pixel skylines
JBB: An Artblog!
titsay
ojovivo
shark vs the universe
Claire Keane
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we're not kids anymore.
Xuebing Du
NASA
noise dept.
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cherry valley forever
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
🪼
Monterey Bay Aquarium
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#extradirty
Jules of Nature
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
seen from Singapore
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Dominican Republic
seen from Dominican Republic
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seen from United States
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@sorrowsfallallaround
This is the Magical Girl March theme I wanted to draw last year but ran out of time! No accessories this time, I'm not feeling a sticker sheet in this one lol. Probably going to be my only Magical Girl this month, I've got a lot of ideas bouncing around and only so much time to create...
This is the Magical Girl March theme I wanted to draw last year but ran out of time! No accessories this time, I'm not feeling a sticker sheet in this one lol. Probably going to be my only Magical Girl this month, I've got a lot of ideas bouncing around and only so much time to create...
Reddit user has cracked the code on how to read fanfic and study at the same time
(image via twitter)
original reddit post
seriously, this is an example of how the integration of arts into learning helps with comprehension. It recontextualizes the material in a way that helps the brain remember AND makes it more understandable.
it’s why for generations teachers used mnemonic songs to help kids memorize all the U.S. states.
[X]
we live in the worst times
My exact thoughts. Couldn't leave this in the tags.
To send a message, write a complaint and boycott the company behind Burger King and the other franchises it owns.
This includes Popeyes and Tim Hortons.
On duty 🫡
Since I can print on fabric, and got a special wash to hopefully keep the ink from running when you clean the fabric I wanted to try and allover print with mushrooms! We have cystolepiota, elegant blue webcap, and turkey tail mushroom here! This isn't a repeating pattern yet I just hurry up and threw it together to get it up before February ends lol
so ... i was rereading some of the DA fics I'd started and have yet to finish ... suffice it to say that I *am* working on the next chapter of In a Fit of Pique and an unposted fic about Daathrata who I personally find relentlessly intriguing.
Let's Talk About Ableism - For Real
Something I have been thinking about since the "Ableism in Dragon Age" blog I wrote on Monday, is how generally online and fandom spaces are full of Ableism. Together with minors, disabled people are propably the biggest marginalized group whose marginalizsation is often ignored and made invisible.
Part of this is that the vast majority of people discussing ableism, do only discuss it in some very specific kind of context. This goes for representation, and it goes for also the discussion of tropes.
The Disabilities Fandom Recognizes
So, let's put it right out there: generally, most of fandom does only recognize a very specific group of disabilities. And those fall into two categories. The classical forms of physical disabilities, which is:
Amputees/missing limbs
Wheelchair users of different types usually related to misfunction of the legs
Blind
Hard of Hearing/Deaf-Mute
And then there is the other type, aka the type that half of active fandom is themselves a part of:
Autism
ADHD
Other common Mental Health issues
Most people have a vague understanding that there are a variety of other disabilities, but those generally do not often show up in media of any type, and hence also do not play a role in many forms of fanwork.
The Things Ignored
Okay, let's be honest here. If I was to list every possible type of disability that gets ignored then I would not be done in any reasonable amount of time.
But let's go over a couple things.
First of all, many of the ignored things are disabilities and chronic illnesses that are not "sexy", and that for many people would be a turn off to some degree.
That is for one the kind of disability that feels too much as a deformity. Things like a severe forms of Scoliosis, Kyphosis, and Lordosis (spinal deformaties), things like clubfoot, or deformed hands, as well as facial deformaties like cleft lip or cleft palate. Or general deformation like Treacher Collins Syndrome.
There is also the kind of disabilities that are both associated with deformities (and be it through overtension in certain aras) and also tend to get associated with mental issues, like cerebral palsy, down syndrome, and other associated disorders.
Then we have the kind of disorder and illness associated with either food intake or excretion. Be it people who are incontinent, or just suffer from chronic issues related to their guts, or bladder, possibly needing a stoma or something similar.
Then we have the kind of thing that just gets overlooked because people just do not think too much about it: malfunction of certain inner organs like the lung or heart, leading to issues like dizziness, shortness of breath, or chronic pain associated with it. In the same lane we have the endless variety of autoimmune diseases that also can create a variety of issues that are to many to be named.
And also we have the thing that people do not like to think too muhc about is any form of neurological issue that is not in the AuDHD area. Schizophrenia, Tourette's, a variety of OCDs and a bunch of other associated stuff gets ignored, just as the varieties of Autism and ADHD that go along with more major issues in regards to function, learning, and speech abilities.
And again: this is not a full list. You could fill a whole book with the kind of disability that gets ignored.
Disabilities in a Fantasy Setting
Then we also should probably talk about the fact that within a fantasy setting with fantasy rules, you also can have disabilities that only exist within that setting. If you have a society in which everyone can fly, but one character cannot, than this character is disabled. If you have a story where everyone can do magic, but one person cannot, then this person is disabled. Heck, if you have a society where everyone is born together with some sort of monster/demon by their side and this one person somehow was not, this person would be likely considered disabled.
The one thing that you need to understand is that disability and abledness are generally just arbitrary in terms of how society defined them. Which is why the way societies relate to certain disabilities is highly dependent on both social and cultural context.
We see this a lot with autism. Cis white men get allowed often more leeway in how much they can do autistic behaviors, in comparison to anyone else. Especially if they are rich. Everyone else has to force themselves to learn things that do not come natural to autistic people, and those men do not.
And this was true for a bunch of things in that regard. Historically speaking physical disabilities in nobility were often much less of an issue as the same was to a peasant, who was more expected to work.
If in a fantasy world a certain ability is seen as the norm, the person who does not have this ability is for all intents and purposes disabled, and there is a good chance that there is going to be things in their society that they cannot access, because it has been designed with an ablebodied person in mind.
To go to the example: if everyone can fly, there might not be stairs/ladders, because everyone just flies when they need to get to a higher floor of a building.
The Fatphobic Elephant in the Room
And then we also need to talk about the one thing that is highly related to ableism, as it tends to overlap. Fatphobia in its core is ableism. It is not about: "I want you to be healthy and that is why I bully you for being fat," but a "I hate your abnormal body and that is why I want to voice my disgust."
Let's be quite truthful here: fatness tends to be a result of underlying medical causes, or poverty. The vast majority of fat people are fat because of some underlying metabolic issue, like diabetes type-2. It was very long assumed that fatness caused diabetes, but it was the other way around: diabetes causes fatness. And there is a bunch of other metabolic issues that might also result in fatness, like thyroid malfunction for example. There is also a bunch of medications for different issues (including depression, as most SSRIs and SNRIs have this side effect), that might cause fatness.
And here is the thing: dieting in most cases does nothing, and often does in fact make the body less healthy.
Of course, fatness can in many ways then also relate to other disabilities. For example it might be related to issues in terms of mobility, or coronary, as well as pulmological issues.
If you are fatphobic, you are being ableist. You're repeating ableist narratives if you repeat fatphobic narratives. Ableist narratives that very much also have their origin in colonialism and fascism, as those very much played a big role in defining the acceptable forms a body might take.
The Invisibility of Accessibility Struggles
In all of media that does actually depict disabilities, very few actually do ever care about the way in which spaces are accessible. Even if a setting has some wheelchair using characters, very rarely do we actually see ramps. I literally can only think of one movie that was not in its core a disability movie, that included this in set design (it was the Wicked movies - pay attention in that movie: certain places are wheelchair accessible and others are not, and this was clearly a choice made by the set designers to communicate something about the ideology in the world).
Even in media with disabled main characters, often the struggles associated often get forgotten. In some cases this clearly comes from a desire to just go more for the "look, this character is disabled but still so cool". The well-meaning kind of representation. Yet, abled writers and artists often do not understand the frustration with how often accessibility needs are being forgotten.
Especially as in the real world, let's be honest. People think: put in a ramp, put on some braille, yay, we are accessible now.
That is not how that works. Because disabilities are very different people might have very different needs. Before the pandemic I was working as an advisor to some conventions in Germany to make them more accessible. And so many people forgot quite obvious things like: make some areas where there is less sensory input so that people with neurological issues can retreat there (and if those areas exist, also make sure that they do not get turned by neurotypicals into a "calmer place to hang out and talk loudly"). Make sure that people who are using a cane have a way to orient themselves in the convention halls. Make sure that there might be a visual cue for certain events. Make sure there are toilets everywhere and they are easily accessible. Ideally also make sure that there is at least some very simple form of food and drink that is just available.
Of course there is also always the issue of conflicting accessibility needs. We have a ton of those. Things that might make a place more accessible for one group, may make it less accessible for another. From the convention stuff an example: the idea was brought up to announce the change of a stage program (several of which were performances that were enjoyable visually) with a light cue in certain areas so that people who could not hear the announcement would still know. However, both people with neurodivergence, as well as people with epilepsy did consider those light cues as taxing, possibly even dangerous.
And this kind of conflicting needs are everywhere and it is just a fact of life for when you are disabled.
Still, if you write a disabled character... I know sometimes the empowerment is meant well. But it sucks if you overlook one of the most common stressors we disabled people have to face: the lack of accessibility.
Also: whenever you design an environment in a fantasy/scifi context and you get everywhere via stairs, I do know you have not thought of people in wheelchairs. Which, obviously, it can also be a topic to create conflict. Because... well, historically indeed a lot of people were not accessible for people who could not walk properly, leading to them feeling possibly humiliated by having to be carried. But that is often not considered in this context. Which is an issue.
The Eugenicism of it All
And then we have the Eugenics of it all. Because a lot of the times when the topic of disability comes up in science fiction and fantasy, or even in more mundane stories, it is to heal the disability. This is often brought up by writers to explain why in their world actually there are no disabilities. Because the technology or magic can just make the disability go away, so they do not have to consider that.
And when you, as a disability activist, then remind them, that this is actually eugenicism, they will go: "No, of course it is not, we are not killing the disabled person."
At this I always wonder: why is it not hard to understand for people, that "curing" a queer character and making them allo dya cis and heterosexual is queerphobic. But somehow struggle to understand that removing disability from a character is ableist in the same way.
The worst of it is, that there are disabled people who would like to get rid of their disability, and then will go in and proclaim that if they want that, everyone would have to want that, so if disability advocates claim anything else, they must be somehow bad, or just enjoy being a broken victim. (Yes, I was literally told that before.)
Now, mind you: yes, if someone could literally cure my autoimmune disease, I would take it. But if anyone was to suggest that they would cure my autism, I am gonna kick in their face.
Which is to say: yes, it is valid if any disabled person on their own would want to be cured. However, presupposing that everyone who is disabled should want to be cured is ableism and based on eugenicist thinking, in which disabled people should not be allowed to exist.
From the eugenicist angle it does not make any difference, whether you cure all disabilities, or kill of the people with disabilities. The result is the same: disability is not a thing you are allowed to be in that world.
People always wonder why someone would not want to be cured. And the answer is fairly simple: once you actually are used to dealing with life from one kind of angle, it is going to be very harsh to learn to deal with it in another way. The way you experience the world is you. If it is changed, you are less you.
Again, people can understand that with queerness. But somehow understanding it with disability is less typical.
There also is the issue of: okay, where do you draw the line of a person needing to be "cured"? Like, I guess you want to cure blindness, deafness, and if a character cannot walk, they should... But what about neurotypes? Should they also be made neurotypical? Will you cure queerness or intersex conditions?
Whenever you create a world in which disabled bodies do not exist, you create a world in which someone is controlling what kind of bodies are allowed to exist and what kind needs to be corrected.
And mind you, the "perfect prosthesis" also falls into this issue. In a bunch of fantasy and scifi we have the scenario of a character losing a limp, very often in battle or as a result of them being heroic. And this gets to be an issue for exactly two scenes, before they get a perfect prosthesis, which in some cases is literally invisible (see Star Wars and the hand prosthesis that both Anakin and Luke have), or a prosthesis that is still working perfectly and might even have some extras making sure the writer never has to think too much about it (Winter Soldier, or also the one example in the Dragon Prince).
The Infantilization of Disabled People
I talk in this blog often, too, about how bad society treats children and youngsters. Children in the eyes of modern society are not people, they are objects their parents/guardians possess, treated with little more agency than pets. A whole lot of online discourse is always centered around the idea of "think of the children", always being worried about hypothetical children more than actual ones. The oppression of children is so normalized, that people think you insane when you point it out. Obviously kids should not have the rights to just move out of their parents household. Obviously kids should not have the right to vote. Obviously it is normal that people under 18 get treated like accessories rather than people. Obviously people under 18 are basically also asexual, and the sex drive in their brains gets magically activated on their 18th birthday, and if you claim something else, you are basically a pedophile.
And this relates quite strongly to disabilities. Because a lot of times disabled people will get chucked in with children.
This obviously is very common in relation to neurodivergent people, who very often get infantilized by the people around them. It does not matter that you are an autistic adult with a stable job and family, the fact that often you do not get certain social cues, and might be a bit obsessive about your special interest, makes you a child in the eyes of the society.
But even people with physical disabilities that neurologically are typical, and behaving normally, often gets infantilized for their disabilities. People will act as if they are children, will talk down to them, will not listen to them, will act as if it is okay for someone else to decide over them, and so on and so forth. It is seen as normal, that disabled people are often not treated like full adults.
This can be especially sinister when at the same time a society asks you, as a disabled person, to do all the adult stuff, but whenever you are doing the adult stuff in ways that has you interacting with other adults, those other adults will treat you as a child, and not take you serious.
And, of course, then there are the disabilities in which you being an adult is seen as an impossibility, and people will outright try to prevent you from becoming an adult. This is something you see often with people who have down syndrome, or things like celebral palsy. Sure, some of those people might need assistance in certain areas of their life, but often they will be actively prevented from developing any autonomy at all.
And, also, very often when someone is romantically or sexually involved with those people, they will quite often get side-eyed, and accused of exploitation.
Disabled People Getting to Live
And then, there is also the other issue that I talked about both in relation to Dragon Age, and Arcane. Because one more trope exists in terms of disability that a lot of media loves to use - not just fantasy. And that is the disabled person who comes in to inspire abled people, and bows out in one way or another, once the abled person has had their character development. There is so many disabled characters that mostly serve to be inspiration porn.
But there is also a bunch of tropes related around this. For once there is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who is usually a neurodivergent woman, who in her neurodivergence is very inspirational to the male character, but either bows out so that he can get with a neurotypical woman in the end, or gets neurotypical towards the end of the story so that she might be an appropriate love interest.
Outside of that, though, there is also a lot of disabled characters who by their respective stories get quite literally sacrificed so that abled characters can live, and - not to put too fine of a point on it - carry on their healthy genes.
Ironically this basic eugenicist idea often even keeps up when a character has an acquired disability (aka something that is the result of an accident or of violence). Because the eugenicist viewpoint that we usually use to look at media a disabled body being in a sexual context is often framed as horrific thing to consider.
Either way, in many stories, where there is a disabled character, they often are the ones forced to sacrifice themselves in some way or form. They just will die.
As mentioned, one of the most clear examples of this was Arcane, because that series had a lot of disabled characters, and basically killed them all off. Literally everyone of them. Just so that the abled characters could live and have their happy ending. Because here it became quite visible due to there being more than one token disabled character. Instead there were many, and pretty much all of them died.
But while these days people will indeed clock this kind of writing when it is the queer characters dying, or the non-white characters dying, disabled characters dying will often not be framed as a problem. Because, once again, disability as a form of marginalization is often overlooked in fandom spaces.
And I really wish people realized that this is as much of an issue as other marginalized identities. And it is really annoying frankly, because the same people who will call out all sorts of problematic framings in narratives will suddenly jump in to defend eugenicist storytelling in terms of disabilities.
I hate it.
become a premium member (my friend) today to unlock extra content (every thought i’ve ever had)
Sci-fi: Credits?
Fantasy: Gold pieces. Quests?
Sci-fi: Missions. Bounty hunters?
Fantasy: Sellswords. Magic?
Sci-fi: *sigh* Science.
Sci-fi: . . . Crystals?
Fantasy: Crystals!
Sci-fi: Crystals!
Both: ♪ Crystals! Crystals! Crystals! ♫
Fantasy: Princesses?
Sci-fi: Princesses! Ancient civilizations?
Fantasy: Ancient civilizations! Dashing rogues?
Sci-fi: Dashing rogues! Non-human people?
Fantasy: Non-human people! . . . Sexy non-human people?
Sci-fi: *wiggles eyebrows* Sexy non-human people.
Do tell a little more about how the shadow magic involves the ability to control photons on a sub-atomic level? Kicking my feet here. 🥰
Ah, indulging my propensity for getting bogged down in irrelevant minutia, I see. So, quick physics lesson for those who may not know; light, as we know it currently, is both a particle and a wave. A light particle is called a photon and has no mass or weight. I'm not going to get into the quantum mechanics here as that would take *way* too long. But suffice it to say that the energy that a photon carries is directly proportional to its frequency or electromagnetic spectrum which includes visible light.
Darkness or shadow on the other hand is simply the absence of light. It cannot be emitted, reflected, refracted or absorbed. Some would say it is the default state of the universe, as light had to be introduced.
And this is where my theory comes in. Shadows are created when something else gets in the way of a photon, either redirecting it or absorbing it. We know of three behaviors; reflection, refraction, and absorption. Visible light makes up only a small sliver of the full spectrum. So, if my mage can manipulate photons, he could make it appear as if there were shadows where there should be none by simply absorbing or redirecting the relevant photons. And, theoretically, he could use ionizing radiation, like gamma and x-rays to cause actual physical damage to opponents.
For example, he could make it seem as if he held a sword made of shadow by absorbing the relevant photons of the correct wavelength in the visible spectrum. He could then use the energy from the higher wavelengths to make that sword deal significant damage. It would appear to the casual observer that he had 'materialized' a shadow sword and then caused horrible burns to his opponent through their armor.
But we aren't done yet. There is the gravitational component. Light bends with gravity. Okay, that's maybe overly simplistic. Technically gravity doesn't affect photons, but it *does* affect the fabric of space-time, which photons flow through. So if my mage can manipulate photons is he using a means of warping the fabric of space-time as well? This could mean that not only can he manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum but also warp space around him. Which honestly is a bit terrifying.
I'm still working on the theory because apparently, I can't just say shadow magic exists in my totally made-up universe.
Would love to hear your thoughts!
@ofcrowsanddragons
tagging you since tumblr is still weird about replies to asks XD
Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook. (ETA: Gaining inspiration from other authors is great. Lifting passages and avoiding giving credit isn’t.)
Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earth here and here .
You can also borrow some of Tanith Lee’s books from the Internet Archive if you are unable to buy them.
Here’s a link to Night’s Master, the first book in the Flat Earth series.
I cannot recommend Lee’s work enough. And it pains me that I’d never even heard of her until last year.
saw an elderly woman walking around with a tote bag whose design were the four AO3 fic category squares and she very excitedly asked if i was a reader or a writer bcs nobody else at the con had recognized it, and after telling her that i've been writing fic since fanfic.net, she solemnly nodded and explained that she'd been reading fic since "the days of personal websites" but that she only started writing fanfic when she was 47 and oh my god when i tell you that i genuinely teared up on the spot!!!!! like!!! HELL YEAH???? LITERALLY NEVER TOO OLD TO START WRITING. NEVER TOO OLD TO WRITE AND SHARE YOUR FIC.
her enthusiastic "i'm a very nice and bubbly person, i swear! but i love writing angst and major character death :)" nearly took me the fuck out.
icon. legend. diva. i wish her nothing but a kajillion million comments and kudos. i hope her fic updates crash AO3. i hope she knows i'm promoting her to my personal patron saint of AO3.
Boromir Lives AU: Braiding Customs Part II
Part I
Meanwhile, various siblings around the ballroom:
------------
Boromir Lives: Helm's Deep
Boromir Lives: Whump-Time After Pelennor
Boromir Lives: GO TO SLEEP
Boromir Lives: Aragorn's Coronation
Boromir Lives: Faramir and Eowyn's Wedding
Boromir Lives: Panic! At the Ballroom
Boromir Lives: It's a BABY
Boromir Lives: High Uncle of the White Tower
Boromir Lives: We Didn't Have a Choice
Boromir Lives: The Haircuts
Gonna tell y’all what I can hear now that I got my hearing aids
Birds! They chirp and it’s so beautiful.
Far away cow moos
My friend has this is his back yard and to say I cried is an understatement.
My best friends singing voice
Chickens: *chicken noise*
Me, sobbing:
The filter for my fish tank! Bubble bubble bubble
I sit in the bass section in band. Today I could clearly hear the flutes up at the front! They’re not great, but I can finally hear them!
The sound of walking in sand.
Soft but kinda crunchy? Very nice sound 10/10
Me playing guitar for the first time. Took the hearing aids out. Not a very good sound… yet
Tree leaves in the wind. I got a little spooked at first because it’s 1 am and I’m alone in the park but it’s a real good sound.
Bees
Let me say, it was really fucking terrifying walking past the flowering tree in my backyard and hearing zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz coming from it.
“sunlight” by Hozier
I sat in my car alone while listening to it. I knew it would be special but wow, that was a religious experience.
Their hooves make sounds in the grass but they are completely silent. Beautiful creatures. Beautiful sound
Pine needles and pine cones make crunchy sounds!!! Oh my! Very nice
Colored pencils make a real nice scratch noise when I’m drawing. I didn’t know they did that
I forgot to add this is the beginning! But that little sniffing noise that dogs make when they’re smelling the air or the ground? Wonderful!
OCEAN!!!!!!
So there was just an entire booth full of wind chimes for sale at mountain fair. It started to get a little windy and they all went off at once. It was so pretty.
This is the most beautiful post on this whole site
