#yeah no totally not disabled at all what do you mean

[submalevolentgrace]

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

[mzminola]

On the one hand yeah, Tim faking a temporary disability to get Vicki Vale off his back as she tries to prove he’s Red Robin is ethically dubious. But like... vision impairments are a disability, which means in continuities where the glasses don’t block out his excessive sensory input and he’s not claiming they’re a fashion statement, Superman is faking a disability every time he goes out as Clark Kent. So if we’re gonna be all “Tim wtf” we should also go “Clark wtf”.

On the much more interesting hand, asplenia is also a disability, which the writers canonically gave Tim. While he totally can be a vigilante with it, he needs to take more precautions than he would otherwise, and it wouldn’t be too hard to convince the general Gotham public that actually no, Tim Drake-Wayne being asplenic means he’s definitely not Red Robin, Vicki, what are you smoking, don’t you know how often the vigilantes get tossed in Gotham Harbor? Do you know what’s in that water?

Which means that now I want an AU in which instead of faking getting shot, Tim just has Wayne Enterprises launch an Asplenia Awareness campaign in conjunction with the Martha Wayne Foundation starting a program to get other asplenic Gothamites their antibiotics, throws a bunch of fundraisers for it, and stares Vicki Vale dead in the eyes while taking his new meds on camera.

#disability in media #ableist tropes #they already do a lot of shit like invasion of privacy and aggravated assault so like #the faking of a disability is messed up but it's not really any more messed up than anything else they're doing #Tim Drake #Red Robin #DC #Batfam #the writers did not explore the full potential of what that stabbing did to Tim #and my asthmatic ass is very disappointed in them #get out of our way we're disabling the text

[chrisevansonly]

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐭2 | 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐬

✯social media au

✯lando norris x female reader

✯a glimpse into life as new parents

✯here is a little requested pt2 to promoted! sorry i’ve been a bit slow recently, i’m just working through some stuff, i’m working through requests as well, and they are open if anyone is curious!

ynnorris

liked by landonorris, mclaren, danielricciardo and 1M others

surprise surprise, everyone meet sasha marie norris. lando and I are very excited to introduce her to you all, I am very tired but it was totally worth it. mommy and daddy love you so much♥️

tagged landonorris

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username congratulations!!

username oh sasha is such a cute name 🥹

mclaren congratulations to you both, we can’t wait to see little sasha at the track🧡

liked by landonorris and ynnorris

danielricciardo oh man im crying, full on sob fest rn

>landonorris welcome to my past 48 hours mate😭

charles_leclerc congrats you two! can’t wait to meet her!

>ynnorris ♥️

username please they’re going to be the best parents😭

landonorris i love you both so much, thank you for bringing her into the world, you’re a rockstar baby❤️

>ynnorris I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you, i love you lan♥️

landonorris

liked by ynnorris, martingarrixx, carlossainz55 and 2M others

i’ve been incredibly lucky to experience watching my wife grow our little girl for 9 months before bringing her into our lives. i don’t know anyone else stronger than her and someone who loves with her entire soul. y/n i love you so much, thank you for giving us the gift of a daughter, I’ll continue to love and support you and sasha for as long as i’m here❤️

tagged ynnorris

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username UGLY SOBBING

username so i’ll just like drink bleach?

username😭😭

ynnorris lando baby i love you so so much❤️

>ynnorris i’m sobbing right now and it’s your fault

>landonorris im sorry darling, be there soon❤️

carlossainz55 when he has a way with words 😭

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username i just know he’ll be the best dad ever

ynnorris added to their story!

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ynnorris

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, lilyhme and 998,000 others

uncle charles is watching sasha for a few hours which means lando and I get to have a little date🩷

tagged landonorris

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username i need charles and sasha content rn

username “uncle charles” 😭😭

charles_leclerc willing to babysit anytime, sasha is so cute❤️

>ynnorris you’re the best🩷

>landonorris just remember she will not root for ferrari

>charles_leclerc we’ll see about that mate

username y/n is literally gorgeous🫣

charles_leclerc

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uncle charles on duty, there’s a whole lot of snuggling and sleeping happening over here, we have a little ferrari fan in the making 😉

tagged ynnorris, landonorris

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username charles is in his uncle era

username why is this the cutest thing ever😭

landonorris babysitting duties revoked

>ynnorris i’m sorry what was that?

>charles_leclerc yeah lando what was that?

>landonorris 😑😑

ynnorris oh char these photos are so stinking cute!!! thank you for watching her🥺🩷

>charles_leclerc i’ll send you all the photos i took, i’d be happy to watch her anytime❤️

username why does the world want me in pain 24/7?

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#rueswrites #ruesanswers #ruesanons<3 #ruesasks #lando norris x fem!reader #lando norris x y/n #lando norris x reader #lando norris #lando norris x female reader #lando norris social media au #lando norris x you #lando norris fake instagram #lando norris x girlfriend reader #lando norris fake social media #dad lando norris #charles leclerc fake social media #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc #lando norris x wife reader #lando norris fluff #formula 1 masterlist #formula 1 #formula one

[ofsappho]

Heartless

🔞 Simon "Ghost" Riley x reader 🔞

Fake marriage/marriage of convenience, smut in the next chapter (and the chapters after).

Reader is disabled/chronically ill (and so is the author)

You need health insurance. Ghost is sick of sharing living quarters with the rest of the 141. Soap, your childhood friend, thinks the two of you can fix each other’s problems.

Or, Ghost and you have to convince his command that you didn’t just meet each other and your marriage is totally, completely, 100% legit. Not for any, more practical reasons. And, of course, your married-couple accommodations only have one bed.

Chapter 1:

This will either be the stupidest decision you’ve ever made or the greatest stroke of brilliance you’ve ever had. And there is no in-between.

When Soap ducks his head into the coffee shop, you’re more than a little relieved to see him in one piece, plus or minus a few silvery scars scattered across his face and peeking out of his sleeves, the collar of his jacket.

And the dumbass aviators you bought him as a high school graduation present hang from the dip of his shirt. You know Soap thinks he looks badass, but the placement reminds you more of ‘Patagonia dad who likes hiking’ than it does ‘mysterious hardened special forces dude.’

He’s so built that he has to carefully pick his way between crowded tables, just so he doesn’t knock over someone’s drink or trip into a random stranger’s elbow.

You more or less tackle him into the biggest hug you can. “Soap! You’re not dead!” Ever since he joined his super-duper-top-secret whatever the fuck, you’ve gotten used to the communication dead zones in your years-long friendship. The silence never stops worrying you, though.

Johnny chuckles and practically lifts you off your feet. “Neither are you! Congratulations!” You know he’s relieved to see you as well by the way he ruffles your hair.

You fucking hate it when he does that, which is, of course, why it’s become a tradition every time you see him.

He pisses you off, you piss him off. “Twinning!”

The glare he tosses your way has all the menace of a kitten attacking a curtain. “Fuck does that mean? You know I can’t keep up with your American slang.” You’re a good friend who pre-ordered his ridiculous caramel latte with extra caramel, and Soap sits happily in front of it.

He learned that he enjoyed heart-stoppingly sweet drinks on accident - a case of mistaken identity where you unintentionally grabbed Soap’s macho Americano, and he drank half of your caramel latte in revenge. And here you are, years later, watching him slurp down a milk foam heart.

“Awww, too much for the brain cells you have left?” Teasing him as easy as breathing and a welcome distraction for the anxiety attack-inducing question you must ask.

The general coffee shop ambient noise swells in your ears. An espresso machine malfunctions, almost loud enough to make you jump, and you try to disguise it by sipping your iced tea. No caffeine; you’re nervous enough without it.

“I could have you arrested for that,” Soap quips. Please. As if you’d let him try. One call to his commanding officer about his pre-service shenanigans, and you’d have his ass court-martialed.

“Abuse of the power of the Armed Forces? Very ethical.” You raise an eyebrow and lace your voice with haughtiness, even flicking some hair over your shoulder.

Then you need to pass Johnny a few napkins to mop up the latte dripping from his nose out of laughter. “I’m glad to see you,” He tells you, and the sober, knowing look in his eyes makes your stomach drop out. He doesn’t miss a thing. He’d probably be dead or fired from his job if he did. “Though I know this isn’t a social call.”

Well. You’re in for it now. “Yeah, unfortunately, it isn’t.” The words taste like dust in your mouth, and the lemony-black tea barely washes it out. Just to give yourself something to do, you pop the plastic lid off and tip a couple of ice cubes into your mouth before chomping down.

“What’s going on?”

How do you summarize the horrifically, brutally stressful whirlwind of the last few weeks without inspiring the annoying, patronizing pity you’ve gotten from literally everyone else you’ve vented to? You’re not a victim to be coddled or a child to be given advice you’ve already thought of, tried, and failed at.

“I’m losing my health insurance at the end of the month” is what you decide on in the end.

He knows exactly what that means for you. For your future. Soap shakes his head ruefully. “God, I’m so sorry.”

You’ve been sick for a while, diagnosed the year after the two of you graduated high school. The kind of sick that is simply a freak accident of nature, causing your body to attack itself over and over until the day you’ll drop dead from complications. It wouldn’t take much; maybe a regular infection burning you alive with a fever your crippled immune system can’t stop, or a benign cut from a kitchen knife that will bleed and bleed until you’re halfway to the coroner’s office.

And then there’s your shitty, damaged, degenerated spine that keeps you in bed for weeks at a time with crippling, numbing pain.

Without health insurance, things won’t look good for your quality of life. And you like your quality of life to be decent. You’d settle for passable.

Really, it sounds worse than it is, and you try to console him. “It’s okay. It was eventually going to happen. I had hoped to have a little more time, though.” You remember the call from the insurance company like it just happened yesterday. You were loading dishes into the dishwasher and listening to Fleetwood Mac on the radio. And some poor customer service representative told you they were increasing your monthly payments beyond what they knew you could afford, so they’d have to drop you.

You watch him open his mouth as if to tell you that you should’ve said something sooner. But he’s been deployed for the past four months. He pauses and resets to something a little more helpful. “How can I help?” That’s something you have liked about Johnny a lot since you were kids. He cares more about what he can do.

Your anxiety permits your lungs to take one big, fortifying inhale. “Well…” Dragging it out will only make this worse, you know, but you really, really, really hate that it’s come to this. “This is fucking embarrassing.” You tried to find a way to pay the premiums; you really did. But you work forty hours a week already and trying to get more shifts, maybe find a new job, do this, do that, appeal, all of that has been futile and draining. “Will you marry me?”

He drops his half-empty cup on the table, forceful enough that some of the coffee spills out. “What?”

Soap’s partially-scandalized shock is not what you hoped for as a reaction. But you suppose you shouldn’t have expected anything better.

The worst part of this conversation is over. It can’t get more nerve-wracking. “Marry me. Like. Get legally married. I could get on military benefits, and my meds would be covered.” He doesn’t swing your way, but surely signing some paper and standing before a judge is, like, not the most terrifying thing Soap has ever done. “And- and I know there’s stuff in it for you, too, like a better apartment or whatever. I can cook. Better than you, that’s for sure.” One of your friends had to teach him how not to burn water.

He just sits there in silence. “Please,” You add on softly. Desperately. This is your last-ditch attempt, your Hail Mary.

At last, Soap’s shoulders slump, and you know, from that alone, that he’s gonna say no. Miracles are rarely performed for ordinary people. “I would if I could, but… I’m sort of already married,” He sighs, then winces, waiting for your inevitable unhappy outburst.

…

You blink a few times, brain furiously recalibrating everything you know. John got married, and he didn’t even invite you? Or tell you? You’re supposed to be his friend. That’s so rude, ouch. You would have even gotten him some expensive shit off his gift registry.

A fucking Keurig, for God’s sake. “What? Who?” You demand, more outraged that he would leave you out of his life than you are over him declining your proposal

Underneath that deep, sunburnt tan, you see Soap blush. “Jeremy from final year.”

You’d throw your empty cup at him, but he’d just duck. “I knew you were fucking him! I knew it! You tried to gaslight me and say you weren’t, but I saw the hickies on his neck!” There were only so many times Johnny ducked out of a math classroom covered in sweat, followed shortly by your classmate, before you put the pieces together.

Oh, but the rest of your friends called you a conspiracy theorist and told you to mind your business. Now, who’s laughing?

Soap holds his hands up in the universal ‘don’t shoot’ sign. “He needed health insurance. We’re married on paper. Haven’t seen him in a few years, but I know he’s doing alright.” Naturally, he’s already selflessly committed marriage fraud. You honestly should’ve seen that coming; that’s why you wanted to propose in the first place and figured you’d have a slim chance of success.

“Shit.” Now you’re back to square one. And it’s a shitty square, with walls that close in around you with every passing second.

The regret in his eyes overflows when he sees your slumped shoulders, how you’re picking at your cuticles hard enough to bleed. “‘M sorry. If I wasn’t locked down, you know that I’d do it for you in a heartbeat.” The worst part is that you know he’s being sincere, not just parroting empty platitudes.

Right. Well. That’s it, then.

You rub at your closed eyes, then at the stress wrinkle between your eyebrows. “Fuck. It’s fine, I know. I will… I’ll figure it out,” You sigh. Less than convincing, but it doesn’t need to be.

There are probably options you just haven’t thought of yet. Or maybe you can work something out with your doctor, where you only get your meds every other month. “I got it covered. Don’t worry about me.” You instantly see Soap rush to shake his head, to tell you that he’s always worried about you. You want to chastise him, tell him that he has plenty of things to be worried about in his own life. “Shush. It’s fine.” But you don’t have the heart to rake him over the coals for it now, so you settle for that.

You should go. You have things to do, things that include crying in your bed with the curtains drawn and urgently refreshing your email to see if anyone's gotten back to you. New jobs, aid organizations for low-income people, any further bad news.

Soap catches your wrist before you can say the appropriate goodbyes and rush out of the cafe. “Look- hold on- let me… let me ask my… friends.” He wrinkles his nose as he says it with an odd, stilted tone. Like ‘friends’ is a replacement for something he can’t say out loud in a civilian setting.

You can put the pieces together. “Is that what you’re calling your coworkers?”

“That’s classified, shut up.” His Scottish accent pops out there stronger than good malt whiskey. Hope is an easily-caught flame and far more difficult to extinguish. When you smile at him, you find it’s not entirely false. “Let me ask around, okay? They’re good guys. You might need to do the heavy lifting with your sparkling personality, but I can try.”

‘Sparkling personality’ is sort of ominous. ‘Don’t give them shit,’ is what he means to say. That’s fine, you’ve worked in customer service before. You can be on your best behavior.

You’re not exactly sure what kind of dude would be willing to marry a stranger, even if that is the kind of dude you want to marry.

But desperate times, desperate measures. “Thank you. Really. It would mean the world and…  would probably save my life.” You didn’t mean to get as choked up at the end as you do. No one else has been willing to help you, though, and Soap’s answering hug feels like desperately needed hope reviving itself in your chest.

“I’ve got you. And I hope I can help in the end, even if it’s not what you originally had in mind.”

-

Soap runs through his team members in his mind as he waits for the gate guard to scan his ID, trying to recall who’s tied down and who isn’t.

Captain’s got a wife, he thinks, and he’s a wee bit too old for you anyway.

It takes a second for the starry-eyed guard to hand him back the card and lift the gate.

You picked a good time to call him up; not only is he in town, menacing the local army base, but so is the rest of the 141—a rarity.

Vargas would certainly charm you, but Soap trusts Alejandro with you about as far as he could throw him.

Out of all the idiots he went to school with, you’re the only idiot who stuck around through the early years of his service, and you pursued your friendship like a hound after a fox even when he couldn’t properly reciprocate.

So John feels some responsibility for looking out for you, as you’ve always looked out for him.

Garrick wouldn’t be a half-bad choice. Dependable, responsible. Friendly, so your sham marriage would at least be enjoyable.

His mind drifts to his own errant mostly-platonic husband as he parks the borrowed car in his numbered space. Jeremy. The last time they spoke was over three years ago? Maybe four. Jeremy had found himself a new boyfriend and called to let him know, asking if Soap wanted a legal divorce. He was moving to some godforsaken corner of America. Florida? Maybe. That place has got too many fuckin’ states for him to remember them all.

They worked it out - they’d stay married, and Jeremy would keep out of his way. No love lost.

Roach could do it for you in a pinch as well. A little quiet, but maybe you’d work out something like him and Jeremy. Staying out of each other’s way.

Soap dismisses Lieutenant Riley without a second thought. On his best day, Ghost is about as inviting and amenable as a particularly hungry great white shark. And even if God himself came down from Heaven and changed Ghost’s heart to be interested, Soap would worry about you.

A lot. Even more than he already does, since the day you sobbed in his arms after school when you were first diagnosed. Since that day he had to help you out of bed because you could neither walk nor miss any more class.

Does he trust Ghost enough to fight alongside him? To have his back when there’s a gun against his head? Absolutely. Does he think Ghost would treat one of his oldest friends properly, befitting of the funny, kind, vibrant person you are? Abso-fuckin’-lutely not.

So that puts Gaz and Roach in his top choices for you and Vargas as a last-tier resort.

Armed forces worldwide, in Scotland and America, are all about efficiency. Eliminating redundancy.

And if that’s the excuse Johnny uses to justify blindsiding his whole team at once, so he doesn’t need to have this conversation three damn times and hear three separate rejections? That’s between him and God.

He herds them like sheep, plucking the Captain from his office, Garrick and Alejandro from conditioning in the gym, disturbing Roach’s book. Ghost appears out of nowhere as if summoned by the disturbance and falls in behind Soap. Not a single damn sound, of course. While that’s useful on deployment, he still has to tamp down on the instinct to jump every time he sees a skull mask hovering out of the corner of his eye in everyday life.

No matter. The lieutenant will likely wander out when the subject matter is revealed. It would raise more red flags if he told Ghost off.

He barely gets Lt. Riley through the pool room door before Captain jumps him. “Sergeant. What’s the trouble?”

That’s fuckin’ rude. “Why’d you assume I’m in trouble?” He indignantly replies. Except… yeah, there was that time he borrowed a humvee he had no permission to touch, and Captain covered for him to Laswell. Shit. “Well, I’m not.” At least, not this time.

Soap opens his mouth to argue this because it’s hardly fair for Cpt. Price to point fingers only to be cut off. “What is it?” At least Price has the decency to file the sharp edges off of his voice this time.

Right. He almost feels guilty getting sidetracked over something so stupid when he’s gathered everyone here for an infinitely more important reason.

Where does he start? How the fuck does he proposition them without sounding absolutely mental? “I… Hear me out.” Instantly, Garrick shakes his head ‘no,’ and Cpt.’s face remains as unmoved as a brick wall. Definitely not how he should have opened. “Wouldn’t be asking if the situation wasn’t desperate.” Soap opens his hands in the vain hope that the gesture will make them listen, at minimum.

You loathed hospitals and doctor’s offices when you first got sick. Now, you see the inside of them so often that it hardly fazes you. Still, Johnny always went along when you asked. So you wouldn’t have to be alone.

The countless memories of holding your hand as some faceless nurse sticks an IV in your elbow is the motivation that steps on the gas. “I have this friend,’ He tells them.

“You have friends?” If Vargas weren’t separated from him by the pool table, he’d reach over and stick an elbow in his side. What is it, official ‘piss off Sgt. MacTavish’ day?

They get in a laugh at his expense. “Shut up, you reprobate.” He puts enough bite in his tone to cut through the ruckus with the keenness of a knife. “I have this friend. Since I was a lad. She’s a good girl, good person. She needs our help.”

Everyone knows what he means by ‘good person,’ and the mere mention of a civilian girl in distress softens Gaz’s scowl and Alejandro’s scorn.

Their Captain nods, now significantly more amenable to this conversation than he was at the beginning. “Help?” Progress is progress, and for the first time, Soap allows himself to think he might be able to persuade someone.

“Yeah, well… you know these fuckin’ Americans. They don’t give a damn if people die like dogs in the streets. She lost her health insurance, and she’s… She’s ill. She’ll be ill for the rest of her life.” That’s something Johnny will never understand about this side of the pond. The NHS was never good, but at least it exists. All that freedom and shit, for what?

“Sorry to hear that. Fucking shame,” Price murmurs. 

“I was wondering if any of you might be interested in marrying her. For the fuckin’... benefits. I dunno know what exactly they are, but she mentioned new living quarters for her soldier.” He really ought to have looked this up beforehand and found some other things to sweeten the pot. “I’m already married. Had to turn the poor lass down, and I told her I’d at least ask you lot.”

Their captain gets up and off his ass like the stool’s on fire. “Alright. MacTavish, I’m leaving the room now. I’m going back to my office, and do not disturb me until you’re done,” He orders, mustache practically fuckin’ bristling with urgency. “I didn’t hear or see a thing.” With his parting words finished, Johnny watches the man book it out of the pool room in double time.

While he understands and appreciates the discretion, was that truly necessary? They’ve all done exponentially worse things than this.

His first choice makes a break for it, too. “Sorry, Soap,” Garrick declines. “I’m out. I’m sure she’s a delightful person, though being friends with you doesn’t speak highly of her life choices. But that’s a big ask, and I just don’t know her.” The sergeant taps him on the shoulder as he walks out in a silent show of support.

“‘Course.” With each man who leaves, his worry increases.

What voicemails will await him after he returns from the next mission? That things went horribly wrong, and you’ll be hospitalized for the rest of your life, or maybe even dead?

Whatever it is, there won’t be anything he can do by then. That’s the worst part.

“Yeah, can’t do it either, Sarge. I got a girl already.” Right. There goes Sanderson.

At least Alejandro has the decency to look genuinely sympathetic. “Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”

Soap watches him leave and wonders if you’re still awake. It’s not late for him, but who knows? Maybe you keep normal hours now. “Yeah, I will.” You’d prefer to hear the bad news as soon as possible, but he would hate to wake you for it.

But he can’t ignore the ghoul haunting the corner any longer. “What are you still doing here, Lt.? I’ve gotta tell her I can’t help, and I don’t think you’d care to overhear that conversation.” His voice is a little sharper than is nice and proper, overflowing with prickly irritation like too much tea in a cracked cup. Of all the times for Ghost to not mind his fucking business…

“…what she look like?”

“What?”

And Riley’s got the audacity to repeat himself, slower, as if he’s stupid. “What does she look like? Got a picture?”

“Is this a joke?” Simon should stick to shitty quips about goldfish. At least those are tasteful.

The man doesn’t laugh, shake his head, or leave now that he’s successfully rattled Soap. He just stands there, as grave as always. Motherfucker. He means it. “Fuckin’… yeah, hold on,” Soap sighs as he fumbles for his phone.

He’s desperate because you’re desperate. He tells himself that, over and over, as he looks for a half-decent selfie. You’re a big girl, you knew what you were risking when you asked him for help.

Ghost takes his phone in his gloved hand. “Not bad,” He murmurs after a while. “I’ll do it. Marry her.”

A beat passes. Soap lets another one go.

Alright. The grace period is over and done with. “This is a really shitty, serious thing to mess around about. Genuinely. Don’t do that to her or me. This is about her health. Her life.” Johnny likes Lt. Riley. Really, he does. Even under all the freaky mask shit.

But this is mean-spirited. It would almost be out of character. It’s one thing to be careless if his sparring partner walks away with permanent nerve damage. This is fucking cruel if he doesn’t mean it.

Ghost can read minds now. “I mean it.” His chuckle makes Johnny fix his surprised expression into something more stern and imperceptible. “She’s desperate, isn’t she? I’ll do it.” When he walks closer, the changing light makes that skull on his face flash in and out of existence.

“Why?” If he can’t come up with a somewhat satisfactory answer… Soap’s fist can probably reach him fine from here.

And in a rather remarkable show of humanity, he watches Ghost pinch the bridge of his nose through his mask. “Think I like listening to you snore? Or fuckin’ Roach chattering on Discord at four in the morning?” Johnny never knew Ghost was such a little princess about that. Who would’ve thought?

The other man huffs a laugh. “Need my beauty sleep.”

“Yeah, you do, the mask’s not doin’ you any favors,” Soap retorts as if on autopilot. That’s only their longest-running tiff. You’ve got your work cut out for you to deal with that ugly mug, he thinks.

“You want me to help her or what?”

Right. Right. “Sorry.” He examines Ghost’s body language, searching for any hint of dishonesty. “If you so badly want out of the shared bunks, how come you haven’t found someone else yet? Or some other way?”

“You think girls are lining up outside my door proposing marriage? You can’t even find me off duty. Now I ain’t gotta find… some other way,” He says before leaning back against the wall, at ease now that his argument’s been made.

“Fair point.” Fair, but fucking dumb. “I’ll tell her. She’ll say yes, I know she will.” Jesus, does he wish he’d been able to persuade Garrick.

Soap considers exactly how much you should know about your intended before this shit goes down. On the one hand, it might be better for you not to know much, other than that he’s found someone relatively trustworthy and willing. On the other hand… interacting with Lt. Riley is something that should only be done after signing a covenant not to sue.

“Whatever you do, don’t hurt her. She’s been through enough already. And I meant it when I said she’s a good person. Too good for either of us.”

Nobody gets through secondary school untouched. Especially not at that prissy international school you met him at, filled with over-privileged rich kids and army brats scraping the bottom of the barrel. Like the two of you.

When you were fourteen, you picked him up by the scruff of his Scottish neck with a smile on your face, then hit the bastard who hit him first. Thick as thieves ever since.

“And if you can’t find it in you to be nice, just… promise you’ll leave her alone.” At least you’re more than capable of making Ghost’s life a living Hell if he fucks with you. He takes comfort in that and a healthy amount of glee at the possibility of watching that play out. He’s got a front-row seat, after all.

Riley shakes his head. “As long as she ain’t a burden, MacTavish, no need to fuss and cluck.”

For a moment, Soap almost pities him.

“Don’t hurt her. Promise me that, right now,” He stresses. Just in case. At least eliciting this agreement might remind Ghost in the future to stay his hand.

The other man sighs. “I won’t,” He says at last. And Soap can tell he means it.

“Get out. I’ll let her know.”

#cod #call of duty #cod mw #modern warfare #mw #mw2 #modern warfare 2 #cod mw2 #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare 2 #ghost #simon riley #simon ghost riley #ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost riley x reader #ghost riley x you #ghost x reader #ghost x you #heartless

[moki-dokie]

since some people need a lesson on how to do this...

HOW TO APOLOGIZE:

Part a) acknowledge and take responsibility for The Thing you did that warrants an apology. ex: "I said something that was racist.". Part b) acknowledge the harm you have caused. ex: "I said something that was racist and deeply hurt you."

say you are sorry and mean it. nothing else. do not explain, defend, or excuse your actions in any way. that may happen later IF and ONLY if the person you are apologizing to asks you to provide a reason. say sorry, then full stop.

make a resolution to do better going forward. you will learn from this and do your honest best not to let it happen again.

you may ask forgiveness, but also know they do not owe you it. Also ask if there is something you can do to fix things. ex: if you broke something of theirs, you might offer to buy a replacement.

viola. you now know how to apologize for something.

here are some ways to NOT apologize:

"I'm sorry if what i said offended you that wasn't my intention."

there is no IF about anything here. you offended them, period. it doesn't matter what your intention was. you offended them. fix it.

"yeah i realize i said some fucked up shit i was having a bad autistic day."

you do not get to weaponize your own issues for guilt and pity points, regardless if you realize you're doing it or not. you still have to take responsibility for your disability (and mental illnesses too)and using it to shield you from admitting you fucked up is not how you do things. if the person you're apologizing to wants to know what triggered you to behave that way, then you can explain. it should not be part of the apology itself. that is deflection.

"i'm white so obviously i'm going to have some internalized racism but sorry if being a silly billy and having a temper upset some people!! totally working on that guys."

do i really need to even explain this like??? your internalized bigotry isn't a get out of jail free card. we all have it. its part of being human. however, it should always be the goal to move forward and actively fight against learned prejudices. you do that by owning up to them by apologizing when they come out. your white privilege isn't something you get to hide behind. i know, its hard to believe. furthermore, do not make light of a serious issue. you don't get to call yourself a silly billy or a bonehead when the word you are looking for is bigot. and you can say you're working on it all you want, but you need a way to be held accountable. take the opportunity to ask if there is anything else you've said or done that might be insensitive or prejudiced in some way. actually show you're actively doing something to be better.

#in light of a certain situation going on rn #but in general a lot of folks around here need to learn how to fucking say sorry

[nuka]

I think what makes Our Flag Means Death so remarkable in terms of representation is not just the broadness of it, but the depth.

We have an indigenous lead character, but he's not only that. He's also queer. He's a romantic interest. He's middle-aged. His arc portrays surviving trauma and abuse. It also portrays mental illness. And it portrays breaking free from toxic masculinity. And it never tries to put him in a box when he explores his masculinity and femininity.

We have a non-binary character, played by a Puerto Rican NB actor, but their arc is not about their gender identity and their coming out is simply a case of "Just keep calling me Jim". They have a romantic/sexual relationship with a black character, and never is this relationship or either of their sexual orientations or Olu's sex appeal as a fat person or "who even is the man in this relationship hahaha" questioned. When they get into a poly relationship, it's just accepted, instead of questioned or even defined.

These are just a couple of examples. It's not that Our Flag Means Death is the only or the first show with queer/BIPOC/disabled representation, because it's not. What makes the show remarkable is the unique combination of queerness, ethnicity, age, disabilities, life experiences, etc. that each character carries within themselves, yet none of these characters exist solely to appear as representation of any minority on screen. Their identities are not glued onto them, they're ingrained, but in the end, they're just people. Just like in real life. Identities do not work as plot points. Being queer is not a plot point. Being non-binary is not a plot point. It's just a small part of the whole complex experience of life.

OFMD is a perfect example of telling a queer story that doesn't focus on telling a story directly about the queerness itself. Because we have stories about queerness already. We have so many of them that it just feels like tokenism at this point to see yet another story about coming out or forbidden love or anything like that, even if it's well made.

This show took me by surprise with every new way of representation it offered, because each time it did the total opposite of what I expected. It took all the tired tropes and said, "Yeah, see these? We're not gonna do any of that." It delivered something I never thought I'd see on screen.

It never explains the characters' identities to the audience. It simply shows them exactly the way they are and lets you decide whether you see yourself in them, and I think that also allows the audience to question their own identities, to explore gender and sexuality freely without immediately putting labels on things.

People who never thought they might be trans or non-binary or queer in any way discovered their identities through the show. People who struggle with mental illness or trauma saw someone like themselves portrayed with kindness and respect on screen and were finally able to extend the same kindness to themselves. People who are always left out of romantic stories because of their age or body shape or the color of their skin finally saw themselves portrayed as desirable and worthy of love and romance.

That is why so many of us feel that, in the words of Ruibo Qian: "OFMD woke me up."

#ofmd #our flag means death #long live ofmd #save ofmd #this is also why i wanted to see season 3 so bad #this show has an AMAZING writers' room #the diversity begins in there with having writers who belong to the minorities that the show portrays #and with hiring actors who belong to the minorities that their characters portray and listening to their ideas and feedback about them #there's so much the writers still could've given us in terms of representation #there's so much more left to explore #and this is also why 'just watch another queer show' simply doesn't cut it #there is NOTHING like ofmd

[kurooo-is-here]

Hear me out. Drayton and Kieran with a mute s/o?

(Tbh I feel like Drayton would think they’re just shy for the first couple of interactions until someone tells him though lol)

Okay, I'm not super knowledgable about deaf or mute folks. But here's my best shot at this ask, if I am incorrect about anything please let me know!

My interpretation of this is that reader is deaf and communicates through sign language, and they cannot speak at all.

Drayton and Kieran with a mute/deaf Reader

(Ignore the snom gif I couldn't think of anything specific to use for this lmao)

Drayton:

Yeah, he's totally clueless at first. Doesn't get why you're doing odd hand motions instead of talking, but he figures everyone has their quirks. It really bothers you that he won't acknowledge it, so you ask Lacey to tell him for you.

When Drayton hears it from Lacey, he feels really bad and is immediately apologetic. He rushes over to you and attempts to apologize, then realizes he doesn't understand sign language at all, so he stumbles on his words a lot.

Lacey facepalms watching all of this go down, so she reluctantly teaches Drayton some basic sign language so he can get his apology across to you. He's delighted to finally be able to talk to you properly-- he has a crush on you, after all.

The rest of the Elite Four soon complains that Drayton studies sign language better than he studies for any of his classes, but he is absolutely determined to make things right with you. Lacey says she's never seen him work that hard!

When he finally confesses to you, he does it right. He makes sure he corrects himself if he messes up a sign, accidentally blurts out a few words while signing-- but you can tell he really means it. It warms your heart to see him trying so hard for you, despite his initial ignorance on the subject.

Drayton notices you get bullied a lot because you're some regular student hanging out with the big leagues (the BBA Elite Four). He IMMEDIATELY shuts down anyone who has the balls to talk shit in front of you knowing you can't hear them. That kind of vile behavior will never be tolerated on his watch.

He texts you a lot. He still talks to you through sign when he sees you in person, but since he's usually busy doing League Club work (or just pretending to be busy), he texts you when he has a moment of free time. At one point you changed his contact name on your phone to "The Drayster", which made his entire WEEK. He would NOT shut up about it.

Don't let this man figure out swears and silly insults in sign language, he's gonna use them all the time now. One time Crispin asked what Drayton was laughing about and he just signed "bullshit" in response which immediately had you on the floor in tears of laughter while Crispin looked SO confused.

Kieran:

Luckily he's more perceptive and understanding than Drayton, so he picks up on your disability right away. Turns out he already knew a bit of sign language from teaching himself too.

When you ask him how he knew sign language already, he just shyly responds that he wanted to be prepared for the event that he needed to communicate with Ogerpon through it for some reason.

He teaches himself a LOT more sign language after meeting you. He really wants to go the extra mile for his new friend and possible crush so he studies and does his research diligently.

Kieran already understands if you're socially awkward, because he's full of anxiety himself. He totally gets it if you need to rely on him to be your translator at any point.

He really loves you and has no problems with your disability, even if he has to try a little harder for you. And after a while, communicating with you becomes easier, which makes you really happy!

After the events of Indigo Disk, he becomes much more protective of you. He wants to become stronger so he can protect you from anyone who tries to bully you or hurt you. His Hydrapple is gonna have a word or two with whichever idiot tries to disrespect your name in his presence.

Whenever he greets you, he tries not to catch you off guard from behind or something, since you can't exactly hear him coming. He really tries to respect your boundaries too, so if you feel uncomfortable with anything he does, he understands.

Slightly unrelated, but Kieran definitely flips people off a lot. He tries to be less pissed when he's around you, but on his own? He's saying "fuck you" to a LOT of people.

One time he tried explaining to a guy about your disability, and the guy had the nerve to do the 👉👌 sign at you as some kind of sick joke... the BBA Elite Four found that guy beaten into a bloody pulp on the ground later. Kieran was taking NO prisoners that day.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon drayton #pokemon kieran #pokemon drayton x reader #pokemon kieran x reader #reader is mute/deaf #drayton is such a boyfailure #but he tries his hardest god bless #kuro writes

[anistarrose]

A while ago I saw a post that started out wishing Lilith's aroace identity got addressed onscreen, and I was like "yeah I totally agree, a voice acted stream reveal is many steps above 'some writer tweeting it after the show ends' but it would've still been far more exuberant and impactful to see it in the show." But then OP continued by saying there's nothing in Lilith's arc that reflects aromantic experiences, and look, I'm biased as the Lilith icon person, but like. Your experiences are not universal.

And... that's okay! My experiences aren't universal either. But as an aroace, I do have to say: Lilith does reflects one type of aroace experience, and that's the chronically ill aroace experience in particular.

It's the way that she's an adult who needs care from others, but first moves back in with her sister, and then moves back in with her parents, instead of moving in with or seeking out a romantic partner.

It's the way she grapples with independence and individualism, struggling to unravel "what she wants" from "what she needs in terms of support" and from "what society revolving around the Emperor's Coven has tricked her into conflating with self-worth".

It's the way she looks at her reflection and asks: "Am I broken?"

Not all aroaces are disabled and chronically ill. Not all aroaces have (or want) intense platonic friendships or close sibling relationships, and not are able to heal from trauma by living with their family. These are all arguments for more variety in aroace representation, to say nothing of a-spec representation as a whole — that just doesn't mean aroace characters with these traits don't represent anyone.

And this is also a chance to touch on a distinction that I feel isn't drawn often enough when talking about queer subtext of any form: I don't think Lilith, if you're only looking at the show itself, is a strongly or undeniably aroace-coded character. But she's absolutely a character whose arc is enhanced upon learning that she's aroace.

So don't get me wrong: I would like more than this. Lilith is like a baby step in terms of a-spec representation in animation — a meaningful step, but a small one. But for a series where each season except the first was heavily impacted (read: compressed) by the cancellation, and the unaffected first season was also the only one Lilith spent as an extremely polarizing villain, you can see how the crew could've gone in with extremely conscientious intentions and wound up having to make a tough call, right?

I don't even necessarily think they made the right call, I'm just willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they tried. It feels like they put more than just some performative 30 seconds of thought into imagining how a disabled aroace with serious self-worth issues would interact with the world and improve herself — or, at least realized after some experience writing Lilith that being aroace fit her, and let that inform much of her Season 2 arc.

Like, maybe I'm personally extra desperate for disabled a-specs in media, but honestly? Lilith is a well-written one in all aspects but the lack of an onscreen "I've never felt attraction to someone" — and you don't have to agree with me, but I'll die on the hill that that all counts for something.

No hate to OP — if you know what post I'm vagueing about, be chill and normal about it, please. It's fine for some people not to feel represented, and put their thoughts out there — but it also seems that I, as a person who feels very represented, should put out some of my own thoughts for balance.

#the owl house #lilith clawthorne #toh meta

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

what meaningful plenaration does "sane" add to "safe sane and consensual"? safe and consensual are both pretty intuitive as to what is and isn't and why they're important, but what is the aspect of this nebulous hypothetical insane sex (this would work better as a phrase if insane sex wasn't already a thing people said about good sex. much to think about) which is uniquely best to avoid but not already covered by safe or consensual?

i've been thinking about that one thing i saw a while ago about reevaluating ssc in the face of increased awareness of like, mad liberation and the ways that mentally disabled people are barred from sexual agency by ableism & the psych system and i genuinely can't come up with a reason why sane was in there in the first place

great question! let's talk about it!

but first: hey. what on earth does plenaration mean. I absolutely understand the question that you're asking but I don't know that word (unusual for me, if I may flex a little!) and google is giving me NOTHING.

anyway, moving on!

SSC was initially popularized by in 1983 by the New York group Gay Male S/M [Sadism/Masochism] Activists, and particularly activist David Stein. let's take a look at their full statement:

GMSMA is a not-for-profit organization of gay males in the New York City area who are seriously interested in safe, sane, and consensual S/M. Our purpose is to help create a more supportive S/M community for gay males, whether they desire a total lifestyle or an occasional adventure, whether they are just coming out into S/M or are long experienced. Our regular meetings and other activities attempt to build a sense of community by exploring common feelings and concerns. We aim to raise awareness about issues of safety and responsibility, to recover elements of our tradition, and to disseminate the best available medical and technical information about S/M practices. We seek to establish a recognized political presence in the wider gay community in order to combat the prevailing stereotypes and misconceptions about S/M while working with others for the common goals of gay liberation. (x)

GMSMA was founded three years prior in 1981, which is only important because that was also the year the first AIDS patients were identified. I don't know if you're familiar with a little thing called The AIDS Crisis, but suffice to say that during the 80s the public perception of gay male sexuality Was Not Good, particularly something double deviant like sex that was gay and also kinky. in a later essay reflecting on (and criticizing!) the mainstreaming of the term, Stein said he wanted to SSC framework to distinguish mutually consensual sadomasochism from "the criminally abusive or neurotically self-destructive behaviour popularly associated with the term 'sadomasochism'."

in other words: while I can't tell you everything that lay in the heart of David Stein when he first used the phrase, it's very clear that the GMSMA seemed invested in improving the public image of kink by separating it as much as possible from the notion that it was something only practiced by crazed degenerates - you know, something queer people have been forced to do for pretty much all queer sex throughout history? in the same 2000 essay linked above, Stein reflects on how many people took SSC as "a welcome validation for a type of sexuality still considered "sick" or "crazy" by much of our society."

is there still ableism baked into that narrative re: the notion that mental illness is a bad thing to be affiliated with? yeah, absolutely, and we'll get to that! spoilers: it's been a source of much criticism, which is why many people now prefer RACK over SSC. but give me a second to get there!

in the essay I've been pulling from, Stein freely admits that GMSMA never attempted to offer concrete definitions of SSC, particularly not the latter two: "We left "sane" and "consensual" much vaguer, "sane" because it's pretty vague to begin with once you get past the obvious meaning - able to distinguish fantasy from reality - and "consensual" because we didn't realize how tricky it is."

the idea of "sane" meaning a person is meaningfully able to distinguish fantasy from reality was echoed by Gil Kessler, a longtime kink educator and board member of GMSMA. rope enthusiast Tammad Rimilia defined it differently, saying that sane kink referred to a situation where "all parties are engaging in this activity by direct intention and can judge the effects of their actions." you can see that echoed in Stein's earlier statement about differentiating the kind of sex that GMSMA encouraged from "self-destructive behavior."

tl;dr, the "sane" is mostly there to specifically draw attention to the fact that some people engage in sex in ways that may be a form of self-harm and/or may want to engage in sex when they are experiencing reality in a way that prevents them from making rational, fully-informed choices, such as psychosis or manic episodes. per their own statement, it seems the GMSMA would discourage having sex with people in this category.

obviously that may already fall under the purview of safe and consensual, but show me an organization that's never gotten a little redundant in its mission statement and I'll eat my shirt.

now, back to that criticism! as Stein notes in the essay I've referenced heavily in this answer, understandings of safety, sanity, and consent have come a long way since 1983! the risk-aware consensual kink model (RACK) has gained popularity for many reasons, with much of the conversation centered on both the inherent ableism of SSC and concerns about the promise of "safe" and the unhelpful and unrealistic expectations it may set. hell, even notions of consent are constantly growing and evolving. and that's wonderful! SSC comes from a very specific time and place in the history of kink and may no longer be the pinnacle of best practices for everyone, but there's still plenty to be learned from its origins.

#sex edventures 2023 #RACK

[calltomuster]

Disabilities exist in Star Wars. Period.

This post is dedicated to certain specific people who say they are not be able to reconcile service animals in Star Wars, especially Jedi, since the Force and technology exist. These people seemingly have never seen Star Wars, where disabilities not only exist but feature prominently in many cases — yes, even in Jedi. So let us prove them definitively wrong here.

From the very beginning, disabilities have existed in Star Wars. In fact, one could argue a feature of a disability is one of the most iconic things about Star Wars. Even people who aren't Star Wars fans, or who haven't seen the movies at all, know the sound of Darth Vader's breathing. Darth Vader -- Anakin Skywalker -- is unable to breathe on his own and needs to be constantly hooked up to a life-support system simply to stay alive. This in itself is an answer to the argument that the Force compensates for everything. Perhaps you might want to say it is the Force that lets him stay alive beyond what would kill someone else, but still it cannot take the place of functional lungs, or grow back missing limbs, etc. Anakin Skywalker is one of the most powerful Force-sensitives to have ever lived, and yet he can still be disabled and need assistance. (Also, because sometimes I see people making the argument that because of all the pain that Anakin is in, he should be forgiven for his actions, let me say this: Anakin Skywalker can be disabled and still be villainous and make choices that hurt untold billions of people. Being disabled does not absolve you of your bad decisions. Disabled people are people too, and all people make choices and that is what determines the kind of person they are. But that's another post.)

Another example of the Force not compensating for everything is Yoda. We see Yoda using mobility aids multiple times throughout the OT and the PT, from a cane to a hoverchair. He is known as one of the wisest and most powerful Jedi ever, and yet he still uses mobility aids. "Yeah, well," you say, "he still fights with his lightsaber and does all those flips, so that doesn't count." This is the same stupid argument that people make against ambulatory wheelchair users. Needing to use a mobility aid does not mean you need to use it all the time. Total paralysis is not the only thing that makes people need to use wheelchairs or similar mobility aids. Often, people are technically capable of walking or moving around or even fighting and doing backflips in Yoda’s case, but the amount of pain and decreased function that such actions would cause are not worth it except for short amounts of time or in dire circumstances. This does not make them less disabled, or mean that they are faking it. 

“Must be a Jedi thing,” you say. What about Chirrut Îmwe or Kanan Jarrus, who are both blind (or become so). The Force does not give them their sight back (aside from a certain final scene in Rebels). “It’s only for Force-sensitives, then,” you try next. Try looking at Saw Gerrera, who needs oxygen assistance and wears a pressurized suit over his body. Or how about 99, a disabled clone who helps in brothers and is commended as “a true soldier” upon his death? The clones are excellent examples, for that matter. Wolffe is missing an eye, Gregor has a traumatic brain injury, Echo uses extensive cybernetics to function, among many others. 

Maybe still you want to argue that sure, someone might have a limb chopped off or whatever, but technology has come so far in Star Wars that they're not really disabled. Hear me now when I say: having accommodations that help you function in everyday life does not erase a disability. Go back and read that a few times if you need to, because it’s important. 

Now, to be clear, I’m not at all saying Star Wars always has amazing disability representation. I know that’s not the case in many, many regards, and I will link below references that discuss it in more detail. But to say that something like a service animal does not belong in Star Wars is, frankly, extremely idiotic and ableist and ignores the long history of disability in the GFFA. Disabled people have always existed in Star Wars and other sci-fi/fantasy media and they always will. 

Further reading and other perspectives:

Disability in Star Wars

Blind Warriors, Supercrips, and Techno-Marvels: Challenging Depictions of Disability in Star Wars

How Star Wars: The Bad Batch delivers the disability representation the franchise needed

Twisted and Evil: Ableism in Star Wars

This post was written largely in response to a comment left on a fic in the Service Animal Boga AU, so if you would like to read fics about disabled Obi-Wan with a service animal, please consider supporting us there. :)

#i don't like saying this usually but please consider reblogging this post #i didn't think it needed to be written but apparently it does and i would like this message spread far and wide #also i wrote this in like 45 minutes while seething with anger so if it's incomprehensible or gets some things wrong i apologize in advance #star wars #anakin skywalker #obi-wan kenobi #yoda #obi wan kenobi #service animals #disability #ableism #star wars prequels #darth vader #ben kenobi #chirrut imwe #clone trooper gregor #clone trooper 99 #commander wolffe #kanan jarrus #sw rebels #sw tcw #sw tbb #sw meta #star wars meta

[hemipenal-system]

this thread is fucking long and the cut is in an awkward place just bear with it please

so werewolves are a stock horror villain (and the posts directly below this one are about that! go look at them) and don’t get me wrong i love werewolf horrorsmut but i want to see more of:

werewolves who just aren’t scary in any way. like sure the shift may be scary. they may look kinda scary. but they’re just people like everyone else even if they are more ruled by instinct than the average human. i think stuff like that is a nice way to explore what it means to be a person and how humanity can be a fluid category, especially when the werewolves in question are transgender/disabled/personality disorder coded.

like i want some wholesome shit about werewolves who can’t even pass as ambiguously human. they’re just very overtly werewolves: massive sharp, snarling bundles of taut muscles and sinew, 8, 9 feet tall, who are very capable of snapping and killing everything around them

but don’t. because they’re treated well and loved even though they’re not like everyone else. and it doesn’t matter that they aren’t, because they are like everyone else even if they’re not. i know that sounds a bit confusing on the face but i mean stuff like:

- “oh yeah no worries, Sharon from accounting’s a wolf too! no no we love her! remember when we went to topgolf for that company outing? they couldn’t find any clubs in her size so she outdrove us all with clubs a foot too short it was hysterical!”

- “all right you should be scheduled for this week! next two weeks are the same? no right of course not because you need moon days. yeah that’s totally fine i will get that in to HR and you should be all good!”

- “is- no it’s fine- is it ok if i stay shifted in here? the pain is less bad when i’m shifted. no i have no idea why lol. you’re sure? the shedding is ok and everything? aww sweetie i love you too!”

- “i mean, hip dysplasia is normal in wolves your age, and you had fairly active teenage years, so it happens. it’s not anything to worry about though, i’ll get you in contact with a fantastic physical therapist! no she specializes in wolf patients. she’s great at what she does, i promise. i’ll get you a month of painkillers but over-the-counter should work alright too. take these, go to therapy, and if it’s still doing that in a month come back and we can try something else.”

- “hey, baby, look at me. i know people are staring at you. you don’t need to care about them. you have just as much right to be here as they do. just ignore them.”

- “no i’m absolutely not mad at you! you can’t control that happening! no it was a full moon what the fuck were you supposed to do? look, i can replace the couch you mauled and the TV and vases you broke but i can’t replace you getting hurt because you tried to stave off the shift. we’ll go shopping for new ones together, ok? and we’ll get some cheap shit you can break for next month and a couple steaks for you to fuck up. i promise i’m not mad- hey get off me you big lug stop fucking licking me your mouth tastes like couch cushions…”

- “it’s actually so real to be worried about hurting your human partner in bed. you won’t hurt her, dude, i’ve known her for years you should be more scared of her than she is of you. they make, like, these rings. it’s like a silicone spacer- no it goes on your dick, idiot. it’s so you don’t like fuck into her cervix or whatever. supposedly those help? idk if they come in wolf sizes though.”

show me the negative stuff, too. show me:

- werewolves who muzzle themselves in cities even though it’s only a first quarter moon because they’re scared they’ll snap and hurt someone even though that fear makes them so careful around everyone they never would

- wolves who have moon trackers on their phone because they need to know when they’re going to get forced into a shift so they can get away from everyone because they don’t want to get violent but they can’t control it and the last time they were around someone she ended up in the hospital. she’s really understanding about it and they’re friends now but it doesn’t make it feel any less horrible

- wolves who get asked every single fucking time they get nice dinner, “so do you want your steak cooked, or what?” by waiters who think they’re funny but really aren’t

- werewolves who walk on eggshells in public because they know if they make any minor mistake or show any aggression whatsoever the pundits on the news will talk about “a werewolf snarled at my kid today. i mean i try to be trusting but you never know with those people. they have those fangs for a reason is all i’m saying.”

- werewolves who are scared to shift in public for the same reason as above, because they know how they’ll be perceived if they show people they’re a wolf

- werewolves who can’t find wolf doctors in their area so they keep going back to human doctors who don’t know how the fuck to treat their unique health conditions and when they complain about this they get a flippant “have you tried a veterinarian?”

- werewolves in therapy because their last relationship was with a human who sucked and it was really bad and that trauma has manifested as resource guarding and reactivity issues and it’s causing problems at work

i love this stuff. i want more. i also cannot write conclusion paragraphs to save my life so this is the end now. thanks for reading all this if you’re reading this.

😊

#not terato #really #speculative fiction #disability #transgender #personality disorder #worldbuilding #werewolf #long fucking thread #terato blog #monster biology post #sort of

[alpaca-clouds]

Magically Healing Disabilities and the Road to Eugenics

Because this topic comes up again and again - and a lot of abled people just don't get it - let me try to explain this one more time:

If you create a SciFi or Fantasy world in which there are no people with disabilities, because all disabilities can be healed through magic or technology, you are creating an ableistic world, that favors eugenics!

Erasing disabilities from a world is something eugenicists would want to do, nothing else.

A lot of abled people will reply: "But I just want everyone to be able to live their lives at the fullest in my world!" What they do not quite grasp is, that with that they prescribe what "living a life at its fullest" means to people, not realizing that it can mean a whole lot of different things to folks.

Frankly: I do not think I could live my life at its fullest without my autism, thank you very much.

And sure, some might say: "But what is with people who cannot walk or cannot see?" And I am honest: I would be lying if I said that I could imagine living without my eyesight. But I know people with blindness who absolutely do live their life at its fullest and are perfectly fine the way they are. And it is not my place to tell them that they are not.

Yeah, there are absolutely people who totally would take the magical or technological cure - and I do not see any issue with creating a world that offers it to people. I mean, right now I am suffering from what in two weeks will officially be called long COVID, which makes me absolutely unable to bike and other stuff. And if you told me: "Here, take this pill and it goes away" I am going to take that pill ASAP. But forcing me to take the pill would be wrong, don't you think?

Then there is the other argument that comes along. Of: "Alright, some people do not want to be healed, but if there is a cure why should anyone bother to make the world accessible for folks who do not want to be healed? It is their own fault!" (Yes, I had someone argue this to me before.)

So, let me address it like this: Genetically speaking blonde and redhaired people have a higher likelihood to suffer from certain conditions (especially skin and eye related). So, should we say: "Yeah, well, we need to genetically make you dark-haired and darker skinned, or if you disagree we will not pay for your healthcare"?

Probably not.

Or what is with people who just hate eating their veggies, something that we absolutely do know carries health risks? "Either eat your veggies, or we will not take care for you?" That would be super out of line, right?

Or lets talk about something that left folks will hopefully care about: Trans healthcare. Like, sure, there are massive mental health benefits that come from it. But there are other health risks associated with it too. Should folks just not take care of those, because they are "self-imposed"?

Do you see how much of a slippery slope that is?

Not to mention once again: What is and is not considered a disability is at times pretty randomly decided. It is always an artificial line drawn in the sand. What is a "healthy body"?

And I also should once more note: Most disabilities are in fact disabilities people acquire during their life. Through accidents, through other illnesses, through simply aging. Should we criminalize aging to not have to create accessibility stuff for old people with walking aids? Do you really think that would be good?

So, yeah. Not only is a "world without disabilities because magic" fairly dumb if you consider all the aspects of disabilities - it also is very much eugenicist.

#fantasy #scifi #cyberpunk #steampunk #solarpunk #lunarpunk #utopia #dystopia #worldbuilding #disability rights #disability #actually disabled #disability representation

[monachopsis-11]

I absolutely hate when non disabled people debate with me about disability topics “but maybe they just think differently abled sounds nicer” “it’s not fair to say the people studying autism are harming autistic people I’m sure they mean well…” “yeah but the people who do that super ableist thing probably don’t mean anything by it” “functioning labels are kind of necessary though, otherwise people might think (insert ableist opinion here)” “that’s not really a disability though” “why can’t I say handicapped again?” “Well I think (insert another ableist opinion here)”

Like I’m sorry but I do not care what you think at all, if you’re disabled and you have different opinion than mine I’m totally open to hearing them in a respectful way but for all the family and friends that think your opinion matters more than mine or that they’re equal they’re not. I don’t care if you think special needs sounds nicer because I’m telling you it’s harmful ableist language. They don’t need to agree with me but please don’t argue about things you don’t understand.

I know this is a bit intense but I needed to vent.

#vent post #actually autistic #autistic experiences #self diagnosed autism #autistic women #late diagnosed autistic #invisible disability #autism #actuallyautistic #asd #autistic community #disability #ableist bullshit #being autistic

[chuplayswithfire]

Im sorry about this i need to rant. I thought things were getting better but Izzy stan Twitter is at it again with their whining, truth bending and self-victimising.

'Do you like OMFD but wish the queer disabled hero didnt die?' IZZY IS NOT THE HERO OF THIS SHOW!!!!! He is at best a reformed antagonist. What an insult to the other disabled characters, and what about the actual heroes of the show??

'We've been betrayed by straight man writing queer stories'. First of all, way to dismiss the other writers. Also, its not his fault you project your personal traumas and mental health on a fictional character on a show with death in the title.

'GB's ending is comphet (?????) because 'we only need eachother' and theyre breaking away from their queer community' ED HAS BEEN WANTING TO LEAVE PIRACY SINCE LAST SEASON!!! also, its progress that Stede was able to resist basic flattery. And David made it clear that they still have work to do. This one truly broke my brain.

Im just sick of all this. Izzy stans have been coddled for the past week, being told its ok to grieve, but theyve crossed multiple lines. I do wish some things had been more explicit in this finale, only because David overestimated the maturity and media literacy of some people.

Sorry for this but i needed to talk to people here. Its beyond annoyance at this point. Im angry and sick of petty crybabies actively working to poison what we've built.

go off anon my inbox is open to your ranting let the rage flow through you [insert palpatine dot gif] but ngl the best thing you can do is just block liberally. block everyone. block left, right, center. do not be merciful. do not hold back. block until the ceiling comes down!!

because like, some of these fans have spent the last 18 months convincing themselves that their little guy was of equal importance to the main characters, the secret third protagonist, and he just got put in a box.

🎶izzy's in a box 🎶izzy's in a box🎶izzy's in a box🎶

izzy was never a hero of this show. he was a villain and then a side character on a rushed arc to redemption for the specific purpose of making him into the kind of man who could apologize to ed for being a shit. but that's hard to swallow for people who were convinced he was always right, so. also let's be honest: they don't give a shit about the other disabled people on this show. a bunch of them were trying to figure out a way for it to be wee john who was killed, and kristian is actually a queer disabled actor. they're just mad it was their little guy who they latched onto.

also yeah like four of the writers are nonbinary people of color, and there's definitely more queer writers on the team, but somehow this was totally the decision of a straight white guy. alright folks come on now to quote your idol pack it in.

gentlebeard's ending is them deciding to give their relationship a go in a more relaxed and sedate environment than the high stress locale of a pirate ship. their friends ARE going to come see them again. just because they don't all live together in the same frat house i mean ship doesn't mean they're suddenly forever alone. also there is nothing comphet about shacking up with your gay lover in a soon to be literal loveshack.

but like you can't expect these folks to care about ed or stede or gentlebeard or anything that doesn't center their white man of choice. the only thing you can do is block because anyone still throwing a fit a week later is simply not worth it.

no need to apologize anon. return to my inbox whenever.

#the izcourse #izzy critical #fandom fuckery #this one is getting those tags to filter out bc i have to tag this with fandom tags to avoid my friends seeing it and getting spoiled lol #ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers

[knightobreath]

Ok I gotta know

What’s your thoughts on that one anon (🐝)’s takes

context 1 and context 2

ohohohohhohohoohohohoh. ohohohoh. Well. Basically they're wrong about what headcanons ARE and how they work as a fan created thing. They also definitely need to examine why they feel the way they do about headcanoning characters as having marginalized identities. I wrote a whole essay on trans headcanons specifically under a similar ask and what I said can be easily applied to other aspects of headcanoning characters as minorities (i actually got a lot of the ideology for that essay from discussions of "blackwashing" in fandom)

some other things on what they said (warning: LONG)

My major issues with their thoughts on headcanons can be summed up with the essay i linked. im not going to be going into that stuff as deeply again because we would be here all day, so the rest is just specifics

"but i really hate it when people change pronouns of characters (IVE SEEN PEOPLE USE SHE/HER WHEN REFERING TO SILVER SPOON. LET THE MAN BE A MAN IF HE WANTS TO BE A MAN.)"

Silver Spoon, and other characters for that matter, are quite frankly not real and do not have actual desires or feelings that you can hurt. Also see my essay on trans headcanons.

"but what makes me the most furious is... people making characters autistic. nothing against autism, i understand that, but do you really need to make paper, fan, silver spoon, pen, etc. autistic just because they have specific interests or act... idk, just the way they act?! its just. it doesnt make sense to me."

Bee needs to examine why they feel the way they do about autistic headcanons. A majority of the times characters are being headcanoned as autistic, they're being headcanoned as that be actual neurodivergent people who seem themselves or their autistic friends in these characters or traits.

There are certainly some issues with certain aspects of autistic (or any other disability) headcanons, like infantilization, but Bee's issue seems to be the fact that there are a lot of characters being headcanoned. Which is just not a problem.

"hc's that dont affect story are fine, but ones that completely flip the story or ignore anything confirmed by the employees."

Headcanons are personal thoughts on the story and do not have any bearing on the story or how you interpret the characters. They are a fan creation like fanart or fanfiction.

"EX: "i headcanon that mic and knife are in a relationship!" that completely ignores the fact that some of the pride month art shows that knife is gay. Cakebrunch (official II storyboarder) confirmed that soap and mic are in a relationship."

Cakebrunch is not a writer and does not have any bearing on the written canon of the characters. Just because he works on the show does not mean his headcanons have any bearing on the canon.

"make as many autistic characters you want, yeah! its great to support autism! but you dont have to make every character autistic, okay? (directed towards people that hc lots of characters as autistic)"

Again, the people who are doing this are mostly autistic or otherwise neurodivergent. And they aren't "making" the characters autistic, they're depicting them as such. No harm in that.

Now for the ships ask.

This is less of my domain, as I'm not really a shipper and don't know much about romance and relationship dynamics but I will try.

Also like nothing against people who don't like shipping as a whole, I totally get it. I was in your boat before.

"i absolutely HATE osc ships. half of them are either "oh these characters dislike each other/disliked each other at one point" and the other half is "these two friends should date because theyre friends.""

and that leaves..... characters who haven't interacted?

honestly, if this was between real people that would be really disrespectful.

Except they're not, so it's completely fine. I have a feeling Bee was in an RPF heavy fandom before this one, this and the previous take about pronouns are common discourse points in those.

EX: Fantube. yeah, they tried to raise shimmer together and built bot, but platonic parents exist and CAN THEY JUST BE FRIENDS?! PLEASE?

Like headcanons, ships have no bearing on the canon and in canon they are just friends.

EX: Nickloon. ok, nickels trying to make up for being rude to balloon all throughout season two. but really? they dont have to date just because theyre friends, yknow. imagine someone saying "oh you and your best friend who you only platonicallly love- you should date!" to you. that'd honestly be rude.

They're not real so they can't experience this. Problem solved.

yeah, some ships are confirmed but thats different. EX: Knickle. offical II storyboarder Cakebrunch CONFIRMED theyre in a relationship. thats an official employee of the series saying that a ship is real. not some random person on TikTok saying that TennisGolf is canon because TB is GB's closest ally.

Again with citing Cakebrunch's fan stuff as canon. Interesting how they cited a storyboarder's fan works twice but failed to mention Balloon being arospec as said by a show creator in the nickloon section. While I have my thoughts on word-of-god confirmation, which I will not be getting into here, it is far more canon than any fanwork.

A lot of the rest of this is just confusion about why people ship things. This is different for each ship and each shipper, and if you're ever confused about where a ship came from you can just ask the shipper. There's usually a reason (and depending on who you ask, a whole essay) as to why a ship came about or how it would work. Sometimes though it is just for fun or comedy, and that's not really a bad thing. We're here to enjoy ourselves, after all.

One last thing though,

and dont get me started on those ships that throw certain characters in canon ships (looking at you, metallic salad/metallic salad + mephone shippers.) because like. why? certain characters have established relationships with others, and your just like "ohh well those two are in a relationship, but mic and knife are a cute ship so how about mic + knife + pickle? makes sense!" like. please.

I don't know much on dynamics and specifics (see: not much of a shipper) but from what I have seen of multiships and polyships, all the dynamics and how the characters would all work together is very much thought about.

Also knickle isn't canon and the people shipping knife x mic x pickle are also aware knickle isn't canon. Nobody is thinking of it like that.

Anyways, time for the conclusion.

Bee anon is fundamentally wrong about how fandom works. Headcanons and ships hold no baring on the canon or your interpretation of the canon. Fandom is a place where canon is transformed in fan works for the fan's enjoyment, it is not a place where canon is determined or changed. You can interpret a work however you please, you can even divorce it from fan works entirely if you wish. Bee also has some things they need to think about in regards to why they feel the way they do about queer and autistic headcanons.

Thanks for reading.

#GOD was that long. #knightext #asks #fandom is like my no.1 interest and you can't ask me for my opinions on fandom discourse without getting an essay sorry

[campgender]

Hi, my friend has a chronic illness that flares up sometimes and we've been wanting to hang out but it has gotten cancelled a couple times lately bc of her not feeling well enough on the day. I want to ask her how she feels cuz I care abt her a lot and want an update but 1, I don't want her to feel pressured or like I'm asking just to ask can we hang out now, and not bc I care abt how she's feeling (does that make sense? I may be overthinking this) and 2, I genuinely wanna know how she's doing but idk what to say if she responds with her not being better, sometimes u don't feel better and that's ok but I always want to offer comfort somehow or just convey my friendship? but I feel the same everytime and don't want to sound repetitive ?

Any thoughts?

this is really kind of you & it means so much to me that you want to support your friend & are putting so much thought into it! my response is inherently based in my own experience to an extent & everybody’s different, but a lot if not all of this is stuff i’ve heard regularly from other chronically ill people. of course, don’t say anything you don’t mean – if some of this isn’t the case for you, just adapt accordingly :)

i understand worrying about being repetitive but i think that’s totally okay to do! for one thing, it can be difficult to remember things period when you’re ill, especially during a flare, & for another, internalized + societal ableism is a hell of a force. it never hurts to have a reminder that not everyone is trying to force ableist expectations onto you + your friendship & that someone cares about you!

i think you can definitely tell your friend pretty much what you told me! like, “hey, it’s okay if you aren’t feeling up for responding but i just wanted to check on you! not trying to pressure you to hang out or anything, i just care about you & how you’re doing”

honestly the most important + supportive thing people have ever told me is that it’s okay if the answer is “bad.” i’m literally like surprised pikachu meme every time somebody offers to let me vent about having a rough time & then it helps me just to talk about it. it’s really socially unacceptable to talk about chronic pain & a lot of people get frustrated when you’re complaining about the same thing & there’s not really anything they can do, so just the opportunity to be like “yeah shit fucking sucks right now” means a lot.

obv the appropriateness of this depends on the person & their relationship to disability but most of the time i’m very like, radical acceptance / embracing / etc about the fact that i’m probably just gonna get sicker, so sometimes when i’m having a rough time emotionally & am like “what if i’m this bad for the rest of my life” my gf (who doesn’t have chronic pain / chronic illness) will say something like “then i can’t wait to be there with you ❤️” & it’s more meaningful to me than i can begin to put into words.

again everybody’s different but for me one of the biggest things is when disability stuff just… isn’t a big deal to the other person. which, it’s totally okay for you to need support from others when someone you care about is going through a hard time & when things change! but abled people are constantly horrified about like, every aspect of my life, so being able to talk casually about symptoms & somebody mirror the mood / tone i set – laugh if i’m joking, be upset about the ableism i experience & not my body itself if i’m complaining about people being weird about it, taking things as they come – is so affirming.

other things that have been helpful + meaningful for me are friends sending me notes, stickers, & art in the mail – having something tangible can make me feel more “real” & part of the world, something i struggle with due to being homebound – & peer support around medical neglect, which often just looks like talking to someone after a doctor’s appointment & them reaffirming my reality / experiences & saying i didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

oh one other change in language i’ve made over time & probably picked up from a few other ill people in my life is a sort of realistic encouragement – there’s not necessarily anything wrong with “i hope you feel better soon!” because like, i get that the message is well-intentioned, but it can be awkward & difficult to receive when you don’t know if that’s gonna happen. instead, i try to tell people something like “i hope you get a bit of relief soon” or “i hope things are a little easier tomorrow.” a 7/10 pain day may be horrifying for most people, but when you’ve had a streak of 9s, it can be a much-needed taking the edge off, & i try to make space for that breadth of experience in my language.

i’ve answered a few similar questions before so i’ll add my “asks” & “faq” tags on my chronic illness blog in the reblogs if you want to browse! much love to you & your friend and feel free to lmk if you have any other questions 💓💓

#asks #chronic illness