Yo I am a white (gender)queer person in my late twenties. This blog is a mix of fandom stuff, pretty things, and me making dumb grouchy text posts/questionable writing/art. Please let me know if you need anything tagged! Check the link up top for more...
Psst. Hey yall. I made a new tumblr bc it’s been 74839833 years and I wanted a fresh start. If you wanna keep/get back in touch, this would be a better place to find me
Her world was as a big (or as small) as the valley. She could run across her father’s and the next two neighbors’ in part of it in a day. Maybe she could completely cross it if she ran without stopping for the whole day. She’d never tried. Her mother needed her; there was always another baby or her father needed her; there was always another chore.
The carnival had come to town. Like it did every year. She attended, like everybody else from that sleepy little part of world. It was one of the few things she was allowed, excepting for church.
why are so many people on this post saying things like “oh so what abt aromantic people then 🙄” like um… stumbling as u give up your seat for an elderly lady on the bus. stroking your friend’s hair as they cry in your arms. someone you care abt making you a long lovely playlist of songs you might like. attentively listening to your sibling as they talk excitedly about something they care abt. the sound of hundreds of people in unison singing a song they love at a concert. someone peeling a clementine and saving half of it for themselves and giving the other half to you. letting your cat crawl all over you even though her claws are scratchy. sitting in comfortable silence with someone. the pride shining in your grandfather’s eyes when you facetime him and tell him abt what you’ve been up to. taking a sip of your friend’s boba. people grinning at you when u blow out the candles on your birthday cake… these things aren’t love to you? you guys don’t consider that love? really? truly?
so i was thinking entirely too much about this au as i was drawing it, of course, because that is how i roll
i think in this au vampires are a known entity, and there is a system in place where individuals are able to voluntarily give blood in an effort to let everyone live a peaceful existence, practically and legally, but it’s still sort of a social taboo for humans to do it. anyway mihashi has his typical self esteem issues and decides he may as well try to be useful somehow even if it’s only to a scary monster and volunteers, which is how they meet. abe absolutely refuses to take any blood that’s not given voluntarily through this kind of program, either because there are safety measures in place to so he knows they’re not sick or cursed or coerced (he tells himself) or maybe for moral reasons, haruna can’t figure it out. for his part haruna desperately wants the freedom to go where he pleases and do what he wants, and has been trying to convince abe that they’ll never have that if they stay in the Legally Acceptable Vampire Communities or whatever, plus rent is way too high and the amenities are a joke, but also doesn’t want to go it alone without abe. abe, of course, resents him for turning him into a vampire in the first place, but also doesn’t know how to exist on his own without haruna and hasn’t been able to run away.
so of course they find mihashi, who is more than willing to be their little mobile buffet, and haruna is happy to take advantage of this but abe has Concerns about the amount of blood a single human can safely provide two vampires and the viability of this arrangement in the long term, and also he has this weird need to fiercely protect this fragile human with the ferocity of a pack of feral wolves, where the heck did that come from, and maybe it’s contagious because haruna is actually starting to like the kid too, whelp, i guess they just have a third member of their little family now that they’d both die to protect and have to figure out how to keep alive while not dying or starving themselves despite being completely ostracized from society, no big deal
meanwhile mihashi slowly learns that it’s possible to mean more to someone than just being a convenient source of food, maybe, and there’s a chance someone could feel that way about him, maybe even two someones, and he’d like to be more for their sake and learn to take care of himself for them, and maybe also for him, potentially, and perhaps this situation isn’t entirely healthy, but it’s theirs and he’s not going to give it up
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
*sticks leggy out* hello, tumblr
This is my gift for @hiroeth for the 2020 @oofurisecretsanta exchange! I ran with your RPG prompt, and had a blast writing these goofballs bein cool and falling in love. I hope you enjoy it!
Chapters: 1/5
Fandom: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Abe Takaya/Mihashi Ren, Abe Takaya & Mihashi Ren, Mihashi Ren & Tajima Yuuichirou
Characters: Nishiura High School Baseball Team, Mihashi Ren, Abe Takaya, Momoe Maria, Haruna Motoki
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Animal Death, it's not like a Big Feature in the story but I wanna warn people, same with the violence warning im not into writing super gory stuff, but like. they do a Fite and there are monsters and shit., Russian Mythology, Canon parallels, bc im a sucker for that shit
Summary:
Life is hard for the common folk in a country ruled by a selfish and cruel wizard. Mihashi has gotten by working as a monster hunter, defending those even weaker than him from the strange creatures that sometimes invade their lands and wreak havoc. He never expected to be noticed, let alone sought out by someone like the hero Momoe Maria, but he finds himself drawn into a scheme to save their homeland from ruin.
What adventures wait for their intrepid group in the wilds? Will they ever reach the fabled island of Buyan? And can Mihashi learn to work with Abe, the one who hatched this risky plot?
My recipient was @hawberries for the @oofurixmas! I hope you enjoy this story~~ There’s a last scene coming but I figured I should post this while it’s still...2017...sorry about the wait;;; I keep getting distracted by pocket camp...
Oofuri Animal Crossing AU!
Gen, pre-abemiha, vague background haruaki??
In a perfect world, I’d have drawn bad art of what animals everybody is, but here’s a list (including the Nishiuras who don’t appear):
Mihashi: narcissus flycatcher, black with white spots on the wings and yellow chest/eyebrows
Abe: black and tan akita
Oki: sheep
Sakaeguchi: hamster, pink and brown
Tajima: magpie, v dark purple with white on wings, spatter of white “freckles”
Suyama: deer
Mizutani: rabbit
Izumi: cat, medium blue w/dark blue accents including acne scar-lookin spotties
Hanai: horse,
Nishihiro: octopus,
Hamada: lion, sandy colour overall
Shinooka: cub
Haruna: wolf, black, green eyes
Akimaru: koala
“Are we there yet?”
“Yuu, if you ask that one more time, I am going to throttle you.”
Tajima sticks his head around the back of Izumi’s seat. “You’ve said that like four times already, I don’t beli--HEY!” He dodges a chucked burger wrapper. Mihashi flinches too, but Izumi’s ears still point forward and Mihashi can see the corner of a smile.
Hamada bats at Tajima with one huge paw, not taking his eyes off the road. “Sit down or I’ll pull over. We’re almost there, anyway, aren’t we?” He glances over briefly; Izumi nods, taking out his phone.
Mihashi peers out the open window, beak falling open. The scenery isn’t that different from Nishiura, but it seems to sparkle in the late afternoon sunlight with an aura of adventure. He looks back at Tajima, flapping excitedly, and Tajima beams back.
“Yeah, we’re gonna have a blast!”
“Do birds have some kind of supersonic speech?” Izumi’s watching them in the rearview mirror. “You gotta teach me someday.”
“Nope, it’s a strictly ren-yuu club!” Tajima folds his black and white wings over his chest and sticks his beak in the air for a second before grabbing the back of Izumi’s seat again. “Hey, you gonna come swimming with us?”
“Yes, stop shaking me!” Izumi’s ears snap back briefly.
“Kou, is it this turn?”
Izumi checks his phone briefly. “Yeah.”
The main campsite is teeming with chattering animals, and despite coaxing from each of the others, Mihashi stays in the minivan while they talk to the peculiar bare-faced animal who appears to be in charge. Mihashi still keeps curious watch out Tajima’s window. Curious, and a tiny bit wary. There’s no way that scary neighbour would’ve come here too, though, right? Not that he’s looking for Abe.
Feeling flushed and antsy, he fidgets with his seatbelt for a moment before unclipping it to rummage in the back for a baseball to play with. Then flops back in the seat. And freezes.
A long furry snoot full of sharp teeth pokes through the window.
“Aren’t you tired of sitting?” The snoot belongs to a large glossy black wolf who looks Mihashi over sharply.
“Nn? No?” Mihashi fumbles the ball, tips of his wings shivering up in front of his chest.
The wolf grins at him. “You totally are, though! C’mon, you look hungry. I’m Haruna, by the way…” He opens Mihashi’s door, stepping back.
Out rolls the ball. And after it flops Mihashi.
The wolf snerks out a laugh but grabs him by the back of his shirt, hauling him up (in a debatably helpful fashion). “Hey, you play baseball?”
Still dangling from the wolf’s grip, balanced on one toe, Mihashi chirps, “Y…yeah!”
“He’s our pitcher.” Tajima comes around the back of the van with a pair of fruity-looking drinks. “You’re not hassling Ren, are ya?” he asks, in the same chatty tone.
“Eh? Just saying hi.” The wolf finally sets Mihashi down, briefly glancing in Tajima’s direction before returning his attention to Mihashi. “You pitch?”
“I’m…yes!” Mihashi confirms, feeling a swell of pride. Also a return of that flush.
Haruna smiles, patting him on the shoulder. “Me too. Maybe we’ll play against each other sometime.” His smile broadens to a toothy grin. “Let’s both do our best!”
“Yeah!”
Haruna leaves with a wave, heading for a sandy-brown koala with glasses.
Tajima passes one of the drinks to Mihashi. “Drink it quick. I just picked ‘em up off a table and I dunno if they belong to anyone.”
Izumi and Tajima shake out the tent, Izumi yelling when Tajima runs underneath like it’s some kind of parachute game. Hamada passes Mihashi the bag of tent poles, huffing a laugh at the others, then turns back to get something else. Mihashi wobbles his way over to the other two still wrestling with the hopelessly tangled fabric and each other. At Mihashi’s questioning noise, Izumi pokes his head out from under, but his gaze shifts from Mihashi to something off behind him.
He smiles, calling, “Hey, guys!”
Tajima rolls to his feet, coming up with a grin and waving wings. “Hiiiiiiiiii!”
A familiar voice calls back a greeting and Mihashi whirls with his beak open to say hello except then he claps eyes on who’s with Mizutani and then he’s half-flinging the tent poles away and continuing the turn to dive under the tent.
He can hear someone retrieving the poles, probably Shinooka by the closeness of her voice, Izumi thanking her. Scuffling and small talk and then sudden evening sunlight as someone lifts the edge of the tent.
“You okay?”
Mihashi spares a quick glance at Abe where he’s crouched down with the tent held above his head, then tucks himself back beak-down to hide a blush. “Y-y…”
“What’re you even doing under here?”
Mihashi curls around to peek at Abe from under one wing. “I was…there was a…b-bug…? Or…rock?”
Abe’s eyes narrow and his black ears twitch, but before he can do more than open his mouth, Tajima appears beside him, prodding Mihashi with a pole.
“Ren, move, so we can put it up!” He gives him another poke, then attempts to turn it on Abe, who irritably bats him away one-pawed.
Before Tajima can find more mischief, Hanai grabs the pole out of his hand. “Give me that. We’ll help you guys, ‘kay?”
Mihashi hovers on the periphery while the others work, listening to them make bug-catching plans for the next day. It sounds kind of fun. Or maybe terrifying. His eyes flick to Abe, who’s carting some packs over from the car. Both?
In no time, the tent is up and the other four say goodbye, continuing on their walk. The boys roast supper over the fire, scarfing it down as if they’d run all the way from Nishiura. They sprawl on their backs with stuffed tummies and make contented conversation as evening chases away the sun.
Mihashi’s wondering whether there are more stars here or he just never noticed them all when Hamada nudges his leg. “Hey, you finally chilled out again!”
“Sure, point it out, that’s gonna help,” Izumi mutters from further away.
“I did??”
He can hear Hamada roll over to look at him. “You’ve been jumpy--okay, extra jumpy--for a while. What’s up with that?”
“And you were doing better until we ran into those guys from--”
“Whatever, he’s feeling better now.” Izumi rolls to a crouch, stretching. “Let’s go to bed before we pass out here.”
Tajima rustles to his feet, darting back towards the tent. “First dibs on the good air mattress!”
“Yuu!” Izumi streaks after him.
Sleeping arrangements argued out, they snuggle down to sleep. Mihashi finds himself lying awake, though, listening to the soft sleep sounds of the other three and wondering. Concocting disasters and miracles, both equally disproportionate to the mundanity of bug-catching. But the happy daydreams eclipse the anxious ones and he finally falls asleep with the distinct feeling tomorrow will be a very good day.
By the time the next morning rolls around, however, he’s pretty certain that if he goes on this outing, he’s going to end up braining Abe with a net. Or scaring every single bug away and making everyone hate bug catching and each other and mostly him and he keeps losing the thread of exactly what all is going to happen but he can tell for sure that if he goes, it will be Bad.
When he overhears Hamada ask if it’s time to go, Mihashi strongly considers hiding.
And yet somehow he’s sitting in the front seat as they head for the island, staring wide-eyed and unseeing as the landscape rolls past.
They arrive, clattering nets out of the car and yelling greetings to the others and it’s hard not to get caught up in the happy bustle but then he notices the one unpleasant possibility he had not considered:
Abe is not there.
Mihashi fusses with his net, trailing in Tajima’s wake as the group fans out to look for bugs. He walks into Tajima about four times before the magpie firmly steers him in his own direction. Maybe it’s just that it’s Tajima, but somehow realising his fears of being Bug Scarer Supreme isn’t as bad as he’d worried. He spots a likely-looking blob on a tree and edges towards it.
“Were you looking for Abe?”
Shinooka’s voice is gentle but Mihashi still leaps in the air, sending his quarry buzzing away. “Hlrglef??”
“Sorry!” She laughs, not unkindly. “…I just thought you seemed to be looking for someone?”
Mihashi’s not really sure how to answer so he just smiles uncertainly at her paws.
Fortunately, Shinooka seems to interpret that as a yes. “He said he wanted to explore on his own. I think he went to check out the windmills? You know where that is?” She dips her head, trying to catch his eye. “I don’t think anyone would mind if you went and looked for him. Maybe if someone asked him specifically, he’d feel more like coming.”
Shinooka’s smile is so nice, filling him with hopefulness and a feeling of Purpose--it’s almost like it’s a job, now, like he’s been told to go fetch Abe. His heart flutters nervously at the thought of spending that long walk back alone together.
“Tha…thanks!” He treats Shinooka to a quick smile before scampering back to the car to stow his net and striking off.
Such a long walk might make his enthusiasm wane, but there’s so much to see. Flowers under the sparse dappled cover of trees, the scent of ripe fruit making his mouth water as he comes in from the coast. The orange-y roof of the lighthouse just visible when he crests a small hill. Other animals relaxing and playing at their campsites, and though Mihashi stays out of sight, he smiles at them with a feeling of camaraderie.
At one point, the bald-faced person runs up to him, shoves a fish and two coconuts into his arms, and runs off. Mihashi watches them go, perplexed, and then stashes the Fish of Indeterminate Freshness and its fruity friends between the roots of a tree.
He’s still puzzling over that when he spots movement ahead. Mihashi freezes, watching the black and tan akita step out into the light of a small clearing.
His heart thumps. Now he’s faced with actually initiating conversation with Abe, even Shinooka’s aegis of purpose seems inadequate. Mihashi edges behind a tree.
When he peeks out, Abe’s casting about with a frown. Mihashi ducks out of view. Probably good that he hid. He should go back, he should--
The sound of pounding feet interrupt his thoughts.Haruna runs past a couple meters away, then checks himself and sprints toward where Abe was. Mihashi cautiously peers over again. Maybe with that nice wolf there, maybe he could go talk--
“Takaya! Fancy meeting you here.”
Abe’s face has gone strangely blank. “Haruna.”
“You camping? What’re you up to, all by yourself?”
“I’m busy, and it looks like you are too. Bye.” Abe pushes past Haruna.
Haruna turns towards him, crossing his arms. “You’re always so rude. We haven’t talked since you moved! …What’s it like, living in some weak baby town?”
Abe stops, then turns. “They’re not weak.” He crosses his arms in mirror to Haruna.
Mihashi’s mind is rushing, things he’d gleaned from the nice hamster who’d moved to Nishiura around the same time as Abe, things about an amazing pitcher…
“That so?” Haruna’s ears prick, intrigued.
“We’ve got some strong players. And a pitcher with way more appeal than you.”
Mihashi’s still reeling over the thought that this friendly wolf might be that strong pitcher he’s been worrying about, he almost doesn’t process Abe’s reply. The second he does, heat blossoms from his head to his toes. He runs in a little circle, flapping frantically, before curling up with his wings over his face.
“He’s not with you, is he? Scraggly little black and yellow bird, looks like a stiff wind would blow him over?”
Mihashi edges out again to see Abe’s reply. “That ‘scraggly little bird’ is going to beat your ass when we play Musashino.” Abe’s nose twitches and he frowns. “He’s here, yeah. Not with me.”
“Well, obviously, he’s…” Haruna leans toward Abe, saying in a slight sing-song, “He doesn’t like you.”
Abe’s eyes narrow, and then he turns away again. “Look, I’ve got somewhere to be. Bye.”
“Bye!” Haruna waves enthusiastically at Abe’s retreating form.
And then turns and looks directly at Mihashi.
Mihashi squeaks and scrambles back behind the tree, back against the bark.
Footsteps pad over, then Haruna calls, “Come on out!”
Tentatively, Mihashi edges out from behind the tree. “Hi??”
Haruna’s mouth opens in a grin. “So you’re Takaya’s new pitcher, huh?”
“Mm-hm!”
“Then why the heck were you hiding?” He blinks at Mihashi, paws on his hips. “You do like him, don’t you? Or else why would you spy on us?”
Mihashi misses the end of that because there’s blood rushing in his ears and the blush that had dissipated comes back full force. He flaps agitatedly, avoiding looking at Haruna.
Who is definitely looking at him. “Oh? You like-like him.”
Hearing the words spoken aloud freezes Mihashi. Like. He likes Abe. It seems impossible, given how much Abe terrifies him. But maybe that’s part of it, maybe that’s normal? And this just opens up a whole slew of new problems. Does Abe like him? Could he even like him? Abe’s warm description of him floats back into his mind and Mihashi covers face. But that was just as a pitcher…
“You okay, there?” Haruna waves his paw in front of Mihashi.
“Ylnf?” Mihashi answers, lowering his wings enough to see. “Help??”
Haruna seems taken aback. “What? I don’t know anything about that kind of stuff!” He’s almost as flustered as Mihashi. “I mean…I kind of…we…it’s not really like…”
Mihashi blinks at him, not really sure what to say to rescue both of them from this nebulous request he’s made. Or what on earth Haruna’s talking about.
Haruna crosses his arms. “Okay, maybe I can find a way help you. And…maybe you can help me. But first, you wanna come with me on my run?”
Relief fills him, mixed with a tingling happiness. “Sure!”
Happy Holidays, Zets! I’m your secret santa for the @oofurixmas event! This was my first time drawing art for this series, so I’m very happy I had the opportunity to do so! One of your prompts was “fantasy with a special mention of mermaids” and the idea just stuck, so I ended up drawing this! I also have a soft spot for these three boys, and I hope you like your gift! \^0^/
I’m finally realising my dream of creating anime-inspired yarns, starting with a Yuri on Ice-inspired line! All yarns will be available on my etsy shop linked above.* Colder weather is approaching fast, so order them in time to make a cozy treat for yourself or ya fellow anime trash!
I’ve started with yoi, but I plan to create other collections: in the works are a set of eevolutions-inspired yarns and a set based on bnha hero outfits. If you’re interested, keep an eye on this shop or my instagram!
*Stammi Vicino sold and is currently out of stock, but I will be replacing it; Yuri’s Allegro Appassionato yarn is in progress. Additionally, I’ll be making one for Shall We Skate? and Yuuri’s version of the Stammi Vicino costume.
I had an interesting series of thoughts at work today.I started off thinking of a solarpunk zombie apocalypse story - society has collapsed, survivours rebuild from the ashes with solarpunk tech and the like while dealing with zombies, marauders, bandits and other threats. I was enjoying the idea until I realised something:
The post apocalypse genre is inherently ableist.
How often do you see disabled people in post apocalypse fiction anyway? Not very - off the top of my head I can think of Eli from The Book of Eli, Tomonaga Ijiro and Joe Muhammad from World War Z (the book) and Davis, Jodie and Jennifer from Dead State. Everyone else, able-bodied and neurotypical, with nary a chronic illness in sight - anyone who isn’t 100% mentally and physically “normal” is left behind or dragged along with reluctance and openly considered “dead weight,” with no consideration given to that person’s skillset or other qualities they might have that could come in handy. Even people with PTSD - a perfectly understandable thing to have after the apocalypse - are often looked down on as being “weak” or “unable to handle it” and are rarely given any decent help or support from those around them.
The entire genre feels like it’s designed with this ableistic outlook in mind and while I acknowledge there is limited realism to it - a lot of people with chronic illnesses or disabilities do need support to work at their best ability, and most post apocalypse settings won’t have anything like this in place which will put many of them at risk - that doesn’t mean we have to drag it all along in our stories with no questioning of why. Just because some may not make it through doesn’t mean every single person who has a condition that isn’t 100% curable is going to vanish with them.
We can do better than stories that tell disabled people that they’ll be better off dead so they don’t drag everyone else down; that tell people with chronic illnesses that they are worthless; that tell people with mental illnesses that they are a drain on resources; that tell the neuroatypical that they are nothing more than liabilities. Even people that stay behind to care for their loved ones who have such a condition are seen as noble but naive and generally condemned by the narrative as unfit to survive unless they leave the person “holding them back.”
Given that (in my opinion) post apocalypse stories are about how we’d like to rebuild society if we had to start over, the fact that disabled and neuroatypical representation is so rare in the stories across this genre says so much about society, and none of it positive. Neuroatypical and non-able bodied people aren’t all magically going to go away just because society has, and their absence in your story just says more about your attitude than about any “harsh realities” of the setting you’ve created.
This is such a great observation, and I definitely think a big part of the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction for a certain kind of reader and writer is that you get to wipe out huge swaths of human complexity with “They all just die but it’s not eugenics because the zombies did it.”
But I don’t think it has to be that way, and I think a solarpunk approach could be a great way to bring that out. It would be harder to write, sure, because if the nature of a setting is to say “any shortcoming is a justification for letting someone die,” then it’s got to be a much bigger deal to the protagonists to resist that kind of thinking.
But that also makes it a great kind of story to showcase exactly the kind of values it’s often used to condemn: to show a group retrofitting their friend’s wheelchair with a solar powered motor and all-terrain wheels, or using precious power and backpack space to keep a supply of insulin refrigerated, or all learning sign language to accommodate their deaf teammate.
You could show people not failing because they chose compassion over pragmatism — maybe even succeeding because of it. All three of those accommodations have advantages, too: the group member with a powered wheelchair can probably carry more than other group members,* if you’re hauling a fridge you can refrigerate more than just insulin, and sign language is a valuable silent form of communication if you’re in a world filled with hostile zombies.
The important thing is to show groups choosing to stick up for their disabled or neurodivergent** members and not be punished for it. Those group members don’t need to ultimately be the climactic key to success — in fact, that’d probably be a problematic way to take it, because it would end up re-emphasizing the idea that their value comes from their ability to be useful.
But showing them as fully realized contributing characters in the story, whose teammates care about and support them (and vice versa), and showing them all make it out alive, flies in opposition to the ableist nature of apocalyptic fiction.
Of course, fiction where the world as it exists doesn’t have to end for things to start to get better is also important. But I can see a lot of value in post-apocalyptic fiction that isn’t a thinly veiled excuse to start gleefully describing the tragic deaths of everybody not optimally equipped to serve the new libertarian/military grim utopia.
* I’m not actually sure about this point — if anyone reading has personal experience with the physics and practical concerns of using a wheelchair re: carrying capacity, and wants to correct me, please do.
** I know I don’t actually have any examples of neurodivergence in the post. I’m gonna keep thinking about that aspect of this but I don’t have anything atm.
This is all spot-on and speaks to an understanding of the genre I’ve developed, having formerly been part of the problem.
I used to be really into post-apocalyptic fiction, especially zombie-apocalypse settings. I actually had discussions with one of my coworkers about the suitability of our workplace for survival during such an event (conclusion: too many windows, we were probably screwed). From the perspective of where I was in my life at the time, it seemed like a good bit of fun and, hey, if it did happen, at least I’d be ready, right?
Then I became medication-dependent. Now, when I thought about the logistics of survival in a post-apocalyptic situation, I had to consider where the hell I would be getting my anti-androgens and estrogen from. I didn’t think about it before, even though I knew I was trans, because I didn’t realize how fundamentally I needed to be on the right hormones. These meds doesn’t exactly grow on trees, and I’d hardly be the only trans woman who needs the stuff and, well… suddenly it’s not as fun as it used to be.
Moving from one category to the other really soured me on the genre. I still watch it, read it, hell, I even write it, but it doesn’t have the same appeal to me that it used to. I think that’s the problem, really. Cisgender, able-bodied, neurotypical people don’t think about this sort of thing because it doesn’t affect them personally, just like I didn’t think about it when I didn’t think it affected me. To them, survival is a bootstraps thing — if you’re HARD and MAN enough (but not TOO MAN, as Walking Dead’s perfectly shaven ladies helpfully illustrate), you are rewarded with continued life. At least, until the writers decide there’s too many black men on the show and whoops, time for one to get bitten. If you’re not HARD or MAN enough? Well, that’s your own problem!
If we could get post-apocalyptic media to a less relentlessly heteromasculist and individualist place, I think that would improve things immeasurably. Right now it basically exists to soothe the fears of men that they are not, in fact, HARD or MAN enough, and if the world would just give them the chance they could prove it. I don’t think this is the cause of the ablism in the genre, but it sure feeds into it.
All this to say that an inclusive community-oriented solarpunk post-apocalyptic setting sounds amazing and I would read the hell out of it.
Self-reblogging to add that there’s an anthology about this very subject!
“Defying Doomsday is an anthology of apocalypse fiction featuring disabled and chronically ill protagonists, proving it’s not always the “fittest” who survive – it’s the most tenacious, stubborn, enduring and innovative characters who have the best chance of adapting when everything is lost.
In stories of fear, hope and survival, this anthology gives new perspectives on the end of the world, from authors Corinne Duyvis, Janet Edwards, Seanan McGuire, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Stephanie Gunn, Elinor Caiman Sands, Rivqa Rafael, Bogi Takács, John Chu, Maree Kimberley, Octavia Cade, Lauren E Mitchell, Thoraiya Dyer, Samantha Rich, and K L Evangelista.”
It’s going to be out on the 30th of May (two days from now) and you can get it from Twelfth Planet Press or Amazon.
I feel like there’s also some people-are-wrong-about-history ableism feeding into it too. The assumption often seems to be that the apocalypse (whatever it is) will revert us to a subsistence level of existence, and Paleolithic humans and other early human groups are often invoked to justify the idea that you can’t support disabled people in a subsistence level economy. The common belief is that Paleolitic people practiced a harsh form of eugenics towards the disabled/‘useless’, after all.
What that line of thought is ignorant of is the substantive evidence suggesting that Paleolithic people cared for and supported disabled tribe members, to a far more substantive degree than later ancient/medieval societies.
If the apocalypse does bring us back to Paleolithic-style subsistence that is no reason to assume that survivors will have to abandon the disabled to thrive. In fact, precedent supports the opposite.
@siriustachi provided plenty of evidence supporting the fact that our neolithic ancestors cared for the disabled in a different thread also talking about the same topic.
Self-reblog to add in some useful commentary from @octopocalyptic from a different branch of this thread that discussed Mad Max: Fury Road:
Academic nerd out warning: For anyone interested, there’s some really interesting writing in post apocalyptic literary criticism that looks at ableist discourse and narratives. Karen Renner talks about how it’s a fairly recent trend to focus on the physical aspects of the end of the world. (Earlier work was often more about social changes after an apocalypse.). So she writes, “Notice, for example, that among the prime qualities that survivors of contemporary apocalyptic films consistently exhibit are superior physical stamina and dexterity . . . Today’s apocalyptic narratives, especially cinematic ones, are far more interested in the physical battles faced by the protagonists” (205). Specifically masculine protagonists, too, I think…
She connects this with a general desire for a dif. kind of society, “one in which the average person who puts aside shallow and self-interested impulses is recognized as the true hero of the world” (210). But looking at post apocalyptic stories, the desire is for a society in which strong, able-bodied, often stony-eyed white dudes can punch Bad Guys (or Bad Animals or Bad Tidal Waves) either w.out guilt or with that weird guilt of someone who’s willing to get their hands dirty when others aren’t. For a genre all about re-forming the world it’s actually really conservative. That’s why I got so excited about solarpunk’s inclusive futures when I found out that it was a thing, and why I can’t wait to see Mad Mad: FR.
Anyway, tl; dr– Post apocalyptic lit. crit. is cool and talks about this kind of thing.
Citation: Renner, Karen J. “The Appeal of the Apocalypse.” Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 23:203–211, 2012.
I had an interesting series of thoughts at work today.I started off thinking of a solarpunk zombie apocalypse story - society has collapsed, survivours rebuild from the ashes with solarpunk tech and the like while dealing with zombies, marauders, bandits and other threats. I was enjoying the idea until I realised something:
The post apocalypse genre is inherently ableist.
How often do you see disabled people in post apocalypse fiction anyway? Not very - off the top of my head I can think of Eli from The Book of Eli, Tomonaga Ijiro and Joe Muhammad from World War Z (the book) and Davis, Jodie and Jennifer from Dead State. Everyone else, able-bodied and neurotypical, with nary a chronic illness in sight - anyone who isn’t 100% mentally and physically “normal” is left behind or dragged along with reluctance and openly considered “dead weight,” with no consideration given to that person’s skillset or other qualities they might have that could come in handy. Even people with PTSD - a perfectly understandable thing to have after the apocalypse - are often looked down on as being “weak” or “unable to handle it” and are rarely given any decent help or support from those around them.
The entire genre feels like it’s designed with this ableistic outlook in mind and while I acknowledge there is limited realism to it - a lot of people with chronic illnesses or disabilities do need support to work at their best ability, and most post apocalypse settings won’t have anything like this in place which will put many of them at risk - that doesn’t mean we have to drag it all along in our stories with no questioning of why. Just because some may not make it through doesn’t mean every single person who has a condition that isn’t 100% curable is going to vanish with them.
We can do better than stories that tell disabled people that they’ll be better off dead so they don’t drag everyone else down; that tell people with chronic illnesses that they are worthless; that tell people with mental illnesses that they are a drain on resources; that tell the neuroatypical that they are nothing more than liabilities. Even people that stay behind to care for their loved ones who have such a condition are seen as noble but naive and generally condemned by the narrative as unfit to survive unless they leave the person “holding them back.”
Given that (in my opinion) post apocalypse stories are about how we’d like to rebuild society if we had to start over, the fact that disabled and neuroatypical representation is so rare in the stories across this genre says so much about society, and none of it positive. Neuroatypical and non-able bodied people aren’t all magically going to go away just because society has, and their absence in your story just says more about your attitude than about any “harsh realities” of the setting you’ve created.
watsons-solarpunk
This is such a great observation, and I definitely think a big part of the appeal of post-apocalyptic fiction for a certain kind of reader and writer is that you get to wipe out huge swaths of human complexity with “They all just die but it’s not eugenics because the zombies did it.”
But I don’t think it has to be that way, and I think a solarpunk approach could be a great way to bring that out. It would be harder to write, sure, because if the nature of a setting is to say “any shortcoming is a justification for letting someone die,” then it’s got to be a much bigger deal to the protagonists to resist that kind of thinking.
But that also makes it a great kind of story to showcase exactly the kind of values it’s often used to condemn: to show a group retrofitting their friend’s wheelchair with a solar powered motor and all-terrain wheels, or using precious power and backpack space to keep a supply of insulin refrigerated, or all learning sign language to accommodate their deaf teammate.
You could show people not failing because they chose compassion over pragmatism — maybe even succeeding because of it. All three of those accommodations have advantages, too: the group member with a powered wheelchair can probably carry more than other group members,* if you’re hauling a fridge you can refrigerate more than just insulin, and sign language is a valuable silent form of communication if you’re in a world filled with hostile zombies.
The important thing is to show groups choosing to stick up for their disabled or neurodivergent** members and not be punished for it. Those group members don’t need to ultimately be the climactic key to success — in fact, that’d probably be a problematic way to take it, because it would end up re-emphasizing the idea that their value comes from their ability to be useful.
But showing them as fully realized contributing characters in the story, whose teammates care about and support them (and vice versa), and showing them all make it out alive, flies in opposition to the ableist nature of apocalyptic fiction.
Of course, fiction where the world as it exists doesn’t have to end for things to start to get better is also important. But I can see a lot of value in post-apocalyptic fiction that isn’t a thinly veiled excuse to start gleefully describing the tragic deaths of everybody not optimally equipped to serve the new libertarian/military grim utopia.
* I’m not actually sure about this point — if anyone reading has personal experience with the physics and practical concerns of using a wheelchair re: carrying capacity, and wants to correct me, please do.
** I know I don’t actually have any examples of neurodivergence in the post. I’m gonna keep thinking about that aspect of this but I don’t have anything atm.
impulsiveingenue
This is all spot-on and speaks to an understanding of the genre I’ve developed, having formerly been part of the problem.
I used to be really into post-apocalyptic fiction, especially zombie-apocalypse settings. I actually had discussions with one of my coworkers about the suitability of our workplace for survival during such an event (conclusion: too many windows, we were probably screwed). From the perspective of where I was in my life at the time, it seemed like a good bit of fun and, hey, if it did happen, at least I’d be ready, right?
Then I became medication-dependent. Now, when I thought about the logistics of survival in a post-apocalyptic situation, I had to consider where the hell I would be getting my anti-androgens and estrogen from. I didn’t think about it before, even though I knew I was trans, because I didn’t realize how fundamentally I needed to be on the right hormones. These meds doesn’t exactly grow on trees, and I’d hardly be the only trans woman who needs the stuff and, well… suddenly it’s not as fun as it used to be.
Moving from one category to the other really soured me on the genre. I still watch it, read it, hell, I even write it, but it doesn’t have the same appeal to me that it used to. I think that’s the problem, really. Cisgender, able-bodied, neurotypical people don’t think about this sort of thing because it doesn’t affect them personally, just like I didn’t think about it when I didn’t think it affected me. To them, survival is a bootstraps thing — if you’re HARD and MAN enough (but not TOO MAN, as Walking Dead’s perfectly shaven ladies helpfully illustrate), you are rewarded with continued life. At least, until the writers decide there’s too many black men on the show and whoops, time for one to get bitten. If you’re not HARD or MAN enough? Well, that’s your own problem!
If we could get post-apocalyptic media to a less relentlessly heteromasculist and individualist place, I think that would improve things immeasurably. Right now it basically exists to soothe the fears of men that they are not, in fact, HARD or MAN enough, and if the world would just give them the chance they could prove it. I don’t think this is the cause of the ablism in the genre, but it sure feeds into it.
All this to say that an inclusive community-oriented solarpunk post-apocalyptic setting sounds amazing and I would read the hell out of it.
nurselofwyr
Self-reblogging to add that there’s an anthology about this very subject!
“Defying Doomsday is an anthology of apocalypse fiction featuring
disabled and chronically ill protagonists, proving it’s not always the
“fittest” who survive – it’s the most tenacious, stubborn, enduring and
innovative characters who have the best chance of adapting when
everything is lost.
In stories of fear, hope and survival, this anthology gives new
perspectives on the end of the world, from authors Corinne Duyvis, Janet
Caiman Sands, Rivqa Rafael, Bogi Takács, John Chu, Maree Kimberley,
Octavia Cade, Lauren E Mitchell, Thoraiya Dyer, Samantha Rich, and K L
Evangelista.”
It’s going to be out on the 30th of May (two days from now) and you can get it from Twelfth Planet Press or Amazon.
fromthewildwood
I feel like there’s also some people-are-wrong-about-history ableism feeding into it too. The assumption often seems to be that the apocalypse (whatever it is) will revert us to a subsistence level of existence, and Paleolithic humans and other early human groups are often invoked to justify the idea that you can’t support disabled people in a subsistence level economy. The common belief is that Paleolitic people practiced a harsh form of eugenics towards the disabled/‘useless’, after all.
What that line of thought is ignorant of is the substantive evidence suggesting that Paleolithic people cared for and supported disabled tribe members, to a far more substantive degree than later ancient/medieval societies.
If the apocalypse does bring us back to Paleolithic-style subsistence that is no reason to assume that survivors will have to abandon the disabled to thrive. In fact, precedent supports the opposite.
nurselofwyr
@siriustachi provided plenty of evidence supporting the fact that our neolithic ancestors cared for the disabled in a different thread also talking about the same topic.
nurselofwyr
Self-reblog to add in some useful commentary from @octopocalyptic from a different branch of this thread that discussed Mad Max: Fury Road:
Academic nerd out warning: For anyone interested, there’s some really
interesting writing in post apocalyptic literary criticism that looks
at ableist discourse and narratives. Karen Renner talks about how it’s a
fairly recent trend to focus on the physical aspects of the end of the
world. (Earlier work was often more about social changes after an
apocalypse.). So she writes, “Notice, for example, that among the prime
qualities that survivors of contemporary apocalyptic films
consistently exhibit are superior physical stamina and dexterity . .
. Today’s apocalyptic narratives, especially cinematic ones, are far
more interested in the physical battles faced by the protagonists”
(205). Specifically masculine protagonists, too, I think…
She
connects this with a general desire for a dif. kind of society, “one in
which the average person who puts aside shallow and self-interested
impulses is recognized as the true hero of the world” (210). But looking
at post apocalyptic stories, the desire is for a society in which
strong, able-bodied, often stony-eyed white dudes can punch Bad Guys (or
Bad Animals or Bad Tidal Waves) either w.out guilt or with that weird
guilt of someone who’s willing to get their hands dirty when others
aren’t. For a genre all about re-forming the world it’s actually really conservative.
That’s why I got so excited about solarpunk’s inclusive futures when I
found out that it was a thing, and why I can’t wait to see Mad Mad: FR.
Anyway, tl; dr– Post apocalyptic lit. crit. is cool and talks about this kind of thing.
Citation: Renner, Karen J. “The Appeal of the Apocalypse.” Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 23:203–211, 2012.
notalwaysweak
Reblogging this because my husband made the OP and I amde one of the stories in Defying Doomsday.
draw women in post-apocalyptic world settings with armpit hair, leg hair, bushy brows and pubic hair ya cowards,, draw brown women/women with dark thick hair with arm hair and happy trails and sideburns and mustaches i’m sick of seeing silky smooth soapy clean make up wearing post apocalyptic dolled up women next to stinky sweaty crusty men with dirty nails and sweaty clothes and sweaty greasy hair and 3m long ugly beards
or, if you must depict women maintaining that shit, at least be interesting about it. I can actually buy someone shaving/putting on makeup if that’s their way of coping, something they do to tether themselves to the past or an ellusive feeling of normalcy. So show me the EFFORT put in, yeah? Show that woman risking a zombie horde because she spotted a fucking tube of scarlet lipstick and christ she hasn’t seen that color in five years but it’s what she wore on her first date with her now-dead husband. Show me the girl who is quietly starting to fucking lose it but covers it up with fanatical commitment to her appearance because if she gets these eyebrows right, maybe no one will notice how she stares at things that aren’t there.
I find it completely plausible that some women would go to incredible lengths to maintaining their appearance, because they’ve been socialized all their lives to caring about it, because it’s a part of their identity. So show me how that part gets negotiated with once the world has gone to hell.
yousharknotpass
titsay
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
pixelskylines
