#general's journal

[the-toybox-general]

WELL HELLO [update!]

It's been more than a while ! ! ! life hit me over the head with a very large bat and it's taking me a while to recover my silly little mental health, but I'm finally . here and doing stuff again.... ok !!! I usually don't speak in depth on these things, some things are a bit too dark to say so so publicly and we need not dreadful spirits upon mine blog... on better note... ITS PAPER MARIO DAY!!!!!!!! HAPPY TTYD DAY EVERYONE!!! I hope all that wished to have gotten TTYD and those who wish to will in the future... I'm so very very thrilled and I'm sure this will awaken something in me.

I will begin posting once more!!! and I'm thinking about opening chibi commissions ( 35$ USD ) would you... be interested... <3 I know it's a price increase from the last time I opened them but my style has improved! and my chibis have gotten bigger and better! I will post a poll here... would you be interested in my wares...

Tysm in advance!! I will be posting mario ocs soon... I made a new reference of Emico months ago now... Whos Emico, Chess? You Will Know...!

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

babygirl your critical thinking skills

[chronocrump]

Family

[obsob]

poems and cats from january!!

[movie-robotnik-positivity]

Shadow's tendency to put the mission above all else is not only a coping mechanism to avoid having to stop and think about the past, but it's also something he inherited from Gerald. In this essay I will

[sonknuxadow]

god shadow the hedgehog is so disabled . like im hesitant to label him as a canonically disabled character because i doubt that sega intended for him to be interpreted this way but also how could i see this stuff and Not think hes disabled

like oh your body functions differently from whats expected and you have to use certain devices to help you in your day to day life and you could seriously hurt yourself by not using them? okay . cool . tell me more about how youre not disabled

[ebenana]

Hello, this is Eben! I am going to be raffling my digital commissions for Aseel's evacuation fundraiser! If you win, I will draw you a commission worth up to $300!! To enter, please donate $5 USD to Aseel's g*fun.dme (verified by @/90-ghost, @/fairuzfan, and @/ana-banaya) and send proof of donation to me either through email (aseelraffle@gmail.com) or through this google form!

$5 will get you one entry to the raffle, $10 will get you two entries, $15 will get you three and so on!

Winners will be chosen on August 31st!

You have 48 hours to respond before another winner is announced.

Your commission must be under $300, according to my commission prices !

That's it! Even if you can't donate, PLEASE share this in as many places as possible and don't forget to reblog!

[nagichi-boop]

Gerald’s Journal - Disability representation

I read scans of Gerald’s Journal and I have to talk about it. Not the lore or anything like that, but the disability rep. I didn’t expect to cry reading this.

Please don’t look at this post if you don’t want to be spoiled about what’s in this journal. If you do want to read it, you can find scans here. Credit to this Twitter/X thread for the images I’ll use.

I don’t have much to say about this image, but it is nice to see Maria using a mobility aid. It’s not often we get representation for an ambulatory wheelchair user.

I do wonder about Maria’s relationship with her parents. They weren’t happy with Gerald’s wish to bring her to the ARK so that he could research a cure for her, but they let her go anyways? Maybe Gerald got some sort of order to get her to go or Maria decided she wanted to go with him, but it seems a little odd to me. I’ll expand on this a little later.

Quote from right page: “[Maria] is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I’ve caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanished when she’s slighted.”

Oh my days, I’ve never felt so seen by a piece of media and it just so happens to be my special interest video game. I am tearing up again thinking about this. Maybe that’s silly but to have a character express his frustrations about people doubting the invisible disability of his grandchild is so touching. I wish people in my life were more like Gerald. People with invisible illnesses get doubted so much because we “look fine”, but it’s so invalidating to have your struggles questioned just because the symptoms aren’t as visibly obvious.

Quote from left page: “[Maria] doesn’t know the full scope of what [Shadow] has been designed for, but she understands he will be under tremendous strain. She’s helped me conceptualize a number of accessories that will help focus his power and aid in his mobility.”

So we now have confirmation that Shadow’s air shoes and inhibitor rings are akin to mobility aids. I headcanoned this but I didn’t know they’d flat out confirm it like that. My favourite character is canonically disabled physically (and I’d argue mentally given his PTSD). I don’t have much to say about this besides being happy that my favourite character is now even more relatable.

It also makes a lot of sense for Maria to help create them because she has experience with her own disability and can offer a perspective that an able bodied person couldn’t. That and it makes Shadow’s connection so much stronger. His mobility aids were designed by Maria. He didn’t just help her with her disability - she helped with his. He wouldn’t be able to function without what she and Gerald created for him.

Quote from the right: “Back on Earth [Maria’s?] parents have been blessed with another little girl. They’re already run tech(?) and she has none of the genetic markers like to [Maria’s] condition. While this was welcomed news, the unspoken commentary was received loud and clear.”

(I am assuming they’re talking about Maria’s sister, but I guess they could also be talking about her cousin.)

So did Maria’s parents see their new daughter as a replacement? If I’m reading that correctly, it’s so sad. Do you think Gerald told Maria about her sister/cousin? If she did know about it, I bet she was excited to meet her. But I get the feeling that her parents back home didn’t really care about her anymore given what Gerald says in his journal. It hurts that much more when you consider how much Maria wanted to go home, perhaps even return to her family.

I feel like all of this makes Maria’s death more tragic for both Gerald and Shadow. For Gerald, he did so much reason and sacrificed so much in order to try and find a cure for Maria. He supported her when no one else did. And from his perspective, despite her illness and the judgement of others, including potentially her own family, she was still positive. And yet she was killed, and he only found out about her death because of a report that had her name on it (I think anyways?).

From Shadow’s perspective, she is the person who gave his name meaning. Despite most being distant and weary of her, she was immediately friendly to him and helped teach him about the world. She helped created the devices used to reduce his pain and control his powers. He quite literally carries part of him with her. She was his sole reason for existing for a long time. And despite being this super supportive, kind, loving person, she was killed. I can imagine him being mad at Gerald for messing with his memories, but I figure there’s a degree of understanding, even if he doesn’t fully agree with what Gerald did. The difference between them both is Shadow’s purpose shifted beyond Maria while Gerald’s did not. Anyways, I digress - this post is about disability rep, not Shadow lore.

I love this and Dark Beginnings for their direct and indirect disability rep. My love for Shadow and Maria has only grown and I have a deeper appreciation for Gerald. I wish more people were as understanding as he is towards people with invisible disabilities.

I don’t really have a conclusion. I just really wanted to yap about the journal entries.

[egg-emperor]

love Eggman stamping his logo over the G.U.N one like nuh uh mine now bitch

his feelings of entitlement to all his grandfather's stuff persists. his journal and Shadow!

[welcome-to-green-hills]

[the-forest-library]

“Today, a Bluesky user shared a photograph of what appears to be a summer reading insert published in this Sunday's edition of the Chicago Sun-Times. The feature looks normal enough, until you actually read it and discover that only five of the fifteen books recommended by this supposedly legitimate newspaper "to deliver the perfect summer escape" are actually, um, real.

The first ten books on this list are imaginary. The authors might be real, but the titles and descriptions are not. Needless to say, these are not mistakes that a human would make. It's obvious that this list is Al slop. The only real question is, how did it get published?

The Chicago Sun-Times responded with versions of the same statement on multiple platforms: "We are looking into how this made it into print as we speak. It is not editorial content and was not created by, or approved by, the Sun-Times newsroom.

We value your trust in our reporting and take this very seriously. More info will be provided soon."

This is pretty disheartening, especially for "the hardest-working paper in America." There are a lot of hard-working writers out there who would be thrilled to recommend fifteen actual books for summer reading, and even more hard-working readers who don't deserve to be cheated like this.

For the record, Literary Hub's summer reading list will be 100% Al-free, now and forever. Keep an eye out for it next week.

Update: 404 Media's Jason Koebler reports that the listicle was "written" by Marco Buscaglia, who admits he used AI to generate it. "I do use Al for background at times but always check out the material first," he told 404. "This time, I did not and I can't believe I missed it because it's so obvious. No excuses... On me 100 percent and I'm completely embarrassed."

404 also found other evidence of Al usage in the section, which was mostly written by Buscaglia, and which appears to have been syndicated in multiple markets.”

[the-toybox-general]

MARIO AND LUIGI

[kingofmyborrowedheart]

It’s weird being a Taylor fan right now because so many outlets are publishing as many stories about Taylor as they can to the point where it feels like there’s a microscope on us and what we talk about. Like we used to be able to talk about theories and trademarks and other silly stuff casually and now those discussions are being spun into headlines and I’m not a fan of it.

[sarroora]

WOHOO it's up!

Read my ARK Family story, Takotsubo, here on AO3

---

Summary:

An accident happens, leaving Maria in the sickbay, and Shadow distraught.

And Gerald finds himself in the very familiar seat of being the parent to two distressed children.

---

[mostly-natm]

What could’ve been if Noonien Soong had actually programmed his sons with relatively healthy coping mechanisms that don’t include murder.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Okay now that I've reblogged that one post...

Holy shit

Like, please understand me. This is how I already interpreted these relationships after reading Journal 3 but like

Wow Ford really was in a weird kinda complicated gay situationship with Bill and Fiddleford, huh? When he's all alone on Christmas in tbob he's all like "Oh yeah haha of course...of course. You have. Yeah. You have a wife, F. How could I expect you not to leave. I am totally not secretly hoping you'll turn around and come back to me, or that you'll even bring your family back here if you have to so I can see you. I'd retreat to my dreams but I haven't seen my muse in weeks and I miss him so badly. I'm so alone"

He and Fiddleford aren't even dating but it's hard not to get the light impression that this situationship is such that Ford kinda treats Bill like his comfort triangle from his head and dreams and Fiddleford like his comfort best friend in his lab. Like he's sad on Christmas that his boyfriends left him alone, you know? Of course it's definitely more complicated than just that, but they are dear companions to him

Or when Bill finally comes back and Ford is pissed

"You return now? After all of that, after me missing you so badly, almost dying, wondering if I'd dreamed it all up. You return now like it was no biggie? Did you ever mean the things you said? Did you not find some other scientist or some other big brain to talk up? Have you found someone else? Another partner?"

And then Bill, dodging the question was like "Funny you think I'm cheating on you as if you haven't been spending all that time with F. The side bitch. The third wheel. You've even considered telling him everything, even though you know he has second thoughts. Heh. A little birdie told me he dreams of shutting down the project even."

Leading Ford to be like "Aw hell how could I accuse my muse of such a terrible thing when I haven't been a saint. He's right! F has been much less motivated lately and I've just gotten so paranoid from the isolation. I'm so sorry for my baseless accusations."

I don't even have a lot to say I just love these three. Fiddleford put up with a lot of shit from Ford while also dealing with his own problems and trying to help him regardless, while Stanford saw him as a comfort and a good friend but ultimately someone who was of lesser mind than he and couldn't see things through his eyes, while Bill was in Stanford's corner actively making him worse and contributing to his isolation (trying to get him to drop Fiddleford and actively feeding his paranoia), while Stanford was seeing both relationships of his with stars in his eyes and rose tinted glasses because he refused to do some introspection

There's so much stuff that journal 3 and tbob added to the equation that's just bad/shitty all around. Can't believe Ford went through a double divorce/breakup despite not having ever been married (or, at least, despite not even officially dating them sorta)

The entire situation in the past is just tragic and hilarious and concerning all at once and that's what I like the portal trio for tbh