#and this is what I mean when I say PTSD is a physical disability because :D as soon as I get home and I don’t have to be at work

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

Having a mental breakdown at work while smiling and teaching 😄

[luxrayz64]

i think jigsaw would be pro life he's so petty and puts people in traps for literally anything he would absolutely put someone in a trap for getting an abortion

[rjalker]

Dear people who aren't physically disabled who plan to write fantasy settings:

[ID: Several images taken from the Geordi La Forge yes and no meme format, with Geordi holding out a hand disapprovingly for the no section, then pointing in approval for the yes section.

The first image is the meme:

No: "Saying the existance of magic in your setting means there are no disabled people (this literally just means disabled people are killed. AKA eugenics)"

Yes: "Having disabled people who use magical mobility aids and other assistive devices. Realizing that someone is still disabled even if their prosthetic arm is made of magic instead of plastic."

This is followed by four more panels of yes section:

"Geordi la Forge is still literally disabled. His visor helping him does not erase his disability and make him magically abled."

"Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender is still literally disabled even though her Earthbending helps her. It does not make her disability ~magically~ go away."

"Having your disability be accomodated does not mean the disability goes away. Having a prosthetic hand, even one that's made of magic, does not mean you're not disabled."

"Magical mobility aids do not mean disabled people don't exist. It just means they use magical mobility aids instead of plastic or metal ones. A limb made of magic is still a prosthetic even if it's made of the soul of the universe instead of plastic and metal."

Then another no panel: "'There's no disabled people beacuse magic'".

Then one last yes panel: "'Magic helps disabled people in a variety of ways'".

End ID.]

This also applies to science fiction; just because Luke Skywalker's prosthetic hand is super advanced doesn't mean it's no longer a prosthetic, or that he's not disabled. Same with Darth Vader - just because he has a suit that lets him breathe and walk around doesn't mean he's not disabled. (And Star Wars' propensity for making the villains visibly disabled while the heroes disabilities get covered up by super advanced prosthetics is a topic that deserves its own post, especially with how ableist some of the authors of the books are. Troy Denning is especially ableist)

Edit:

Because people keep being fucking obnoxious and ableist in the tags, yes,,, motherfuckers, if you refuse to have disabled people in your setting, that does make you fucking ableist. If you say that the magic is used to cure all disabled people and that's why they don't exist, that's fucking eugenics.

You cannot ""cure"", more like remove all disabilities without fucking eugenics. Magically automatically destroying disabled fetuses (a very fucking popular trope!) is eugenics.

The only way to fucking "cure" autism is to fucking kill all autistic people, also known as eugenics!

What about people with PTSD? Do you just fucking brainwash them so they aren't traumatized anymore?

Do you force all Deaf people to be able to hear? Do you force all blind people to be able to see? Do you force all anosmics to be able to smell?

Do you magically force everyone with a speech impediment to speak to your standards?

Do you force everyone born with bodily or facial differences to live up to your fucking standard of beauty?

You cannot fucking say "disablities don't exist in this universe because magic cures everything" without inherently saying that eugenics exists in your fucking universe.

Not all fucking disabilities need a cure. If you ""cured"" my autism I'd just be fucking dead. You'd literally just be changing me into what you think is fucking acceptable.

Stop fucking arguing in defence of ableists on my fucking post so you can pretend that eugenics has never been written about in magical settings when it is extremely fucking prevalent.

And while we're fucking at it, let your gods damned characters become disabled over the course of their story, and call them disabled within the fucking story. I don't care if they're a robot. I don't care if they have magic. Not all fucking damage can be fixed. Curses exist. Hardware can go out of fucking date and no longer be manufactured anywhere.

Let your characters become disabled and do not magically fucking cure them back to brand new every single time they get hurt. The only thing you accomplish by doing that is destroying any chance of ever having stakes.

No, "magical healing leaves scars on the mind from the memory of the injuries though!!!!" is not fucking good enough. Let your characters have scars. Let them become disabled. Stop being fucking ableist cowards.

Edit number fucking 2:

No, motherfuckers, you do not get to comment "if the disability was caused by magic it's not ableist to cure it with magic". You are the ableist this post is about. Shut the absolute fuck up, stop treating being disabled as the worst possible outcome, and just admit you're a fucking ableist. If you don't want your characters to become disabled, then don't fucking make them disabled.

[ID: The Garfield "you are not immune to propaganda" meme, now edited to read:

"If your first thought upon reading this post is, 'Oh, but it's okay to magically cure disabilities caused by magic!' Congrats…you are the exact sort of ableist jackass this post is about."

End ID.]

Edit number fucking 3:

Autistic people exist! People who are born with disabilities exist! You cannot create a setting where disabled people do not exist because we're all "cured" or "fixed" and not inherently say that you are killing disabled people as soon as they're born, or fucking aborting us as soon as you figure out we'd be born disabled! That's fucking eugenics!

There is no way to "cure" autism without eugenics! There is no way to "cure" people with body differences without eugenics! There is no way to make disabled people nonexistant in your setting without eugenics! Thinking you can and should "cure" and "fix" all disabilities IS EUGENICS!

Also:

[ID: A character shouting at the camera, now edited to read: "Shut up about Dungeons and Dragons! Shut up about Dungeons and Dragons! If the rules of Dungeons and Dragons are ableist, then fucking change them! It is your fucking personal responsability to be a better person than your bigoted society wants you to be!". End ID.]

[ID: White text on a dark brown background with white and black borders around the edges, that reads:

"I don't fucking know or care about Dungeons and Dragons.

This post is not about Dungeons and Dragons.

Do not fucking throw the rulebook of Dungeons and Dragons at me like it's some sort of 'Gotcha!'.

You will literally just be blocked like the rest of the ableist assholes who've already tried it.

If you play dungeons and dragons, it's your responsability to make your games not be ableist, even if it means breaking the rules.".

End ID.]

I do not fucking care what the ableist rules are in Dungeons of Dragons. Do not fucking throw ableist rules for a game I have never and will never play at me on a post I made so that people could learn how to make their settings less ableist. If the rules in Dungeons and Dragons are ableist, then fucking change them. If you don't want to change them, then stop fucking playing an ableist game.

Disabled people deserve to see ourselves represented in fiction just like everyone else, without any fucking requirements that we be "cured" or "fixed" before the story ends.

How the fuck would you feel if a trans and gay character's whole story revolved around going on a quest to become straight and cis, did so, and only then was allowed to live happily ever after?

Why do you fucking think suggesting people write stories about disabled people going on a quest to be cured because it's the only way they'll ever be happy is any less fucking offensive?

Also:

This post is NOT a place for you to talk about how disabled people in fiction should have the option of curing their disabilities. It's just not. That's the fucking default for this society. That is not a revolutionary concept. It's not novel. We fucking know this society wants us gone. A post about how disabled people deserve representation is not the place to talk about how "Well, actually, in fiction disabled people should be cured!" Like that's not the fucking universal default???????????

Edit #4:

Everyone needs to stop tagging this singing praise for Fullmetal Alchemist. A story that uses disability as a punishment and the characters are on a quest to cure their disabilities is not the amazing representation you're all claiming it is just because the character who is only disabled because of DIVINE PUNISHMENT uses prosthetics.

Read this post, and this one. Fullmetal Alchemist is a hell of a lot more ableist than you people are letting on.

guess what you can now find a PDF version of this post on the web archive.

Edit #5! August 23rd, 2023!

A) Everyone. Disabilities that can only exist in the magical setting are still disabilities.

Trying to cure the younger brother's magical disability of being a soul floating around in a magical suit of armour is, in fact, going on a quest to heal a disability!

It doesn't matter if the older brother doesn't want to get his limbs back when they're going on a quest to heal the younger brother's disability! Especially when they BOTH get magically healed at the end!

Magical disabilities that can only exist in that setting, but not real life, are still disabilities, and it's not okay to magically heal them either! What part of the Garfield meme on this post did you all choose to ignore?!

B) When you leave tags on a post you are reblogging, the original poster can see them! When you leave tags on this post, I can see them!

If you think this post is ""too aggressive"" then simply do not reblog it! Don't fucking tone police me on a post I've had to edit five times now due to the constant ableism people have been commenting since I made it!

I have been called the R slur by multiple people in response to this post! People have literally reblogged this post to defend eugenics abortions! You can't see these comments or replies anymore because I blocked the poster!

If you think minorities are being too aggressive by responding appropriately to bigotry, you're a bigot! And you should either not reblog the post at all, or at the very least, shut the fuck up and not tone police us!

Do not fucking put tags on this post complaining I'm being too aggressive! That's called tone policing and you're a bigot if you do it! Don't fucking do it on anyone else's posts either! They can see your tags too!

C) When I fucking say Harry Potter fans are banned from this post, yes, this means YOU!

Either stop supporting a billionaire who's literally using the profits from her bigoted shittily written books to fund REAL FUCKING GENOCIDE, or fuck off!

By continuing to support the Harry Potter series, you are literally giving JK Rowling free fucking advertising! You are encouraging more people to read the series and watch the movies, spending more money and giving her more fucking money with which to LITERALLY SHAPE A COUNTRY'S LAWS TO COMMIT GENOCIDE. She is literally fucking fighting to make being trans illegal! She is literally fucking fighting to have even more of autistic people's rights taken away!

You cannot fucking be a fan of the Harry Potter series in 2023 and call yourself an ally to all the minorities harmed by JK Rowling and the bigotry baked into her shitty series!

Read another book! The Web Archive has tons you can read for free! Literally every single book on gutenberg.org/ is free! Including audiobooks for some of them!

If you write Harry Potter fanfiction, simply fucking get rid of the names and identifiable features and start writing original fiction instead! It's literally free!

Not supporting a literal fucking genocidal billionaire costs LITERALLY NOTHING! And if you refuse to fucking stop supporting JK Rowling, which is what you are doing when you support the Harry Potter series and squeal over her OCs, you are not an ally to any fucking minority! No! Not even if you're trans yourself!

= = =

Edit again Nobember 28th 2023 because this comment is just. such a perfect example for all of you that think this doesn't happen.

butter-whore2 said, two hours before this edit:

kind of a fan of tumblr's slightly more algorithmically elements for reminding me of the hell's other people construct for themselves but this one hits like five of the boxes. How do people do this to themselves? it's such a bizarre way to act over media I genuinely do not believe is capable of stirring an emotional response the metaphysics of disability here are unintentionally really funny but disability is not a coherent ontological framework, it's a vague descriptor for literally thousands of different things none of which lend themselves to categorizing Moralizing over fiction is incredibly lame.

Liking harry potter is also incredibly lame, it's not morally wrong nor transphobic and you do not get to decide that lol. people literally do get "cured" of their disabilities all the time, many of them have a positive experience in doing so. this is not what eugenics is.

the anti abortion stuff lol

Literally how do you live like this? you guys don't even read real books I don't get it.

Archived version of the comment for posterity.

So yeah, lofl, block this fucker.

[tontoemojis]

Hello there & welcome to tontoemojis !

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[tangents-within-tangents]

As much as I love sweet headcanons and found family fics about the Batch accepting Echo and supporting him through his adjustment and PTSD/trauma, gotta remember that what we were actually given in canon is this:

Hunter: Me and the boys will tag along anyway, if only to say I told you so. Crosshair: I would have left him for dead too. Besides, he's just another reg. (his rescue was just a mission for them, wouldn't have done it otherwise)

Tech: To be blunt his mind belonged to the Separatists until we unplugged him. We don't really know where his loyalties lie. Rex: Yeah? Well I know. Hunter: Alright Echo what are you trying to pull? Tech: How do we know that's what you're really going to do? Hunter: Well I guess you actually are on our side. (They openly doubt his loyalty even though they saw what he went through, and he already fought alongside them on Skako. Feels kinda victim-blamey to me, and it's odd that it goes straight from this to him joining them, like he had to prove himself worthy first? It's just the opposite of fanon which usually has the Batch be immediately sympathetic/protective and assume the regs would distrust him)

Tech: You are more machine than man, percentage wise at least. Echo, a triple amputee: *sigh* lucky me...

Palpatine: ...the attempt on my life has left me scarred and deformed Wrecker: You can say that again! Echo, a physically disabled person:

Echo, who was medically experimented on: *injured and having a panic attack in the medbay* The Batch: *off somewhere joking/betting about if he’s dead*

Tech: -from the Citadel rescue when you... how shall I put this? Wrecker: Blew up!! :D Crosshair: And turned into that Echo: *sigh* yes

Random stranger: *mistakes Echofor a droid* Hunter: *smiles and goes along with it for the credits* Echo, who was SOLD and dehumanized as a pow: *visibly uncomfortable* Hunter: Echo, go to your new owner.

Echo, who was treated like property by the Techno Union: *explains why slavery is wrong* And we are gonna stop it from happening to that kid. Tech: As well as earn a decent amount of credits once the job is complete. Echo: (bitterly) yeah, that too *leaves the room*

Tech: The client being a Separatist is not relevant. Echo, who was imprisoned and tortured by Separatists for over a year: It is to me! Hunter: Forget politics! We're here to do a job.

Tech: This squad existed before Echo was a part of it, and it will exist after.

For the record, yes people can and do joke about their trauma and disabilities

But look at Echo’s reactions/tone/body language in these scenes. It’s downcast sighs and discomfort, while the others are smiling, sneering, or dismissive. And because it's animated that means that every facial expression was intentionally designed.

What really clinches it for me is this moment:

Omega, a child who he just met, comforts him and helps him through his panic attack. But when the Batch, his squad who he's been living with for at least ~6 months, comes into the room he visibly closes himself off and hides his vulnerability :(

There are good moments too (though tbh i can't think of many)

I don't wanna discount that, but that doesn't discount this either. And it's just really weird when you think about it. Like half of these were in the first episode, which is the first time we are actually seeing how these characters interact together as a squad. And this is coming from the "defective" clones who supposedly know what it's like to not fit in? Who offered Echo a place with them specifically because they thought he wouldn't be accepted by others?

As with anything, there are ways we can read into or explain these moments (like honestly 'selling' your brother or betting that your brother died by lunch tray is very accurate sibling energy (And my personal headcanon (to reconcile it for myself bc the show didn't) is that Wrecker was worried about Echo so Crosshair jokingly exaggerated that he was dead and turned it into an argument/bet to distract him (which is also why I think he turns battles into a game/competition with Wrecker)) but Echo is very traumatized and there's a complete lack of consideration there). But that doesn't excuse it nor does it change the fact that this is what was presented to us in the writing. Characters aren't actually people (shocking I know lol), so any of their 'choices' are actually made by a real-life writer. And whether the implications of these moments were fully considered/intended or not, it still portrays the characters and their attitudes/relationships in a certain way.

[usernamesarehard1]

I feel like we don't talk enough about Call's backstory. I mean, it was really tragic and set the stage for all of his emotional turmoil throughout the series.

He lives in a town where his dad is considered crazy/insane/etc, and so everyone assumes that Call is crazy too or that Alastair is causing some kind of harm to him.

Adults and children alike hate him solely because they don't understand him. He is literally physically and verbally attacked and beaten constantly by his classmates for being disabled and for being "weird", and the teachers do nothing about it. Like he actually canoncially experiences constant abuse

And then he gets home and he can't even really open up to his dad, the ONLY person in his life, because Alastair is so emotionally closed off due to his own traumas. And then he has to worry about Alastair instead of worrying about himself.

Like, Call was literally traumatized and thought that he was an awful person because everyone told him he was and physically punished him for his existence.

And I am in no way an expert on any psychological disorders but when I have read about the basics of certain ones, it would not surprise me if Call would be diagnosed with some of them irl. Like when I was researching "quiet bpd" at one point it sounded just like Call to me. He has no sense of person identity and tears himself down inside thinking he is a terrible person, while simultaneously going back and forth between putting his friends on a pedestal and distrusting them entirely. And we see in the books how he is very clingy to Aaron and Tamara, especially Aaron, and has to use them as a safety net for himself. And how he is just constantly terrified of abandonment, especially by Aaron and Tamara. And how he isolated himself so much and struggles to process or express his emotions.

And when I read a bit about ODD (oppositional defiance disorder) I sounded similar to Call. Like, Call does seem to have a distrust for and rejection of authority in the beginning of the series, which makes sense because the authority in his life (teachers, etc) only put him down for struggling. It isn't until he realizes Rufus has his best interests at heart (most of the time) that be begins to trust him, but he is still very wary of the other Masters and Assembly members. And from what I have read ODD tends to primarily affect children and becomes easier to move past as they get older so Call slowly becoming more trusting of authority over the course of the books makes sense.

(Sorry if I didn't explain those things well, it's very indepth in my brain but hard to put into words)

Obviously these two diagnoses are very broad spectrums but it would not surprise me if Call feel somewhere on them.

And then of course Call obviously has social anxiety and depression in the books. And it would not surprise me if he had some sort of PTSD going into the Magisterium based on his upbringing. And I have seen a few people say that his Evil Overlord List could be a sign of a specific type of OCD.

Like, Call was a KID. This was the only world he ever knew. In his most impressionable years he knew nothing but hate from people outside his family and very limited emotional support or connection inside his family.

Again, I'm no expert on any of these things. I just have basic info, but when I did learn immediately made me think of Call. Tbh I feel anxious about posting this because I'm terrified I have something wrong here or that i am misremembering something. I just wanted to share the connections my brain made.

I really wish the books had more about Call's friendship with Aaron and Tamara helping all of them to start heal through each other's comfort since none of them ever really had that emotional support prior to each other.

And tbh I'm kinda surprised Rufus didn't notice a lot of what was going on with Call. I really wish the books had delved into that more rather than having Rufus get mad at Call for his trauma responses.

Also, what happens when Call goes home during the summer (especially when Aaron wasn't there)? Was he attacked again? Was he verbally harassed again? Did he return to the Magisterium with bruises or anything? The books did say that he would often have injures from the attacks by his classmates (I remember them mentioning a black eye, split lip, and bandaged arm in one flashback).

I have just been thinking about it a lot recently.

[emptymasks]

so.. i sure feel like i invested a lot into a show just for them to not care in the end. and this isn't a 'wah they killed of my fave character so show bad'.

the pacing felt weird, right? i wonder if they wanted 10 episodes but the network only gave them 8? or maybe they just didn't know how to end the show. maybe they're scared they won't get a season 3 and so rushed the end of season 2?

but to build up izzy, to have him talk about belonging to something... only to have him die without anyone telling him they love him. yeah ed said they're family but like. the whole thing felt so sudden, from him being the one with richard to getting shot to dying and then to suddenly haha the silly guitar music is playing guys its funny joke time. like. ed was upset as izzy was dying but then it seemed at his burial that no one really cared. it would have been more impactful if his death had been the final scene of the season.

but wouldn't it have been much better to show izzy finding a family? to have him captain the revenge? to contrast with season 1 and how the crew hated him when he was in charge. to end season 2, end the show, with him captaining the crew and having their respect and their love?

because it really didn't feel like he died for the crew, for his family. because he push someone else out of the way to save them he just got outsmarted by richard (since when is izzy that stupid or not strong enough to hold onto a man?) and got shot. like idk you could have had him die protecting ed or stede or the crew. how on earth could izzy not hold onto a man who's physically weaker than him and how the hell did he let someone else grab his fucking gun. or wait im re-watching it looks like richard just.. grabbed a gun out of his own coat.. i.. did no one search this man and take his weapons off him.. what the fuck.. no im sorry there's no excuse that doesn't make sense for no one to have taken his weapons away that just seems like bad writing.

if you were going to kill him off he deserved a better death.

but he deserved a better ending than this. what's the point of him having this arc of finally caring about people if he dies and it seems no one really cared other than ed and fang?

omg i just read as i'm writing this that jenkins does have a plan for a season 3. okay so now it's only acceptable if con wanted to leave the show so they had to kill off izzy but they still should have done it better. have him fending off the english so the crew can escape. have him taking a bullet for ed. something that means something. omg.

and ed and stede... i don't feel like they're ready for this yet. the only way they should be living together is the end of the show. not the end of a season. they literally only just got back together they need time to grow together.

you really said its a show about people finding love and happiness and then killed off the queer disabled character who got to die while telling his abuser that he loved him. the ending feels like the show saying 'actually not everyone deserved love, if you were an izzy fan you were right to get hate' like. he deserved to be loved by the crew, to be told that they cared. but he didn't get that.

also um?? the crew dont love ed. he literally only just finished torturing them, some of them have ptsd and trauma from what he did to them, and even if they want to forgive him they certainly do not love him yet. they cared much more about you izzy than they did about ed.

and then to have him shot in the left side, the place that ed showed in season 1 was a 'safe place' to get injured i. what.

where the fuck was roach? just watching? not trying to help? does he either not care or not think it's worth trying to save him??

IM SORRY BUTTONS CAN TRANSFORM INTO A BIRD, AUNTIE CAN SURVIVE AN EXPLOSION, JACKIE AND SWEDE ARE IMMUNE TO POISON, BUT IZZY GETTING SHOT IN HIS LEFT SIDE UH OH THAT'S DEATH SORRY.

i love the crew, i love zheng. i like stede and ed's romance but they're never the reason i watched the show. but i found izzy's arc the most meaningful to me. and i. i really don't think i'm going to watch a season 3 if there is one. not just because izzy's not there, but that last episode just felt like they don't care or don't know how to write anymore in a way that i enjoy at least.

to see someone like izzy (who's backstory i thought we would get, at least who the ring belongs too that he wears around his neck but no okay) he disliked because he has to be, he doesn't know how to be soft and be loved or how to love others. to show that a person who has been hurt so much and built themself so hard and buried their real self so far below.. to see that person be able to find themself again, to love others, to let themself be loved, to others see who they are. that meant so much.

so much for this being a happy queer show. for a lot of people he felt like this representation of an older queer man who's just coming out of the closet, exploring himself, there's not another character like that. the disability representation with him this season i've seen has meant a lot of people. his arc isn't the same as any others and a lot of people have found something very personal to connect to in that and i think they have a right to be upset.

to say it makes sense for him to be killed off for the narrative because ed needed to let him go... sounds cruel? izzy is a person, he's not a narrative object to make ed feel better about himself. to have ed abuse izzy, physically abuse him, and then izzy's arc ending with him apologising as if it was his fault (yes he encouraged blackbeard, but please let's not victim blame, let's take male victims of abuse seriously) and saying he still loved ed i just..

to say it makes sense narratively for him to get killed off for other reasons i don't fully disagree, but i think it was too soon, and i think at least it should have been in a way that made sense like him protecting the crew, not allowing richard to STILL HAVE HIS GUN ON HIM DID NO ONE CONFISCATE HIS WEAPONS?? or did he take izzy's gun in which case HOW how would izzy allow richard to take his gun. he's smart and a capable fighter what is this.

i saw someone else say izzy's death had no meaning and no consequence. and they're right. the crew moved on straight away and forgot about him (apart from fang, shout out to fang), and seemed like they didn't care. they aren't seeking revenge. they aren't angry. so it's for.. ed and stede to get together? izzy deserves more than that. and they could have still gotten together anyway... if it's for ed to move on then fuck that. an abuser doesn't get to move on from the abuse he caused because his victim fucking died.

i'd been looking forward to this episode all week after i really terrible week and well. should have known nothing this week was going to plan.

[sokkastyles]

What would a real life ramification of Zuko's scar look like from a physical and mental view point. I've seen you mention it before and it piqued my interest. Don't feel the need to answer if you don't wish, I'm just curious and didn't know where else to look for answers.

Well, I'm not a medical professional and I don't want to get too graphic with this, but large burns like the one Zuko receives on his face would be a lot more severe and disfiguring in real life. You can google to see pictures of what that would look like realistically, but I recommend that you don't.

There's a lot of speculation in the fandom about whether he still has sight in his left eye. Word of God says he does, but again, if we're being realistic, he probably wouldn't. I tend to take the middle ground with that with my headcanons because even if he didn't lose the eye enteriley it's likely that the muscle damage is going to affect his vision. He can't open his eye all the way so that does indicate damage to the muscles that make the eye open and shut. And that's going to cause problems with his vision because your eyelid is there to protect your eyes. There would also be limited range of sight even if his vision was perfect due to the fact that he canonically cannot open his left eye all the way. In my fics I usually like to include that his peripheral on the left side is not great, and he has to overcompensate for it. I also headcanon that he doesn't like being approached from the left side because he can't see as well, in combination with it being a ptsd response. A lot of people talk about his negative reaction to Song touching his face but it's not just the response of random hand flying at his face, I think it's significant that she approaches him from the left side while he is looking away from her. It freaks him out because he can't see as well what she's doing or what her intention is.

Recently I talked about this in the context of Ozai sending him out to sea immediately after burning him. We see in the Western Air Temple episode that Zuko is still wearing a bandage which means Ozai did not give him time to heal before sending him away. Imagine going from living in a palace with the greatest medical care available to having to live on a tiny military ship. And Zuko is not likely to stop and do the necessary things to take care of himself. I think Iroh would try to encourage it, but we know Zuko would have pushed himself, and likely would not admit his own limits or when he was having trouble. This is also going to cause problems.

Zuko could have died from shock or from the burn itself during the agni kai, since it is so large. And then the shock of being immediately carted off to sea and told you can't come home. That is going to have physical as well as mental effects.

Burned skin is also very sensitive to sunlight, and being on a ship out to sea is like, the worst place to be for that. I think the detail in the Beach about Zuko carrying the umbrella was supposes to be for Mai, the pale goth, but I headcanon that Zuko needs that umbrella. I also headcanon that this is why he's not out on the beach with everyone in Sozin's Comet.

I headcanon that Zuko is at least partially disabled but he absolutely does not want people to know that, although redeemed Zuko is much better about accepting himself. Although even if he had no physical affects, he still might have a ptsd responde to being approached from the left side or hands on his body, especially flying at his face. We also know he is self-conscious about the way he looks from what he says to Katara and Ty Lee about it, we know people react to him differently because of the way he looks and Zuko is going to notice this. What Ozai did was a violation of his bodily autonomy that sends the message that Zuko is not safe in his own body, and Zuko is going to be reminded of that every time he looks in the mirror, and other people are also going to know it. One of the major psychological affects I think is that not only does Zuko have to live with being a survivor of familial abuse, it's that everyone else can also see it on his face. There's a lot of headcanons about Zuko telling the gaang the story of his scar but in reality he probably doesn't tell them because he assumes they already know, because it's right there on his face. It's a constant reminder to him of his own weakness and shame so why wouldn't other people feel the same way? Although, again, I do think redeemed Zuko is much more comfortable with himself and he does learn by talking to other people about it that it wasn't his fault. Like, the way he talks to Katara in the caves when she brings up his face, he assumes she is already judging him and is surprised by her compassion, and already says he knows that it doesn't have to define him. I love that scene in particular because it doesn't say that Zuko has to get rid of his scar to be whole, but opens up a way for him to learn self acceptance, and I think he is on his way to that by the end of the series. Which also means accepting his own limits and working with his disability rather than pretending it's not there.

That's also why I don't like it when people say that Mai "sees him as the same." Like, that's the problem! He's not the same. That's also why Mai can't understand why he's so angry, why he can't control his emotional outbursts. He's not the same and treating it like it's nothing isn't going to help him. One of the things I love about atla is how they do acknowledge and treat disability like it's regular part of life, without pretending that equity is the same as equality. Toph can't do some of the same things that the others can do, for example, but she can do a lot, and it isn't a big deal for her to hold on to someone when her feet aren't on the ground, for example. I think that Zuko, post-redemption, learns when he can rely on others and learns how to know himself to know when he needs to rely on others for help, instead of keeping it all in to the point where his emotions become outwardly destructive.

[cree-n-jewish-thoughts]

Dear "Abled" People...

Stop telling people with chronic pain to go for a walk it won't help their condition when walking causes pain.

Stop saying you support people with mental health issues and neurodivergent people, except those with a cluster B disorder(s) because they are "scary".

Stop trying to tell us to "deal with it" when certain words, names, situations, places or people can send us into a PTSD full blown panic attack.

Stop rushing people who take a little longer in a payment line, someone may need a little longer to count their change

No, writing out lines will not help fix the problem with my fine motor functions in my hands and fingers

Don't judge someone who can't leave the house. The world can be huge, scary and unpredictable.

Stop laughing at people with ticks, no matter what their tick is.

Stop looking at young people in the handicap space like they don't belong there. It's not an "old person only" space it's for HANDICAPPED PEOPLE

Be more patient with someone who has problems with social interactions

Do not make fun of someone with a speech impediment

Do not say "I know how you feel" because you don't.

Do not shame someone for not having to use a walking aid one day and not the next.

We are forgetful, be patient.

Yes, with some physical disorders like fibro you can go from feeling great to everything hurts, even your clothes, pain. That isn't laziness

People with sleep disorders aren't lazy.

The internet/ typing is the only way some can communicate effectively. Since people cannot hear or understand voice tone or understand facial expressions.

Some people live in rural communities and only have access to friendly people online

People who have hearing issues, the internet makes life easier, as you can communicate with the world and they can actually understand you for once.

People with disorders like cluster Bs and ASD, even someone who is just neurodivergent, they see the world differently than you, so try to understand there are more ways to see something

People with ASD have a wide variety of symptoms, no two people with ASD are the same.

If someone can't hear, being louder won't help... They can most likely read your lips, just because someone is deaf doesn't mean they are dumb.

Someone who is semi verbal, has unreliable speech. If they stop talking to you they could have literally just lost their ability to speak. Or they may be harder to understand.

The handicapped bathrooms are for handicapped people, not just because you'd rather have a bathroom to yourself. Many walking aids don't fit in stalls... And the handicapped stall is great and all but I can barely move in it with my mobility aid since it's actually not big enough.

Don't make fun of that person who is wearing a mask and gloves they could have or live with someone with a compromised immune system.

The need for disabled people to be allowed to be married and still get money, because since you are disabled you only need one income, right?

You would appreciate someone treating you with kindness and treating you with humility. You should project that kindness onto the world. You can make someone's day just by being able to understand their basic needs.

[doodlepede]

hm. this is the nuance hating website but still. there is no difference between physical and "mental" disabilities, this is a false binary predicated upon the assumption that the brain (and the self) is not part of the body. Yes i know that some disabilities' source is in the brain and others' is in (other parts of) the body, but it's still reductive. If a person has poor fine motor control in their hands because of a condition affecting their nerves, what category do they go in? nerves are part of the body, but they communicate with the brain, like all parts of the body, so now what. and who cares, you're not a doctor, you're a weird bully on tumblr who wants to exclude autism, adhd, depression, anxiety, ptsd etc having people from certain parts of disability discussion because. idk. bitterness? twisted jealously? get over yourself. idc who you are, you dont get to decide who's disabled enough or in the proper way to have a say. making people feel like they have to prove they're worthy of being listened to is the Bad kind of gatekeeping. if that means you have to tolerate teenagers who dont know when it actually isnt about them, then too bad get over it

[dirtytransmasc]

please, talk more about Tsu'tey's disabilities. How does our brave (and very much alive) warrior cope?

so this is going on the observation that he was only shot in the upper-middle chest, and that he survived the fall due to hitting trees and brush on the way down. spoiler warning, he's so fucked up its not even funny, he means it when he says he wishes Jake just let him die.

first and foremost, he's got fibromyalgia, I don't make the rules (yes I do, and I'm projecting, cause if I have it, he can have it too). fibro is a chronic pain and fatigue caused by traumatic events on the body, mentally or physically, and is often found in soldier/warriors, people who have suffered traumatic injuries or infections, and people with ptsd; tsu'tey is 3 for 3.

this means he has widespread pain from the aching muscle pain to the stabbing of nerve pain, fatigue that makes functioning difficult, brain fog, stiffness, sensitivity (to light, sound, touch/pain, etc.), and mental health issues.

the damage to his lungs from taking multiple chest shots makes him more breathless than the fatigue did. he gets a lot of chest pain and dry coughing fits, and if he really pushes himself he tends to cough up blood (which really scares spider)

because his wounds got infected pretty horribly he has long-term immunocompromisation, and particularly lung sickness (especially due to the above).

the blood loss, tissue death, and muscle loss from the injury and bed rest equals more pain more weakness and more feeling like shit. his entire body was poorly oxygenated do to the blood loss meaning he suffers all sorts of organ issues, including brain damage. it's what makes the day to day so hard. being laid up in the infirmary caused all the muscle he had honed to be a good warrior and chief to die off. he lost so much of himself so quickly and it's something he can never truly gain back.

the fall also fucked him up, breaks and fractures to heal from, more trauma to his already haywire nervous system.

all of the above gives him horrible mobility and mental health issues; horrific, paralyzing depression, paired with insomnia, PTSD, nightmares, panic attacks. main problem is, he tries to push through his issues, trying to 'break past them' further breaking himself. he hates himself and his life, he hates his body and his mind. he hates everything. he doesn't do his physical therapy, he just tries to jump back into life like it was before the accident. he sinks to a depression that knows no match, he cycles through different forms of pushing himself to far, self harming as punishment, over and over again until he's more broken that he began. he doesn't cope, not for the first few years; he becomes a secluded bastard that hates everything.

that is until spider starts taking to him and he's forced to exist, to go slower, to have fun.

he starts wearing his respirator (it purifies air and offers a little bit of support to his lungs) when he needs it, cause the coughing makes the kid worry. he paces himself so the kid can keep up and so that way he has the energy to take care of him, protect him, even love him by a certain point. the kid serves as physical and occupational therapy, bringing tsu'tey out of the pit he dug himself into and lets him actually start healing. he has to train with weapons again, starting at the easy stuff, to train the kid. he has to show him the ropes of the forest slowly, building up in advancement, so the smaller human can keep up. he has to smile and indulge the kids need for play and affection, ultimately opening him back up.

as he attatches to the kid he finds himself worried about him, spider needed a positive role model, especially as spider started to understand his own limitations, disabilities, he didn't want spider to be anything like he had. so he starts letting people help him, if only fractionally, so he can start making himself someone spider can look up to.

when spider befriends the viperwolf tsu'tey ends up forming the "gruff disabled dad who didn't want the dog, but then they end up being friends and the dog helps him move cope with his disability" (I watched that happen between my dog and my grandpa and it's so sweet). he has to take the thing on walks (no he doesn't), needs to go out into the woods when spider doesn't come down from high camp to make sure it's ok (he also doesn't have to do that either), needs to give it company so it doesn't get lonely without spider (even tsu'tey knows he doesn't need to do that, sue him)

by the time spider is 16 and s trained warrior under tsu'tey, the man has healed as much as one can, it had been about 11 years of the two of them stuck together. tsu'tey is still very much disabled, but his minds in a better place about it, he stops trying to be who he was and rather who he can be now. he tries to be who spider needs him to be, because his opinions the only one that really matters anymore (Jake can go to hell [affectionate])

the one thing tsu'tey had truly lost to the war was his ability to love and have kids. he had sylwanin taken from him, his soulmate. he didn't want to be with neytiri but was willing to take her as his mate, but even she was taken from him. with no role in the village he was not mandated to mate, and he really had no interest. he didn't want someone who wasn't sylwanin, so he gave up on that and the prospect of children; even if the one thing he wanted in life was being a father. it killed him to let go of that dream, and he's sure that was part of why the depression got so bad. but now he had spider, his spirit child, and it saved his life.

[whetstonefires]

So I can't reply to @phoenixyfriend having replied to my reblog because either they've blocked me or they don't do DMs with non-mutuals despite suggesting that as a preferable forum for disagreement, but in brief:

My reblog was 'necessary' within the very limited definition of that word that applies to fandom blogging because that post was not a post About Tony Stark. I don't engage with posts About Tony Stark or most characters in general that I disagree with, in general! It's rude and life is too short.

That post, however, was not about Tony. It was a conversation between bloggers asserting an argument for why people who don't agree with your headcanons are morally inferior and have Bad Corrupt Motives.

"What does it say that Steve is, in fandom, often considered a better/more qualified speaker on the topic of chronic illness and disability than Tony" and "these people would rather listen to the white, able-bodied guy than the person actually forced to live with the consequences of life-long disability" and "viewers with that perspective continue to see his disability as a sign that he's still a bad person, because he hasn't 'earned' a cure the way Steve did."

(Which again is wild as a take because Iron Man 3 has tony 'earn' his way out of both physical damage and PTSD through willpower and smartness in the ending montage, because inspiration porn doesn't work if you stay damaged.)

It was a post about the fandom. Accusing other actual human beings of being morally at fault for how they interpreted the marvel cinematic universe.

Not like, an intense horrible attack post as these things go, but it still wasn't about characters. It was about other fans. That is different from talking about characters! Your post was about how it's sus and shameful for people to disagree with you, not about your actual positions and why they're right. Let alone about the character. That doesn't fall under the curtain of 'don't start shit' because shit was already started.

Like I don't have any Avengers fic, haven't been in the fandom for several years, and I was still sitting here scrolling my dash getting these Bad Person Motives assigned to me just for thinking one character was more meaningful disability representation, that I would be interested in hearing from on the subject, than another.

You made inflammatory statements about other actual people in a public forum, where it could be predicted they would see it.

And then flew off the handle when someone went over your post asserting their alternate perspective, carefully avoiding attacking you personally or assigning you evil motives, which would have been incredibly easy except it's a shitty way to interact so no, and speaking only in general terms about things they found personally annoying.

If you can't deal with people reblogging your posts to argue that you're being unfair, then maybe don't post about how other people only disagree with you about your blorbos because you are a better human being than those people. I mean.

[dufferpuffer]

Hello! Just wanted to reach out and say hi. I went through a bunch of your posts a few weeks ago (some of them are sitting in my queue lol) and I really like your insight. Remus is nowhere near my fav marauder (Sirius Black for the win!) but I enjoy your posts about him. I think Remus is a fascinating character - I think all the marauders era kids are interesting - but I think the whitewashing of Remus by fandom made him seem more boring then he actually is.

So two questions. What is your favourite thing about Remus? Who is your second favourite marauder after Remus??

Hi! :)

My favourite thing about my pretty little woof woof man...? His silly mustache <3 and pretty grey hairs <3 His complex mix of thoughts, emotions and instincts on literally everything, its like his brain is a storm of conflicting drives. (unlike Sirius for example, who is quite straight forward) But seriously: I am disabled. I have an invisible digestive disability that doctors don't want to engage with because they don't know what to call it, and thus the paperwork is a nightmare for them. There's no treatments that have worked and it prevents me from living a normal life, even if I look relatively 'normal' most of the time.

The moment I trust a doctor - or sometimes even a friend... I've had the carpet pulled from under my feet more often than not. People not understanding the full severity of it because they always see me at my best... or just not caring as much as I thought they did. It's started to harm my mental health, which sucks because growing up I had surprisingly good mental health other than PTSD.

After a particularly bad hospital visit last year I had a bit of a breakdown, which lead me to re-discovering Harry Potter. (My sister was a potterhead - I was a bit too young for it.) And Remus Lupin was just.... there. In all his glory. Being a shockingly good representation of what disabled people like me go through internally, within a series most are throwing away right now. I really, really love that about him. He has a shocking about of depth from that angle specifically, when most disabled characters are written to either have their whole life dictated by their issue - or to have their issue basically erased through amazing future prosthetics.

My second favourite is Sirius Black. Sexy man. I kinda think Oldman half-assed the role - but thats ok because he is very pretty and I can look at him.

But I like him for similar reasons, ultimately: He is an absolute wonderful case of mental health. Azkaban is not a prison of physical torture - you sit ialone in a room with a Dementor just outside your door stealing all your best memories and leaving you with sorrow. It's Depression. Deep, dark, lonely Depression. It's being trapped in not just your own room but your own head. When he gets out - when he is given something to believe in, and has the drive to get out - life isn't too different. He turns to drinking. He throws all of himself to the one bright spark in his life: His godson.

If you mean teenage Marauders - I think my second favourite might be Peter, just because he intrigues me - but I don't have too much interest in teen marauders. I'm here for sad men, not teens.

From what ive seen of 'Marauder fandom' stuff on Remus... I honestly don't know how you can look at an insecure man with a goofy mustache that learns all the kids names before class, offers chocolate and tea to students and says 'marvelous' - and think he was some sort of tall, tough, gruff and snarky 'teen wolf' teenager. It IS flat and boring. He had so much more going on (as does Sirius) then being just another Alpha Werewolf Dom + White Twink Sub combo. Wolfstar shippers deserve better.

[doctorweebmd]

hi this isn't a question i just desperately need to tell you how much zero sum game ruined me and put me back together again. lurking mental illness and suicidality under shit circumstances, physical disability, mental and physical scars, constantly fighting off the ptsd and having to learn how to cope in ways that don't hurt other people so you can hang onto the person that makes it all worth it. it's everything i've gone through, right down to soul destroying and healing intimacy, at first to feel pain and then to attempt feeling truly good for the first time. zero sum is undoubtedly going to be one of those artworks i can never shake off my psyche in the best way, like an abstract background hug for my heart. thank you so much for taking so many scary themes to tackle and packaging them so beautifully, i really needed that lately.

sincerely, a previous battle of the bands fan who is now absorbing your entire oeuvre into their personality.

first i want to thank you profusely for sending me this. thank you for sharing your own experience, and your own pain. i know thats not easy and i'm some random person but honestly reading this makes me feel not so alone in the world. of course, thank you for reading, but also for relaying that you felt seen by it. i always feel so silly because its a my hero academia fanfiction but, with all sincerity, words like yours are what make writing it worth it.

zero-sum is sincerely my favorite thing i've ever written and probably always will be. not because i think the plot is awesome or the physics stuff was cool (EVEN THOUGH I STILL THINK THOSE THINGS ARE TRUE) but because its the first time i was able to write about my own personal experiences with mental illness (heavily projected onto Katsuki and Izuku, lmao) in over ten years.

Okay fair warning i am going to overshare under the cut so please feel free to stop reading also I love you and cherish you and appreciate you thank you so so so much for sending this

i'm sharing this because, at some point, i needed to read this. maybe someone will stumble on to it and realize something. maybe not. maybe its just another way for me to continue to process what happened. i think i'll always be processing it. mental illness is a bitch

when things got really bad for me (the first time around) i stopped writing completely. at that time, i truly, from the bottom of my heart, believed that my disorder was the only thing that made my writing interesting. that if i was to recover, that means i could no longer do the only thing i was good for. unironically, writing was actually a major barrier to my recovery for some time.

writing, the thing i loved most in the world, started heavily triggering me.

so i stopped.

the problem was, i heavily romanticized what i was going through in my writing. i made the suffering 'beautiful.' by thinking it was beautiful, i was trapping myself in a loop of self-destruction.

they say, 'write what you know.' but all i knew was misery. so misery was what i wrote.

romanticizing your pain is something i think we all do. sometimes you have to. its a survival mechanism. if the pain is 'beautiful,' then its 'tolerable' to go through.

what no one really tells you about mental illness is that its really, really fucking lonely.

what no one tells you about recovery is, its even lonelier. its the most isolating thing in the world. everything you relied on, everything you thought to be true, the way you interact with the world completely changes.

things are always going to be different. you can't go back to who you were before.

what i did do, when i went into recovery, was read the very few published books about people with (disorder) who recovered. over and over and over again. i needed something to latch on to. anything. i needed to believe it was possible. i needed to believe people like me survived. that they could find happiness. that they could find love. that there is space in this world for people as broken as me.

i dont know. zero-sum, to me, was a love letter to that 19 year old kid that hit her (first) rock bottom. i pretended she didn't exist because it hurt too much to think about her. but what she needed to know, then, that recovering, no matter how difficult, was worth it. that life can and WILL get better. that she will one day wake up every morning and think 'fuck. i'm so glad i'm alive.' that even people like her can find happiness.

that one day, many years later, embarrassed, she'll show her scars to a person she just started dating. that he'll sheepishly show her his. that they'll exchange police reports like love letters. she'll learn that there are people out there that understand her. have felt her same pain. have lived through the same hell. she'll learn that survival is sometimes based on hope, and sometimes based on spite.

but is, despite it all, always worth it.

she'll learn that her suffering does not preclude her from love and connection and happiness.

that one day, she won't feel so alone.

and that one day, she'll be able to sit down at her computer and write about it. maybe it will be in the form of my hero academia fanfiction lmao but that doesn't make it any less real.

maybe it will reach someone. maybe it won't.

but one day, she'll be able to do the thing she loved more than anything in the world again, because nothing is ever truly lost.

there is a future worth fighting for.

[practically-an-x-man]

what is the stupidest hill your ocs will die on? lol

Haha I love this, thank you

Rae: People in non-Anglophone countries are not and should not be obligated to switch to English. If you want to visit you'd better fuckin know enough of their language to get around, it's not their job to learn English just to babysit you

Robin: Why tf does the alto clef exist? I mean, seriously. Anyone who's enough of a music nerd to read alto clef in the first place is enough of a music nerd to be able to read things above/below the staff in the other clefs.

Madison: Being alone and being a loner are two completely different things. She has had multiple arguments over this distinction.

Ophelia: If people want high-skilled jobs, why do they make you pay exorbitant amounts of money just to have the skills to get those jobs? She has a doctorate in biomed engineering, she's helping people, but if it weren't for scholarships and funding from Oscorp she'd be drowning in debt just to... be able to help people? College tuition rates make zero sense to her.

Gia: Every single one of the Avengers is physically or mentally disabled in some way, she could list each one (Hawkeye is Deaf, Bucky's an amputee like her, almost everyone's got PTSD, etc.), and she's tired of people just... not acknowledging that? Their superheroes, that they look up to, are disabled, yet half the time people won't even give up the disabled seats on the bus for her.

Jasper: Medical dramas ruin people's perceptions of medicine. They still love to watch the medical shows, sheerly for the sake of making fun of them, but they firmly believe that House MD has led people to self-diagnosing some absolutely wild conclusions for the mildest symptoms. No, you are not like that girl who had the bubonic plague. No, you do not have lupus. You have chills and fever and joint pain because it is flu season and you have the flu. Go home.

Kestrel: Animal taxonomy is... kind of a fucking joke. It works, it's a good system for cataloguing things, but... it's also a joke. Things don't make sense. If you get deep enough into taxonomy then birds don't exist. Either nothing's a fish or everything is a fish. Don't even get them start on hybridization.

Katherine: Realism artists aren't better artists than abstract artists, or any other kind of artist, just because they can do realism. Stop trying to compliment her by saying "I need a ruler to draw a stick man" or "I could never draw like that". Pick up a pencil and practice.

Quinn: People seem to feel the need to critique her choice of footwear when she's out walking with her crutches. No, thank you, her combat boots are more than fine. They're a little heavy, but they're familiar and comfortable, and they're already made for walking over tough terrain. Tennis shoes, or even orthopedic shoes, just throw her off-balance and make things worse. Shut up with the WebMD talk.

Eris: What hill wouldn't they die on? They'll die on hills they don't even care about, just for the sake of having an argument. He finds it fun.

Nikoletta: People who come to New Orleans just to dunk on the haunted history are just as annoying as people who come to New Orleans to rave over the haunted history. Come, enjoy yourself, but understand that it's a city with real history, and real families live there. She was just as annoyed with the people who would come for a "voodoo reading" and gush about it as she was with the people who would come in just to tell her to "do her best, I know it's all tricks". (even if her readings were just a scam, that still takes effort and skill, and besides that she knows there's a lot of people who have total faith in their abilities as mediums)

[lilflowerpot]

Ok, so I just read your Q'tskraal post and I know it was was literally posted yesterday, but I have a question. What if a child was disabled enough that they literally could not complete Q'tskraal? Also, how would the Galra in general react to a disabled child? What about a child that was seriously injured by an adult? And finally, do the Galra have an equivalent of neurodivergence, such as autism or adhd?

(cont.) Also, little side note: I was the person who asked if an altean alchemist could create a person, and which lion Lotor would pilot. The reason they were anonymous is because I was too lazy to make a tumblr account until recently lol

-

albinism, melanism, & genetic mutations | PTSD & service animals | mental health & disabilities | galra coming-of-age (Q'tskraal)

So because I'm not sure whether you meant to ask this in terms of physical or mental disability, I'm going to address both while still attempting to keep this answer as short as possible (which, because it's me, is still not especially short rip).

What with the Empire's emphasis on strength as a core cultural value, they've naturally invested a great deal of time and energy into prosthetics, something we see plenty of evidence of in canon—bionic arms for Shiro / Sendak / the Beta Traz Warden, a bionic leg for Ezor (s07), bionic eyes for Sendak (again) / Branko / Ranveig / Janka, and what is seemingly some sort of respiratory apparatus for the Archivist—and considering that this technology is so apparently commonplace in Imperial circles, I imagine that any and all of the Empire's physically disabled children would be offered whatever aids they required long before their Q'tskraal. As I said in my post on albinism/melanism, "Imperial medical science is excellent, and their prosthetics are often superior to the biological counterpart," meaning that there's little reason any child with a disability of this nature would be unable to participate. As for less obviously visible but still physical disabilities, such as chronic pain, I would be inclined to say that the galra, with all their millennia of scientific advancement and quintessence experimentation, have likely found a way to mitigate these conditions if not cure them entirely.

Mental disabilities, however, are quite often more complex and nuanced than their physical counterparts.

In imperial circles, mental health is almost entirely destigmatised; as with everything, there are always exceptions to the rule, but broadly speaking the galra don’t think of poor mental health as any more a show of weakness than, say, a broken limb… it’s simply a medical issue that needs professional treatment and support so that the affected individual may be as happy and healthy as they are able. [...] For things such as PTSD / anxiety / depression / OCD / bipolar / schizophrenia, psychiatric service animals (such as Laika!) are quite common throughout the Empire, and the support and companionship that they provide to their assigned individuals is considered invaluable.

So disabilities of this nature would be taken into account by the organisers of any given Q'tskraal during the planning stage. Said organisers do, of course, ensure they are intimately familiar with which members of the community will be eligible to participate when the time comes, as this ceremony is such an important one, and all pains are taken to ensure that any and all necessary accommodations can be made for all those that might require them (such as designing a Q'tskraal that avoids any individual participant's notable triggers).

Neurodivergence as a whole would, I think, exist in most (if not all) sentient beings across the universe, because brain chemistry is so varied and complex that I fail to see how it could not? To use your examples, the galra likely wouldn't know autsim or adhd by the same names that human do, but I've no doubt they'd have an equivalent! Just as with physical disabilities, every effort would be made to best accommodate any neurodivergent participant's needs as illustrated in the previous paragraph, so that they too may participate on equal footing with the rest of their peers. That being said, these things do exist on a spectrum, and this brings us to the most severe of intellectual disabilities / developmental delays, which I am,,, wary of addressing incorrectly, because I know that infantilisaion is a huge issue faced by the disabled community, so I //obviously// do not wish to add to that in any way. That being said, the purpose of a Q'tskraal is to serve as a marked transition "from the role of protected to protector" which, if an individual's condition were exceedingly severe (ie. the person in question will never mentally progress beyond a certain age, or be able to function independently in any way) is not a role they would be called upon to fulfill. Such a person would instead become known as ghijmiitah—translated from zaalkh to mean "frozen youth" and thought by those who believe in reincarnation to be souls newly born of Sa—remaining a very much loved and cared for dependent throughout their entire lives, and being attended to by the local community as a whole.

As for how imperial citizens would react to a disabled child, I've addressed almost this exact query before—

By virtue of being galra, any given individual would be considered a beloved child of Sa, and there is an inherent and entirely unmatched value in that; the true glory of the Empire is, after all, only as brilliant as the kindness and dignity with which its most vulnerable members are treated.

—and so whether the disability in question is mental or physical, it wouldn't matter! Children are immeasurably precious to the galra, so any half-decent member of the Empire would be nothing less than unfailingly gracious and compassionate, as to do otherwise would be widely viewed as a disgusting breach of etiquette and quite the indictment on the individual's character. To answer your final question, any adult who (deliberately) harmed a child would not only be tried to the fullest extent of the law, but as such a thing goes against the very core values of Imperial culture, they'd also become a social pariah and likely be disowned by their blood-family for their unthinkable actions.