#i got reasons ok? its called AUTISM | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

muffinsin · 3 months

Note

Hello muffin tis i, deluded anon with another ask. Tw for ablism i think? I am autistic and get called slurs and mocked for it by my family n friends, such as the r word n whatnot. If theres any issues that cause me stress like putting the cutlery away- they are too loud and hurt my head. Or if my clothes and everything touching me burns n pricks me, being mute on occasions i get told to get a grip n to shut up- then told off later if i was in public. They treat other autistic people differently from me n reassure them that its ok n valid but its not ok for me to be like that. Anyways i dont really do people and am attached to my teddies n plushies- they have feelings. I always take the most care with them n i dont want them to be uncomfortable, they all call me delusional and a not right for loving my plushies (and fictional women)more than them.

So what would happen if the reader were to be autistic and a maid in the castle struggling with some certain tasks and the rest of the maids treating the reader like how ive been treated (if that makes sense. Idk if i’m making sense) so readers kind of like the laughing stock for them, unbeknownst to the sisters until some maid rips a teddy or comfort item.

How would the sisters react to this? I dont think theyd like it nor tolerate it due to cassandra being autistic and daniela having adhd.

I’m sorry this is such a long ask and quite frankly too much of a self centred one. I have no idea if this makes sense- i apologies sincerely if this makes you uncomfortable in any way. Please dont feel pressured to write this.

I can 100% see the rendition of lion king being played out with dani 😂 she would without a doubt try n blag her mother into making her sister make up for being mean to her, like forfeiting a maid to her.

Of course! I’m very curious about this ask tbh and hope I’ll do it justice :)

A few things first up under the cut, if anybody wants to skip to the start of the HCs, it’ll be marked for you😊

TW: ableism, bullying

Let’s get into this! :)

Masterlists

Tbh I’m hoping I’ll be able to get this right! I’m not autistic myself and am only going off what I’ve read here and experiences I’ve been told about by friends.

First thing I want to say hon, is that you are absolutely, 100% valid.

Nobody- and this includes you- deserves to be called slurs or treated wrongly for such reasons. There is no justification to it at all. To treat you differently while claiming to be accepting with others is awful, and I sincerely hope you will find people decent and good enough to accept you, friends especially :)

Also- plushie superiority honestly XP What are their names?👀 Have you got a fav? Or is it an I-love-them-all-equally- situation? Honestly, regarding what you’ve said about plushie love not being okay? I call bs on it. I find plushie love is one of the sweetest there is, even when I don’t have that many myself, I greatly treasure the few plushies I still have. Heck yeah XD

Is the autism and ADHD for Cassandra and Daniela canon? Or a HC?👀 I’ve never heard of it

(Lion king drabble mentioned: here)

Aight that’s it from me! This all probably made little sense, because ironically I cannot comfort at all, I suck at it in most cases, but I hope I still got the key points across somehow XD

Let’s get into it!

(Beginning of the ask)

Bela

She adores you, with all her heart

Bela loves you so much, each part of you

She tries her best to make life as comfortable as possible for you

Even if she can’t always relate to your struggles, she always attempts to ease them

The moment you open up about some of the things troubling you, Bela takes action

She takes special care to ensure the new uniforms are made of fabrics you approve and feel comfortable in, and orders them as soon as possible

Until their arrival, Bela has taken it upon herself to declare to everyone that you are not obliged to wear the old ones

Nobody dares to call you out for working in a shirt instead of the uniform, the order comes from Bela, after all, one of the highest of your superiors, right after Alcina

When the new uniforms are delivered, you can’t help but smile. They’re perfect!

Bela has the old ones disposed of, thrown someplace she can’t be bothered to know

Next, there are the tasks appointed to you

While she normally doesn’t get involved all that much in the staff’s business and shares a mutual respect with the grand chambermaid, she does interfere here

She requests that you are not given tasks in the kitchen as to not get overwhelmed by the loud noises

Nor does she wish for you to work anywhere near the basements

Of course, your lover would never allow you anywhere in the basements, even outside of work, even when she is lurking down there

It’s for safety purposes, most of all

Instead, you are usually appointed calmer places, such as the library or even the castle gardens or greenhouse at times

Bela is flustered whenever you remember to bring her a flower from the outside in winter

Aside from all these things, Bela is your shoulder to cry on, and your pillar to lean on

She never fails to reassure you how much she loves you, and how things you consider as flaws are endearing to her

She knows, sometimes you tend to be quiet, if not entirely mute

After a quick check in whether you’re all right, and you reassure her, she smiles widely

Bela treasures such silence, really

She enjoys to spend time with you, and sometimes silence is just what she needs

After all, the castle can be loud already, especially to her

Wrestling her screaming, kicking and bickering younger sisters all day and night often gives her a migraine

She loves simply cuddling in bed or sitting together, reading together or simply relaxing

Bela doesn’t mind your quietness, and she can easily either make conversation by monologing, or bask in it, even go as far as to close her eyes

She finds these moments precious

She knows nearly everything about you- all except one thing

Life among the staff

Bela doesn’t know of the torment you face, not quite

She doesn’t notice your anxiety when they make fun of you, doesn’t know about how uncomfortable you become when they poke you for fun

She doesn’t know an old uniform has been retrieved from the storage and switched with yours specifically merely to amuse the other staff members

You grit your teeth at the wrong fabric on you, the uncomfortable one that feels entirely too heavy and scratchy

No matter how much you search for the new uniform, it’s hidden far away beyond your grasp

Only when all your duties are done can your change out of it and back into your normal clothing, just in time for Bela to finish work and greet you with a warm smile

You don’t dare tell her, too worried what the other maids will do

After all, Bela can’t dispose of them all

Then there’s the noises…

How often you are brought to the edge of feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed when maids laugh and mock you, forks and knives in their hands as they slap them together

Like sticks hitting a drum, maybe

You are not oblivious to their laughter as you bury your head in your brown teddy bear and fluffy, blue arm sized blanket

Soon, you are indirectly appointed to the kitchens

Not by the grand chambermaid, nor by Bela

You feel uncomfortable at the hands grabbing you by the arms and leading you there

Their reasoning? If you don’t clean up, maidens will be hurt, and it will be your fault

Aside from this, with more hurt maidens and their panic increasing, so will the stress your girlfriend will have to face over trying to manage the castle

They know of your love for Bela, and often use it to have you do things you dislike

Such as picking up all the silverware from the wet sink, drying it in a towel of a texture you dislike, and putting them in the drawers

Their laughter and mockery rings out behind you while you’re made to finish their work

Still, as torturous as all of this is, their newest stunt is incomparable to it

As you find yourself hugging your stuffed bear yet again and cry into its fur at the loud laughter around you, you suddenly feel it tugged from you

Naturally, you try to hold on

Slurs are thrown at you. Mockery

You hear a particular loud cry, a maid calling you a baby, just before you’re suddenly sent back on the bed

You’re holding your teddy- as is the maid tugging it

Tears well up in your eyes as you hold its body, your eyes scanning the unattached leg now dropped to the floor

You feel someone snap their fingers right next to your ear and jump

More laughter

The women around you laugh and mock as you sink to the floor, your teddy and blanket held tight to you as you attempt to grasp the leg

It’s kicked in the corner of the room, and more laughter rings out when you crawl after it quickly

More harsh name calling, until eventually you grasp it

Unsurprisingly, you can’t just push it back on

You aren’t sure how much time passes until your girlfriend finds you

You aren’t even sure when you wandered off to Bela’s room. It’s as if your feet just automatically carried you to your safe place

She immediately swarms to you, her hands hovering by your arms

With a nod of your head, reassuring her it’s okay, she touches you

She immediately feels the change of fabric of your uniform. She knows, this isn’t the right one

Still, golden eyes set on the damaged teddy bear in your hands

Again, she waits for your permission before she pulls you on her lap, knowing you’re so distraught now

She grasps your hands and dries your tears, and gently holds the leg one one hand, the remaining teddy in her other

“He’s broken”, you sob, and Bela is quick to assure you

“Damaged, my dove, not broken”

She promises, she can fix your friend

And true to her word, she does

Urging you to change, she allows you to search her closet for anything that suits you

You watch with wide, hopeful eyes as she takes a sewing kid from one of her many shelves

Thankfully, your beautiful girlfriend enjoys branching out and learning so many new skills…

You watch with wonder as she adds stuffing back into the leg, and even allows you to pick a color to stitch it back together in

Dressed comfortably in her larger clothing and holding onto her pillows and your blue blanket, you watch as slowly, but surely, your friend’s leg is reattached

“He’s on bed rest now, you know”, she teases, hoping to bring a smile to your face

Bela portrays this picture of calmness for you, but rest assured, the moment she knows you’re completely calm and happy again, she will personally see to it that such actions are punished

She demands to know what has been going on with the staff, and offers you your own room, should you not want to move into hers

Bela smiles in self satisfaction as she hand picks the new recruits for cadou experiments, hunts, and, of course, Cassandra’s birthday presents ;)

Cassandra

She cares a lot about you, and is incredibly protective of you

Cassandra tries her best to make you comfortable

She knows, her fast, often dangerous and hectic movements can intimidate or scare away most. She doesn’t want that to happen with you

While Cassandra isn’t the best at listening, she takes in all you say whenever you are made uncomfortable by something

Such as the clanging of her weapons when she carelessly drops them all on a big pile

Her heart breaks a little when you cover your ears at the loud noise caused by metal hitting metal

Was she a dog, her ears would droop down

Instead, she immediately apologizes and tries to still the rocking blades

She makes sure not to clank them against one another again, instead is careful to place them down one by one

She grins widely whenever this earns her a kiss and a smile of yours

Her efforts are certainly not dismissed and ignored!

Then, there’s of course your like and dislike towards certain sensations

She can’t help but giggle when you fall into her bed the first time you touch it

She has all the perfect fabrics!

Cassandra is very picky as it comes to them, too

Her dress is tight, but soft

It doesn’t scratch along her skin and isn’t too soft to make her feel droopy. It’s just perfect to her

Her bed equals this

Soft, satin sheets she likes, and a few large pillows. Not too much, just enough for her to sleep comfortably

You love wearing her clothing. It’s perfect and doesn’t irritate your skin

In return, Cassandra doesn’t mind lending it to you, even if you don’t quite fit into it

All her clothing is custom made, such as Alcina’s dresses and the typical black dresses all three sisters like to wear

The crafter? None other than the famous other Lady of the village

Cassandra makes it a point to ask Donna for clothing made in your size. In return, she is ready to send across a few of the castle’s finest cooking ingredients

It’s working out well, and often she likes to surprise you with a new clothing item of your choice, made of a fabric of your choice

Cassandra doesn’t care for fabrics, merely the feel of them

She allows you to take charge whenever it comes to picking the right ones out

In the beginning, you worry Cassandra will mind your occasional silence

You’re all too happy to notice: she doesn’t

Cassandra talks often, but isn’t quite one for conversation

She likes monologuing, knowing you’re listening to her as she rants about her hunts and her sisters

She doesn’t take your silence as disrespect, though at times randomly reminds herself to check in whether you’d like her to keep talking or stay silent as well for some peace and quiet

She likes to bask in such silence sometimes, to have her head on your lap and play with a few of her flies while you stroke her soft hair

Another thing she’s surprised you by is regarding your stuffed animals

While she hasn’t quite got the connection to them you have, she respects it

Though, she will not allow all of them in her bed. She wants that space all to herself

Still, she is mindful to keep a corner of the bed empty for your stuffed animals, and only growls playfully when you shower them in love, subtly reminding you to place a kiss to her forehead, too

She can’t help but be a little clingy sometimes, after all

Cassandra doesn’t fault you for preferring plushies to humans. She isn’t exactly a fan of them either and rather sees them as nuisances or means to an end, after all

All except you. You’re her precious little human

And Cassandra wants to keep you safe at all times

Yet, there are things even she cannot seem to keep you safe from

Such as the staff members

You know, Cassandra doesn’t get involved with the maiden’s affairs unless to drag one to the basement

She is therefore unaware of the pokes and laughter that follow you sometimes

The slurs whispered your way… you know Cassandra would have their heads for it, yet you can’t seem to bring yourself to tell her

And they know it all too well

Your heart hurts when they talk to you, and in time, you know the only reason for this are dares

Dares, from one maid to another, to talk to you

Entertainment, as they chat and mock you subtly, trying to see how long it takes you to notice

You try to brush it off. To not let it bother you

Cassandra surely wouldn’t let it bother her! She seems so powerful…

Their words regarding this sting. How she could be with someone like you

When you’re allowing them to walk all over you

Some freak, as they say

Their words haunt you hours later even, when your shifts end and you’re cuddled up against Cassandra as she monologues about this and that while showing you her newest dagger

Then, there’s the little stuffed turtle you like to keep in your pocket

It helps you stay calm sometimes, even with the uniform being scratchy and uncomfortable

Often they laugh as they snatch your turtle from you, instead throw her through the air, right above your outstretched hands as you attempt to catch your precious friend

All other stuffed animals are kept safe in Cassandra’s room. All but this one

No one would dare venture into her territory merely to taunt you

No maid is this foolish

You gasp when the turtle is thrown yet again, high in the air in the main hall, right above your hands even as you jump to reach it

Your eyes widen when your precious stuffed animal lands right in the fireplace

Thankfully, not a lit one. It’s summer, thankfully, and the castle is warm enough as it is

But it’s hot, and dirty, and smears black dust and ashes all over the green fur

“Freak”, they taunt as they pass you, crying and attempting to wipe the dirt off

Cassandra finds you easily, having heard your fast heartbeat indicating your panic attack even from the basement

You can merely look up at her as she kneels down, her gloves easily pulled down by her teeth as she holds the little turtle

She’s very careful no blood is smeared on it or you, and opts for staying a little distant upon realising she’s covered in it nearly from head to toe

You don’t seem to mind, you can only look at the turtle, impossibly small in Cassandra’s large hands as strong fingers rub over the dirt gently

A stain remains, and you smile watery. A battle wound, maybe?

The thought comforts you only slightly

You suppose, a scar, a battle wound, wouldn’t be the worst thing…Cassandra has them, after all, scars littering her backside from challenging fights

She won, in the end

Upon demanding what happened, and hearing your tale, Cassandra sees red

She wipes the back of her hand against her lips to clean her bloodied lips, then presses a small kiss to your forehead before she swarms off

In the days to come, plenty examples are maid

Maidens are set free only to be dragged back screaming and badly hurt, begging for forgiveness as they are killed in front of the others

Others are immediately dragged to the basement

And the remaining two that have started it all, are devoured alive in front of the rest of the staff, Cassandra’s warning screamed from their lips

Never, never, will she allow someone to mistreat you again

She keeps a close eye on you, and often opts for having a few flies buzzing around you when you aren’t with her

Daniela

Daniela is a hyper little thing, full of energy and love that she wants to shower you in

She’s very clingy with you, but also incredibly perceptive

More so than her other two sisters, even

She picks up on your slight grimace when it’s dinner time and the rattling of silverware irritates your ears

Without having to tell her, Daniela is more delicate in her movements with her fork and knife- she was the main source of this noise after all, smacking them together because she is generally too energetic to sit still

Instead, she merely swarms around excitedly and annoys her sisters until the food is served

She also notices- you don’t like every clothing item she has to offer

Some just- don’t take your pick, and at first she is a little hurt

She doesn’t understand why, and worries you might think she has horrible taste

Or perhaps don’t want to wear a gift of hers altogether

Daniela tends to overthink fast, and quickly becomes a little hesitant to shower you in gifts when you don’t seem too happy with the two dresses she’s brought you

While she is all for comfort, Daniela doesn’t mind scratchiness of her gowns

Being put in so many of them for balls and events hosted by Alcina, she has learned to ignore the urge to scratch and the annoying itch caused by scratchy sleeves

Overall, she still loves gowns, and isn’t bothered by differences in textures

When you explain to her that you feel differently about this, it’s a little difficult for her to understand

However, Daniela cares about you, and if you tell her this fabric is bad fabric, she’ll tear it to pieces for you, as though you’re her fair maiden and she is the knight protecting you from the fierce dragon!

She often makes slashing noises as she does though, a little too invested in her fantasies

You don’t mind

You think her creativity and fantasy endearing, even

Daniela is curious, though. Often she will randomly swarm to you to ask whether something is good or bad, just out of curiosity, and maybe because she’s turned it into a game

She wants to see if she is getting better at telling what is good and what isn’t, so her surprises and gifts for you are ones you can actually enjoy

She brings you fabrics of gowns and shirts, food and drinks, and even once a very grumpy Bela to question whether her sister feels bad too

She claims she does, with a large, shit eating grin on her face, and you smile as her laughter is heard through the halls when she is chased down for such behaviour, likely made to sit and listen to another lecture of the blonde should she be caught

You find, you look forward to hearing Daniela complain about it

While Daniela can be very loud and hyper at times, and often enough you join in, she doesn’t mind times you’re quiet either

She had no trouble at all leading a conversation, either monologuing or talking for so long and so fast, there’s no way for anybody else to join in anyway

Often, when she notices you’re in a quieter mood, she’ll take control of the conversation until the other person leaves

In return, she only expects a smile, and a kiss to her face

Yet, as much as Daniela dotes on you and coddles you, there are others who are not as sweet

Others, who do not make you feel as welcome

Others, who dare make you feel as though you aren’t normal. Not “right”

The maidens at Castle Dimitrescu can be ruthless, sometimes, especially to outsiders

Being Daniela’s partner has made you an outsider

And having autism has made you their target

They thread carefully at first, knowing you are not only under Daniela’s protection, but by this also under Bela and Cassandra’s

Should they hurt you, it hurts Daniela, after all. Alas, you have three murderous fly women on your side

However…what they don’t know…

It starts off with a group of four who take, seemingly, immense pleasure in taunting you

Their hatred comes from being small minded, and jealous, yet knowing this does nothing to help you

They don’t understand- how come you get to wear a different uniform than them?!

How come you never have to clean up the table and wash the dishes and silverware?

How come you get to work in quiet, reserved locations and get to take so many breaks, while they are to work near the entrance to the dungeons, the screams of their fellow fallen maids taunting them

How come they fear for their life, and you never need to?

You are a target by far too soon

You often find yourself crying and hiding at your bed as they laugh and bicker about, silently wishing Daniela opts for a random visit and slays them all

She doesn’t, and won’t. She isn’t allowed into the maid quarters

Their shrill laughter and loud voices hurt your ears, and as you find yourself clutching one of the stuffed animals not tucked away in Daniela’s room- a grey, knit bear- they laugh even more

Soon, you are titled as a baby and inhuman for your affection towards the stuffed animal

You feel fear shoot through you whenever you don’t find him sitting at your pillow

Often, they wave the teddy in front of you, snickering and commanding this and that

They’re playing God, and for moments you feel as though they are the predators of this castle

With the wish to receive your stuffed animal again, you clean their beds and bring their plates, silverware and cups to the kitchens after supper

Usually, you receive your bear again

Not yet this time, it seems

“Go and get it, if you dare” they snicker as they throw it down the stairs to the basement

You gulp. You know, you aren’t supposed to go down there

No maid is, but especially you

Even Daniela has forbidden you from stepping in the cellars

You shudder at the memory of her truthful description upon being asked what lies down there. Monsters with swords and sickles, mold and blood, pain and the reek of the dead, corpses and torture chambers

But…your bear

You venture down as they snicker, and jump when the door clasps shut behind you

As tears sprint to your eyes, you hear a lock. No going back now, either way

You gulp at the loud whimpers and cries, and the distant screams and groans of the undead

It’s dark, and you can barely make a thing out

You jump when you hear a loud gasp from one of the cells and a hand reaches through the bars, as though to reach you

Immediately, you keep on running

More hands shoot out, some grazing your arm and dirtying your uniform, others mere inches away from your skin

You nearly trip a few times, the floor stony and littered with buckets, thrown over tables and chairs, dull knives and what not

It’s so dark, so that you can barely make out your own hands and the ones reaching for you

You shriek as a body bag drops in front of you, immediately taking off to run another direction

Again, you scream, when you run into something

A monster?! It’s so dark you-

“Uh-“

You blink at Cassandra’s voice, and upon opening your eyes, you find golden ones staring down at you

She seems almost unsure. You aren’t supposed to be in the basements, and were you anybody else, she would have already dug her sickle into you and called you a foolish prey for running right to her

But…you’re Daniela’s

You jump at a second gasp, and whine when another pair of golden eyes sets on you

Thankfully, these do not belong to Bela Dimitrescu. You recognize the light green colour shining through gold in them

Daniela!

She gasps when you run into her, quickly adjusting her hand so you don’t run right into the scalpel you can’t see in the dark

Immediately, her shock is covered by concern when she smells the fear surrounding you

She demands to know what you’re doing her, even if she feels flustered upon thinking you might have missed her and wanted to see her bad enough to venture into the cellars

Upon opening up about the bear, you feel her grasp your hand tightly

She promises, she’s going to find it with you

You nod shakily as Cassandra grins, having just received a reason to go upstairs and cause some more trouble along the maidens

With a lit torch held tightly in Daniela’s hand, it’s by far easier to navigate the dim basement

You realise the hands reaching out were maids, now backed far in the corner of their cells to avoid Daniela’s gaze

But the redhead doesn’t mind them. She is focused on finding your bear

And find him she does, after a while of searching

You nearly whimper when she holds it up between two fingers, the fabric soaked in blood and dirt and a rat having already started to eat away at its side

She hugs you tightly as she explains, it must be disposed of

It’s a major health risk by now, having been exposed to the mold of the basement and who knows what else

You spend the next couple of days entirely in her bed, cuddled up under the covers and crying your heart out between your other stuffed animals

At last, Daniela enters, a nervous smile on her face

You notice her hand behind her back, and lift your head curiously

“So, I know it’s not the same, but I told Bela what happened and asked her to fix it…”, she trails off

You can’t help but smile and cry as she pulls her hand to the front, a bear, knit nearly perfectly and in the exact same colour as yours, sitting in her palm

“She’s actually really good at this stuff. I made her make me an octopus. I named her Sally”

#cassandra dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #bela dimitrescu #resident evil village #deluded anon

49 notes · View notes

itsaspectrumcomic · 3 months

Note

man ok idk if youll be able to advise on this or something but like. do you know anything regarding dealing with like internalised ableism?

i live in a rural part of ireland, right? and idk what it is about rural ireland but some of the people are heinous. my school is in a small miserable-ass town and like. God, man. not everyone sucks, of course but like. jesus lol additionally i have a ~mildly ableist~ mother (a "we're all a little bit autistic" and "erm. youre not disabled because youre not in a wheelchair or blind/deaf" etc etc type stuff. + "npd = bad person" which isnt particularly good for me specifically because i have npd (that i both Cant get an official diagnosis for, for various reasons, and im not really Looking for one either because i know what i am and its not like you get support for it because ~ooh scary narcissist~.)

and like. idk if this is Obvious but that can kinda cause a weird-ass relationship with You (being Me in this case, yk how it is with the second person perspective when. ranting) and The Concept Of Being Disabled. like, objectively. im disabled. im autistic, ive definitely got adhd (that im hopefully going to get examined for at some point cause college stuff requires it for the disability forums and stuff. gotta love that. fuckin 80% comorbidity right?), ive got a laughable number of repetative strain injuries, i have a sensory processing disorder, an endocrine disease that effects my Entire cardiovascular system, a spine that felt a lil quirky and bent in too much. so on a so forth

but also like. it feels wrong to call myself disabled. yk, like im doing a disservice to all the other ~actually~ disabled people (being Anyone but me lol) (none of this is At All helped by the fact that my mother refuses to listen to me regarding Jack Shit about my health in Any way. "oh you nearly passed out on top of a hill because of your cardiovascular condition? erm youre just not exercising enough actually" "you dont have depression [said while i was filling out an assigned mood diary after being forcefully brought to camhs for Reasons" like. shut the fuck up and Listen to me please. at least Entertain the idea that i could be right about something for fucking once lmao. cause ive been right about EVERYTHING regarding my mental health so fucking far so. fuck off /nay ofc) (also man. like, even if you ignored the physical issues ive got im still disabled on account of being autistic. like, motor function is fine, despite being a lil clumsy and/or unsteady sometimes but like. my emotional needs are Fucked. think of the response youd get if you asked a. fuckin. 8 year old or something to do algebra. but with a very emotionally stunted and traumatised 17 year old lol. lmao, even /lh)

so like. if youve got. any advice or whatever on any of this thatd be Super cool + no pressure obvs. sorry this is a whole. like. fucking essay's worth of Random Guy Complaining To You On The Internet lol

-🐢 <- just so i can find this again if you respond. i Like Turtles. i am Normal about the tmnt and also turtles The Creatures. i wont talk at length about turtle mutant anatomy (i am deceiving you)

Internalised ableism is a really hard thing to deal with, especially when you're surrounded by people who constantly re-enforce it. I've also spent a lot of time worrying that I'm not disabled 'enough' to deserve certain accommodations, that I'm making an unnecessary fuss. But the truth is, autism IS a disability and if there are accommodations that can help support you, you deserve access to them. You're not taking away from others with disabilities by advocating for yourself.

It's taken me a long time to understand this and I still worry sometimes. What has helped is talking about my experiences with people I know understand, like my therapist or best friend, and learning about the experiences of other autistic people through books, social media, YouTube and even real life.

I'm sorry your mother and others aren't being understanding - remember that's a them problem, not you, and try to spend your time with people who do understand.

🐢🐢🐢 <- the turtles wish you luck

#🐢#ask #anon ask #autism #actually autistic #advice #autistic #autism is a disability #its a spectrum #long post

35 notes · View notes

noiselessbuck · 1 year

Text

how to wash your dishes with autism/sensory issues

i live in an apartment and have to wash all of my own dishes by hand. this is what i have found helpful

getting started: i also have depression which often means dishes get left for a while. i have an agreement with my housemates about how long is ok for dishes to be left not done. everything about living with other people starts with communication but ultimately they are my dishes i have to do them no one else can.

starting: notice how you are doing sensory wise every day. if it's a day where i had to wear my weirdly texture rain jacket my socks got wet and the bus was loud then that means just as i come home is Not a good time to do dishes. i Will start flinching at every sound, hate everything i am touching, and feel gross for an hour afterwards if i do the dishes right now. so i'm going to wait.

when is a good time to do dishes? if today isn't a bad depression day i often say "im going to do the dish" as in: if i just ate cereal im only going to wash my bowl and spoon. it's not a lot of work, it hasn't been sitting in the sink, and the longer i can keep up doing exactly the dishes i just used the less dishes i have to do at once.

if there are dishes piled up i take note of that and find a time when say, ive been inside for a while, ive been just on my computer, or phone, or writing for a while, this means im not sensory overwhelmed.

what to do while doing the dishes:

no one said you have to only be doing the dishes. put on some music, an audiobook, call your friend, put on your favorite podcast or podfic. you distract yourself

how to leave the dishes:

the thing to me that makes or breaks how icky i feel while doing the dishes is how they are left. i personally hate touching cold wet things to i try to have as little water as possible in the sink while my dishes are sitting there. but i know that w something like peanut butter, melted cheese, oatmeal, yogurt, or dough from baking those things will cement to the dishes if you don't deal with them. you can either do a bit of cleaning right when you put them in the sink or let them soak. i try to leave enough dry edge so i can tip the water out later with a dry hand

sensory issues with dishes:

the main problem with dishes is that there are a lot of sensory things happening at once and they're all quite irregular.

sound:

music or even earplugs can help with the sounds of the sink the dishes clinking each other ect. but also running the water a little less and setting the dishes down slowly can do wonders for having less loud sounds. also if you have a garbage disposal doing that only at the very end.

texture:

dish gloves help some people with the textures but me personally i don't like the gloves because it adds another texture of the inside of the gloves and augments the texture of anything that i am touching. but someone else may love gloves for exactly the same reasons.

the other thing to note about textures is the tools you are using. i like to use a sponge for most things but for things i don't want to touch as much i use a scrub brush w a stick so i'm far away from whatever soup is still at the bottom of my pot or whatever.

temperature:

temperature is one of the more overlooked senses but with dishes its very prevalent. you never want the water too hot because you really can burn yourself but having the water at a good temperature and then letting it run over all the dishes will make it so each dish you are touching is a relatively uniform temperature instead of your tea cup being hot the dishes from this morning being cold.

soap:

you can try to find soap that has a scent that bothers you the least, you can find soap that comes in a container that makes sense to you and easiest for you. if the soap bottle is getting to be a weird texture you can wash said soap bottle to get it back to its original texture.

other sensory notes:

you can do any activity you want in less light, so long as you have enough to work safely.

you can do any activity sitting down. maybe for the sink you'll want a stool instead or a chair near by to take breaks in

if you have people who can help you, you can ask for help. you can ask for a buddy to do a task with, or someone to body double, or you can ask reasonably if someone else can do the dishes on a bad day. these are all tips for making it a not as bad of a time and for figuring out when are times it won't be really bad. but if it is going to be bad, or if say there's complicated dishes from baking or cooking, you can ask for help and it Makes Sense to ask for help.

where to put away the dishes:

if you notice that something sensory sucks about retrieving clean dishes you have the power to prevent that from happening. example: pulling a glass cup that is stacked inside another glass cup is squeaky and bad texture to me.

if drying dishes is hard for you maybe get a drying rack or lay down a dish towle and put them on there or put them away semi wet but keep the cupboards open so there won't be anything gross

really bad days:

you can keep some disposable plates and cups and silverware for bad days, there's nothing wrong with that. if you're worried about the environment get recycle-able or compostable ones. you can also see what kinds of food come with their own container or dont necessary need a second container. example: if you have your own personal container of take out or ice cream you can eat that from its container. or mixed together stuff box salads or premade stuff can be eaten from their containers

i hope this is helpful to somebody, these are all only from my personal experience, leave more tips in rbs if you have them

#autistic spectrum #sensory issues #accesibility #snake mumbles #explaining #actually autistic #depression

79 notes · View notes

genderkoolaid · 1 year

Note

im so sorry to ask you but i tried searching tumblr first and only got porn results and when i used google i only got detransitioning results so i hope its ok to ask here. i think i might be agabnc/ftmtf but i don't know how to tell. gender as a whole is really hard for me to understand (probably the autism) so some sort of explanation would be really helpful. i dont even know how to put my personal experience into words to ask if i fit. uh. im afab and ive never fully identified with being a woman/girl but the way im most comfortable is by describing myself as a femboy in an afab body. like. i feel trans but i feel like my gender is feminine in a boy way. the body i want is masc/amab but i want to express my gender femininely. i hope this makes sense? would that fall under ftmtf/agabnc?

if you don't have the spoons or just dont want to answer this can u pls just say "no" or something in a private answer so i can copypaste to ask someone else? /nf /gen

If you feel that ftmtf/afab transfem/agabnc would be helpful to you in describing your experiences, you can absolutely call yourself that! I think it makes sense that you would identify that way; there are amab men who identify as transfem for similar reasons (being feminine in a boy way). If you feel seen by these labels, then embrace them.

#m.#ask box

47 notes · View notes

galaxywoofer · 10 months

Text

Real Autism Moment (AKA infodumping bout a KenoxGF AU)

Ok, so since I have this one Vani on Artfight I think I will infodump before I go pass the fuck out :^)

THIS is Cipherik, A Vani-fied Bill Cipher for a Gravity Falls/Kenopsia AU I'm working on, called Vanishing Falls. There's 10 other Vani based on the rest of the Cipher Zodiac but. I keep drawing this Fucker because of my brainrot for Bill as a character hbkfdgjl

Height: Main puppet is 2.5ft, Brandless Puppet is 14ft, True Form is 35ft

I'll add more abt the other chars soon but for now, I'm getting this cretin's info out of the way.

Not much is known about him prior to the Brandshock, but what we DO know, is that he was a pure psionic anomaly for unknown reasons. May have something to do with a dimension known as the Wonderland, or for Vani, Feywalain. Anyway, he acts as if he's legitimately Twisted, which is odd, because he seems decently far from it, and actually acts more civilized at times.

When the Brandshock occurred, he was already seen as a BIG threat compared to other Vani due to his psionic level. He also had another anomaly to him; the distinct lack of ever having a tether. So, when the Omni caught wind, they made a small device known as an Inter-Planetary Rift, which keeps Cipherik off of ANY and ALL life-bearing planets, regardless of tether status.

His ulterior motive, unlike a majority of the Vani, is not to slay life for Mercy, but rather to use that world as his own toybox, all for the taking! He sees humans as carbon puppets, just waiting for their true potential to be his, and only his. So, Cipherik...didn't get much assisstance, save by being a liar and conniving son of a bitch. He got 10 Vani on his team, all with..oddly shaped brands. His plan was to steal the rift the Omni made, and break it, allowing him to roam free! Unfortunately, one of the Vani, a Plasma sembla named Polyboric, saw through his scheme, and escaped with the rift.

After centuries of waiting, waiting...Cipherik had an idea. what if he could make a puppet of his own, to psionically bring into human minds? It could prove useful in the event he finds Polyboric's tether, or other carbons of use to him. So, he got to making a rather..odd looking puppet. He became "Bill Cipher", a supposed dream demon who was a muse to many a person. He was around long enough to change the course of Earth's history, and find a way around his concern with the Rift. Plus, he still got to toy with these humans, though only to such an extent mentally.

Now, the current events that the show take place in are still a WIP, but all the above info is mostly concrete so.

anyway, now time for the dump of art ive made. its alot

#wooferart #wooferchats #gravity falls #billcipher #kenopsia #stars below #vani #vanishing falls #gravity falls au

14 notes · View notes

swiftfootedachilles · 11 months

Note

Mickey would find a way back to Ian in the psych ward, it would be similar to how he got into prison (ratted on the cartel and chose where he goes) but he'd do some asking around on what gets you into the psych ward and he'd work out what "symptoms" he has and he'd stick with playing them all the time

But the writers would do something shitty like playing up his autism traits then calling him "crazy" for acting like that and that's how he got in

yeahhh the shamey writers have a real knack for making mickey as stereotypically autistic as possible for comedy. i on the other hand am sophisticated in my autismification

but ok ok listen. so seeing as he rolled on the cartel and obviously got a lot in return for his testimony, i definitely think he couldve finagled his way into a secure psych hospital. i mean they obviously shortened or possibly even commuted his sentence in canon, since he was sentenced to 15 (incredibly short for what i assume is attempted murder??), expected to serve 8, but got out in less than 4 after escaping which shouldve added to his sentence. so if he knew ian was getting sentenced to a hospital he couldve done a few things and im gonna lay them out bc each one comes with its own intricacies that writers can expound upon

kept his sentence the same as canon, but he convinces the cops to put him in a psych hospital with ian as part of his deal. otherwise he refuses to talk

commute his sentence on the grounds of insanity, meaning hed talk to a forensic psychologist and talk about his childhood and shit, proving that he was so psychologically damaged as a kid that he somehow ended up having some episode and hurting sammi while legally insane. this could be a great way to really understand mickeys situation growing up. plus i really just want mickey to have his time in the limelight and put on his hurt puppydog face and act/lie his way out of responsibility. perhaps he realizes at some point that hes no longer acting and is truly expressing the raw emotions hes has bottled up since he was a kid 🤔🥺 also of course the new sentence he receives happens to be the same length as ians 🤭

gets his trial thrown out (BECAUSE HE SHOULDNT HAVE GOTTEN CONVICTED IN THE FIRST PLACE THAT WAS BULLSHIT) and gets a retrial, staying in the psych hospital in the meantime for similar reasons as mentioned above. fuck it lets bring back sammi and her kid and get all the gallaghers interviewed by police/giving testimonies in court including fiona!!! and because theyre not fucking dumb this time theyll actually get mickeys ass found NOT GUILTY this time and he can live his mfing life without an adult record. no larry/paula shit, no plothole on how mickey and ian could live together despite both being felons on parole, the dynamic between ian and mickey being flipped on its head now that mickeys got a clean record and ians the convict, omg what if they had their moment of one of them visiting the other in jail and putting their hand on the glass but this time its mickey visiting ian 🥺🥺🥺🥺 im literally bout to throw up

im very much a choose your own adventure kinda headcanoner... no matter how he gets there, mickey fucking GETS THERE. and i just have so many thoughts on how theyd interact with each other as roommates in a psych hospital. ian showing mickey the ropes for the psych side of things and mickey guiding ian thru the criminal/prison-y side 🥺 also i absolutely think mickey would get diagnosed with c-ptsd and autism while in the hospital and ofc at first he denies it, then he goes thru this phase of thinking hes "broken," then ian and his therapists (and an unexpected ragtag group of criminally insane individuals) become a solid story system to learn to accept himself. ian especially. obviously. he makes a list of things to buy mickey once they get out and save the money. because dammit if his lover doesnt have the best sensory corner in all of chicago! and overall they just get to actually... grow as people and as a couple by supporting each other in ways that canon never gave us

#i actually live near one of the few criminal psych hospitals in my state #theres several levels of security within it and different people have access to different areas #so tho they committed class a felonies in Illinois they wouldn't be with like. serial killers and shit.#also they have roommates because i said so idk how that shit works #i have so many more thoughts but this is all i have for now #i am insane sorry #shameless #gallavich #shameless rewrite #shameless meta #gallavich meta #gallavich headcanons #autistic!mickey #autistic headcanons #asks #anonymous #anon #a.txt

10 notes · View notes

helmarok · 2 years

Text

OK I PUT POST JOURNEYS HEADCANONS HERE WOOOOOOOO

ok theres like a lot of shit in my canon but im just gonna go like a bit post journeys.

the trio since SM have wanted to live in alola and settle down there, but the reason they stayed in the organization was for stability (and many times in the jn time period including jn095, jessie fears losing said stability). at that point they are just about done- jessie and james who got married there discuss quitting and having a kid, though meowth the one with a brain tells them it's a bad idea when their only source of income would be a food truck which is pretty unreliable to live off of. the day they were told by giovanni to go to kanto again they were offered a huge promotion, so they all decided to continue on and save money for settling down.

journeys itself is full of a lot of stuff like meowth ends up adopting a son named scrimblo and growlie evolves to an arcanine. most of their time in kanto is spent doing nothing if not james and meowth fixing other rocket's things as part of their job (their promotion was to field engineers). after about 2 years living in a basement they quit after they find out jessies having a kid so....... giovanni lets them off easy cuz like thats his sister and he somehow manages to get their criminal records wiped. they pack up and move to alola afterwards. ash, misty, and brock also go as brock got a job in the melemele island pokemon center cuz the joy there retired and she settled down with the jenny lol. the three of them didnt even mean to come with but they of course ended up on the same flight as the trio cuz they are destined to bump into eachother no matter what

theres like a lot of stuff in between all that but they all go to the treehouse and have lunch. then james takes note of how small the interior is, and how there's no bedroom for when their kid gets old enough to have one. ash being mr helpful protagonist volunteers to build another room, and then james ms autism goes nuts and plans it out in like 10 minutes. ash goes and gets kukui and his family the next day and he's like "LOOK WHO'S HERE TO HELP" and james cries cuz her hero... wants to help... eventually they also get to work on a new cafe called "mama ki's malasada cafe" for a more reliable business that isn't screwed over by the weather

its all just found family building a house and having fun at the beach and having big dinners really... have some smaller listed hcs too

their daughter's name is jaime

later theyre in a polyam with harley, who surprised them by buying the property for the cafe

they have 2 more girls one with harley and another of james (jackie n jordan) and then adopted two others (marley and kalina) so you can imagine amount of house this can tree

the treehouse also becomes a pokemon center for wild pokemon. jessie earned her GED not long after journeys and later was given a professional license for being a pokemon nurse from brock after she worked as his assistant in her spare time. injured wild pokemon will often stop by the treehouse if not carried in by mama ki, and the trio but especially jessie will help nurse it back to health

brock gets married to a singer my oc my man LOUDREAD

misty and ash are in a qpr and honestly just do whatever. they dont... actually have important jobs... misty gave the gym to daisy, ash is a pokemon master whatever that means so hes just chilling. they DO however work at mama ki's part time. you probably wouldnt expect the protagonist to work at their enemies' little cafe but they do... ash was banned from the food truck though cuz hes crashed 3 of brock's cars

meowth is very old, i mean he was already fairly old even in OS but now hes like. EXTRA old. its sorta sad, though hes still kickin. hes got a cane to keep on two feet and hes got glasses cuz he started to go blind. hes also starting to go deaf, and getting sick more often than not. this obviously raises concerns, but he dismisses them.

speaking of meowth he is gay married to pikachu theyre like old white men wearing hawaiian shirts and watching the sunset

i have many more hcs, if theres a specific thing anyone wants to know ill be glad to answer any asks 🥳

#ganon draws #team rocket #rocketshipping #gancanons #waow. this is something

45 notes · View notes

girlstrider · 6 months

Text

I finally managed to finish the captain laserhawk fic with my oc Rayya!

Warning! Mentions of violence, misgendering and ableism

The fic is under the cut

Ever since Rayman accepted his position in the studio, his little sibling had been prone to autistic meltdowns. He lost count on how often he had to soothe them as they bawled out their eyes.

What worried him though, was that because of that, the staff treated them ableistic, infantilising them and calling them things like "Daddys little girl" or "spoiled brat".

And frankly, he could understand why Rayya lost their temper after hearing that. Honestly, those names insulted him too. He felt like the staff was looking down on him for his parenting, but they were too afraid to say that in his face because of his fame, so they instead let it out on his sibling.

"Daddys little girl" was a punch to the guts in itself, he wasn't their father, he was their brother and they weren't a girl either, but they didn't respect their identity and pronouns anyway, which disgusted him.

"Spoiled brat" however...

Back in his dimension, he never heard anyone use that term in context of Rayya. Everyone understood and respected their autism and tried to accommodate them to the best of their abilities. That's what ticked him off. That, in this dimension, people assumed they were just a brat and that he couldn't take care of them.

Rayman sat in his boss's office and listened to him.

"Your sister stabbed a staff member for no reason, Rayman..."

"That's not what I've heard", the limbless interjected, ignoring the fact his sibling got misgendered again, "I've heard that the staff member said I should be ashamed of my sibling and , quote, unquote, 'spank them'..."

"That's still not an excuse to stab someone!"

Geez, they all acted like he did nothing but cuddle Rayya and tell them they're a very special kid...

Of course he scolded them when he heard what happened. He was shocked, even! This went against what he taught them, and yet...

... In hindsight he thought the staff member... deserved it.

——————————————————————

The TV Star was pacing up and down in front of a locked door before hesitantly knocking on it.

"Rayya? Please come out, I'm not gonna yell at you anymore."

Nothing.

"Rayya, please! I'm sorry that I upset you but I'm not gonna apologize for scolding you. You stabbed someone!"

He knocked on the door again.

"Go away! I know you hate me!", Rayya said muffled through the door.

This broke Rayman's heart. He didn't hate them! In fact, they were the reason he was doing all of this!

"I don't hate you, butterfly... I was just shocked you would stab someone, that's all..."

After what felt like an eternity, the door finally opened and Rayya stepped out. It was clear they had been crying.

"Hey there, buddy... Need a hug?"

Rayya immediately fell into his arms and bawled their eyes out, like during every meltdown.

"I don't wanna be treated like a baby!"

"I know, I know, my little butterfly..."

Rayman thought about what to do next as he embraced his little sibling. He nuzzled them comfortingly while his brain searched for a solution to this problem.

"Unfortunately I can't do anything about the infantilisation, Rayya, but... Maybe you can use it to your advantage. That way I could even excuse the more... violent meltdowns and pass them off as self defense or something."

"But that's not what I want! I wanna be treated fairly like they used to at home!"

"This is our home now! And..." Rayman took a deep breath, feeling bad for having yelled at his sibling. "... I know this is a major step back and nobody knows about autism and its characteristics here... Maybe I can raise awareness on your condition if the network allows me. And maybe I can even bring people to treat you fairly like they used to in our dimension. But until then, I want you to use the mistreatment to your advantage, butterfly. Just... be a charming little kid, like your brother is the charming little limbless on TV, ok?"

Rayya looked at their brother while wiping away their tears. "Rayman, I don't think this is a good idea, but... If you really think it'll benefit me, then i'll use it to my advantage..."

#rayman #captain laserhawk #rayman oc #oc #fanfiction

4 notes · View notes

oddbookreport · 1 year

Text

Ok this post started as a reply to another post about how numbers were fake and got away from me a bit, strap in.

EDIT: Public Service loan forgiveness is a federal program in the US where if you work in government for 10 years the government will pay off the remainder of your student loans. This is way more important than the rest of this godforsaken screed and I'd appreciate a reblog to get out information on that.

This is a facebook group run by my dad(!) among others with a ton of useful information in case student loans are something you are struggling with and have a public service job or are looking to change careers.

Ok, Autism time.

TLDR: Companies are incentivized to borrow money because they can reliably only pay back a fraction of it while using it to inflate their stock price. You are disincentivized from borrowing money because you will pay back 120-130% of what you borrowed unless (and sometimes even if) you file for bankruptcy. We actually do need a financial sector but it's badly under regulated, and also international finance has no rules and is an imperial power-fest. Also anti-finance is an antisemitic dogwhistle.

Debt is one of the fuckiest things on the planet and I wrote this for my own edification but in case it helps someone make sense of a new concept that'd be pretty cool.

Proof the numbers in the economy are fake:

No debt is repaid in exact numbers. You borrow 10k, and probably you pay back 11-13k over a number of years. The government borrows 1 trillion dollars and pays back 1.1 trillion dollars over a number of years. A company borrows 1 million dollars, they pay back 1.1 million dollars over a number of years. The numbers almost always go up, this is one reason we have inflation. You can pay less than you borrowed, but only under certain conditions. Inflation is one, such that you pay relatively less though absolutely more. Typically the numbers only go down if someone defaults, but that's usually the worst case scenario because it breaks the kind of promise that the whole economy is based on.

If you default, your debt is sold by the bank to someone else. Not for 10k, or whatever is left on the balance, but for probably 1-2k, a fraction of what it's "worth" and then the person who bought it tries to get you to pay the rest of the balance while the bank reports the loss as part of their tax deductible operating expenses.

Then, you're still on the hook for the 11-13k plus whatever fees the debt collector wants to charge. And if you don't pay those, they do it again, selling what they bought for 1-2k for 4-5 hundred, and so on, until you file for chapter 11 bankruptcy and are no longer legally obliged to pay all of the debt. In practice, this means the government negates the lender's right to collect the full balance in exchange for you going on a payment plan based on a new agreement the government brokers between you and the lender.

After this, because you failed to pay back the full balance, you will find it almost impossible to find banks to loan you money, even if in the end you paid way more than the 11-13k you would have paid back if you had made your payments on time.

In general, if you file for bankruptcy, you lose.

This sort of works in reverse with the stock market: You buy stock and the company pays you back with interest because you are loaning them your money. Companies sell stock at an initial price, auctioning it off in lots to find out what people think it's worth, and what it's worth is based on a) its capacity to increase in value and b) the monthly/yearly interest repayment which is based on the IPO price. Higher price means more money raised for the company but only at the IPO rate because once it's on the secondary market the company doesn't actually see any of the money except as good publicity.

The interest payouts are called dividends, although only a few companies actually care about paying them out anymore. Many companies ignore their dividends and instead just try to pump the price of their stock on the secondary market, aka the stock market. The ratio between stock price and dividends gives you an interesting picture of how the company sees its long term strategy: Car companies which don't really grow tend to have low ratios between stock price and dividend. Tech companies, which are looking to blow up and act like they don't know nobody, tend to have very high stock prices and very low dividends.

Crucially, companies tend to see the stock price as a reflection of the company's health, or "consumer confidence" or something, and a lot of executive pay is tied to it because most of them get paid in stock.

But the number doesn't mean anything concrete (to the company) after the IPO.

The upshot of all this is that while you are expected to borrow and pay your balance back with interest, companies are rewarded for borrowing and then artificially increasing the size of their own debt (stock price) because that's how the people making the decisions get paid.

Crucially, and this is also the assumption when an individual takes on debt, the debt is supposed to enable the debtor to make more money than they would have without it. However, unlike the kind of debt most individuals take out, the debt from issuing stock doesn't (usually) pay off the principle. This is why companies can (sometimes) get away with taking on debt without actually paying it off. You could in principle do this too if you registered as an LLC and issued stock for yourself, but this would be weird and paying strangers dividends might be a big financial burden. Or it might work out, go wild. I'd say the odds of this working are fairly comparable to minting yourself as an NFT and trying to sell it, albeit without needing to use the blockchain. Please ask a lawyer first though.

Also, companies can take on way more debt with way less risk because it is significantly less punishing for a company to file for bankruptcy than a person. The LLC in LLC is short for Limited Liability Corporation. If a company files for bankruptcy, it usually gets to keep most of its assets, because the government in general wants it to keep producing whatever it was producing and its debts are restructured accordingly. Sometimes, however, the assets are sold and the creditors just lose out on any debt over and above the selling price of the assets. Companies can try to shed debts by selling their assets for cheap to a new company, filing for bankruptcy, and then leaving creditors with the losses. This is fraud, but sometimes they get away with it and the "limited liability" part means that even if it is fraud it is legally difficult to go after the people responsible. LLCs are why if your company goes bust, you as an employee cannot be sued, which is generally a good thing. However, the structure of LLCs make it very easy for a company to take on more and riskier debt while you, as an individual are expected to pay off everything you borrow.

In general, if a company files for bankruptcy, the creditors lose.

The Government, apart from regulations, mostly cares about finance for two reasons: Economic stability and Retirement savings.

All this shit is made up. It's a game with very complicated rules, but there's no natural reason for it to work in the particular way that it does. In fact, there are countries like Turkey where it works completely differently, mostly because of religious laws about interest collection. Both Christianity and Islam have complicated histories with finance, but I digress. The point it that finance is almost entirely held up by agreements between extremely fickle parties. Like, there are contracts, agreements, balance sheets, and so on but none of this is pegged to any real asset. (This is a good thing, people who tell you that we should go back to the gold standard are morons) What that means is that the government can decide at any time to forgive people's debts. They can just void the contracts, who's going to stop them? (Be careful if you have a banking system powerful enough to go toe to toe with the government. JP Morgan and a bunch of other wall street people actually tried to overthrow the US Government in 1933.) They need to be careful about this because being able to borrow money when you need it is a net positive, and doing it too often disincentivizes people from lending money making borrowing more expensive. But overwhelmingly, rather than forgiving small dollar loans to people, the government forgives giant loans to companies.

This is partially because the stability of the system, ie creditors getting paid in order to keep a steady supply of creditors, matters more than the fate of any particular player within it, and partially because big fish can manipulate the system to insulate themselves from consequence.

For example, in 2008, tons of first time homeowners had gotten "subprime mortgages," meaning they had borrowed more money than they could afford to repay in order to buy a first home. Increased buying meant prices went up, borrowers were unable to afford the increased property taxes from their suddenly valuable homes, and then were forced to sell, producing even more subprime borrowers. These debts were defaulted on, sold, and then bundled into packages where debt buyers could not see the insolvency of the loans. Then, the bubble burst. People suddenly realized that they had taken out a million dollar mortgage, which they could not afford the monthly payments on, on a house that would only sell for 400k. And they were on the hook for the entire million plus interest.

At this point, the government had a choice: they had to do something about the fact that millions of people had borrowed more money than they could afford. They could have bought the debt, and helped the homeowners pay in a situation similar to a chapter 11 bankruptcy where some assets are protected in order to prevent massive foreclosures, or they could have done what they did which was buy out the debt buyers and help the creditors recoup their losses. Instead of virtually slashing housing prices by forgiving mortgage debt in order to help people stay housed, they assumed the debts of the people who had bought subprime mortgage bundles, mostly banks, while refusing to go after the architects of the scheme who had issued the bad mortgages and sold them under false pretenses.

The biggest reason why this stuff really matters is that at least how the US does things right now, almost all retirement securities are tied to stock price. That's your 401ks, your Roth IRAs, etc. With the exception of Social Security and Medicare, almost all the income seniors have is based on the performance of the stock market. This isn't the worst idea, as compared to previous systems like large savings banks or just having parents cared for by their kids this is A) somewhat resistant to inflation and B) does not shackle predominantly young women to permanent unpaid elder care as was the case under past more patriarchal systems. It's good that in general inflation can't wipe out the savings of someone who saved 100,000 1970 dollars only to have that barely cover a week of cancer treatment. Finance makes that happen.

Also, people want to do things that cost more money than they have, like buy houses, start businesses, and go to college. Businesses also want to do things that cost more money than they have, like build factories, conduct research and development, and offer benefits to employees. Finance makes that happen.

We would still need finance even if (like under communism) the government paid for these things, and whether finance should be entirely public (communism) entirely private (anarcho-capitalism) or semi-private (status quo) is a really complicated question. Finance is not this intrinsically evil thing.

Also because of the aforementioned history of Christians making collecting interest illegal most demonization of finance is directly connected to the Jews, who under medieval law were forced into being bankers in order to avoid forcing Christians from committing the sin of usury (interest collection). Much history of antisemitism in Europe is directly connected to these sorts of laws. The stereotype of the greedy jew, for example, comes from the fact that when medieval governments wanted to raise money, such as for a crusade, they would increase taxes but only on the jews. This forced the jews who were legally forbidden from doing any other job to increase interest rates in order to stay financially solvent, demanding higher rates on borrowing and lower interest on savings. This effectively raised taxes on everyone, but looked like the lord was being generous while the jew was being greedy. Anyone who talks about the intrinsic evils of global finance, whether they know it or not, is parroting Nazi talking points. Bear in mind that the Nazis did the same shit as the medieval lords: by raising taxes on Jews and only Jews, as well as seizing the assets of Jewish refugees, expropriating Jewish owned businesses, and using the Jews as slave labor they funded significant social welfare programs and their invasions of neighboring European countries without significantly increasing taxes on anyone but the Jews, at least until ~1940.

But there are still perverse incentives.

Whenever finance (making money by moving money around) overshadows production (making shit people actually need) bad things happen. Enron was a prime example of this: it was a "holding company" (they owned property that other people used for production without being directly involved in that production) that used an asset shell game to boost their stock price to hundreds of times their dividend, then sold out leaving investors with worthless stock they had bought for thousands of dollars.

Crashes can usually be predicted in advance: the problem is that the government is usually lax with enforcing financial crime. Journalists and economists saw 2008, Enron, the Dot Com bubble, the Asian Financial Crisis, and many other financial disasters coming. Karl Marx argued that Capitalism exists in a permanent cycle of boom and bust as a result of its systematic incentives. There is a history of financial crisis going back to the story of Joseph in Genesis. However, even when governments can see it coming, financial prophylaxis, such as regulation, is usually seen as too expensive even when it is cheaper to prevent a disaster than to clean up after one. Worse, the fact that the bankers almost never get prosecuted means that financial mismanagement and crime continue to exacerbate what might be a natural tendency of markets to rise and fall. This is direct consequence of the structure of LLCs. The higher the highs, the lower the lows, but if you're trying to jump out of the market at the top and then buy up everyone else's assets for pennies at the bottom, you want the cycles to be as extreme as possible. That's the position major companies find themselves in, and it's basically only good for them.

I'm not enough of an expert to have specific policy recommendations, except that in the 90s Bill Clinton overturned a law which separated savings banks from investment banks. Savings banks rely on high interest rates, both on loans they issue such as for mortgages, cars, and so on, and on the personal savings you receive from depositing money in them. Once upon a time (the 90s) you could put your money in a normal bank and get 5-6% interest in a savings account. This no longer happens. Investment banks make their money by taking your money, putting it on the stock market, and collecting the difference. Investment banks are more profitable (mostly for the bank) but more risky (mostly for you), like having someone start a casino with your money. House advantage is there, but they can still lose. Before the 90s, it was illegal for your bank to gamble with your savings on the stock market. Now it is not, and this law is something I think we should bring back.

When it comes to governments and the international system things are weirder.

It's really hard to make a government keep a promise, so they get to flaunt these rules. Also, as a rule, Governments only care about their citizens (sometimes defined very narrowly as non-immigrant, non-prisoner, white, etc) and not anybody else. Anything they do on behalf of any other group is only because it also benefits their citizens for some reason. The only real way to make a government keep a promise is by lawsuit, which they can ignore if they don't like, or war, which most people can't really do for fun. This is why The US Debt strategy for its entire history going back to Alexander Hamilton is to run up the credit card like it's Christmas. The plan as far as the USA is concerned is to borrow money and only pay off the interest rather than the principle. The only way someone is going to get the USA to pay off the principle is by beating them in a war. However, those interest payments are the most reliable debt interest payments in the world, unless the republicans in the house are real fucking numbskulls come June. I'm not exactly smart enough to understand the nuance of why all the other countries on earth let us do this but I think it has something to do with beating everyone on the planet in a war in the last century. However, the US always pays its debts in full, even if as a result of inflation what they're paying back is only part of what it was worth when they borrowed it. This is normal, though whether or not it's ethical depends on your views on american empire.

What's important about this is that things like the US debt clock are shameless right wing propaganda. Someone somewhere will tell you that the government has borrowed like three hundred thousand dollars on your behalf and that they expect you to pay it back. This is then used to argue against government spending. I won't get into fiscal policy but this is a lie, and it's better to keep borrowing and paying off debt than to try to achieve fiscal or financial independence internationally.

International finance is also directly used as an oppressive tool for reproducing capitalism in developing countries. The last thing I'll say on the subject is this: countries with less economic power than the G7 are subject to bullying by larger economies. Every country in the world borrows money, and this is generally a good thing. However, Unicef, the World Bank, and other international institutions set terms on the loans that they offer to countries that were robbed under colonialism and refuse to lend money to them unless they comply with various international standards. This sometimes includes things like requiring girls to be able to go to school, and sometimes requires forcing governments to pay license fees for US patents on things like insulin and oh boy if your prescription drug costs are high in the US just imagine how much money you have to pay for drugs with US patents on them after converting non-US money to dollars. Whether or not you agree with these sorts of policy requirements, they are neo-colonialism and do contribute to American domination over these countries. Just because we're loan sharking them for insulin money instead of invading their country for oil doesn't mean that isn't what it is. Intellectual property is one of the most contentious parts of these sorts of fights, where a country would be happy to void a US patent on behalf of its citizens but it can't without losing access to international loans.

There are lots of problems with finance and it's dialed into the entire modern political system so it's extra fucky to understand in greater detail than this, and while it is strictly speaking politically neutral, the more power you have the more you can manipulate it. There unfortunately aren't great tools the average person has to do about the state of the world financially, but I think it's helpful to know and I hope you enjoyed reading this. Maybe you smack a fascist with something from this if they start talking about how globalists run the banks.

#I was inspired by that BDG video about Healthcare #I swear I'm not an econ bro tho #Also this is what I did instead of writing grad school papers #God international relations is fucking depressing it's like a train wreck that started under the fucking mesopotamians and has not stopped #But actually don't worry about the debt though #unless it's your debt in which case vote democrat if you want to see more student loan forgiveness #How the fuck did I black out and write 3500 words about this #That's 10 fucking pages #This is half a journal article

8 notes · View notes

archive2394934 · 1 year

Text

OK, HI I’m here for more brain dump posting. This post is more possible MF theory bullshit and OTHER me brand insanity that I feel I picked up from the canon that I could be wrong about but I find it interesting anyway so I’m gonna keep talking about it because I do feel like the Duffers were in the same/similar place I am and I know JCB is right here with me so! Yeah, the girls who get it get it the girls who don’t don’t, but lets talk some more about it. Apologies in advance for the seven layers of autism all my shit is marred with that I’m not even trying to hide anymore tbh. Also warning up front I’m going to mention some stuff some people might hold scared and thus find sacrilegious of me, particularly regarding the Bible and Christianity some of the themes there. SO! I’m starting with Mr.Clarke saying “All living things, from complex mammals, to single cell organisms, instinctively respond to danger. Expose a bacterium to a toxic chemical, and it will flee. Or deploy some other form of defense mechanism. We’re very much the same. When we encounter danger, our hearts start pounding. Our palms start to sweat. These are the signs of the physical and emotional state we call fear.” This is laid over the top of a scene where Will approaches a warm bath, having been possessed by the “mindflayer”, which obviously perceives warmth and heat as dangerous to it. But I also find it it interesting how Mr Clarke is specifically talking about bacterium. Because it likens the MF to a type of bacteria. Which is interesting given what we know about bacteria.

Bacteria are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. Bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria are vital in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of dead bodies; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process.

Bactria are responsible for decay, just as it seems the presence of the MF and UD is literally decaying Hawkins. Bactria serves the nutrient cycle, breaking things down to recycle them back into useable energy, just as it seems this is being done to absorb the life from the environment and strengthen the MF and/or Henry. Which further adds to the whole idea that the MF is literally consuming our dimension, as it also seems it could have done that to other dimensions before. RE: me mentioning how the upside down Henry “explored” when he was originally banished there looks like a completely destroyed world that is utterly devoid of most life outside of the MF, the Vines and the Demo-creatures. In this way it takes on a nearly HELLISH aspect and imo, there HAS to be a reason only those things exist there. In fact, I think I’ve mentioned this before but I love repeating myself so let me mention again. ACCORDING to the VR game, (Which as a side note I have speculated on whether or not we can treat it as canon but I’m going to for now) HENRY was the one who “Shaped” the Upside Down.

There's a popular kind of headcanon/theory that Will was the one who did this but I’ve never fully brought that because how could Will have shaped it when it was “like that” when Will got there? Will literally describes it as like Hawkins but cold and dark, essentially. This was what it was like when Will got there. In the VR game, we can kind of see Henry using his powers somehow to imprint(?) Hawkins on the Upside Down. Why exactly is uncertain but I think its more true that HENRY “shaped’ the upside down than Will did.

Also RE: I’ve mentioned, it seems, according to Vecna himself, he was de-powered somehow/someway for the first few seasons of ST and couldn’t really get back into the game until he stole power from Eleven. Which is why we have that shift from the earlier seasons to season 4, where suddenly Vecna’s a thing personally. I don’t know why it doesn’t feel relevant to people that Vecna only starts acting personally in S4. If he could do what he did in S4 all the time, why didn’t he do it in any of the earlier seasons? Anyway, the point is if Henry was somehow lacking his own power as he literally claims, that means he lost it somehow between being sent to the UD and the start of season 1. (We’ve already established the psychics are like batteries and can run out of charge) We also know Henry wasn’t the one who opened the initial gates so it wasn’t that. So what did he do that was so exhausting? It seems if Henry shaped the entire UD that could be the thing.

BUT WHY would Vecna change the UD to look exactly like Hawkins?

Well, honestly, I couldn’t say why. But as the resident “”apologist"” I feel like some part of it has to do with the fact Vecna is, or was, and still is in some ways, a human being. He was a human with thoughts, feelings and dreams. I think its curious that as soon as this was done apparently “big bad evil psychopath” Vecna retreated to his childhood home and hid himself in the attic of it just like he used to do as little boy. So there is that. But I also feel like this had to do with the just making sense for map purposes. Like, if Vecna and his beasties are gonna plan attacks on Hawkins hes gonna need to know what exactly is where. Its probably a good idea to have the entire place set up looking like Hawkins in order to properly gage where things are exactly. But thats just a theory.

Anyway back to death/decay/the MF.

Humans fear death. Its not uncommon for humans and cultures to demonize death. Humans fear things that bring death. Often, people think of this as a form of evil and yet, death is as natural and normal as life. It doesn’t have an alignment. Predators kill and eat not because they are evil, but because they too must do what is natural to them and do what they must to survive. So with that in mind, is it possible that the MF is some type of destroyer/death “god” and this is its natural process?

In this way I feel like Henry and the MF are “using” each other, if that makes sense. Henry has “weaponized” the MF, so to speak, to serve him as a tool in his conquest against Hawkins and the corruption of human civilization/society (Which could be kind of symbolic to the way the MF/UD’s presence actually literally is rotting/dissolving the environment), but at the same time, if this is the MFs natural process, and it is normally a being that facilitates ‘death’ and ‘destruction’, is it really just HENRY’S plan and HENRY’S connection with it that drives it, or is Henry just assisting it to carry out its own natural design as well? Thats where I’ve personally been leaning on how what works and why.

This goes together with the heavy suggestions that the MF somehow reached out to and communed with Henry as a child. I’ve literally been describing the way this took place as ‘subconsciously’, explaining how Henry suddenly seemed to have these powers and know these things that it feels strange for him to be able to know just “randomly” as a little kid in the 50s. (More detailed here, Drop down to the MINDFLAYER section in particular)

This rings true if Wills experience with the MF is anything to go off. Will describes the MF as a “feeling”. When asked by Hopper how he knows the things he knows Will says he doesn’t know, he just knows. He somehow just knows things he never did before and he cant explain exactly how. He says its like “old memories in the back of my head, but they’re not my memories.” He also says he doesn’t think they're old memories. He says he thinks “They’re now memories, they’re happening all at once.” He says “Its like they’re growing, and spreading. Killing.”

This perfectly describes whats going on in Hawkins as the MF’s influence spreads and consumes things, presumably also assimilating them into itself, perhaps taking intelligence and making it part of the ““hive mind”“ and this makes me think of how Henry says when he kills people with his powers that theyre not really gone They’re still with him. If Henry’s powers came from the MF then it feels like maybe we could reason that even before Henry got to the UD, he was sort of connected to the hive mind and thus the “hive mind” is really this, like, divine, cosmic collective of assimilated consciousness.

In a way this would make the “hive mind” the source of vast, nearly infinite knowledge, and would explain why/how someone like Henry could get these absolutely insane powers. Including the ability to read minds and Vecna’s suggested precognition in season 4. This could also be why Vecna ‘connects’ to the ‘Vines’ in the upside down in order to amplify his powers, giving him a sort of omnipresence. We know Henry was/is a human being, he wasn't always some monster, and therefore this explains the type of “divinity” he now has.

I also want to point out some things I’ve mentioned before as well from DnD in regard to lichs and how they work:

No wizard takes up the path to lichdom on a whim, and the process of becoming a lich is a well-guarded secret. Wizards that seek lichdom must make bargains with fiends, evil gods, or other foul entities. Many turn to Orcus, Demon Prince of Undeath, whose power has created countless liches. However, those that control the power of lichdom always demand fealty and service for their knowledge.

I also mentioned that as far as DnD lore goes, when a lich traps the soul of a living being the soul is fed to the lich’s phylactery. This is the lich’s power source. Once fed to the phylactery, lich can than draw on those souls for power.

So this all also takes me back the entity of the Serpent, which we can easily assume the MF heavily represents. Once again, the Serpent is a god of vast knowledge, depicted as cloud and lighting (yeah), and the reason Vecna has been able to call himself the “God of Secrets” and to indeed ascend to “god” status in the DnD lore.

The Serpent spoke to Vecna while he was still mortal, and revealed to him great secrets powerful magic, including the path to lichdom, the location of Citadel Cavitus, and the true nature of beings including the Lady of Pain and the dark powers of Ravenloft.

Again, this also feels to me to represent of the MF in Stranger Things being a “hive mind" of sorts that is a source of all this inexplicable knowledge and power which it is able to pass to others who are able to commune with it- which unlocks some form of dormant conciseness within the human mind and hence gives them powers.

RE: The post I made briefly touching on LSD and MK ultra, etc.

In DnD it is the Serpent from which Vecna is able to attain and manipulate knowledge and power, which the Serpent gives to Vecna willingly. For some reason Vecna and the Serpent have a very close bond. No one else has this kind of bond with the Serpent. Vecna is special to the Serpent for some reason and it seems he acts as its will in some way. Vecna is the serpent’s chosen hand.

I feel this is reflected in Stranger things with Vecna and the MF. This is kind of what I was thinking about when the biblegate (is that what they called it, idk) posts went around, talking about the father the son and holy spirit. I think I deleted the post on my blog bc I upset the OP with my tags, woops, but I loved the post, I just disagreed with them on who represented who. I placed the MF as god, Henry as the son and Vecna as the Holy spirit, essentially.

And I’ve also mentioned the references to Hinduism, occultism and esotericism being obviously present in Vecna’s character. He’s related to the Goddess Kali with Henrys counterpart character literally being named Kali, and herein there is also the concept of the Left Hand Path.

The Left hand and Right hand path basically refer to magical/supernatural/religious belief sets that adhere to two sets of district and opposing qualities. I’m not gonna free write all of this myself because I’m lazy so if you never bothered to look into these things here we go this is the basics that I’ll pile together for you. ALSO note this is NOT comprehensive and it is always going to be slightly bias because that is just how it works with these things and I’m left leaning. I recommend actually looking into this kind of stuff yourself, because the is SOOO much to it and it spans across pretty much all human culture and existence. But anyway here is the bare basics:

The Right-Hand Path: is commonly thought to refer to magical or religious groups which adhere to a certain set of characteristics: They divide the concepts of mind, body and spirit into three separate, albeit interrelated, entities. They adhere to a specific moral code and a belief in some form of judgement.

The Left-hand Path: those aligned with the left hand path often reject societal convention and the status quo, which some suggest is in a search for spiritual freedom. As a part of this, LHP followers embrace magical techniques that would traditionally be viewed as taboo, for instance using sex magic or embracing Satanic imagery. They often question religious or moral dogma, instead adhering to forms of personal anarchism and they often embrace sexuality.

Basically, “The right-hand path seeks union with and thus dependence on God while the left-hand path seeks a “higher law” based on knowledge and power.” The Left hand path is the way of self-empowerment and true freedom. It began with ancient Hindu and Buddhist sects. (RE: Kali, the goddess of Hindu mythology, and the related Vamachara, etc)

Voodoo and particularly Hoodoo is also considered an example of the LHP. Both Hoodoo and Voodoo were HORRIFCALLY demonized, particularly by white supremist leaning Christians as these were belief systems practised by African slaves who were already suffering severe dehumanization and abuse by their racist and ignorant captors. Displaying their spiritual beliefs too, as exotic, monstruous, perverted and evil was just a no brainer. But the point is, enslaved Africans held on to their traditions and beliefs in spite of their captors and of course it pissed white folk right the fuck off. So they instantly labeled hoodoo and voodoo as evil and “”satanic”” and used this as justification to hate crime folks associated (Which still happens today, btw) Heres is some stuff Ira Lowenthal, an anthropologist who studies Voodoo in particular said in regard to slaves who practised Voodoo and their relatives today:

““They were treated as cattle. As animals to be bought and sold; worth nothing more than a cow. Often less. Vodou is the response to that. Vodou says ‘no, I’m not a cow. Cows cannot dance, cows do not sing. Cows cannot become God. Not only am I a human being - I’m considerably more human than you. Watch me create divinity in this world you have given me that is so ugly and so hard. Watch me become God in front of your eyes.

These people will never be conquered again. They will be exploited, they will be downtrodden, they will be impoverished – but you can tell not a single Haitian walks around with his head down … They’re more human than the people who enslaved them. They were better than their masters, able to live in another realm. There’s no other more articulate response to oppression than that. And that’s why Vodou is here – because Vodou is the soul of Haitian people.””

The point is, contrast to the lie of popular depiction, the Left Hand Path and all its associated religions and practices, is not evil. Its a part of human psychology, typically born from a resistance to political, religious and hierarchical systems that seek spiritual and bodily oppression over us. It is born from a deep-seated desire to be free, independent, and in control of our own destinies, which is actually the only natural state of being for humanity.

The concept of individualism and ‘difference’ is evil and wrong (left) while collectivism and ‘similitude’ is good and just (right) has been HEAVILY enforced by religions like Christianity as a big example, and political and social systems that use this as justification for the abominable treatment of anyone that falls outside of “the like-minded heard,” whether the individual is consciously differentiating themselves or was just born with the misfortune of not fitting the designated “normal” (Gay people, POC in predominately “white” regions, ND people this particularly applies to).

Anyway, continuing on some other relevant info that I need to add because it is actually more aligned to my personal take on everything is the concept of the “middle path” BUT for me personally I tend to lean this more toward “Left” than the “Middle” because I have no fear of the left and as I said there is some EXTREME bias against the left path due to typical portrayals of it being an inherently evil thing and therefore some people, even those who only study the aesthetics and don't actually engage in the spiritual aspects, tend to avoid the left path even if they are in fact way more aligned to it and this has sometimes resulted in this ‘middle path’ being promoted as the sexy hot alternative when a lot of it is actually just left path repainted. THAT SAID, Buddism as the first one to put forward a middle path and it has also existed somewhere between the two for as long as the two others have existed but yeah anyway:

“”Many medieval stories provide us with a middle path between those that lead to Heaven and Hell — the path to Fairy Land. Fairy Land is a liminal space where magical things take place in a more complex environment. This path is neither easy (like the path to Hell) nor extremely difficult (like the path to Heaven), but is between these two, through the thick, green forests where the mind and monsters dwell. This middle way provides us with the great stories. It is the source of poetry and poetic truth-telling.

The Middle Way is a more complex pathway, a liminal space, on the boundary land of order and chaos, where creativity happens. It is the place where you are neither obeying the rules (Right) nor violating the rules (Left). When you merely blindly obey or violate the rules, that means you are taking the rules seriously and, thus, are really playing the same game. But when you are both obeying and violating the rules, that means you are rather challenging and questioning the rules, understanding the degree to which the rules could be other than they are, no longer taking the rules seriously, even as you appreciate what can be done with the rules, especially good rules, and where play takes place for the sake of place, where truly new things are and can be born.

This is the Middle Way. It is where the poets (poets in both the narrow sense we use it and in the broad sense the Greeks used it, as “makers”) live. Which is why Shelley said, “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Those who work in the liminal space, the Middle Way between the Right Hand Path and the Left Hand Path, are the creators, creating new worlds for us to live in, creating new technology, new institutions, new works of art, new ways of doing things, new ways of living. They are the makers of the law, and can make it only because they don’t take it so seriously.”

The middle way is cute and becomes kind of relevant, I think, particularly in social environments that have already opened themselves up to political and spiritual freedoms (Such as a good part of the modern world in the west) but in environments and periods in history where the “Right” (again often considered and propagandized as the good and default) reigns supreme you NEED to lean to the left, or even, I dare say, “embrace” the left to get to the middle, if that makes sense.

This concept of the dark and the light requiring coexistence to achieve TRUE equality and TRUE enlightenment is actually what Baphomet (Essentially similar to Kali in a different culture) who is considered the patron figure of the left hand path represented. Baphomet is the winged, horned, half goat half human, half man half woman, who has since been and is often falsely identified as “the devil” and wrongly considered to be an evil deity.

This ties into why Henry and Kali both have the same radical left leaning (especially in that time) political and social ideologies and why Vecna thinks he’s ultimately good. Because, he is-- I KNOW WILD TAKE-- but its true. Vecna isn’t actually evil, not in his personal ideologies, its the rage and extremes he’s felt driven to accomplish his otherwise “noble” goals that make him “evil”, but he is not inherently or even necessarily ‘evil’ in why he’s doing what he’s doing.

But lets also cut back to the animal kingdom for a second where the same type of “logic” applies to certain animals. Typically animals like SHEEP and RABBITS for example (reference wheelercore’s rabbits and spiders post) are considered to be benevolent animals, as is the case of most herbivores as a lot of them are, unlike carnivores/’predators”, animals who adhere to a type of “”collectivism.”” or something that resembles it that comes across as appealing, just and understandable to Right leaning society and spirituality. It is the predators/carnivores who therefore more represent “individualism” such as spiders and snakes, and are routinely seen as “evil” animals as a result. This is not true of all animals in each category but you’ll probably notice it applies to the majority and where animals fall on the “alignment” chart in human perception, particularly in the west, has a lot to do with this and how much collectivism vs individualism applies and HOW OFTEN collectivism is considered benign while individualism is labeled evil and wrong in contrast. So this brings me to sheep and goats. In particular, sheep are considered pure and holy while goats are considered evil and perverse and why. What makes this distinction between two otherwise similar animals?:

Sheep are dependent on their shepherd. They have a reputation for not topping the lists of the most intelligent animals. They trust and depend on their shepherd. Sheep represent a drive to follow a leader unquestionably and even against their own individual interest/saftey. This is what makes sheep and lambs holy.

Goats on the other hand have a reputation for self-reliance and stubbornness. Goats are most like humans in the sense that they can be solitary if needed, even if they naturally prefer the company of others.

So there we go again. Its also speculated the goat is given this evil rep dating back to the Jewish Holiday of Yom Kippur or “day of atonement” which employs the “azazel” goat. Essentially, the azazel goat would have all sins symbolically placed on it when the high priest laid hands on it. Once the sins “were placed” they would drive the goat out into the desert, thus driving out Israel’s sins into the desert as well.

The azazel goat in this scenario represented satan, or something evil. This is speculated to be why Jesus found Satan in the desert coupled with the fact deserts have represented cursed places. This is also basically where the term “scapegoat” comes from.

Cut to Henry who was in fact the ‘scapegoat’ of his family, and on a greater narrative scale, who we ALSO see wandering around the desolate, barren planes of the upside down, (A place that invokes “hell” like imagery) upon being ‘cast out’ by Eleven, who deemed him “evil” after failing to comprehend or perhaps simply rejecting Henry’s truths about Papa and the reality of the situation the two of them had been forced to live in.

Henry’s justified rebellion against the power (Brenner and his government sanctioned facility) that tortured abused and exploited him, and Henrys perception and knowledge of the inequality and injustice from within the current social/political/cultural system that allowed this, was judged as evil by Eleven, who was too naive to actually understand at this at the time. Eleven saw the “death” of her “flock” (The other subjects) and her “Shepard” (Brenner) and saw this as frighting and evil, in spite of the fact that her flock and her Shepard had every intention to sacrifice her, and that this show of individuality and rebellion from Henry was necessary to her and his protection. (Btw this is not blaming Eleven, at this point she had been RASIED to think this way.)

Eleven represents the sheep here. Henry is the goat. He is not evil, but he is not a naive follower. He stood up for Eleven and for himself. Henry placing value on Eleven’s life and his own life was thought of as evil by Eleven who couldn’t completely understand the true scope of her situation and the reality that everything Henry said about Brenner, the other test subjects and their society at large was true.

Henry’s differences, Henry’s understanding of the inequality of the world around him particularly toward individuals like himself who ARE different, who DO fall outside of the status quo, has always been the true qualities within Henry that has resulted in Henry being unfairly labeled as everything from “broken” to “evil”. Henry does represent the LHP, the “devil” and other “demonic” figures, but not because he is EVIL, rather because he represents individuality, self empowerment and rebellion, which, by the context of his life and the show, is coming from a very meaningful and fairly justified place. So this is the part of the post where I go “sympathizer” again woops! But anyway more about Henry/Vecna, his morality and his “role” in the story so to speak.

We could call Henry a serial killer because he killed multiple people but he doesn’t fit the generally recognized criteria for serial killer which is: "The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender in separate events” as much as the anti’s don’t want to admit it, Henry’s killings were not unlawful. In a court of law he could easily prove he A) Was suffering severe psychological and even physical distress and B) Killed people because he had no other choice (or at least thought he had no other choice). I cant imagine an unbiased jury convicting him of actual murder and not recognizing the severe abuse he suffered (physically, emotionally and mentally, and jfc if some of the current theories/hcs are to be believed, literally sexually as well like yeah you're not gonna demonize him to me with that lmao) but the fact is Henry would never go to court because the GOVERMENT would NEVER want ANYONE in the population to know what THEY allowed Brenner to do to Henry (and others), which just makes Henry’s situation all the more dire and justified. He had literally no other way to escape this, he literally didn’t have another choice. And folks can say all they want “Ok he should have left the kids alive,” but the thing about that is those kids were as much weapons that would be used against him as any guard, orderly, baton, fist, taser, etc, and the most powerful ones were literally hostile and brainwashed as hell.

As tragic as it is, he was on a mission to strip his near life-long abuser and captor of the tools he used and needed to ever abuse and imprison him (and Eleven) again.

Next up. Vecna’s killings are not Henry’s killings as such. Vecna’s murders ALSO have a motive and that motive is absolutely not “Joy and pleasure”. There is a heavily supernatural aspect of these killings and the victims are specific for a reason. I’ll repeat myself as much as I have to but Vecna was shown to have some type of precognition, he can see the future of sorts, he targeted Chrissy, Max, Patrick and Fred not because they're “queer” and he’s “homophobic” (idiotic take even as a joke), he targeted them because the entire thing was an allogory for suicide in and out of universe. It seems Vecna knew these particular 4 had a future of committing suicide and therefore he used that trauma and “guilt” to collect their “souls” for his crusade against a world that hurt them to such an extent because he KNOWS their pain. He asks them to “join him” for a reason.

Although we could say that Vecna was indirectly responsible for what set Max on her path, he views his actions merciful and ultimately benevolent. This is Vecna’s problem. For Vecna he is completely blinded by rage and he has somewhat deluded himself into thinking that his ends will justify his means. He is one of the many horror genre answer’s to the tragic villain described as: “ A particular Deconstruction of the villain, a Tragic Villain is completely aware of their evil but takes little to no pleasure from it; in fact, they could very well resent the evil they are committing. Rather, they were driven to villainy due to circumstances beyond their control. In many circumstances they are the Tragic Monster, perhaps an innocent person transformed into a mindless monster, or simply created to be a monster; either way they have no choice in the evil acts they commit and are as sympathetic as their victims.”

He also heavily fits the “Well intentioned extremist” trope:

“A villain who has an overall goal which the heroes can appreciate in principle, but whose methods of pursuing said goal (such as mass murder) are problematic; despite any sympathy they may have with their cause, the heroes have no choice but to stop them. Taken to extremes, they may fully believe that Utopia Justifies the Means. Such an idealistic extremist is likely to be either a Totalitarian Utilitarian or a Principles Zealot, depending on whether they’re aiming For Happiness or For Great Justice. The most well-written examples of this trope are the kind that the reader/viewer stops just short of agreeing with. Other times, the villain may be out for simple revenge against a person, corporation or other entity that has undeniably wronged them. Again, the heroes may sympathize with their plight, but are obliged to stop them because they care not who gets in the way of their planned revenge.”

Woobie, destroyer of worlds also applies:

This is a character with omnicidal and/or Ax-Crazy tendencies, or a character who wants to destroy everyone in the story, and is suddenly in a position to do so (on a small or large scale); but in contrast to other characters, he/she has some plausible, outright tragic reason to do so. In some cases, the other characters outright sympathize with this one (whether or not the audience does too is out of the equation here), all the while accepting that they must be stopped. Sometimes, the character is even portrayed as likeable, just... not with the right mindset.

And if we go back to the eerie references to religion, occultism and esotericism, Henry could also be considered a messianic archetype of sorts.

In media, the Messianic Archetype is a character whose role in the story (but not necessarily personality) echoes that of Christ. They are portrayed as a savior, whether the thing they are saving is a person, a lot of people or the whole of humanity. They endure a sizable sacrifice as the means of bringing that salvation about for others, a fate they do not deserve up to and including death or a Fate Worse than Death.

Particularly, he’s my favorite type of dark inversion of this trope which blends satanic / demonic imagery with the traditional holy and tragic, and draws further from the aspects as aesthetics associated with that of the LHP rather than the right. Which all takes a lot of root in the age old debate about Lucifer himself and the pretty obvious text that can lead to views of him as, in fact, the original scapegoat which I’ve already covered the relevancy of with Henry. EDIT BC TUMBLR ATE SOME OF MY POST AGAIN: We also have the existence of the Leviathan, depicted as a Giant serpent, a dragon or multiple headed hydra

Theres A LOT here to that y’all can go look up and dig around in for yourselves but I’m just gonna put down some things I think are relevant here. This is cutting back to my MF theory bullshit with it representing the Serpent of DnD and its relation to other monstrous deities that are pared up with various other iconic horror characters that were used to create Vecna as a character in stranger things. The Leviathan (note, ONCE AGAIN, this is the also the name of the deity that pinhead serves, and pinhead was one of the biggest sources of inspo for Vecna) is the god of “chaos” and “death” its described as a creature of beastliness, of terror and of undiluted evil. Due to its “demonic” presence in a lot of mythology it has been related to Satan but there is a whole debate about whether or not they're the same being and/or are actually related-- and occasionally if it wasn’t actually “satan” that took the form of a snake and offered the apple to Eve but rather the Leviathan itself that was responsible for this and thus the one who essentially tempted / corrupted humanity with evil.

We know in the ST universe we have a lot of concepts that surround negative emotions and feelings and how these emotions apparently act as massive amplifiers for the powers of the psychic in the show. ALSO RE: the post I made about the possible link to the psychics powers and the MF cloud. And I also mentioned the suggestion of the Original Sin back on the Holy Trinity post and how that feels like it could relate to the whole corruption/infection aesthetic the MF seems to have going on and its symbolic relationship to the evils of human nature, etc, which all once again goes back and adds to my theory about the MF in general potentially being a greater force/influence than people give it credit for.

The Leviathan is also thought to represent the sin of envy, the most “poisonous” human emotion. Its also been thought of as the creature that separates the human/material world from the world of the divine by residing in the realm between. The Leviathan is also depicted as an eater of “lost souls” and it is also considered responsible for generating all intrinsic evil into the world. Further, in demonology the Leviathan naturally represents water and we know there is a lot of water symbolism going on with the upside down which further ties all this together.

#henry creel #vecna #001 #stranger things #byler #william byers #stranger things analysis #this post had a point originally but now its just brain vomit because I was distracted from it too many times for too many days #omg sorry guys edit bc half the post got eaten #I don’t want to apologise for Vecna’s murders – I’m not sorry #Old man yells at cloud

9 notes · View notes