nondisabled person and disability is Bad and i’m not bad

(which. disability is not a bad word and all but i at least applaud you for the consistency??)

other half of this group, somehow: autism is a disability because autism is disabling and there’s nothing wrong with disability! disability isn’t inherently bad it’s how society treat us that disables us!!! —but autism is still not a disorder! it’s not a disorder it’s a disability and a neurotype!

(disability isn’t bad but this group also perpetuated a lot of misinformation about the social model. i only have to fight them on one subject (autism as disorder) instead of two (autism as disability and disorder) but somehow this group is even more frustrating to deal with because the sheer cognitive dissonance is going to explode my brains. like so you can separate disability from societal ableism but you can’t separate disorder from societal ableism???)

bonus. all of them: *will come onto the post of a higher support needs autistic person talking about why autism is a disability AND a disorder and half complain half dissecting why some (lower support needs) autistic people are so fucking keen on speaking over higher support needs autistic experience. and then have the fucking audacity to say “well i don’t think autism is a disorder because” and then performatively say “if i misunderstand you’re welcome to educate me” as if the entire fucking original post isn’t an education and as if i owe explaining my entire experience to you*

for the record and for the last fucking time (narrator: it would not be the last time). disorder is not a bad word it’s not an inherently wrong thing it’s not a bad thing and if you think it is please for the love of god work on your internalized ableism instead of externalizing it to a more marginalized person. yes the construction of disorders especially in the realm of psychiatry is shit and a mess but that doesn’t mean what you think it means please. a disability a disorder an impairment is limiting by definition it’s a fact it can be neutral it doesn’t have to inherently mean the societal stigma associated with it is true. a disorder and how society and ableist people treat that disorder is heavily intertwined but the second is not inherent to the first.

if you don’t see your autism as a disorder i’m not going to argue over your own experience but stop fucking implying or straight up saying all autism is not a disorder. stop trying to erase the disorder part of autism spectrum disorder. please get out of your tunnel vision and actually shut up and listen to higher support needs / nonspeaking autistics for once in your life without adding any of your comments please.

disability is not an inherently bad thing. disorder is not an inherently bad thing. impairment is not an inherently bad thing.

#actually autistic #actuallyautistic #autism #autistic #high support needs #medium support needs #low support needs #anger tw #swearing tw #loaf screm #jesus christ you all test my very thin patience

[morganbritton132]

Does Diane’s daughter finding out about the death threats change her views on Steve?

She is not going to stop being petty, okay?

Annoying her uptight neighbors is the only entertaining thing that she can do in the suburbs and if her mother is going to insist that she lives at home throughout college, this is the price they all have to pay. Sorry. She does not make the rules.

Though, April does feel bad for Steve because for as uptight and type-A as he is and as much as he got her in trouble that one time, he doesn’t deserve something like this. Like, yeah sure, does the guy deserve to be annoyed by her mother? Definitely. Does he deserve death threats? No.

She sees him sometimes in the morning when she has to working an opening shift at her job and he always looks stressed out nowadays. She’s pretty sure she witnessed him having an absence seizure once but by the time she went back inside to get her mom and Diane made herself presentable, he was already gone.

She felt kinda bad about not telling his husband about it.

April doesn’t actually have any intention of telling her mom about Eddie’s TikTok talking about the death threat letters because she knows the story of Diane’s sorority sister and doesn’t want to upset her. Then one day, her mom makes a comment about Steve needing to relax and April asks, “What does that mean?”

“Oh, goodness me, you did not hear it from me,” She says and leans in like she does when she’s gossiping. “Well, you know you can see straight into their house from the window upstairs? I was up there putting laundry away and I noticed that boy was in bed.”

“You can see into their bedroom?” She asked, mortified. Gross.

“And that husband, bless his heart, nowhere to be seen,” She continues. “I was walkin’ past their place the other day on my afternoon stroll and you could hear those two yellin’ at each other and then not an Eddie in that beddie since, sweetie. I think there’s trouble in paradise for those two.”

Diane stops and then says to herself, “I should make them a pie.”

“Don’t do that,” April says and then just tells her mom. She tells her about the death threats and how it’s pretty heavily implied that Eddie didn’t know about them for a while. “I don’t think a pie is going to fix it.”

It’s pretty obvious from the things Steve has said about her mother on Eddie’s TikToks that he thinks she’s ableist and he’s not wrong. Diane thinks before she speaks. She doesn’t mean anything by it but just because you’re not aware of the harmful connotations of your words, doesn’t mean that they’re not still hurting somebody.

April does think that Steve needs to talk to somebody and the lack of cars cluttering up their driveway and the arguing that you can sometimes hear from their house, it doesn’t seem like he is talking to anybody.

Diane’s not perfect but she has experience in how this type of thing effects you so April thinks that she might be able to do some good. She starts talking to her about what she says and how it might be interpreted, and she encourages her mother to put more effort into the neighborhood watch when she brings it up.

She thinks maybe both of them can find some comfort in it.

#April: don’t send Eddie Munson’s husband death threats what’s wrong with you? send him glitter instead. #eddie munson tiktok saga #steve harrington #eddie munson

[tittyinfinity]

Stop treating disabled people like we don't know what we're doing.

Stop treating disabled people like it's our fault we're disabled because you think we "haven't tried anything."

Believe disabled people when we tell you we've tried something and it didn't work.

Stop giving us unsolicited advice in the first place. It's rude as fuck to assume that we haven't tried the most basic solutions, like physical therapy and heating pads.

Stop assuming how we feel based off of how we look. We are not exaggerating our symptoms when we show them. We are not faking our symptoms when we mask them.

No one goes out of their way for years straight to see multiple doctors and somehow scam them into believing they have fake health issues so that we can "give up on life" and be constantly broke.

(I want to preface this next paragraph to say that I know that some statements aren't about disabled people and are said to help others – but the wording of certain things hurts disabled people whether you like it or not – because people don't believe us when we say we're disabled and they think we are helpless addicts)

Stop treating us like we're "victims" that "need help" if we don't want to give up our means to function. Someone taking pain medication daily or smoking weed daily so that they can function is not a sign that they need help getting off of the drugs. And drugs don't affect everyone the same way! Just because a drug fucks YOU up doesn't mean that we're constantly fucked up all the time.

There are some forms of pain and symptoms that can literally only be treated with drugs and you're gonna have to get over it.

Not being able to take a tolerance break isn't a sign that the medication is ruining our lives, either. Even if we are addicted to our medication. NOT BEING IN EXCRUCIATING PAIN IS ADDICTING AND QUITE FRANKLY, EVERYONE IS ADDICTED TO NOT BEING IN PAIN. THAT'S WHY YOU KEEP TYLENOL AND IBUPROFEN IN YOUR HOUSE. We just happen to have pain that can not be cured by regular means. It is safer to take a couple of pain pills a day than it is to be taking the max dose of tylenol and ibuprofen all day – which DOES NOT EVEN TOUCH OUR PAIN.

This is not to invalidate the fact that you can get addicted to drugs for any reason. But again, anything you say about addiction does affect disabled people. And yes, other disabled people can very much spread ableist ideas.

My final point (for now) –

Just fucking listen to us.

#.bdo #pls reblog this #disability #chronic pain #this is not to say the op of the addiction post is wrong #but the wording of it saying ''you need to seek out help'' if you cant take a tolerance break #IS EXACTLY WHAT DISABLED PEOPLE ON PAIN MEDICATION ARE TOLD CONSTANTLY #so please don't say that shit

[confessmau]

Did we all forget Zane also made fun of laurance

see i hear you but the arguement is less about whether it was wrong for laur to make fun of zane in general and more about whether or not its acceptable for laurance to call zane names based on zane's bad eye.

for context, zane's mean nicknnames for laurance are "little laurance", which is a great use of alliteration and so vague i geniunely cant tell if its intended to be a short joke, a small dick joke, or just generally condescending, and "stupid laurance", which is just straight childish. its not nice but its not like he's calling him laurphan or some other personal attack that would justify laurance's behavior.

also important to note that laurance is the ONLY character who intentionally makes fun of zane's eye. it's established pretty early on (iirc same batch of pixel painters that laur started the one eye thing in) that other characters who regularly tease zane (ex. garroth and aph) are aware that it's a senstive subject and get all apologetic when they do it accidentally. even gene, who picks fights with zane like it's a sport, never brings up his bad eye. it's basically the only line people won't cross when they're clowning on zane.

there are so, so many valid reasons to bully zane that laurance could base his nicknames on, we doesn't have to chose the blatantly ableist one

#also its just lazy #you can tell seb looked at zane's skin one time and never picked a new insult #bro is pushing 30 and still emo #he is canonically a brony and talks like he's larping constantly #mans has the social skills of a mildly constipated ferret #aphmau #aphblr #confessions #mystreet #aphmau zane #zane ro'meave #aphmau laurance #laurance zvahl #lesbians against laurance zvhal #aphverse #confessmau

[neuroticboyfriend]

okay. i finally found something on parents love bombing that is not ableist against cluster B's or encouraging parents to love bomb. it's in the form of a comment on this reddit post from 6 years ago. here's the comment, from u/Glaucus92:

Lovebombing is part of the cycle of abuse. The cycle you'll usually find is this one:

Calm -> Tension building -> Incident -> Reconcilliation -> Calm

Lovebombing is part of the "Reconcilliation" part. After an incident, a victim will usually try to confront, give consequences to, or withdraw form the abuser. In order to keep the victim close, to keep power over them, an abuser may lovebomb their victim. It is not linked to a specifc role in an abisive dynamic. It is a technique used by abuser as a reaction to 'losing' a victim.

The abuser will (attempt to) be the person you always wanted them to be. That can be the parent that listens to you when you talk about your interest. It can be that they tell you how proud they are of you, how they've always been proud, etc. It can be that they buy you gifts or give you money. This behaviour isn't exclusive to abusive parents either; think of how an abusive spouse might organize a wonderful date or get an expensive gift for their victims.

The goal of the lovebombing is to give you a little taste of what you usually never get from them, be it attention, financial aid, praise, compliments, whatever. By giving you that tiny bit, they are basically pretending that they can be this nice, loving parent. The underlying unspoken message of course being that things could be like this, if only you tried harder, or weren't like x, or were more like y. Because without the realization that they are abusive, it doesn't make sense for them to purposefully hurt you and then be really nice to you.

Lovebombing insipres false hope that if only you could be better, the abuser wouldn't be abusive. It also helps wiht the gaslighting; when they do all these nice things for you in that moment, you might think that you over-exagerated the previous abuse. It's usually only when you look back and realise that all these 'nice' things only happened when you were upset with them or withdrew from them.

Since you asked for examples:

A parent who is usually very disinterested in your life suddenly makes a lot of effort to discuss you hobbies with you.

A parent might start to give you a lot of compliments all of a sudden, or tell stories about how they've told others about how amazing you are.

Parents might give you gifts for no reason. Stating that they just wanted to be nice, or just thought of you when they saw it.

They might start calling or visiting a lot, especially when they previously didn't. Saying things about how much they miss you.

Trying to harken back to 'the good old days'. Sending you pictures of happy childhood memories or recounting old stories.

It might be straight up bribery. A conflict happens, and after the intial blow up you are given cash/money to buy something nice or becasue they ust want to help.

A parent might try to smooth things over by taking you to a place or on a trip you wanted to go to.

I know some of these might sound like perfectly normal things, and they would be coming from non-abusive people. It becomes an abusive tactic when it happens more often than not (or in greater intesity) after a conflict has occured. It also almost always happens in lieu of an actual apology. By lovebombing instead of apologizing, the abuser doesn't have to take responisbility for their action. The unspoken agreement that governs this is that by accepting the gift/loveboming, the victim doesn't hold the abuser accountable.

#softspoonie #abusive parents #abusive parent #abusive father #abuse #emotional abuse #love bombing #lovebombing #abuse survivor #cycle of abuse #verbal abuse #psychological abuse #gaslighting #manipulation #mental health #trauma #trauma survivor #trauma survival #abuse survival #abusive relationship #abusive #abusiveness #mental abuse #trauma awareness #mental health awareness

[will80sbyers]

- People shouldn't label others as pedophiles/creeps only for seeing visual sexual metaphors in a TV show

- Adults should be aware of how they talk about the sexuality of young people and do it in a respectful way

- When minors are not comfortable with discussing sexuality with adults online, these ADULTS should accept this without making a fuss or making the minors feel like they are weird for not feeling comfortable

- It is not okay to assume someone is headcanoning a character as ace or demi only because they are ableist

- Headcanons are often all about wanting to feel represented by a character you like

- Thinking ace people are "pure" is a stereotype not based in reality

- Many people headcanon Will & Mike as ace, and El constantly jumps from headcanon to headcanon on the whole spectrum while being a character with a disability too

- Dustin is established as straight in canon for now, but people can still headcanon him as ace/demi or what they want without it meaning they think disabled people shouldn't have sex

- Will is gay in canon, but people can still headcanon him as demi and ace if they want to because it's only confirmed that he doesn't like girls and he loves Mike, the specifics have not been determined

- Thinking Will is ace doesn't mean thinking or saying that he's "pure"

- It is a big jump to conclude that those with that headcanon for him think ace and demi people never have sex/sexual thoughts or feelings etc... as it is not the case in real life and being ace is on a spectrum and how you approach that is up to the person that makes choices for themselves

- Things are not just black or white, there's a whole freaking rainbow (and they want representation too)

- Sending anonymous asks harassing others for some headcanons makes you the asshole, we should be here to have fun together

#byler #stranger things #dustin henderson #will byers #mike wheeler #el hopper byers

[swallowtail-ageha]

Scrolling through your asoiaf tag and you have such good and correct opinions like how can anyone love just Dany or just Sansa or just Arya like how can anyone not see the parallels between Dany and Sansa it makes me feel so crazy like why are there so few people who love all the girlies?? I genuinely love every single female POV character and can’t imagine hating any of them. I mean sure yeah Cersei is a villain but you’re telling me her tragedy doesn’t touch your heart? Watching this woman desperately try to avoid her prophecy as it unfolds before you doesn’t have you in a death grip? Or like are you unmoved by Sansa telling an annoying snotty little boy how brave he is because she wants him to feel better? Dany comforting Missandei when her brother dies? Arya getting to the house of the black and white and immediately thinning to being a man a cup of water (or at least what she thought was water)? How about Sansa telling Joffrey she hopes Robb cuts his head off? Dany sassing the man who wants to open the fighting pits? Arya telling Jaquen to kill himself? Like please come on. All three girls are obviously different but they share so many very endearing traits. I am fiercely holding tight to my delusion that Dany and Sansa will bond over stories and songs and Arya will teach Dany about all the flowers in Westeros and then Sansa will show them how to make flower crowns and embroider little emblems on Arya’s clothes

First of all tysm!!!!

The whole arya vs sansa vs dany fandom fight frustrates me to no end, mainly because all parties involved seem to have little to no empathy to the characters whose stans they oppose. It's all maliciously extrapolating some parts of the text to make them see worse than what they are (ex: daenerys' "if i look back i am lost" getting twisted from "dany knows that dwelling on what ifs and turning your back after you have taken a commitment will only damage you in the long term" in "dany doesn't want to reflect on her past mistakes and will go mad and get stabbed to death" or sansa getting frustrated at sweetrobin being a sign of her being ableist and classist while it's. Just a normal reaction of a stressed and traumatized 13 yo who is otherwise very sweet to her cousin)

For loving the female characters same! Even those who commit outwardly villainous acts do get lots of humanizing moments, Cersei, as awful as she is, is simply a product of the hyper misogynistic society she lives in plus years of parental and spousal abuse (and the doomed by prophecy vibes) and. I genuinely don't get how people can look at the walk of shame and say it's a fitting punishment to her crimes

Overall all the hate for female characters that are more complex or more driven or more morally ambiguous than what most female characters are presented as in other media in a fandom who (supposedly) prides itself in liking morally ambiguous characters is.. frustrating, really. I blame both fandom misogyny but also the GoT series, as it's outright changes in female character's actions and stories to make them look better or worse than what they originally were skewered the visions of almost everyone in the fandom (arya is an egregious victim of this. Scenes such as her caring for Weasel or her befriending sex workers in braavos don't exist and they added that "all girls are idiot" scene that i hate and they removed all her plan to free the northmen from harrenal and she got turned from traumatized child to hashtag no one super cool assassin and her character got straight up murdered in the tv series.)

Oh and also for kickstarting the whole jonsa vs jonerys thing which i'm pretty sure is the origin of the stupid dany vs sansa wars

And yes!! Dany Sansa and Arya should get to meet and reunite! While i do think that there will be some slight tensions between Sansa and Arya because they left on Not So Well terms, they have also matured a lot, so i do think they would have an heartfelt reunion. Meanwhile Dany and Arya could bond because of both their connection to Braavos and Arya's admiration for those who free slaves, and Dany would empathize (and feel a common ground) with Sansa for her being a child who had all her family die and got married extremely young while beeing creeped on by older men, while Sansa, who is shown to admire women like Margaery or Myranda, who are shown to be very keen regarding politics or social issues, something that Dany is

In the end, i genuinely hope that all three of these traumatized little girls get their happy ending and none of them dies, they all are interesting and complex characters that share parallels with each other, and it sucks that because of stupid ship wars or discussions on who would get the throne they get pitted against each other. THEY WOULD BE FRIENDS Y'ALL

#anyways i am holding onto the hope that ADoS ends with dany legalizing gay marriage and marrying sansa #sorry if it gets super rambly and incoherent anon because i always tend to do this when i get an ask #i just want to tell you that your ask made my day and it was all on point!!!! i hope you have a nice week month year life #asoiaf

[olderthannetfic]

I think most people are honestly reasonable, but I really need fake woke people of any creed to stop conflating everything with their attempt at acting all virtuous. Because I've been seeing more and more of them, calling themselves woke, but only so they can act like they're saviors of the people, and laud themselves as caring and seeking justice.

Everyone has flaws, nothing is black and white. Majorities and minorities can be wrong, right, or somewhere in between. The world doesn't end in at the Western border.

A black person being homophobic isn't suddenly less offensive and homophobic than when a white person is homophobic. A straight person being racist isn't worse than a gay person being racist.

Yeah some of these groups are more privileged, but the perpetuation of negative behaviour in any capacity can not be excused.

Everyone has flaws, everyone can do dumb shit. Reflecting on our, their, whoever's actions is human. We need to do better, not try and reject human growth and understanding, by deflecting away criticisms of harmful actions because the person is less privileged.

We need to keep these logistics tight, and you can't pretend to be woke, but then also erase people's responsibility when they fuck up. Just as we need to call out the system, and the majority, and people with privilege when they do something bad, we need to not loosen the threads or even completely cut them when it comes to marginalized people.

If a black person uses a slur against Asians, you do not get to pretend it isn't bad because black people are oppressed. Or vice versa. If someone uses a slur that isn't theirs to reclaim, we call them out, no matter who they are. Everyone needs to learn, not think that being oppressed means you can do no wrong.

We also need fake woke people to stop excusing people attacking people of their own demographic. No, it's not okay for a gay person to use gay slurs against another gay. No a brown person randomly calling another brown person a slur isn't ok either.

An Asian man insulting an Asian woman for not rejecting him, and then insulting her as not being a good Asian* isn't just sexist it's also racist. A bisexual person calling another bisexual a deranged unfaithful cheating whore isn't just sexist and ableist, it's also biphobic. We can't just excuse it as "internalized" at all either, some times it's not internalized, some times the person is just a bigot. Internalized is in some cases used to almost erase the personal fault of the person's actions, but it should never be used as a be-all end-all excuse for bigotry.

To be woke doesn't mean you get to selectively sleep on select people perpetuating harmful behaviours and beliefs, just because they're less privileged. To be woke means you stand in defiance to injustice and make a stance to make the world better and see the injustices done.

--

Hypocrites are rarely aware that they are one.

[qprstobin]

home back to you - pt. 2

The long awaited part 2 of the Stomarol post-s2 fic! Tommy has an anxiety spiral and then is foiled by Steve's tiny bodyguards.

Pt. 1 | Ao3 Link

Minor TW: some ableist language, Carol and Tommy continue to be bitter towards Nancy and Jonathan, and basically the entire first part involves Tommy fighting off an anxiety attack.

For a moment, Tommy was so dizzy that he thought he might pass out.

This was his fault.

Tommy did this.

He’s the reason his ex best friend, the guy he- the guy who has- he’s the reason Steve was this banged up. The reason their season was likely ruined. The reason Steve missed school for a week.

He had just wanted Steve to look at him again.

Tommy waited until Steve was out of sight before blearily making his way towards the parking lot. The school was quiet, most of the clubs having been over and done with for the day by now. The only sounds were coming from the janitor a hallway over, the newspaper room, and his own heavy footfalls.

His mind was racing so fast that he was having trouble actually thinking. He tripped over the lip of the door leading outside and sighed gratefully as a burst of cold air hit him.

Carol was leaning against the side of his beat up pickup truck, inspecting her nails. The smack of her gum was audible even across the empty parking lot. Tommy could barely hear it over the ringing in his ears. When she saw him heading her way, a mean grin lit up on her face.

Normally, the look would get his heart pumping, but right now his heart was stuck in his throat.

“You’ll never guess who I just saw drive off together,” she said, glee and something like distaste at war on her face. Her chest was heaving, and Tommy let himself be distracted by her – everything for a moment, watching the rise and fall of the Hawkins H on her cheer uniform.

When he didn’t immediately say anything in response, she seemed to realize that something was wrong.

“Babe, are you okay?”

The concern leaking into her voice made Tommy feel hot. Anger started to drown out the panic coursing through his body.

Instead of answering her question, he snapped at her. 

“Get in the car.” He wanted to get out of this godforsaken parking lot in front of this godforsaken school in this godforsaken town. “We can talk about it at yours.”

Carol stared at him, affronted. That was good – anything was better than the concern that made his skin itch . (Or, that’s what he told himself, at least.)

She glared at him for another moment before he finally snapped – “Get in the car!”

She made an offended noise high in her throat, but got in the car.

Tommy got in as well, slamming the door shut behind him in a way that had less to do with anger and more to do with the lock sticking.

They didn’t speak as he pulled out of the parking lot. He stared straight ahead, his knuckles white against the steering wheel. The silence was stifling, taking up more space than it should in the cab of his truck. 

Finally, Carol couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, but it does NOT give you the right to talk to me like that,” she told him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that she had crossed her arms and was glaring at him. A typical angry Carol pose. 

Tommy forced himself to breathe, trying to release the anger and anxiety out of him in one long exhale. It kind of worked.

“You’re right,” he said, flexing his fingers against the wheel and shooting her a (hopefully) suitingly regretful look. “I’m sorry.”

Carol sniffed but settled more comfortably into her seat.

“Apology accepted.”

Silence fell over them again, but it was much warmer this time. She put her hand on his knee, and it was the most grounded that he felt all day.

“What was it you wanted to tell me earlier?” he asked eventually, as they got closer to her house. He was hoping to put off the inevitable meltdown he was going to have, wanting the easy distraction of high school gossip. She loved sharing gossip with him.

(Even if he wasn’t as good at dishing as Steve had been.)

( don’t think about Steve yet, don’t do it- )

But then she hesitated.

“I-” she started, surprising him. “Maybe it should wait.”

Tommy’s stomach cramped. She was still mad at him.

God, he just kept fucking shit up. Could he do just one thing right, and not take out his issues on his girlfriend?

“I said I was sorry, Carrie,” he pleaded, trying to keep his focus on not crashing instead of the pit opening up in his stomach.

“No, no, it’s not that. I know you’re sorry,” she said, trying to head off a more intense apology. He couldn’t see it but he could certainly hear the eye roll she just gave. “I just have a feeling that what I saw might be related.”

That-

That wasn’t much better.

“Let’s wait – like you said. We’re almost there.”

Tommy tightened his hands once more on the steering wheel. He didn’t really remember the rest of the short drive, arriving there on autopilot. His face felt like it was vibrating, pins and needles prickling along his jawline.

His ears were ringing again by the time he parked and made it into Carol’s house. Both her parents were out again – her father at some sort of meeting while her mother was at work. It really was crazy how many people he knew who had parents that were just never fucking there-

“Babe – Babe!” 

His spiral was shattered by Carol’s hand on his face.

“Deep breaths,” she told him and he complied without protest. “Now drink this, and tell me what happened.”

A glass of water was shoved into his hand, which he drank dutifully in one long gulp. He accidentally slammed the empty glass down on the island when he was done, making himself wince. 

“Steve’s back in school,” he started, flexing his hands against the edge of the counter. “You saw him earlier, yeah?” Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure the two had a morning class together.

“Yeah, I saw him this morning,” she replied casually as she popped a new stick of gum in her mouth. Tommy would’ve gotten annoyed if he didn’t know it was a nervous tick of her own. “Saw him after practice, too. Jonathan Byers was driving him home.”

That stopped him up short.

“Creepy Byers?” he exclaimed in shock. Some part of him registered that this is what she wouldn’t tell him in the car, what had gotten her so worked up after practice.

“Creepy fucking Byers,” she repeated, popping her gum for emphasis. “Like, bad enough they eat lunch together when he’s not hiding in the dark room, but now he’s giving him rides? What’s up with that? Especially since I definitely saw him kissing Princess Wheeler in the hallway on Friday.”

“Ugh, gross .”

“Right?!” 

The two fell into a mutually put off silence. Carol had refilled his glass, and he was starting to feel more and more like a real person with every swallow.

“Is it true? Billy did that?” she asked finally.

Tommy’s breath stuttered. She didn’t have to clarify what ‘that’ was. He couldn’t speak, could only nod.

“Fuck,” she said under her breath, then louder, “Fuck! What a fucking psycho! Steve looks even worse than he did after Byers kicked his ass, and that creep beat his face into the pavement!”

His stomach cramped again and his hands were threatening to start shaking again. She kept talking, too caught up in her anger to realize that he was no longer following along.

“Like? Who does something like that? Why would he do something like that? Was Steve too pretty for him or something-” 

“It was my fault,” he said, cutting her off. He’d feel bad about it if he wasn’t two steps away from losing his absolute shit.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked incredulously. She popped her gum aggressively.

“It’s my fault,” he repeated, pressing his hands into his eyes. “I wanted this. I asked for this.”

“You wanted Billy to beat the shit out of Steve,” Carol said more than asked, though the question was still clear in her voice. He could picture the skeptical tilt of her brow perfectly.

“Yes! No! Of course not! I just-” he wasn’t sure how to put it into words without ripping himself open. “I thought – well, I guess I thought that if someone actually challenged Steve’s… throne or whatever, maybe he’d…. It’s stupid.”

“What’s stupid?”

“I just…”

“Yes?”

“I wanted him to look at me again.”

She made a noise of understanding, and he could hear her nails tapping against the counter in thought.

“Set someone up to challenge his throne, make him realize that he’s losing his precious social capital, and hopefully make him remember who his real friends are,” she mused aloud, making his poor jumble of half formed thoughts sound like an actual sensible plan. “That was actually not a bad plan, babe.” She popped her gum, sounding unbothered in a way that made him bristle.

“Well, look how it turned out! Our season is fucked, Billy has lost his fucking mind, Steve got his face beat in worse than even what Byers did, and Steve is never going to want to talk to me again, because it’s all my fucking fault!”

Carol didn’t respond immediately. He didn’t exactly take this as confirmation that he was the worst person on the face of the earth, but it definitely didn’t help stop the stinging in his eyes.

Before he could spiral too hard, however, she was prying his hands from his face. Lights popped in front of his eyes, and he had to blink them away in order to see how pissed her expression was.

“Don’t be stupid,” she told him once he stopped blinking. “Billy does what Billy wants. Sure, maybe you made a bad choice in friends but we were all blinded by his mullet and abs, not just you.” He made a noise in protest at that, blushing furiously. “You didn’t tell him to go fight Steve, did you?”

Tommy couldn’t do anything but shake his head in response, shocked at how fast the anger had returned to her.

“Exactly! No matter what your intentions were, this isn’t your fault. We don’t even know why they fought in the first place, and neither of them seem to be fessing up.”

This last bit really seemed to piss her off. Which didn’t surprise Tommy at all – Carol hated not knowing something. She thrived on a certain cultivation of information, she had to know everything about everyone in order to stay anywhere near the top.

Her and Steve had an absolutely insane ‘network of informants’ before Steve had stopped talking to them.

Tommy knew he wasn’t the only one who missed Steve like a phantom limb.

She slammed her hand down on the counter suddenly, breaking him from his thoughts. 

“Get that look off your face, you look like you’ve been listening to too much of Steve’s sad British music,” she said. He sputtered at that, but didn’t get a chance to respond. “Listen, you feel that bad about Billy going psycho? Then do something about it! Do something to fix it! Apologize! Take some responsibility instead of moping like a little baby.”

He blinked at her in shock for a second, and couldn’t help the way his lips twitched. 

“Wow, thanks for the advice, Dr. Perkins,” he said. He couldn’t keep the grin from his face as her mouth twisted into a scowl. “Got any more for me? Some sort of plan? Steve didn't seem eager to talk to me today.” He tried not to show how much that fact hurt.

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” she snapped, crossing her arms with a huff. Then she popped her gum as a thoughtful look crept onto her face. “Well, I do have a few ideas…”

–

Tommy felt good having a plan of attack. Not only had seeing Steve left him feeling extremely unsteady, but it also excited him knowing that finally, finally, he was going to be getting his best friend back.

All he had to do was wait for the right time.

It should’ve been easy.

Steve was still benched and so only came to every other practice for morale’s sake. Also, so he could chat strategy with his co-captain and the coach. They didn’t share any classes together this semester, and only shared one of their lunch periods. Which, he never ate in the cafeteria anymore anyway. 

Tommy and Carol agreed that Steve needed some time to heal, and they needed some time to start putting distance between them and Billy. Vicki might still be infatuated with the man, but they weren’t the only ones becoming wary of him.

In the end, Tommy only lasted about a week and half.

It was one of Steve’s off days (by request) and so he should’ve been home by now.

But his car was still in the parking lot. Steve was still in the parking lot.

The bruises were starting to fade, turning his face a sick green color. His now customary sunglasses were perched on his nose, making him look like a douchebag. (Tommy hated how good they looked on him.) A cigarette dangled from bitten down lips.

Tommy tore his eyes away from Steve’s mouth.

He started heading towards him without a thought, wanting nothing more than to apologize for all the shit he’s said behind his back the past year. For the hand he had in his fight with Billy. Wanted to tell him he wasn’t even mad that Steve called him an asshole and ditched him.

(Well, he was actually still a little pissed about that, but it didn’t even matter anymore.)

His mission was halted as a skateboard slid in front of him. 

“Where the fuck-” he exclaimed, barely managing to keep from tripping over it and eating asphalt. When he righted himself again, he found he was surrounded by three middle schoolers all glaring at him.

He’s pretty sure he’s seen this movie before – something about Kids in a Cornfield?

Regardless, Tommy had seen these kids before, trailing behind Steve or Byers after school. Once or twice he had seen them at the arcade when he had been stopping by Family Video to drop off a tape. 

Normally though, there were five of them that he would see with Steve. He looked over to where the other teen was standing to see that his attention had been taken by the two missing kids, excitedly yelling about something or another.

“What do you want with Steve?” one boy asked. St. Clair, maybe?

Tommy sputtered, “What do you mean what do I want with him? I just want to talk to him!”

The only girl of the group stepped forward, her skateboard clenched under her arm like some sort of weapon. 

Which, considering she had just tried to kill him with it, it sort of was.

“Did Billy send you?” she asked.

That startled Tommy.

“Billy? Like Billy Hargrove?”

“Don’t play stupid – though I’m sure that’s hard for you,” she scoffed, which, rude , “I know you’re friends with him. I’ve seen you two together before. He’s also mentioned you a few times, though not as much as he complains about Steve.”

Billy’s little sister.

Billy had mentioned her before – normally when complaining about how watching her took up so much of his time. Not to mention how of a brat she apparently was. But Tommy had never actually met her before. He’d seen her hanging around Steve more than he’d ever seen her hang around Billy.

There was probably a reason for that.

“Billy didn’t send me. I’ve barely talked to him in almost two weeks,” he said, trying not to blink as he stared down Baby Hargrove. She bared her teeth at him and he flinched slightly. A pleased look came across her face. “Not since…” he trailed off.

It was obvious to all of them what it was that caused them to stop talking.

The three kids shared a quick, wordless conversation, communicating in a flurry of waggled eyebrows, hand gestures, and full body eye rolls. Tommy was reluctantly impressed. He wished he could do that with Carol or Steve, or even Nicole.

“Just because he isn’t talking to my douchebag brother anymore, doesn’t mean we should just let him do whatever he wants! It could be a long con!” Baby Hargrove said aloud, stomping her foot childishly and casting suspicious eyes back at him.

The first boy shushed her as they all sent wary glances back at Steve, but Steve was still enthralled by the excited story the two other kids were telling him. His cigarette was starting to go out, now clutched loosely between his fingers.

“I don’t think he’s smart enough for a long con,” the second boy, who couldn’t be anyone other than Nancy Wheeler’s bratty kid brother, said with a sneer.

“It doesn’t matter, we all agreed – until Steve is no longer concussed, we aren’t letting Hargrove or his friends mess with him,” St. Clair reminded them, his hands moving towards his hips in a parody of a move that Tommy had seen Steve do time and time again.

It would be kinda cute if he wasn’t actively keeping Tommy from talking to Steve.

“Remind me why we are letting him drive us around when his head is even emptier than normal?” Baby Wheeler scoffed.

Baby Hargrove perked up. “I could drive.”

“No!” Both boys whisper-yelled in response.

“You guys are such babies.”

The back and forth was starting to drive Tommy insane. (Though he had to agree with the boys – letting Baby Hargrove drive seemed like a bad idea. He’d seen the way Billy drove, after all.) He needed to talk to Steve now .

His eyes flickered back to Steve, wondering if he should make his move while his tiny bodyguards were distracted.

“Don’t even think about it, asshole,” Baby Wheeler sneered, seeing where his eyes went.

Tommy was starting to see why the kid got on Steve’s nerves so much when he first started dating Princess Wheeler. Hot and cold didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Tommy!” Carol had suddenly appeared behind him, making him jump. 

The kids hadn’t noticed her walking up either. Baby Wheeler hissed like a cat in surprise and Baby Hargrove had hoisted her skateboard up like a shield in front of her and St. Clair. 

Tommy turned automatically, like a moth to a flame, his eyes catching on a still distracted Steve before making eye contact with Carol.

Who was pissed.

Fuck.

“We had a deal,” she reminded him, crossing her arms with a huff. “We had a plan ”

He grimaced. “Sorry, babe.”

She pouted at him, but then looked over his shoulder to where Steve still was and sighed.

“Whatever, it’s fine. Not like you made much progress. Let’s just get out of here,” she said, popping her gum loudly. 

He wanted to protest – after all, Steve was right there , even if there were several children in the way – but she cut him off with a meaningful look. He wasn’t quite sure what she was getting at (this would be a great time for him to gain the type of mind reading skills the middle schoolers had shown earlier) but gave in.

Carol grabbed his hand and threaded her fingers through his, and he allowed himself to be tugged towards his car. There would be other opportunities to talk to Steve, he knew it.

He cast a glance over his shoulder at the kids – who were still giving him suspicious looks. St. Clair pointed at his eyes and then back at him in the universal ‘I’m watching you’ signal while Baby Hargrove tapped her shoes against the edge of her board menacingly.

Tommy tried to resist, he did, but couldn’t help looking over their heads at Steve. Who was finally looking back, noticing him for the first time. He’d pushed the sunglasses up onto his head, and was watching them walk away. There was a look on his face, one that Tommy couldn’t parse. It looked like annoyance and regret all rolled up into one. 

Whatever it was made him want to turn around right then, plans and appropriate settings be damned. Instead, he let himself continue to be pulled away by Carol, and raised his hand in an awkward wave that immediately left him embarrassed.

But then, miraculously, Steve waved back. 

#stomarol #stommy #st fic rec #stranger things #my writing #mean girls trio #mean girls trio au #tommy #steve #carol #the party #home back to you

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

Hi, so, I made a lil quiz on controversial opinions and one of them was that narc abuse isnt real and someone disagreed and gave a response that I thought was intriguing, however I am an egotypical so I figured I'd go to this blog to see your opinion on it?

The response was "Know a lot about this topic (got really deep into the NPD) and i gotta say it's fine to say narcissistic abuse. The whole pointttt is that we're all trying to help folks with NPD, narcissistic abuse is real and should be talked about but that doesn't make narcissists evil/unredeemable. Individuals w/ NPD greatly affect those around them, unlike stuff with most cases of like, existential OCD since that's most internalized rather than externalized. I don't have any issue with the term narcissistic abuse and y'know, it's like, not something you're gonna care about in 50 yrs."

i do not know a single person with NPD who felt at all "helped" by narc abuse truthers. no, 99% of narc abuse truthers are not "trying to help folks with NPD," i've never met or seen one who wasn't passively ableist at BEST. most narc abuse truthers are not trying to help, they are not trying to understand, they DO in fact think we're irredeemable and a good portion of them wish to actually wipe us off the fucking planet. multiple times i have seen narc abuse truthers just straight up spew eugenics. most narc abuse truthers don't even actually know what NPD is beyond abuser disorder.

it is true that people with NPD can affect the people around them, but that is not at all a trait unique to people with NPD. narc abuse as a term makes it sound like there is something uniquely abusive about people with NPD. all narc abuse describes is patterns of emotional and psychological abuse, nothing more and nothing less, and those patterns are not unique to us. i have been abused in ways that narc abuse describes by people did not have NPD. if you want a term that literally just means "abused by someone who had NPD," you would need to apply that same logic to every single disorder out there that could possibly have an externalized affect.

even if a term like "narc abuse" worked in theory, the communities that are fostered around it are horrendously and disgustingly ableist. it is the nature of a term like that. blaming the abuse you suffered from someone soley on their disorder not only takes responsibility off of them as a person, but also inherently subconsciously creates negative associations with that disorder and everyone else who has it.

i am going to get a bit vulnerable about something i'm not proud of. i have had a very similar mindset narc abuse truthers have about NPD but with bipolar disorder. i grew up knowing my extremely abusive father had bipolar disorder as he was diagnosed when he was younger. i blamed the majority of his actions on his disorder, it made me scared and paranoid of people who had the same disorder. i even had an old friend who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder while i knew him who explicitly told me he was afraid i'd start to hate him or be afraid of him. and a part of me was afraid of him for it. i was miserable and made other people around me miserable. i had to at some point confront the fact i could not blame his disorder for all his abusive actions, i had to make the disconnect, i could not hold innocent people with the same disorder responsible for what he did to me. it was not their fault, and they did not deserve to be held accountable by association of a disorder they did not ask to have.

i could not imagine how much worse it would have been if i had something like a "bipolar abuse" community. i maybe never would have undid my ableist views. these "[disorder] abuse" communities always inherently create an environment that is extremely negative and hostile towards people with said disorder. you can absolutely have conversations about how your abuser's mental illness and trauma affected the relationship you had with them, as mentioned before my father's untreated bipolar disorder absolutely heavily impacted our relationship even outside of his abusive behavior, but these kinds of communities are not the way to do it.

and actually, this is something i will still care about in 50 years if i have to, but hopefully i won't because hopefully it won't still be an issue in 50 years. though that may be wishful thinking.

#not culture #ableism tw

[yarameijer]

Hi, I've been reading accidental reversal and I really like your 'what if' scenarios with tenma and the gang, and I've had a fic idea I've been considering for a while that I'd appreciate your input on

I've really gotten attached to the idea of a Deaf Tenma, making the decision not to go to a Deaf School (The only Deaf school in Japan that I can find is Meisei Gakuen, which is located in tokyo, which is extremely close to if not the same city where Raimon is) so that he can play for the soccer team that inspired him, only to find the whole fifth sector mess going on.

naturally, he starts the whole revolution, because hes putting the quality of his education on the line to play for raimon, and he isn't about to let that sacrifice for nothing.

tsurugi notices straight away, and when he goes home he immediately starts learning JSL, because first of all he is Not ableist (for obvious reasons), and second is because if he's going to be monologuing at this kid, he's going to make sure he can be understood (he ends up being to go to interpreter when aoi/shinsuke isn't there)

shunsuke asks aoi to teach him and they bond

endou is surprisingly good at JSL when he picks it up (good with his hands + has a very expressive face), kidou, not so much (obscured face, not very expressive anyways)

due to the tension among the team in the first few games, it takes a good chunk of raimon an embarrassingly long time to realize that he isn't just wearing earbuds, and that he doesn't just have an odd accent, and that him looking directly at peoples mouths isn't just a quirk (shindou/kirino/sangoku being like 'How did you not realize? it's so obvious, we've just been learning independently')

also because I've noticed a trend in the show that these kids sure do like to monologue on the soccer field, and I think it's funny if they keep getting interrupted by a kid that just, does not seem to care (its difficult to lip read from a distance, they won't always be facing him, and it seems like a bad idea to wear hearing aids while playing a sport where kids can whip up fire tornadoes, because the average cost of a pair of hearing aids is approximately $4000, or ¥592,560)

anyways it's just an idea I've been considering

Whoa, I love that idea? It sounds so great! I’m a huge fan of rewriting the old story with just enough of a spin to give it a new flavor, and this one’s super interesting. Kinda reminds me of an idea I had at some point in which Tenma is mute and uses sign language. Also lmao Tenma pulling the revolution because ‘’I did NOT sacrifice my education just to get stuck with this crap’’ sounds like such a Tenma move, ngl.

Also yes, Raimon is located in Inazuma Town which is somewhere in Tokyo, it’s on the wiki if you want to check it out!

Okay so I’m not sure what exactly you wanted my input on, so I’m just gonna ramble! Feel free to send me another ask or comment if you wanted something more specific. Anyway, some things that immediately come to mind when I think about this:

1) One of the reasons Tsurugi takes his JSL lessons so seriously could be because Tenma reminds him of his brother. It’s not the same situation but in a way they’re both dealing with disabilities and Tsurugi has seen firsthand how hard it can be for Yuuichi, so he’s a bit softer towards Tenma because of that.

2) Depending on how much of a little shit you want Tenma to be: imagine him turning off his hearing aids at comedic moments, like when someone starts gushing about Fifth Sector’s goals. Tenma just nope’s straight out of that one. Or, although this might be a bit later when he’s more comfortable with the team, him turning off his hearing aids when someone starts scolding him. Absolute power move. They don’t even need to know he does it, maybe someone eventually finds out, cue comedic moment.

3) Since you mentioned accents… Tenma’s from Okinawa and as far as I could find, Okinawans have at least a bit of an accent. Deaf people are also known to learn how to speak by copying the lip movements of the people around them… so if Tenma grew up on Okinawa, it could be assumed he’s grown up speaking Okinawan Japanese and has the accent to match. I imagine non-deaf Tenma would have worked out most of his accent after he moved to Okinawa town so as to not stand out, but deaf Tenma would have had a harder time doing so/might not have even realized he had an accent in the first place. (There is a difference between Okinawan Japanese, which is a Japanese dialect, and the Okinawan language, which is a whole other language altogether and only a few people speak it (mostly the elderly) because it stems from a period before Okinawa was Japanese territory, so if you make use of this idea, maybe look into that a bit. It’s a bit of a complicated situation but I think it could really add something to the characters). This does depend a little on whether Tenma was born deaf or not, I think (that would also influence his lip reading/sign language skills - was he born deaf or has he only been deaf for a few years?)

4) Find subtle ways to mention it throughout the story instead of using full paragraphs. I like comparing it to writing someone who wears glasses. Small details are glasses getting fogged up when going from the outside cold into a warm room, or when drinking tea. Smudges on glasses that annoy the character. Pushing them up when they slip down their nose. These are all small, subtle actions that add a lot to the story and ‘remind’ readers of this detail without putting too much focus on it - you could try and do the same thing with Tenma’s deafness: lip reading is really difficult so Tenma might misunderstand or ask for clarification, or little habits he has (like you mentioned, watching people’s mouths rather than their eyes).

Anyway, I’d definitely recommend doing research on writing deaf characters because it’s very easy to accidentally make a mistake and come off as disrespectful. I’ve read a story or two in which there was so much focus on a character being deaf that it seemed to be their only character trait, and not only does that take away from the story, but it’s also not a good representation. Being deaf is not a defining character trait; it’s just part of their character, like wearing glasses or having asthma. An important thing that should be acknowledged but not constantly mentioned/made to be the center of their life and character.

Some questions that immediately popped into my head:

1. Was Tenma born deaf or did he lose his hearing?

2. Does he shout or say the name of hissatsu techniques? Would he even bother with that?

3. In fact would he even bother trying to learn the names of hissatsu techniques (since they can be super weird + it’s during a match and he’s not wearing hearing aids, so these both make it hard to lip read) and instead just come up with names for them himself? Imagine him referring to Sangoku’s Fence of Gaia as ‘’the rock thing’’ or Kami no Takuto as ‘’Shindou-senpai’s lightshow’’.

4. Does the entire team learn sign language (and how good are they at it), or does Tenma speak and lip read more with certain members of the team and use sign language with others?

Of course the amount of detail you put into it all depends on how long you want the story to be! I hope this is sort of what you wanted, and again, feel free to ask something else if this isn’t what you hoped for.

And in case you decide to write the story, best of luck!

#inazuma eleven #inazuma eleven go #ina11 #ie11 #ie go #fanfic #matsukaze tenma #raimon

[chaifootsteps]

[Regarding Mental Health Themes in the Leaks]

((Substance abuse mentions))

Seeing Helluva be praised for how well it “handles mental health” because of the Fizz episode, makes me so so mad, because of how terribly they’re mishandling anti depressants, and have been ableist themselves. From using the R slur twice, to messing with captions as a ‘joke’

First of all they call anti depressants by the most juvenile name possible “anti sads” or something like that (are you fucking kidding me right now? That is not all that they do) they show a character who has just consumed strong alcohol, grabbing a handful of tablets, literally overdosing. And then he just casually sings a song and the substances show no real effect on him. They show the character consuming strong medication as if it’s candy, just for some extra drama. And he’s fine??

Ok. No. That is so, so dangerous. Not only does mixing alcohol and mood stabilisers completely fuck up your brain chemistry, it makes depression symptoms far worse. I don’t even think there was a substance abuse trigger warning in the opening.

And all of this is manipulation of the audience to justify this characters entire seasons worth of abuse of other people. Fucking hell.

It gets worse going by the leaks.

So…if I’m getting things right, when confronted for destroying the already broken family, the show straight up shames Stolas for taking anti depressants? And gratuitously shows how much he’s been overdosing on them, as Via finds a giant box of the things. He has a lot to be shamed for, SA, abuse, classism, neglect, but this isn’t one of them. How ridiculous.

Secondly, Via finds these and says ‘so it was a lie all along!” it spreads the negative ableist stereotype that anti depressants are a “fake happiness” that makes you feel emotions you ‘don’t really have” and that the medication is just someone running from their problems with a quick fix.

People are already so fearful of taking this medication and staying on it, even when it helps them, because of negative stereotypes like this. And it’s being used in a melodramatic, backwards abuser storyline. At the end of Vias song it just has the most awkward zoom in on Blitz giving Stolas his jacket, and him crying (big fuckin surprise) cradling the shameful anti depressants.

Hell, replace the medication with that creepy as fuck imp doll stolas has used as an unresponsive bedmate since he was a kid, and it would make more sense. They’ve even implied that Via disturbingly overheard the sex, but it’s never mentioned.

Shame on Vivienne Medrano/Spindlehorse for this one. Fuck them. seriously.

I don't know what about the depiction of mental health in HB is worse to me...that Stolas's antidepressants are part of the reason his daughter cuts ties with him or the implication that all he needs to get off of those "anti sads" is a relationship with Blitzo.

Both are horrifying, and both are irresponsible.

#Anonymous #helluva boss critical #viv stuff #actual blog post

[gigidragonbbxxx]

a personal struggle + an education

this is all just gigi's opinions + thoughts

Reader, I'm struggling with empathy right now.

Don't worry, I'm not suffering from a personality pathology, I promise I am quite sympathetic and empathetic. It's just battling the feeling of wanting to be kind but also seeing a major problem and knowing I need to get it off my chest.

Let me give it to yall straight (with tweaked/paraphrased details to protect privacy and not to out anyone):

I saw a favorite loass coach/twt account/subliminal creator make fun of an "old timey" English sentence either from Neville Goddard or Edward Art. They proceeded to say that they "hate" it and "why can't they just say it simpler". and then someone else commented "they're talking bullshit fr".

The convo thread on twt devolved into an echo chamber that essentially boiled down to the old fool's adage "If I don't understand it, it must be stupid and not worth it."

This really triggered me because

The phrase quoted was not that hard to understand.

It was clear these women were not educated

Why am I judging or mad at people for their ignorance? (this is why I kept quiet on twt and went here to vent. I acknowledge that two things can be true, I can be kind and still be honest.)

I was and currently am still wrestling with these things within me.

On one hand I don't want to judge. I want to be inclusive and welcoming and supportive.

On the other hand - yall don't look educated, yall wind up looking dumb.

I'll say a harsh truth yall and you can go argue with a damn wall but I know I'm right: stupidity is not cute.

My Hot Take (not so hot when you think about it)

The Law of Assumption rewards those who feed their mind with knowledge

Before you argue with me, think about it. Seriously.

I don't want to seem ableist if someone suffers from dyslexia or if someone struggles in school. It's totally okay to have different paths to learning. The importance is still obtaining the information. You can read or listen to the audiobook, etc. The paths to knowledge are varied but in the end the result is the same - THE KNOWING.

The "old timey" sentence that the creator complained about COULD BE READ BY NINTH GRADERS BECAUSE OF SHAKESPEARE EXPOSURE.

That's why I was exasperated. They were complaining about English (the only language in which they are fluent) that is regularly taught to 14 year olds.

Guys. Stand up. Please stand the fuck up.

Who in this world is gonna take you seriously without BASIC COMPETENCY in literature or math?

Lemme roast some of yall if you want to disagree:

Yall wanna be master manifesters and claim to understand the double slit experiment but can't even name the fundamental laws of science or explain them.

Yall wanna be successful in your businesses and don't know how to calculate your profits.

Yall wanna be seen as intellectuals who "understand" more than the majority of the population and yall can't even fucking read Descartes or Shakespeare.

Yall wanna be content creators and don't know how to proofread.

One time I bought an affirmation tape that came with a pdf with all the affirmations listed. The tape itself was excellent but the pdf was riddled with errors! It makes me sad because something that can help change your life, like a sleep tape to saturate, "cheapens" in its authenticity at the price of minor errors. Sigh.

Let me tell you that 100% you can be successful in this world just by going to the end and claiming it.

BUT YOU LOSE A LOT OF TREASURE BY NOT GIVING YOURSELF THE TOOLS TO DIG FOR IT.

THERE IS SO MUCH FOUNDATIONAL INFORMATION WITHIN THESE "OLD TIMEY" TEXTS.

and if you don't like any of it and just wanna watch sammy ingram and manifest like that THEN GO AHEAD BUT DONT CLAIM TO NOT UNDERSTAND A SENTENCE AND THEN CALL IT BULLSHIT.

just be honest and own it!

be honest that you don't wanna read, that you don't wanna be academic and that's 100% okay and you're still beautiful and worth everything but

do not put down the value of what is being said just because you don't understand it

That's why I am frustrated, reader.

I am educated enough to recognize when someone's ignorance is just that - ignorance.

But I am human enough to be annoyed.

So please give yourselves some grace and take the time to appreciate knowledge. Without the knowledge of the law of assumption, we wouldn't all be here interacting with one another.

xx, gigi

p.s. for those of you who are more familiar with reading the Bible via the law of assumption lens - I beg you to think of Solomon. He was asked by God what he would like and Solomon chose wisdom over material things. Why is that? Because through wisdom comes the ability to know how to obtain all one's desires. Food for thought.

#gigiwrites #loassblog #law of assumption #loass #loassumption #manifestation #affirm and persist #affirmations #neville goddard #self concept #manifesting #edward art #master manifestor #law of assumption blog #robotic affirming #subliminal #subliminals #knowledge #wisdom #intelligence #learning #learn #fulfillment