Tumgik
#I have my entire fucking life to think about with this disability. I have to change my entire future and life goals. everything.
cluescorner · 2 months
Text
Randomized Robins AU - Ages + Worst Trait Exercise:
Steph (25):
Says her worst trait is her murderous rages (she is exaggerating for dramatic/comedic effect, she’s killed 3 people tops and for very good reason)
Thinks her worst trait is her spitefulness (one of the few traits she definitely got from her father + one that prevents her from fixing her relationships and living her best possible life. She’ll refuse to interact with someone she dearly loves after an argument (happens significantly less after Tim’s death) or will say things she knows are hurtful just for the sake of having the last word. This trait will worsen in some ways as the list of people who have wronged her and those she loves grows, but will also ease up as she matures and realizes the harm it’s doing to her relationships with those she loves most.)
Her worst trait really is her spitefulness
Cass (26)
Says her worst trait is her self-righteousness (she believes that her goals are righteous and, as a result, she is righteous. Cass becomes very defensive whenever someone questions the mission and often does not second-guess herself. This is a trait she only develops later in life as she grows closer to Bruce/learns to understand herself more/starts to love herself more. But she knows she isn’t perfect and when somebody she trusts criticizes something she is doing she is willing to listen. She just usually isn’t the one to START the introspection.) 
Thinks her worst trait is her self-righteousness. 
Her worst trait actually is her obsessiveness (she gets it from Bruce and, while not as bad as him, she will easily become preoccupied with her night-life and the mission if someone isn’t there to pull her back. She will do this to the point of self-destruction and it hurts her relationships with the people she loves, especially Steph.)
Tim (24)
Says his worst trait is his spitefulness (he actively rejects the idea of mending his relationships with the older members of the family and this causes him to also lack good relationships with the younger ones)
Thinks his worst trait is his obsessiveness (similar to Cass, if he gets fixated on a task or idea he will neglect everything else in his life in order to dedicate more time to it. Unlike Cass, he will almost never be dragged away from it unless Pierrot snatches control of the body and forces them to take care of themself.)
His worst trait actually is how manipulative he is (the KING of guilt-tripping and using people’s emotions against them. He’ll do whatever he needs to do to get what he wants, he’s not above crocodile tears. And he will do it to whoever he needs (or wants) to with little care for how his actions impact others.)
Pierrot (Insists: “Age doesn’t apply to me! And even if it did, I'd probably be the oldest. Or the youngest! I’d never be a middle child, though.” Mental assessments by the Bats have put him around 21, with a margin of error of 3 years. Pierrot has called this “blatant character assassination by my eternal rival!”)
Says his worst trait is that he is an irredeemable psychopath without any regard for the wellbeing of others (this is a lie and everyone who's important to him understands this). 
Thinks his worst trait is his parasitic nature (he literally would not exist had Tim not suffered the way he did. Plus he is a living reminder of one of the worst things that happened to many of his loved ones. He is a parasite injected into a functional person's body and contributes to his continued suffering. This is also a largely incorrect judgement of himself, caused by his actual worst trait.)
His worst trait actually is his limited sense of self (he doesn’t really know who he is outside of ‘inheritor to the legacy of the Joker (a man he despises yet also views as a father)’ and ‘chip in Tim’s brain that became sentient’. He slowly develops an identity over the course of his life and relationships with other people, but he lacks the foundations of identity that most people have. Pierrot will often almost become a caricature of himself and what others perceive him to be because it's the only person he knows how to be. This causes wild swings in how he behaves and relates to others, sometimes to the detriment of himself and others.)
Dick (17) 
Says his worst trait is his clinginess (he is a very extraverted person who likes to be around others, which mixed with his fear of abandonment after his parents died means that if he goes a few days without seeing/talking to a friend he will get very anxious.)
Thinks his worst trait is his anger issues (he gets ticked off very easily and will explode on people. He’s kind at his core and is usually very nice, but he has a temper that can escalate significantly. Spoiler (and later Twist) help him channel this anger into something positive.)
His worst trait actually is his anger issues.
Barbara (18)
Says her worst trait is her disability (internalized ableism, she thinks of herself as less valuable than the other Bats because she cannot be out there in the capes like they can. She will grow out of this as she matures and as she learns how invaluable her support for the team is.)  
Thinks her worst trait is her disability 
Her worst trait actually is her overly-independent nature (In an attempt to overcompensate for everything she can no longer do, she has resolved to do literally everything that she possibly can without any help from others. This results in many instances where she either takes on too much and winds up not being able to fully realize any of her tasks or where she makes her life and the lives of others significantly harder by refusing help when offered/not asking for it when she needs it.)
Damian (16)
Says his worst trait is his perfectionism (he is overly critical of both himself and others, taking any flaw or problem and amplifying it to an absurd degree. This is due in part to his life with the LoA (where even a brief misstep could lead to death), in part to how others treated him initially as Spoiler (any flaw was fixated on and used as a reason to either mistrust him or portray him as unworthy of the mantle), and in part due to the fact that he is Bruce’s son (the only person with worse perfectionism problems than Damian). Gradually, Damian has improved in this regard but it’s still a massive barrier to both his own happiness and his relationships with others.)
Thinks his worst trait is his perfectionism 
His worst trait actually is his perfectionism
Duke (16)
Says his worst trait is his definitely-real secret evil side (says this as a ‘my dad is a villain so who knows??’ joke)
Thinks his worst trait is his impulsivity in his words (Sometimes he will crack a joke or say a remark without thinking it through, leading to a LOT of hurt feelings and drama. He’ll say something without thinking it through and wind up seeming insensitive. This isn’t done because of malice, rather because Duke is someone who’s quick to act and speak. But while the mantle of Insight and his awakening powers have helped him with his actions, they do not always help with his loose tongue. As such, Duke gains an unfair reputation in the media as an instigator and will accidentally cause family drama through what he says.)
His worst trait actually is his impulsivity in his words
Jason (14)
Says his worst trait is his bad manners (he grew up on the streets and has no idea how rich-people society works, which he’s pretty insecure about considering he’s now the youngest kid of Bruce freaking Wayne). 
Thinks his worst trait is his reactiveness (Jason never got the privilege of planning ahead for various events in his life, so he instead needed to rely on being swift and harsh in how he could react to situations. It’s saved his life on multiple occasions and helps significantly in his role as Spoiler, but it can also lead to extreme overreactions (accidentally causing kidnapping scare after Jason ran away following a fight with Dick) and a struggle to plan things out ahead of time. As he grows more secure in his place in the family and in life, this trait will lessen but never fully dissipate.)
His worst trait actually is his reactiveness
#stephanie brown#cassandra cain#tim drake#dick grayson#barbara gordon#damian wayne#duke thomas#jason todd#batfamily#randomizedrobinsau#I'm debating whether I should tag this with the Joker Junior tag and those related to it for Pierrot#because like...it's not quite that. but it's also very close to that and is the direct result of that.#but Pierrot would fucking HATE to be tagged as that and sees it as an insult to his identity...which he already has problems with#so I don't think I'm gonna#anyways lmao I am totally projecting my younger self onto Barbara. How could I not? She's literally the reason I view my disability#the way that I do and she actively improved my mental health just by existing and saying some of the shit she did when I was in the#stages of accepting my own disability. So yeah I am projecting a lot onto her because I love her and see myself in her.#I'm mostly basing these characterizations on my favorite versions of them (ie Red Robin 2009 Tim and Birds of Prey Barbara).#so I'm taking the traits I like/think fit in this AU and discarding what I think either is bad or doesn't fit or if I just don't like it.#Damian's 'murder gremlin who is a meanie on purpose because he is a meanie' is entirely unappealing to me and also does not fit this AU#I prefer him when he's portrayed as a sympathetic kid (who is still an asshole) and not a demon child. So that's what I'm using.#same with Talia's 'abusive mother who is totally on-board with all of her father's bullshit and will kill someone for no reason' version#I have read enough comics to know what I like/what is most important and what I don't like/what is#BLATANT CHARACTER ASSASSINATION GRANT MORRISON YOU FUCK YOU SET TALIA BACK SO FUCKING FAR#I also decided to outline their WORST traits because I already know what I like about these characters/their best traits.#most people do. But what was a greater challenge was finding what would make their lives and those of others worse.#what would I hate about this person if I knew them IRL? What would I first suggest they get therapy for? What hurts them and why?#I found these questions really interesting in the context of this AU where some people are forced into completely different roles#the says/thinks/is was inspired by trying to answer that question for myself. I say my worst trait is my impulsiveness but when#I asked others in my life they answered 'oh so you said your weird thing where you don't ask for help right?'
13 notes · View notes
databent · 2 months
Text
why the fuck is it that some people cant seem to acknowledge that people can just... be disabled. not through any fault of their own, not because something "happened" to them, just because, you know, sometimes people have disabilities. like, come on
#.pdf#rd#kd#just a warning these tags are long. like. really incredibly long. i had thoughts.#sorry for the vague ass post i'm just upset about some stupid shit my dad said yesterday.#namely: outright telling me that he doesn't believe i have non-24 (circadian rhythm disorder).#and that even if i do he doesn't believe it's possible for it to actually be a lifelong and disabling condition.#*also: this post isn't meant to imply that disabilities that did have some inciting incident are more accepted or anything.#it's just that i'm frustrated with the “you're disabled? why? what happened?” sentiment a lot of people seem to have.#nothing happened to cause my disability. i'm just like this. no i can't change it. what the fuck do you want me to tell you?#i'd guess it probably has to do with society's focus on work and productivity and career-mindedness above all else.#and when someone comes along that doesn't fit in with the way things are structured it just doesn't compute.#because the idea of people who can't dedicate their entire lives to working is so fundamentally contradictory to their view of... i don't-#-know. meaning in life? fulfillment? that they feel a need to reject the possibility altogether.#this is mainly when dealing with invisible disabilities from what i've seen. because i think there's a tendency to view visibly disabled-#-people as belonging to a different category altogether. which of course is its own issue but i'm not visibly disabled so i don't feel-#-like it's necessarily my place to speak on that.#anyway. i just want my struggles to be acknowledged as real. because they are. and i need people to understand that I Have A Disability.#albeit one many people don't even believe could be real because there's a sort of belief that circadian rhythms are purely a product of-#-external forces like sunlight so “you can't possibly have yours be different and have you tried just going outside more?” sigh.#sorry i also just remembered my dad telling me he doesn't believe i can have something so rare because the chances of having it are too low.#which is some ridiculous logic to me. rare doesn't mean it's impossible. some amount of people have to wind up with it regardless.#i just lucked out i guess.#n24 tag
8 notes · View notes
holyluvr · 2 years
Text
Older people who are disabled have got to start understanding that it’s a lot different of an experience when you’re younger and disabled. I’m tired of them brushing it off and talking about their disability that they gained with aging or at an older age. It’s not the same social, economic, interpersonal, or doctor experience at all when you’re 20 compared to 45+ years old.
181 notes · View notes
leemarkies · 1 year
Text
.
#having a Bad Day#one of my bosses was talking to me about classes i should take next year#and gave some helpful ideas about taking trial advocacy and pretrial lit#which. i do plan on taking the latter sometime next year#but both of those classes would severely mess up my entire course schedule and probably wouldn’t allow me to work twice a week at the firm#but i ofc don’t say that i just nod and agree and say thank you. they don’t need to know what classes i’m taking#and then my head boss talks to me after and says they are suggesting these courses bc my analysis writing has gotten worse since i started#and that he noticed i don’t have a ‘passion’ for this work#so . great. now i feel god awful. not about what they think about me but more about whether or not i’ll be able to keep a job here#and like normally i would not care but. i NEED this job i NEED the money#i pay for my mom’s mortgage and i have loans to pay off + just! normal general things to buy! and GAS!#without this job i’d have $240 a month roughly from my other job which is next to nothing#idk what i’m doing wrong. this job is such a ‘trial by fire’ and i’m sooo intimidated by my bosses#and i’m cheery and i don’t complain and i listen and i smile and i work quickly#and sure i make mistakes but i try! i swear!#if i don’t have this job past the summer idk what i’m going to do i’ll be so fucked#putting all of my eggs in this one basket. already committed to this summer but if they don’t want to hire me after graduation#i will be jobless. i have no network. i spend all of my time working or at home bc i live with two disabled people an hour+ away from campus#and i don’t have the time or energy to do anything else#i’ve dealt with soooo much worse in my life idk why i’m freaking out so much rn#i would give anything to call my grandpa rn for some advice but .#…. haha anyways . great weather we’re having
5 notes · View notes
slutdge · 2 years
Text
🐞
#ignore its avent post sorry im gonna explode because i cant say this anywhere else#i like genuinely feel like i need to check myself back into the hospigal because of the level the abuse has escalated to#like every waking moment all i think about is wanting to die#and usually it was only half my waking moments i felt like that#but the hospital wont do anything anyways all theyll do is keep me in a brightly lit room for three days and release me with no resources#like ok cool were not responsible now if you kill yourself after release 👍bye#the mental health system as well as the disability system im working my way through right now#with no guarantee that i will even be allowed disability despite being hospitalized almost monthly and have been for nearly 10 years#is so dehumanizing#and on top of that im being dehumanized by an abuser and there is no hope i will be able to get out of this situation any time soon#like ive never wanted to die this badly in my entire life lmao#and i really just wanna say fuck it and relapse til i just die from that so at least i can have some peace for the rest of my life#whatever the hell is left of it#and doing this in complete isolation is only making it worse#im so god damn tired#anyways blah blah blah yes i know its my fault you dont need to tell me that please see yourself out im very aware its my fault#vent doesnt mean anything beyond getting my thoughts out and amazon 3 it doesnt mean im absolving myself of being an irredeemable fuck up#vent //
8 notes · View notes
inkskinned · 4 months
Text
she's three years younger than i am, and i put on cascada as a throwback, cackling - before your time! i've been borrowing my brother's car, and it's older than dirt, so the trunk is like, maybe permanently locked. when the sun comes through the window to frame her cheekbones, i feel like i'm 16 again. i shake when i'm kissing her, worried i won't get it right.
in 2003, my state made gay marriage legal. where she grew up, it wasn't legal until 11 years later - 10 years ago. if legal protections for gay marriage were a person, that person would be entering 5th grade. online, a white gay man calls the fight for legal marriage boring, which isn't kind of him but it is a common enough opinion.
it has only been 9 years since gay marriage was nationally official. it is already boring to have gay people in your tv. it is already boring to mention being gay - "why make it your entire personality?" i know siblings that have a larger age gap than the amount of time it's been legally protected. i recently saw a grown man record himself crying about how evil gay people are. he was begging us, red in the face - just do better.
i am absolutely ruined any time my girlfriend talks about being 27 (i know!! a child!), but we actually attended undergrad at the same time since i had taken off time to work between high school and college. while walking through the city, we drop our hands, try not to look too often at each other. the other day i went to an open mic in a basement. the headlining comedian said being lesbian isn't interesting, but i am a lesbian, if you care. as a joke, she had any lesbian raise their hand if present. i raised mine, weirdly embarrassed at being the single hand in a sea of other faces. she had everyone give me a round of applause. i felt something between pride and also throwing up.
sometimes one thing is also another thing. i keep thinking about my uncle. he died in the hospital without his husband of 35 years - they were not legally wed, so his husband could not enter. this sounds like it should be from 1950. it happened in 2007. harassment and abuse and financial hardship still follow any person who is trying to get married while disabled. marriage equality isn't really equal yet.
and i don't know that i can ever put a name to what i'm experiencing. sometimes it just feels... so odd to watch the balance. people are fundamentally uninterested in your identity, but also - like, there's a whole fucking bastion of rabid men and women who want to kill you. your friends roll their eyes you're gay we get it and that is funny but like. when you asked your father do you still love me? he just said go to your room. you haven't told your grandmother. disney is on their 390th "first" gay representation, but also cancelled owl house and censored the fuck out of gravity falls. you actively got bullied for being gay, but your advisor told you to find a different gimmick for your college essay - everyone says they're gay these days.
once while you were having a hard day you cried about the fact that the reason our story is so fucking boring to so many people is that it is so similar. that it is rare for one of us to just, like, have a good experience across the board. that our stories often have very parallel bends - the dehumanization, the trauma, the trouble with trusting again. these become rote instead of disgusting. how bad could it be if it is happening to so many people?
i kiss my girlfriend when nobody is looking. i like her jawline and how her hands splay when she's making a joke. there is nothing new about this story, sappho. i love her like opening up the sun. like folding peace between the layers of my life, a buttercream of euphoria, freckles and laughter and wonder.
my dad knows about her. i've been out to him since i was 18 - roughly four years before the supreme court would protect us. the other day he flipped down the sun visor while driving me to the eye doctor. "you need to accept that your body was made for a husband. you want to be a mother because you were made for men, not women." he wants me to date my old high school boyfriend. i gagged about it, and he shook his head. he said - "don't be so dramatic. you can get used to anything."
the other day a straight friend of mine snorted down her nose about it, accidentally echoing him - she said there are bigger problems in this world than planning a wedding.
3K notes · View notes
ultraviolencced · 1 year
Text
you know how parents get divorced and hate each other when they lose a child well it’s like that but my mom to me
#there was like a ‘honeymoon’ time where she told me she loved me daily and gave hugs which hasn’t happened since 2018 and that didn’t last#and now she wants nothing to do with me bc apparently i’m a horrible manipulative piece of shit#me: self harms is scared and asked for help my mom: mad at me like when my sister did she held her and comforted her and called the crisis#response team to make sure she’s ok and im just manipulater with nothing wrong with me#she fucking asked me in not a good tone if i was ok i said no i’m not ok and she said in a tone well obviously no one is ok with this i’m#talking about right now like no i just self harmed for the first time in years im a scared sobbing mess and she didn’t care#yesterday i told her i was mad at myself and i wish she would’ve stopped me impulsively spending bc it’s a super unhealthy coping mechanism#and trigger and she knows that and then she fucking encourages me to buy something then i ask for help and she’s mad at me she hasn’t even#looked at me today like this why i’ve spent my entire life not telling her how i’m feeling or struggling because it does more harm than good#like what are you supposed to do when your mom hates you no i can’t move out i have autism and i’m disabled and can’t work#there were 3 weeks of me thinking she actually did care and actually meant it when she said she loved me but that’s over so now i just sit#in my room alone trying to cope with my brother dying and my mom not liking me and worrying about my sister bc she’s in such a fragile state#all i want to do is talk to her about how i’m feeling and i can’t because it will send her into a rage and she will literally fucking hate#me and want me out of the house#idk i’m 27 i should just shut the fuck up and move on i’ve done it for 23 years i can just fucking continue it is what it is#shut the fuck up taylor
1 note · View note
transsexualmasc · 11 months
Text
i still can't stop thinking about non-it/its users responses to this post. how an awful lot of people think it's fine to refuse someone else's pronouns because of their own discomfort.
let me tell you a story.
i have been dehumanized almost my entire life. a combination of my race, disabilities, and the mental illnesses that i developed very early in my life meant i was treated like a monster. i started coming out as gay too early for my peers' comfort and that only added to that treatment. my dehumanization is enshrined in christianity. i took on the label of monster on purpose because i stopped relating to humanity. why should i want to be a part of a group who did nothing but hurt me and exclude me in the first place?
i don't need to be protected from my own goddamn pronouns. i don't need to hear about the historical dehumanization of queer people and people of color and disabled people because, like a massive majority of the people using it/its, i fucking know. i have for literal decades.
you know what hurts? telling me i don't know what's best for myself, that your discomfort with my life is more important than treating me like someone who can make its own fucking decisions, and misgendering me because you can't handle being reminded of the things that literally continue to happen to me. i'm not a poor unthinking baby that needs to be saved, and neither are the other it/its users.
if you have feelings about it/its, you can process them on your own time, like every other person uncomfortable with a pronoun set.
and for the love of everything unholy just call me by my fucking pronouns.
3K notes · View notes
weebsinstash · 4 months
Text
something that I think would be, truly one of the worst things about the yandere Batfamily really truly is their power to make any and every problem you've ever had completely go away in no time at all
it can be such an awful feeling to see that you struggled in vain with something that was nothing at all to someone else. You could have significant issues that have followed you all your life and have had traumatic impacting effects on you and these people could come in and sweep that all away. Student loans you've been paying off for years, if not a fraction of your lifespan, still burying you in debt? We are talking fucking decimal points on the scale of Bruce Wayne's wealth. That bad leg from an old work injury? Let's grab you one of the best doctors in Gotham, if not the entire world, fuck, we may even get you a doctor or medicine that isn't even human-made! Y'all want a magic leg? We know this chick who can speak backwards, you want a magically healed leg?
Crippling loneliness? Eternal sunshine and objectively best Robin Dick Grayson is here to brighten your entire world since he knows what it can feel like to be hurting and alone and he's literally like the heart and soul of the entire manor besides Alfred
Chronic pain, an undiagnosed disability, or maybe you're not confident in your fitness? Jason has extensive knowledge of injury recovery, physical therapy, and overall knowledge about human biology and musculature and how everything correlates
Family issues? Daddy issues? Let Resident Troubled Kid Expert Alfred Pennyworth be your new grandpa. He's dealt with more than one temperamental snappy individual, and he'll use his patience, experience, and wit to wear down all your stress and hostility. It's hard to keep being cruel to someone who's nothing but kind to you, and he has plenty of patience and delicious baked treats to hold out until you give in
Honestly just the fact most of them are so fucking young would get under my skin. You could be approaching your 30s and be sitting here at the Wayne family dinner table as their weird sister/mom/girlfriend/whatever and being all "I've just always had these struggles my entire life, I dont know what's wrong with me, I feel like I can't control how I act or feel and I hate it" and someone like Tim who depending on the source material and where you are on the timeline is a literal teenager with extensive knowledge of criminals and psychology is just over here, "oh, that? You have chronic childhood trauma, recurring resurfacing conflict related ptsd, severe abandonment issues, emotional regulation problems that are probably biological, and also you probably have autism, and there's nothing wrong with any of that :)" and then he turns to Bruce and starts talking about how his school is taking a trip abroad to Greece while you sit there processing that everyone around the table has extensively psychologically evaluated you and you probably have your own file on the Batcomputer (you do. It's excessive.)
It's just. The psychology of having all these problems you've struggled with be wiped away by someone else like it's nothing and how, that can result in making someone feel all the more worthless and helpless. Oh, Bruce was able to just make all your problems disappear? Clearly YOU weren't trying hard enough. Tim is able to suss out what's wrong with you? Well YOU'RE the dysfunctional idiot who was born wrong, and YOU were the one choosing the wrong doctors. You're watching all these young teenagers or young adults be vigilantes and travel the world and learn multiple languages and you're like. Normal guy Steve from the grocery store. You know? They take control of your life and make you feel like a side character in it, because everything you do is now attached to them, and all of them and all of their adventures are so... spectacular
And really, someone with a meaner heart, and maybe someone more blunt like, say, Damian, could perhaps come in and make some comment, "see? This is why you needed our assistance in caring for you" and what are you gonna do, NOT act like they basically fixed your entire life in less than a year's time, with the one objection of kidnapping and imprisonment? You're just over here, "um yeah, actually, I'm an adult and I can take care of myself, you don't need to TAKE CARE OF ME???" meanwhile Bruce and Alfred are exchanging knowing looks while you speak as if the old butler hadn't needed to help you call your doctor and other important urgent matters because being on the phone with strangers gave you such intense anxiety. Ok yes sure honey you are a lovely functional adult and your brain is big and beautiful and perfect 🥰 now shut up about going to live back home on your own, go play Xbox with your new brothers or go bake something with Grandpa while the world's greatest detective sits down in the Batcave using the Batcomputer to track down and "have a friendly chat" with that one childhood teacher that gave you that one really specific trauma-
504 notes · View notes
ladamedusoif · 2 months
Text
able
(Joel Miller x disabled F!Reader)
Tumblr media
Pairing: Joel Miller x Disabled F!Reader
Summary: "I just don't think she'll be able for patrol". But then it's just you, Joel, and your trusty walking stick in the middle of nowhere...
Content/warnings: Reader is disabled (she has rheumatoid disease/arthritis in addition to panic attacks, she uses a walking stick as necessary); Reader had a sister; Reader is an art teacher; strong violence; blood; description of panic attack; references to impact of chronic illness and disability; references to medication; references to disease and death; non-canon compliant; Jackson!Joel; strong language; ableist language and abusive language
Rating: Mature; 18+ MDNI
Word Count: ~3.7k
A/N: After making a plea earlier in the week for people to actually write disabled Reader fic, as opposed to forcing writers to feel they have to tag literally everything in an able-bodied Reader story, I knew I had to put my money where my mouth was as a disabled, neurodivergent writer with various mental health things going on here and there. And this one-shot is the result.
This one is a little personal. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid disease about ten years ago, and Reader’s experiences are informed by my own (though, thankfully, I haven’t had to contend with an apocalypse that meant I couldn’t access the medication that has kept me going). She’s also inspired by @agentjackdaniels, who acted as consultant extraordinaire on walking sticks and panic attacks, and suggested the Joel picture for the moodboard. Thank you, Luce, for this, for fighting the good fight for representation in fic - and for beta-ing the story. 
(A note on terminology: rheumatoid disease/arthritis are sometimes used interchangeably. ‘Arthritis’ often sounds like it’s ‘just’ osteoarthritis to people who don’t know the difference. Rheumatoid, unlike osteoarthritis (which is shitty in its own ways), is a systemic, lifelong, chronic illness and an auto-immune disorder that affects the entire body, not just bones and/or joints. So personally I use ‘rheumatoid disease’ as it conveys more of the impact of the condition. It's also often seen as an 'old person' disease but this simply isn't true - not that this stops mobility aids being modelled by people in their 80s all the time...)
Please follow my writing blog @ladameecrit and turn on notifications to stay up to date with my work.
Dividers by @saradika - moodboard by me
Tumblr media
You weren’t supposed to make it.
Twenty-odd years in the apocalypse with your fucked-up joints and no steady supply of the meds that kept you going, pushing through the cycles of fatigue, and fighting off your own goddamned immune system as much as you were fighting clickers and raiders. 
You really weren’t supposed to make it. But you had Annie.
You were sharing an apartment when the outbreak happened, a quirk of shitty personal circumstances - she’d just broken up with her long-term boyfriend - that probably helped save your life. Annie was the all-action sister - the kind of person who thinks there’s nothing weird about spending your weekends doing triathlons and “Tough Mudder” challenges, who had a perfect bill of health your entire lives, who bounced out of bed in the mornings while you cracked and creaked and stiffly manoeuvered yourself into being. 
The good days generally outweighed the bad in the years between your diagnosis with rheumatoid disease and the initial outbreak - or maybe you had just gotten used to the aches and pains and the occasional flare-ups of fatigue. You invested in a walking stick to help on those days when mobility was particularly bad: solid, heavy, and carved in a pale yellow wood. It felt like a comfort in your hand, more a sign of strength, to you, than of weakness. 
Annie helped you through the panic attack that consumed you on outbreak day, working with you to regulate your breathing and relax your tense muscles until you could finally say what was on your mind.
“My meds. What am I going to do without my meds?”
Nothing a quick smash and grab at the local pharmacy couldn’t fix. It was the first of many, stockpiling the little yellow tablets you relied on and taking as many packs of over-the-counter painkillers as you could carry. Useful currency in the apocalypse, as it turned out.
All-Action Annie was never going to cope with life in a QZ. She got the two of you out after months of planning, nights of whispered talk about a town out west that was normal - or something close to it, anyway. She hadn’t entertained your protestations about you slowing her down, holding her back.
“You think I’m leaving behind a girl who’s so handy with a weapon?” she’d teased, pointing to your walking stick. “Be real. We’re busting out together.”
The infection took hold in her about three days from Jackson. Fuckin’ barbed wire, tearing a jagged line through Annie’s hand and leaving behind an old-fashioned kind of threat to life, the kind penicillin had mostly dealt with. But that was then. This was now. 
She died in an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, you holding her hand until the end, talking to her about your childhoods and trying to keep smiling until she closed her beautiful eyes. 
It took all your strength to dig her grave. And then, somehow, you found more.
You weren’t supposed to make it. But you did. 
Jackson stands before you. 
Tumblr media
He sees you for the first time in the community dining hall, talking animatedly to Maria as you hungrily devour the food set in front of you. Eyes wide, face grubby, clothes ragged. Half-wild, he thinks, like most of the new arrivals. Like him and Ellie, once upon a time. He returns to his bowl of soup and his own thoughts - at least, until he’s interrupted by Maria.
“Joel? Want to introduce a new member of the community, just arrived.”
He doesn’t quite know why he’s surprised when he realises you’re leaning on a sturdy hand-carved walking stick in a solid, light yellow wood. Maybe it’s because he knows how physically hard it is to get here. Maybe he just assumed folks who needed a stick wouldn’t have been able to manage the journey. 
For a second he can hear Sarah’s voice in his head, chiding him for focusing on what a disabled person can’t do instead of what they can. 
“Joel?”
He snaps out of his reverie and looks from Maria to you. “Uh, hi. Sorry, just…sorry. Forgot my manners.”
“I was just saying how glad we are to have someone who can offer some art education in the town, isn’t that right, Joel?”
Your eyes are warm and mischievous as you meet his gaze, silently conveying your amusement at Maria’s rather brusque manner. It’s all Joel can do not to laugh.
“Sure is. You’re an artist, then?”
You shake your head. “Not a real one. I was an art teacher, before. Long time since I created anything, though, so I hope I remember how.”
He smiles softly, his gruff exterior receding a little. “Bet it’s just like riding a bike,” he says, before his face falls as he looks at your walking stick. “Oh, shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean… Shit. Hope I didn’t offend.”
“As it happens, I can ride a bike, Joel. The apocalypse just doesn’t give me much cause to.”
You leave him with a smile and a wink as Maria ushers you to meet other townsfolk. He watches you as you walk away, the tap-tap-tapping of your stick beating out a new rhythm in the heart of Jackson.
Tumblr media
You think of Annie every morning when you wake up in the little house you’d been assigned. Sometimes, as you potter around the kitchen, still revelling in the novelty of making yourself morning coffee for the first time in two decades, you even talk to her. You tell her about the town, the townsfolk, your work in the community vegetable garden, your art classes. 
“Honestly, An, you wouldn’t believe how popular they are,” you tell the Annie who, in an alternate universe, is sitting at the kitchen table with her own mug of coffee. “I’m setting up extra sessions to cater for demand.”
There’s something uplifting in how hungry the people of Jackson are to make art, no matter their experience or existing skill level. They’ll draw stuff from memory, they’ll dutifully work on a still life, they’ll even traipse outside with you, wooden sketching boards in hand, and make rapid-fire sketches of the goings-on on Main Street. 
Joel doesn’t join a class - but the teenage girl Maria refers to as “Joel’s kid” does, all potty-mouthed and enthusiastic and pretty damned talented, to boot. Ellie tells you how she’s pinned up the drawings she’s proudest of in their home, “like our own fuckin’ art gallery or some shit.” 
You pull up a tall stool and sit beside her, resting your stick over your thighs. “Joel’s got his guitar and those dumbass model figures he paints,” she continues, leaning around her easel and squinting at the woman who’d volunteered to act as a life model for this week’s classes. “But this shit? This is real art.” She adds a little highlight to the woman’s sweater and leans back to assess the work.
“You probably got exempt from patrols, I’m guessing. On account of the stick, an’ all.”
“Maria asked, and I signed up happily. I got all the way here, didn’t I? I’m sure I can manage patrols. And it’s the least I can do - they’ve even found me some of the medications I need.”
Ellie nods, somewhat convinced, and returns to sketching out the contours around the model’s jaw.
Tumblr media
The day of your first patrol arrives. You bundle up and set out early for the stables, allowing extra time to get there on account of the flare-up you’d been experiencing the day before. 
You arrive early - just in time, in fact, to overhear a heated conversation between Joel and Maria.
“She’s doing enough, ain’t she? I just don’t think she’ll be able for patrol.”
“You’ve seen her out and about, Joel. She’s mobile. She’s competent. She’s good with the horses. She got all the way here, the last stretch on her own. What more proof do you need?”
“You’re seriously gonna send a woman with a walking stick out on patrol?”
“I seriously am. Sent you and your bad back out, didn’t we?”
“That ain’t the same and you know it.”
“Just saddle the horses, Joel. And, in case you’re wondering - yes, I paired you together deliberately, just until she gets settled.” You hear her footsteps recede as she leaves him.
You had misjudged how much your already-limited grip would be further impeded by the gloves you’re wearing. The stick clatters to the ground.
“Who’s there?”
You emerge from the shadows. “Me. Sorry.”
Joel rolls his eyes and gruffly points out the tack and supplies.
The first patrol passes in silence. You wonder what happened to the softer man you’d caught a glimpse of the first day you arrived.
Tumblr media
On the second patrol, you ask him questions about himself. On the third patrol, he asks (fewer) questions about you. By the fourth, you’re having something approximating normal conversation. 
“Sarah loved to make all kinds of stuff,” he ventures, leading the way on his chestnut horse. “Those beaded bracelets, that girly Lego in the pink and purple, all of that. My girl had enough Magic Markers to supply a whole elementary school. Maybe two.”
You can hear him smile, even without seeing his face. His shoulders relax a little as he recalls the memory.
“So she was a creative kid?”
“Creative, sporty… she could do anything. Made the school soccer team, she was so proud. Just a…” He pauses. “A great kid.”
There’s a few beats of silence, punctuated only by the sound of the horses snickering and the steady rhythm of their hooves on the ground. 
“What about your sister, was she arty like you?”
You’d told him about Annie on the last patrol. This was the first time he’d asked about her explicitly.
“She was the sporty one. I think that’s why I survived so long, truth be told. She was so strong and fast and tough as fuck.”
He chuckles, the burr of his voice resonating in the cold air. “Sounds like a good balance, though.”
“It is - it was. Was.” Your voice grows quieter as you repeat the word to yourself, chest starting to tighten. The horse slows, responding to the tension of your body, as Joel continues to trot on, not realising you’ve come to a halt behind him. 
And then the tell-tale snapping of a twig, the sound of footsteps, and the realisation there’s someone else there, emerging out of the woods. Two someones. 
Raiders. 
The panic attack that has been building inside you gives way. An innate fight or flight response kicks in as you roar his name. 
Tumblr media
Joel turns and charges back towards you, just in time to see you take out one raider with a crack shot from your pistol. He slows the horse and readies his rifle, staring at the other man who is now trying to haul you off your mount.
“Get the fuck off me, motherfucker!” You flail against him, desperately shifting your weight to the other side of the saddle to try to shake him off. 
Joel takes aim. 
You think you’ve kicked the raider off. And that’s when you hit the ground.
Tumblr media
He can’t take the shot now, not with her half-hidden from his view and audibly fighting off the man who’s dragged her to the ground. Joel is still a little distance away, slightly too far to see exactly what’s happening. 
Why didn’t he hear her slowing? Why didn’t he realise she was further behind than she ought to be? Why did she slow in the fuckin’ first place?
Joel quickly dismounts, rifle in hand, moving closer so he can get a clearer shot at the guy who’s now standing over her. The horse’s elegant neck obscures the raider’s hands from Joel’s vision - he has no idea if he’s pointing a gun at her or not. 
He thinks he has a clear sight on the guy’s head, provided he stays in the same position. He readies the rifle. 
Suddenly, the raider disappears, letting out a primal roar before he hits the ground. 
“You fucking cunt!”
Joel can see she’s standing now, the man prone before her. As he rounds the horse he sees her lift her cane, hands securely gripping the pointed end of the stick. 
She brings the solid, weighty handle down on the raider’s leg with a sickening crunch. Even Joel recoils a little at the sight and the sound.
“F-f-fucking…c-c-cunt!”
Thwack. The other leg. 
Fuck. She knows exactly what she’s doing.
”Keep calling me that, and I’ll keep the blows coming.”
Holy fuck. Who is she?
”C-c-c-cripple.”
”Excuse me?”
The raider props himself up on his arms. “I said, cripple. Fucking crippled cunt.”
“You shut your fuckin’ mouth.” Joel cocks his rifle. 
The stranger sneers at Joel. “Awww, he’s actin’ the big man now. Weren’t too quick gettin’ back down here to save your cripple woman, were ya?”
Before Joel can react, she swings her stick over her head and brings it down on the man’s skull with a furious scream that seems to come from the very depths of her being. 
She screams and screams as she hits him, over and over, eyes wild in her blood-spattered face. Joel recognises this: in himself; hell, in Ellie. It’s the moment when the floodgates open and all those years of pain blend together and zone in on this convenient target, an avatar for everyone and everything who had forced loss and trauma upon you. 
He roars at her to stop, but knows she can’t hear him. It’s just her and the raider, now: her rage and fear and grief finding their expression through a walking stick turned cudgel.
A single shot ends it. She turns sharply, as if snapped out of a trance, and sees the smoke leaving Joel’s pistol. 
Tumblr media
“Hey. Hey. You alright?” His broad hands grip your biceps as he looks into your eyes.
Yes, you tell him, yes. You’re fine. But Joel keeps asking. 
“Talk to me. Are you okay? I’m worried about you. Please, just talk to me.”
You are moving your mouth, but no sound is coming out. The familiar vice is tightening around your chest. You look down at your blood-stained hands and you struggle to breathe. 
“‘M dying, Joel. Can’t breathe. All the blood. So much. Why can’t I breathe?”
Oh, he realises with a pang. She gets these things too. And I know how to help.
“You’re okay, you hear?” He’s rubbing your arms gently, keeping his gaze on you. “You’re alright. Breathe along with me, okay?”
It’s difficult to find the rhythm, at first. Joel’s hands find yours and squeeze them in time with his breath.
”In through your nose, that’s it. Slow and steady. Now out through your mouth.”
He can see your muscles starting to visibly relax. A wave of relief courses over him.
”Yeah, that’s it - you got this. You got this, good girl, you’re just fine. Gonna be alright.”
When he’s confident your breathing has settled and the panic attack receded somewhat, he gently guides you away from the body of the dead raider, one hand holding your horse’s bridle and the other holding yours. 
“Why don’t you have a seat for a minute, huh?” Joel gestures to a long, low tree trunk lying near the forest’s edge and opens his saddlebags, rummaging until he finds a cloth, a battered hip flask and a bag of dried apple slices.
”Here.” He wipes the blood as best he can from your hands and proffers the flask, settling his substantial frame beside you on the log. “Have a sip or two, just to relax you a little bit more. Got a snack, here, too.”
You flinch at the taste of the liquor, but take a second sip regardless. The apple slices barely taste of anything in the afterburn of the moonshine. Joel nibbles on some jerky and stares into the middle distance. 
Tumblr media
You take a break from patrol, agreed with Maria, and a few days off your art classes. It was tempting to keep going, to return to the light and airy studio and to your students. But you feared a relapse.
And your body needed to recover physically, too. You ached from head to toe, fingers and toes puffy and swollen and movement seriously restricted. You ration out the supply of medication you’ve secured since getting here, and use hot water bottles and plenty of rest to try to ride out the flare in your arthritis.
Three days after the incident, there’s a knock on the door. You hobble to answer it, leaning on your trusty stick for support.
”Came by to see how you were doing. Got you some things if you needed ‘em.”
Joel is standing on your front porch, holding a jute grocery bag. He pauses, as if waiting for you to give him permission to say more.
”That’s so very kind of you, Joel. Come in, won’t you? I was able to set a fire so it’s nice and cosy.”
He watches as you lead the way into the living room, noting how much slower you were today. Guilt laps at his conscience. He said she shouldn’t go on patrol. He knew.
”You want me to bring these into the kitchen for you?”
“That would be a great help. Thank you.” He’s glad to see you smile, after the trauma of the patrol. “If you want a drink, I’ve got some tea and coffee in the cupboard just to the left of the sink.”
He pops his head back into the living room. “What would you like?” 
“A tea would be perfect. Mugs are in the cupboard to the right.”
You wrap yourself back up in your blankets on the couch, making room for Joel when he returns with the drinks and a couple of cookies, sent over by Ellie as part of his care package for you. The mug feels like a comfort in your aching hands, its heat assuaging the inflammation ravaging your joints.
He sips his coffee and you sit in silence for a little bit, watching the flames dance over the firewood. 
“Have you, uh - you been okay, doing okay, since…”
Joel stares into his coffee cup and then looks at you, a little awkward. You smile, hoping to reassure him.
”I’ve been okay. Just the physical pain and exhaustion, mostly. And - well, you saw it. The panic. It can leave you drained.”
He nods and takes another swig of his drink. “I know. I - I’ve had times like that, too. Real fuckin’ scary, when you’ve never gone through it before.”
You study his face for a moment or two, noting the little scar on his temple, the lines on his face, the stern expression completely undermined by the warmth of his deep brown eyes. For an instant, he seems so vulnerable, this strong, tough man sitting on your little couch. 
“I haven’t had an attack like that in a while. But then, I hadn’t done anything like that in a while.”
This time Joel turns to look at you properly. “Not your first rodeo, huh?”
You giggle at the turn of phrase. “Not quite. Let’s just say my stick did a lot of work over the last twenty years. He wasn’t the first to feel the brunt of it.”
Joel nods, and you feel strangely relieved that he doesn’t seem surprised. “Doesn’t get easier, though, does it?”
“It does not. Which is why it’s better to avoid having to do it.”
”I agree. Gotta say, though, I - I was worried you wouldn’t be able for patrol, y’know?”
You arch an eyebrow at him. “I know. I overheard you, remember?”
He blushes. “Aw, shit. Yeah. I’m sorry about that. I just didn’t want anything happening to you, what with your - condition, and all.”
You sigh softly, not really noticing the affection in his voice. “Most of the time, I’m fine. Y’know? I’m slower, but I do okay. I get tired more easily, but I manage. I didn’t come here to be a drain on the community.”
”You aren’t.”
”I know, but I want to keep it that way. I want to pull my weight. I’m able, Joel.”
He huffs in agreement. “Not like I’m a perfect specimen these days, either. Knees, fuckin’ back, deaf in one ear…” 
You chuckle. “And you thought I wouldn’t manage patrol? Anyway, you’re not doing so bad, are you?”
He gives you a little smile, but that constant sadness still haunts his eyes. He stares at his coffee for a moment.
“You knew what you were doing, though.”
”I did. But I didn’t feel like I could stop.” You sip your tea, swallowing hard. “And I’m scared that makes me some kinda monster. You know?”
Oh, he knows. He knows it too well.
”You aren’t a monster.” Joel resists the urge to put an arm around you. “You just… something snapped, I guess. All that - well, all that hell you’ve gone through. It… it changes you. But it doesn’t make you a monster.”
He realises you’re crying before you do, spotting the fat tears that roll down your cheeks. He finds a clean handkerchief in his jeans and offers it to you. 
Fuck it. 
“Can I - can I put an arm round you? Just for some support?”
Your eyes light up, tears or no tears, and you nod enthusiastically. Joel is warm and comforting, his broad chest and strong arms a kind of anchor in the emotional storm. You nuzzle against him, and he gives you a little squeeze on the arm.
”You’re a really brave woman, you know that?”
His voice is quieter, more intentional. You look at him quizzically from under your lashes, unused to praise of this kind. For an instant you think about asking him what he means. But the safety you’ve found in the broad arm draped around you is all you need right now. 
You nuzzle a little against his chest, and watch the fire dancing for the rest of the night. 
Tumblr media
252 notes · View notes
briarpatch-kids · 10 months
Text
I'm trying to think of a way to articulate my feelings on like... what cripplepunk actually means. There's a lot of talk on who can call themselves a cripple but not too much on how like... if someone describes the economy as "crippled" they're saying it doesn't work. If someone is described as having "crippling" social anxiety, they mean that person is so anxious they can't function in society so they might as well be a cripple.
Cripple means broken and useless. We're seen as a bad and redundant part of society, something to be fixed or forgotten about.
CripplePUNK is about taking that place in society, really a not-place, and saying yeah, I AM worthless to most of society, people don't want to be me or be around me because I make them uncomfortable just by existing. We're considered the lowest of the low and the most useless of the useless. We used to be called invalids for a reason. And fuck you my life is worth it anyways. I'm going to give my worthless life the meaning I choose to give it. I'm not going to spend my entire life trying to be a good cripple and do all my physical therapy and eat perfectly and be nice to people who "didn't mean it" and everything else to try and be worthy of respect from people who think my life is worth than death, I'm going to do what I think is worthwhile and if you don't like me or like the way I live then you can go fuck yourself.
If you're not willing to take on all the baggage of being a cripple, cool. A lot of people don't want that, but cripplepunk is about throwing your disability and your 'uselessness' to society back in their face and experiencing disability on your own terms.
It's also acknowledging some people DON'T make it and their lives were just as worthwhile no matter how short.
908 notes · View notes
nekropsii · 3 months
Text
ALPHA TROLLS RANKED BY HOW WRONG THE FANDOM AT LARGE IS ABOUT THEM:
This is a personal challenge, based entirely on my own experience and perspective, and also ranked from Most to Least Correct. I was bored, and thought this might be fun.
Putting this under a cut, because it's long as hell.
MEULIN LEIJON
People get her mostly correct, from what I’ve seen… Most of the time, fan content of Meulin is absolutely recognizable as Meulin, but her pride in her deafness + joy of learning new ways to interact with the world through/due to her disability is always removed, and I do not often see people tackle the Toxic Positivity aspect of her character. That seems less like character assassination, though, and more like a combination of people not actually playing through the Openbounds, people not being able to fathom disabled people (especially those who gained a disability later in life rather than being born disabled) being happy, and general fandom distaste for the idea of touching anything uncomfortable, especially when that uncomfortable topic is highly mundane, normalized, and potentially applicable to them or their loved ones. Meulin’s toxic positivity was, of course, commentary on Tumblr’s ecosystem at the time, so… It was much harder to touch back then.
ARANEA SERKET
People tend to get her general, broad strokes personality right, but unfortunately she gets treated pretty roughly for the crime of Being A Serket. People refuse to understand her motivations, and she often gets demonized for what she was doing around/during [S] Game Over, even though that was something she’d gotten pushed to and also was cool as fuck to watch. God forbid a woman do anything.
DAMARA MEGIDO
People are right about the racism, 100%. It is completely despicable, hard to look at, and extremely blatant. She does, however, have character outside of that. No, it isn’t “whore”, it’s more like “angry, dysfunctional abuse victim”, and she’s genuinely a very interesting and tragic character. But, again, people are right about the racism, so she gets to be placed way up here.
MEENAH PEIXES
She is such a chaotic little bastard. I love her. I really do. Please understand that she genuinely does not understand the concept of consequences. This girl didn’t have a Lusus, she didn’t have parents, it was functionally illegal to tell her “No, you can’t do that.” That would fuck up literally anyone’s moral compass. That’s not me hand waving away all the fucked up and bad shit she’s done, we all know what she did, but people tend to forget this aspect of her character and it pains me deeply, because it is a very genuinely interesting concept that I want to see more of. She’s capable of regret, we’ve seen her feel it, I just don’t think foresight is her forte. No one raised her to consider consequences, or help her experience them in a healthy way, because nobody raised her period.
Also, her ass is not butch, she is the girliest girl in the entire comic. She is about hot pink and glitter and kiss marks and unicorns and cute little puns and you will respect that. She is not masculine. Her ass is not masculine nor is she butch. Let her be her hyper-feminine self.
LATULA PYROPE
Please for the love of god there is more to her character than “Gamer Girl” and “Mituna’s Girlfriend”. You are falling for her fucking ruse. Please. Please. Please recognize that her entire character is about internalized misogyny, and being forced to overcompensate for misogyny in gaming circles as a gamer who happens to be a woman. Please. I’m begging.
KURLOZ MAKARA
His character is not that deep, it’s mostly just a string of events he is mysteriously, inexplicably involved with. The Makaras are extremely Function Over Form- their characters practically do not exist, they're mostly just plot devices that exist to push the story along. I'm sorry to Makara fans. You just invented a guy in your mind and decided he was real. He is also not that soft, though, and his relationships with both Meulin AND Mituna are not healthy. Hard to stop people from ascribing cutesy squishy lovey dynamics to random men who happened to have looked at each other once, though. Some people truly haven't graduated from 2012.
HORUSS ZAHHAK
I am begging people to consider that maybe the biggest issue here is not that he is “Bad Otherkin/Therian Representation” and is in fact maybe the fact that Hussie was actually making fun of Systems when he was writing Horuss. Because Horuss is canonically a system. He uses the word system. He uses the word switching. He uses the word host. He literally talks about his Plurality at length in extremely upfront, plain terms. I don’t know how him being “Bad Otherkin Representation” was and still is the main discourse about him. It makes me insane. That is a commentary that truly writes itself. Talk about having your priorities out of wack, honestly...
PORRIM MARYAM
No, she is not a MRA, she’s just a regular feminist who happens to live on a different planet with different politics and social hierarchies from Our Real World Earth’s USA. Whatever argument you’re about to pull out of your ass to say that she sucks is bad. She already explained what she meant by that, in more detail, very clearly, and she was right. Half the time she’s literally just giving you factual information about what Beforus was like, and literal plot synopses. She isn’t saying anything insane. She’s literally normal. I don’t know why people cannot handle or process this. Porrim has not ever said anything controversial. If you disagree with this you’re either misconstruing her on purpose or you fell for Kankri’s bait, and that’s just fucking sad at that point.
Also, she’s more than a sex object, and her tits are not huge. Honestly, half the shit she was saying was just “I am more than my sex life”, and so many people took that and made her main character trait her sex life. Just pathetic.
RUFIOH NITRAM
This man is a fucking war criminal and I will stop at nothing until he is behind bars for his crimes against Damara. Raging misogynist. Total fucking cunt. Just the worst. If I talk any more about this, this part will be 1,000 paragraphs long. But also, I’m begging people to recognize his relationship with disability, too. He was similar to Meulin in the sense that he didn’t mind his disability, and his biggest gripe with it was the way that Horuss tried to “fix” it… Which is an interesting way to expand upon how Beforus’s culling system is not only very explicitly ableist, but mimicking real world systemic ableism. I also want people to recognize that Hussie is actively having a conversation about the reclamation of slurs with Rufioh’s character, and how not letting people reclaim such language is doing nothing but giving the word power against them while stripping away their own personal agency. Rufioh’s a complicated guy, and he’s interesting and also the worst, and I am really tired of how he gets watered down to nothing but “Pretty Boy Victim Of His Inexplicably Psycho Ex”.
MITUNA CAPTOR
Holy Fucking Shit, You Guys Are Ableist.
KANKRI VANTAS
To this day I see people saying he was just Hussie making fun of SJWs. To this day. To this day people think Hussie was trying to make Every Tumblr Leftist look bad, and that he hates them Because They Are Leftists. When will people recognize him as a bootlicker to the oppressive class and the violently bigoted. When will people recognize that. When will people recognize that this is more of a commentary on the legitimate real flaws of Tumblr’s politics at the time. When. When.
When will people stop portraying him as a lovey-dovey Catholic Whore. I’m going to stab my fucking eyes out and then kill everyone in this building. Me when it's based and cool to ship an aroace character with a sexual predator. I GUESS.
CRONUS AMPORA
I say this with every ounce of sincerity I can possibly muster as a person: What the literal actual fuck.
378 notes · View notes
plumbobpaparazzi · 1 month
Text
Peek into my Mods folder...
This is dedicated to @alltimefail-sims or anyone who needs a little help with lag!
I have several mods I refer to as "efficiency mods" that are little quality-of-life tweaks that make the game smoother for me, either by reducing lag or reducing immersion-breaking hiccups. As always, your mileage may vary, but hopefully this is helpful to someone. :) List of mods under cut to keep your dash clean.
No Intro - Whether you are trying to 50/50 your mods, testing new CC, or just need to shave time off your game loading... get rid of the cinematic intro.
Free Will Delay - Do your sims curbstomp their queue and proceed to fuck off to something unrelated? Yeah, me too, until I got this mod. From the mod description: "[E]very time you tell your sim to do something, they will be forced to listen! …For 5 minutes. Then they get free will back again. This is probably why controlling Sims in Sims 4 feels so bad! Because you lose control the second they start doing what they're told. Even if you queue up actions, the total time is STILL five minutes- because it goes from the last direction you give your sim. So you can tell them to do 3 hours worth of stuff while paused…and they'll get control back after 5 minutes. This mod changes this timeframe to an option of your choosing, to make controlling your sims feel more rigid."
Simulation Unclogger - This is an oldie-but-goodie mod from Turbodriver that helps interrupt when Sims get stuck in an endless action loop.
Evolve/Fertilize All Plants - Kind of weird how we can Harvest All but you can't Evolve or Fertilize All, right?
No Empty Venues When Arriving - Helps with the issue of going to a community lot and waiting around for Sims to show up. May cause increased lag if you are bottlenecked by RAM.
Food Autonomy Overhaul - Stops your stupid Sims from eating ingredients, AND allows Sims who hate cooking to autonomously grab quick meals. Didn't know they wouldn't do that? Yeah. That's a thing.
Don't Do That! Version 1 and Version 2 - Removes autonomy on annoying actions that can't be affected by MCCC tuner, like reactions and some trait idle animations.
Less Obsession - Lowers autonomy for certain things without disabling entirely. I still want my Sims to paint, but I don't want them to start a new figure painting any time they are left unsupervised.
Smarter Self-Care - Makes Sims prioritize their needs better before they are uncomfortable. I only use the packages for NPCs and Pets.
NPC Relationship Autonomy Fix - Stops random Sims from breaking into your house to ask to be your BFF (and tunes the requirements so they actually have to be your friend first.)
Buy More Upgrade Parts - Allows you to buy a package of 50 upgrade parts for when you are grinding out handiness or robotics.
The following mods are all by Bienchen and don't have a direct page for each package. You can search by name pretty easily on their website. I recommend flipping through and grabbing anything you find useful - I have a total of 368 of their mods installed. Here are some highlights:
novisibleecoeffects - The aurora will nuke your framerate. I know it's pretty, but oh my god.
noautonomousbakewhitecake - Does what it says on the tin, keeps your house from being overrun by cakes.
harvestnogroupinteraction - Stops club members from autonomously harvesting plants. Those are MY death flowers!
lessemotionidles - Reduces unnecessary idle animations from emotions, great for preventing your Sims from looking flirty at inappropriate times...
lesspreferenceidles - Stops your sims from thinking about how much they like fishing/fitness/etc. when they should be doing things.
happytoddleridledisabled - Stops the idling from the Happy Toddler trait. SUPER useful for family gameplay.
laundry_buffsandsoloidlesfix - Stops or reduces idles related to laundry. It's just clothes, bro
eldertweak - Reduces elder animation idles.
hastopeewalkstyleforchildonly - Helps get your Sims to the toilet in a reasonable amount of time.
tinyhousebuffhider - I know I'm in a Tiny Home, I don't need a moodlet.
lottraiteffectshider - Hides the little floating lightbulbs around Sims heads from lot traits.
notraitnotifications - I know my geek likes video games, I don't need the pop-up every time I play.
noholidayoutcomenotification - Please don't rub my nose in the fact I forgot to celebrate.
nofestivalnotifications and nofestivalnotificationsound - Helpful when a pack is new, but years later... no thanks.
noenrollmentandscholarshipinfo - No more info screen about the two universities. I think most of us know it all by now.
nouprootplant - Never cry because of a misclick again
simschangeoutfitwhenhotorcold - Should have already been autonomous, but alas.
novisualpoliteintroeffects - I don't know if I am the only one, but the glowing really bothers me.
restaurantsittweak - Sit down and eat your dang food! No more wandering Sims.
longerprom - Takes 6 hours instead of 4 so you can actually do something.
I probably have other QoL mods that could be helpful, but these are my recommendations to start with. Love to all the modders that keep this game playable <3
182 notes · View notes
howdoyouwhiskit · 5 months
Text
*deep breath* so I’ve been meaning to make a big post about House re:mobility aids and chronic pain treatment for a LONG time so here we go this is gonna be a long ride that probably won’t make a lot of sense in regards to a linear narrative so buckle up motherfuckers
Disclaimer: I am disabled, have chronic pain, and am an ambulatory mobility aid user. I have experience using a cane, forearm crutches, a rollator, and a walker. I understand everyone’s experiences are different. I am writing this from my personal experience with mobility aids which may influence some interpretations of things
Let’s start with the obvious one, House uses his cane wrong. They recognize this in canon. It isn’t simply a case of “oh the show writers were lazy and it’s never mentioned.” What I haven’t seen people discuss is that using a cane the way House does (in my experience anyways) fucking hurts. It isn’t comfortable at all. It feels awkward and clunky and at least personally within a few minutes of using a cane in that fashion my *entire body* hurts. Plus, it doesn’t even really help take the pressure off of my leg pain.
Given the all of him there’s two conclusions that I’d like to make about this (and remember this isn’t canon, just simply my interpretation as a disabled person):
It’s very obvious that House has Feelings about mobility aids. Society can often make people think that using mobility aids is a weakness. Admitting something is wrong. House very clearly doesn’t like to do either of those things. I personally have incredibly complicated feelings about mobility aids that I can’t even begin to put into words. I see myself in House in this regard.
I can’t help but think that him using his cane incorrectly is some fucked up form of self punishment. It’s been brought up in canon that House has a tendency to self harm in various ways. I don’t think that people realizing that him using a cane incorrectly could be related. For those who are unfamiliar, using any mobility aid (even a cane) incorrectly can cause damage. I do not claim to be a doctor but I imagine that House would be dealing with back and shoulder issues at minimum from using his cane the way he does.
The next thought I have is something I think about a lot. It’s clear House’s pain fluctuates, as it does for a lot of chronic pain patients. What I don’t see a lot of people talking about is realistically he could fluctuate mobility aids with the fluctuations of his pain. Yes, I understand there are limitations within his career as a doctor, but this is House MD were talking about there isn’t exactly always exact medical realism is there? I just can’t help but wonder, what would House’s life look like, if he let himself use something other than a cane?
I know there’s an episode where House does use a wheelchair for access to an accessible parking space, and I really really wish they expanded upon this more in canon. Personally, I think House needing to be (but not necessarily acting on it) a part time ambulatory wheelchair user makes sense.
I’ve read some fic/headcanons about House needing a wheelchair (Berber it be due to an advancement in disability or as an acceptance of his current disability) yet everyone talks about him using a shitty hospital grade chair. He’s a doctor who probably has great insurance plus a lofty department head paycheck. If House were in a position to have a wheelchair, he could very very easily access a top of the line custom made chair.
I understand the representation of the standard hospital chair often comes from a place of ignorance about custom wheelchairs, I really do. I just think that the concept of using a hospital chair permanently can cloud the judgement of if it’s truly a “bad thing” or not. Hospital wheelchairs are fucking uncomfortable and not easy to use. A custom chair, when built right, is none of these things.
Just, I’d love more House fanwork that embraces the idea of mobility aids. No, I don’t mean make House randomly decide “oh I’m gonna accept help now” and make him OOC. No, I mean let’s actually dive into House’s feelings about mobility aids, create some fanworks where maybe he works through some of his internalized ableism and self hatred and lets himself be accommodated. I hate seeing fic after fic that makes it seem like it’s some tragedy that House needs crutches or a walker or wheelchair. I want it to be normalized. Disability can be progressive and that’s just life. Yes, it’s upsetting. Yes, it can be sad to those involved. No, it doesn’t mean the end of the world.
Now I think it’s time to talk in regards to the treatment of his chronic pain, outside of the way he accommodates his mobility. I think that, while this is probably related to the writers wanting to stick to the “addicted to Vicodin” plot line, House’s pain management in the series, sucks, to put it lightly. I’ve been to multiple pain management programs (both at formal PM clinics and informal PM done by other specialists) and any doctor worth their salt would have had him on some sort of nerve pain medication and probably some form of muscle relaxer from the very beginning. While, yes, one could argue that House is on these medications and it’s just not mentioned, I really really don’t think that’s the case. You could also argue that he may have been offered these things, and simply refused them. This could very well be the case. However, that doesn’t erase the fact that these things could be helpful.
When House is off Vicodin, they have him substantiating off of exclusively ibuprofen. I’ve had chronic pain bad enough to need opioids treated with high doses of ibuprofen and in my personal experience, it doesn’t do shit. It just upsets your stomach and risks kidney issues and doesn’t actually help with the pain. The fact that just because he deals with addiction he doesn’t get proper pain management is BONKERS to me.
I understand that they were, within the shows canon, attempting to claim that at least some of the pain was psychological. Just because someone’s pain is psychological doesn’t mean you do not treat it. There are plenty of ways to treat psychological pain. Again, one could argue that House simply refused. Again, I’d say that you might be right.
You notice that I say that House very realistically could’ve refused various treatments that could make his life better. Just like how it is with his cane, I believe this is an effort at self punishment. If these efforts at self punishment are conscious or not is genuinely up to you. I personally view it as unconscious, but again, as I said in the beginning, I’m interpreting this the way I see things.
Anyways, just needed to get my thoughts out there, as a crippled person who’s been obsessed with House since before they realized that their chronic pain wasn’t normal. Since before they realized that the word disabled was something that could be applied to them.
Feel free to reply to this with thoughts or questions and y'all are more than welcome to DM me to pick my brain about this!
388 notes · View notes
ju1cyfru1t · 8 months
Note
Heeeeey! First of all, I wanted to say that I love your writing style! It's amazing and it's making me feel emotions♡! Second - I hope you have an excellent and nice day or night!
Can I request headcanons about Leo crushing on reader? And that he is so in love that it causes annoyance to his brothers, especially Donnie, that he decides to help his twin get the Reader?
If it's too much, you can ignore that, that's totally fine!
(and I'm sorry for any grammatical errors, English is not my first language, Haha!)
Tumblr media
THANK YOU POOKIE I REALLY APPRECIATE IT 🤭🤭🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻 HOPE YOU LIKE IT
Rise! Leo x gn! reader crush Headcanons + Drabble
fluff :D, contains swearing
- literally eats up any and all attention you give him
- maybe just slightly very delusional
- like you could just brush past him and he’s like
- “did you guys see that? they’re sooooo into me.”
- whatever you gotta tell yourself, pal.
- Him? Laying awake at night thinking about you? Whaaaat? That’s crazy, couldn’t be him.
- except for the part where it is, and it’s interrupting his precious beauty sleep.
- def would wake up one of his brothers *COUGH*DONNIE
- “Psssst…Donnie~..DONNIE! Are you awake? Great! Hey, did you notice earlier when Y/N-“
- someone tell him to shut the fuck up about you. Jk not that they haven’t tried, Leo just doesn’t listen.
- ABSOLUTELY believes that he is incredibly smooth
- The worst pick-up lines you have ever heard in your entire life + just him (trying) to flirt with you ALL DAY EVERY DAY bitch doesn’t let you have a moment of peace
- You have no idea what you’ve done. To him sure, but mostly to Raph, Mikey, Donnie, and even April.
-“Aaappprriiilll, did Y/N say anything about me when you saw them?…No? Oh.🥲”
- Leo is forward and confident towards you, he ain’t trying to hide anything. Trust me, you don’t know how anxious this makes him because of his deep rooted insecurities BUT THAT’S A STORY FOR ANOTHER TIME-
- esp if he can’t tell if you are feeling what he is, yk?
- MEANWHILE, Donnie is one “Y/N” away from finally snapping (and becoming a mad scientist)
- EVERYONE is growing tired of this. It’s not that they aren’t happy their brother found someone he’s interested in, but oh my god.
- But Donnie would do anything, and I mean anything, for more than 5 minutes of peace.
——————————————————————————
So there Donatello was, peering around the corner watching you, Mikey, and Leo in the kitchen. It had been a lovely afternoon! You guys watched a movie, and now you were making brownies.
“You know, Y/N..” Leo had a cocky smile, leaning against the counter, “I don’t know what’s sweeter…you or these.”
You and Mikey both rolled your eyes, “Shut up, Leo.” It was completely fair for Mikey to be annoyed, he’d been listening to this all day. Like, take a hint.
Donnie was fiddling with the door, and glanced down the hallway, making sure to look out for Raph because he wasn’t sure his eldest brother sound agree with his…plan.
“Oh, Angelo, could you come here for a moment?” Donnie stared intently at Mikey, motioning his head towards you and his twin.
Mikey looked back and forth between you and Leo confused for a second, before shrugging and heading towards Donnie who then pulled him straight out of the room. He slammed the door shut, and activated his digital lock. No one was getting in or out unless Donnie disabled it, which he did not plan on doing anytime soon. This ended NOW. I mean, he thought it was pretty obvious that you both liked each other and just needed to get it over with! Mostly because Leo’s painful obsession was getting really old.
Banging and muffled yelling could be heard from the other side, and Mikey grabbed Donnie by the shoulder. “Donnie! What are you doing? My brownies are gonna burn!”
“Trust me, Michael. This is for the best and they’ll be thanking me later.”
.
.
“ Dammit…we’re locked in.” You let out a deep sigh, letting yourself slide down the wall to sit, the smell of baking brownies still in there. Why would Donnie do this?
“Yeah…” Leo was trying really hard to keep his cool, but the panic coursing through him was undeniable. I mean, he was actually alone with you. There was always someone else with you two, whether it be one of his brothers, his dad, or April.
“But…I mean, it’s not all that bad, just you..and me.” He winked, with his usual confident, sly smile even though his hands were shaking.
“Ugh, will you stop that?” Your tone and expression was annoyed, and confused, Leo’s stomach sank.
“Stop whaaat?~” His voice trembled a bit, but he was still keeping up his playful demeanor.
“The…the flirting! Seriously, it’s not funny.” You looked away from him. “I’m not trying to be funny-“
“Seriously, shut up! Stop playing with my feelings, Leo. You’re so confusing…I can’t tell if you’re just toying with me or what- God, why do I even bother?” Of course you were frustrated, who wouldn’t be?
Leo was taken by surprise at your outburst, and it was obvious. As soon as the realization of you were saying hit, you were embarrassed. “Just…forget it, Leo. I shouldn’t have said anything-“
“Wait, no- Y/N, it’s not like that!” What the hell was he saying? Was he really about to do this right now?
He kneeled in front of you, taking in a deep breath. “I care about your feelings, ok? I’m not ‘toying’ with you, I really do like you!” Even as his anxiety rose, Leo felt like a weight was be lifted off of his chest. He couldn’t believe he really just said it…
Now, it was your turn to be surprised, staring into his hopeful eyes. “Leo…I don’t know what to say…I mean..” Leo swore his heart stopped, and he felt like he imploding right then and there. He couldn’t handle rejection like this.
“ I like you, too.” You grabbed his hand, taking it in yours. “What? For real?” He swiftly wrapped his arms around you, squeezing you tightly. “..ohgodthankyouthankyou…”
“So, what now?” You couldn’t help but smile, leaning your head into the crook of his neck.
Leo laughed, “I don’t know, I never really thought I’d get this far.“
——————————————————————————
TY FOR READING!! 🫶🏻🫶🏻🫶🏻
Some requests from my inbox will be posted very soon. I stared school again this week, so I’ve been busy but I’m trying to catch up! Sorry it’s been taking a hot minute. :)
339 notes · View notes
wen-kexing-apologist · 3 months
Text
Last Twilight: Ep 12
The TL;DR of this post is just... Sincerely what the fuck?
I remember posting after Episode 1 that I was keeping a suspicious eye on the mention of the eye donation because while I do think in real life disabled people have the right to manage their disability any way they want to and would support someone's choice to get a cornea transplant, real life is not fiction and fiction is designed to pull messages and themes from. Episode 12 from almost it's first moments completely undermines two and a half month's worth of messaging about learning to accept a new reality. I don't think it is foolish of me to assume based on the set up of the first episode that Last Twilight was supposed to be an exploration of grief as told in conversation and parallel between someone who lost a loved one and someone who lost their vision.
If this story had continued in the way it started out the first half of this show, I honestly think it could have been a 10, those first few episodes I was enjoying so much I was worried it might knock out Moonlight Chicken as my favorite Aof offering. Now I have rated Last Twilight as a 3, I will never suggest it to anyone and I will never rewatch it. Why?
Because from a fictional narrative perspective, having Day gain his vision back at the end undermines the entirety of the show's messaging from the first 11 episodes. Every single lesson, every single message just absolutely obliterated by every moment of Episode 12.
Day getting his vision back right as he and Mhok get back undermines the narrative in the following ways:
Rewarding Day for managing to create a successful and happy life as a blind person (literally like "hey you graduated and ran a bookstore while blind! Congrats you get to be normal again!)
"Rewarding" Mhok by insuring that he never has to do any caregiving for Day going forward so we don't get any navigating or expectation of Mhok and Day being in a longterm inter-abled relationship
We eliminate all chances that the subject of pitying Day re-enters any future fights, meaning there is now zero risk for Day maintaining a relationship with someone he worries might infantilize or pity him
It absolves Night of any remaining guilt he may be carrying from thinking he caused the accident that made Day blind
It absolves Day of any remaining anger at Night thinking he caused the accident that made Day blind
Mhon's ableist fucking ass gets her "normal" son back the way she confided in Mhok she'd hoped for after the first failed cornea transplant
It undermines the theme of the in universe Last Twilight novel and the conversation that Day and Mhok have about Mee being turned in to a statue on the top of the mountain and how that was hopeful because her father had found a sight so beautiful he couldn't think of anywhere else Mee would need to see and instead turns the message essentially in to: "there is hope, you can be cured"
It dismantles their cute couple thing of the one palm distance which also makes the OST that they played all the fucking time completely irrelevant
And most importantly, it undermines all the growth that Day went through while processing his grief and the two, TWO separate occasions where he came to terms with his disability
And that's just the disregard for the narrative messages, giving Day his eyesight back is incredibly ableist in the case of this story because of certain ableist through-lines woven in to the entire show. Namely:
While Day is blind, there is no reciprocity of care. Mhok is always taking care of Day, I cannot think of a single instance where Day really took care of Mhok in a significant way. By focusing so much on Day, and abandoning any strong focus on Mhok's grief over losing his sister, Day is never given an opportunity to be a support system for Mhok. Which is fucking ableist. Disabled people have so many things to offer the world, and while they might have specific support needs that does not mean that they can't offer support in return.
Mhok doesn't introduce Day to his family at their graves until after Day has his vision restored, and it is only then that Mhok says he has someone to take care of him. Able-ist!
Day gets his vision back almost immediately after a conversation with his mother where she says he wants to be normal and the fight he had with Mhok is normal.
Handling the entire story this way, with the break up, and a three year time gap, and then Day having his vision restored literally hours after he and Mhok get back together does not allow for any exploration of Mhok and Day having to figure out the differences between Mhok being his caretaker and Mhok being his partner.
We shunted literally every part of Mhok's backstory completely to the side, which in and of itself is fucking ableist in my opinion because it implies that able bodied people who are caretakers for or who are in a relationship with a disabled person don't have any time for themselves, to deal with their own shit or to have their own needs because they are too busy taking care of a disabled person.
With this being, what, the first main character in a BL with blindness, you want to go for the cure route after acceptance? Like you are rewarding someone for their bravery of handling their disability instead of allowing the disabled person to remain happy and thriving in the life they have built for themselves while they continue to be blind?
I'm not blind, so forgive me if I am overstepping at any point here but in my opinion, if you want a narrative that gives Day back his eyesight, that story that not be written by a sighted person. You need blind writers, people with the lived experience having control over the story so the narrative is better able to navigate the complexity of a decision like that, to reverse a character's blindness. I just think blind people would be able to minimize how much returning someone's eyesight might come off as ableist in a story like this. Additionally going the cure route is not a choice I think anyone should be making with the first BL that focuses this heavily on blindness. This world is so fucking ableist, if you want to make a story with a disabled main character with how slim of pickings there are, it feels much more responsible and subversive to go a disability pride route.
And these are just the issues around disability in this show, I have problems with the classism in this show, I have problems with the absolute ridiculousness of Mhok and Day's breakup and their reunion. MHOK APOLOGIZES, MHOK THANKS DAY FOR BREAKING UP WITH HIM, DAY DOES NOT APOLOGIZE FOR BREAKING UP WITH MHOK OR BLOCKING HIM ON SOCIALS FOR THREE YEARS BECAUSE MHOK PITIED DAY ONE (1) TIME. I get not wanting to be pitied, I get it, but seriously it is so much less compelling to have Day just completely abandon Mhok after all of the positive experiences they've had together because he messed up once rather than reel himself back in and have an adult conversation about what happened and try to get back to a balanced state.
Anyway, fuck this show. I am so disappointed that this is Aof's last directed piece for who knows how long. He could have gone out with a bang after Moonlight Chicken and now I am just fucking thankful I won't have to see anything else from him for awhile.
154 notes · View notes