Ok I saw a poll about why people use subtitles and looking the the notes just reminded me of some bullshit and I went on a rant in the tags, decided to put it here with some additional thoughts:
Hi, I'm Mech and I'm deaf
More specifically I have profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears (profound means it's the 2nd most severe level of hearing loss). The hairs in my cochlear are damaged or missing and this inteferes with how I process audio from vibrations into signals my brain can understand. I use cochlear implants on both ears, which essential replace the need for the hairs. I also had language therapy when I was younger, so I'm quite well spoken, not what most people in the UK would associate with a young deaf person. I'm also autistic so theres some weird interaction and overlap between the two. Most importantly, yes, I use subtitles. Despite having what is arguably the best hearing treament currently available, I use them. But that's still a valid reason and theres a million valid reasons.
(Here comes the ranty bit)
The discourse around subtitles disgusts me. Just use them if you need to Noones gonna judge theyre an accesbility tool if yall cant get over people using them gods help us when it comes to wider accesbility implementations i used to to see some really toxic ass arguements on anime subreddits about subs or dubs being wrong to use because its not intended and for some baffiling reason i see the same shit here on tumblr it makes watching anime so fucking hard since this attitude means most places do sub and dub seperately heres the fucking thing about anime i cant fucking lipread them so im fucked if im limited to one of the options and im not gonna go learn japanese like some people suggest bc ive already tried learning a language and it was fucking hell gain im deaf learning a new language is so incredibly hard fuck yall who have opinions on this shit just accept it already
