#i see plenty of ableism from you guys too

[jamiebluewind]

Warning! Pet illness, xray

A friend of mine a few states away had a pregnant female cat walk onto her porch and decide she lives now. She had 3 kittens. Since my friend/roommate @winterpower98 was looking for her first cat, we (other roommate/bestie, Winter/Gaia, and I) decided to take a trip down to visit and see if one of the kittens would work for her.

The thing is, she did fall in love with one! He's black with white markings, so the 6 year old had been calling him Eclipse. He's, curious, playful, and always trying to get into something. He loves Gaia. I mean LOVES her. And she loves him. Like... emptying her savings loves him.

Right before we arrived, our friend noticed a little lump on his belly. They thought nothing of it. And then, it got bigger. And bigger. And bigger.

After a week, we took him to a local vet to get checked out. He had a umbilical hernia. Luckily it stopped before his diaphragm, but the hernia was severe enough that he would need surgery to close it (a lot of articles talked about smaller ones closing on their own which is why we waited). He would also need special care for IBS symptoms and to keep his hernia from getting injured or obstructed before repair (which couldn't happen until he was big enough to go under anesthesia). He would need to come indoors for his safety and be separated from the others as his sisters pouncing on the hernia was causing issues (a week earlier than the 8 week mark).

I was honestly expecting Gaia to say it was too much for her to handle. Even told her that nobody would judge her for not being ready for that level of responsibility. That we could find an organization that could take him and get him the help he needed and find him a good home. He has two sisters she could consider, there were plenty of shelters back home with cats under a year old, and we could even check the town we were visiting and places on the way back home, so there were options. I knew how much it took to care for a kitten with health issues (my current cat required months of specialized care and there were plenty of scares along the way) and Gaia has no previous experience with cats outside of hanging out with our cats, so that's just starting on hard mode.

After a long serious talk on the responsibilities she was about to take on, she said she knew it would be hard but the thought of giving him up made her sick. That she would do whatever it took to give him a happy life for however long she has him. We aren't rich people, she's going back to college full time, she had only decided on him over one of his sisters that morning, and (again) this would be the first cat she has ever had. She went all in without a second thought.

The original quotes from various vets willing to do the surgery (not all vets can) were pretty insane, but luckily I found a non-profit that did the surgery for about half. My other roommate and I fully support her and chipping in what we can.

Eclipse is 8 week old and his surgery is scheduled in a month, but we are going to call in and check for cancelations since he's reached the minimum weight and age for anesthesia. Winter has been so busy caring for him that she's not had a chance to post about him, so I decided to do it on the drive home. I think the story is important because it raises awareness about an issue most don't know about and shows someone genuinely caring about a pet with special needs. As a disabled person who's went through a lot of ableism and survived abuse, it really hit me to see how much she loves him with her whole chest and doesn't ever approach his issues with anger or blame.

I don't ask for reblogs much, but I wanted to ask you guys to boost this. I linked Gaia's PayPal below if anyone wants to help take some of the financial burden off her, but you can also support her with messages and boosting this and her future post/s about Eclipse (cut her some slack guys, she's currently in tired new mom mode). I don't expect anyone to donate because I know you guys are mostly in the same shape as us, but I think showing Gaia support is just as important.

Now if you'll excuse me, the hyperactive boy got the zoomies and just jumped in the toilet XD

Edit: Late thing to add on, but a few days after posting this my other roommate/bestie Sarah decided to adopt his sister! Her name is Melanite, but her honey eyes have earned her the nickname Miel. Her and Eclipse have always been very close (often laying on top of each other), so it's great that they'll get to stay together.

[soullessjack]

so one of my other problems with babyjack is that the fandom just seems to have this sort of collective cognitive dissonance about it, in almost any context or discussion. like this post as probably my only standing example (bc it’s the only one to have gotten traction), there are all these tags about how babyjack leads to bad dean criticism, or how it’s nice in aus but they want canon complex jack, and like I’m not entirely disagreeing with that, but it is so fucking frustrating that people are still ignoring the actual problem with it and either only focusing on the most surface level issues that personally affect them or their corner of the fandom, or making up some point of acceptability for it that frankly isn’t theirs to make.

it’s the autistic experience of our struggles never being seen or cared about until they become other people’s inconveniences, and our voices being used to say something else entirely. when the main takeaway of that post is how the fandom’s treatment of jack being in a way he’s explicitly shown to hate being treated directly mirrors autistic people’s struggle for autonomy in the real world, I really do not need you to make it about how it makes your golden website boy dean look like a big meanie pants, okay? that’s definitely a part of it, but it’s not at all what we are talking about, and it 100% should not be the only reason you care.

and especially when the other takeaway is how this is just a smaller scale issue that comes from autistic infantilization, the absolute last take I want to hear is that you find that infantilization acceptable as long it’s an AU or something else separated from canon. believe me, I’m beyond glad more people actually prefer canon complex jack—like, I don’t think you guys understand that that is legitimately a rarity to find here— but the thing about babyjack is that the concept itself is inherently ableist, and directly relies on his complexities (and the representation he means for us) being removed and erased so that he can even exist in the context of those AU’s. It feels very… ‘have your cake and eat it too’ to me.

I’m trying not to sound angry or accusatory, but I am also tired of having to force civility on a problem that’s pretty much just an open secret thar everyone collectively ignores and beats bushes around solely because they prioritize #domesticdestiel over all. I mean, do you guys even hear yourselves sometimes? Like half of it just boils down to “Autistic infantilization is always bad, except for this one context where it makes my ship look domestic and redeems my blorbo,” and it’s getting really fucking annoying to have to constantly explain something that is not only painfully easy to understand, but is understood and actively ignored, and still play nice so that somebody out there might listen.

So many people will say they like canon Jack and want more of him from the fandom, and I more than agree, but motherfucker you have a blog! You have the tools! Be the change you want to see! He doesn’t have to be your fav or your blog thesis blorbo, but if you want it, you are literally fully equipped to make it! Write some meta, draw some fanart, whatever. Better yet, you could even stop engaging with and perpetuating content that actively pushes down on what you want and, I must reiterate, is actively harmful and ableist. If you want domestic silliness go right ahead, but you don’t need to resort to ableism to do it.

I don’t think I’m asking too much or asking rudely, and frankly I don’t even think I owe niceties to anyone when it’s a problem that has been openly ignored for 6 years and holds plenty of bearing in the real world concerning my identity and community and shit we face constantly. Outside of our screens, we are constantly fighting for autonomy and recognition and representation, and even to be seen as people. Online spaces, especially fandom spaces, are a huge source of escapism and support that we wouldn’t get otherwise. So for the love of god, please stop bringing that fight here.

[owlbloop]

I feel like there's a lot of ableism in villains and body horror

And that doesn't get recognized enough

Like, if a character is plot important and has a cane, villain

Disfiguring scars or facial features? Villain or morally grey

Flat affect, comedic aspect of a side character or villan

Low empathy, villain

Intellectual disability or semi verbality, probably stereotyped and a henchmen

I've seen more villains have panic attacks or full anxiety attacks then protagonists

Serious mental Illness, villain

Most of the non elderly deaf and blind characters i know are morally grey

So many villans are like Ghost from antman and the wasp

Continuous life support or medical equipment, villain

With horror, particularly body horror, it's more subtle. Less intentional I suppose

A lot of body horror and fear design is based in the uncanny valley/the abnormal, and that can get iffy really quick.

I'll start with general horror stuff since that's easiest to express

I have photophobia, the fancy term for light sensitivity. On bad days I can barely see while outside. You know who gets to have photophobia near exclusively in media, vampires and various other similar demonic creatures. It's nearly impossible to name photophobic characters who's photophobia is not a mark of their inhuman nature or possession

Possessive fits in media and in history are often based in epilepsy

Changelings probably were based in ways to excuse autism, infant mortality rates, and chronic illness. In the modern day they still hold on to this idea of your child being replaced with something not quite right, that's just a little too wordy, that doesn't act how they should

Horror around mental illness is just.. I hope i don't need to explain how aspd/psychosis/DID get screwed over unendingly

Insensitive exploitation of asylums and their history

There's plenty more, but those are the easiest for me to explain

Now body horror

Flaking skin, red inflamed bumps, disfigurement, body parts with "unnatural" flexibility, crunchy joints, stretchy or translucent skin, "overly long" limbs/fingers, rattling breaths and wheezes, dislocation with at will reduction, less or additional digits, hella pale skin, and so on cause a problem in when they become peoples comparison of reference for disabled bodies

And I completely get how that happens, there's very little open exposure and representation of disabled people. I certainly think there's nuance to be found as well within the specifics and i'm not saying that huge swaths of body horror are necessarily problematic for just being body horror.

But A, real disabled people aren't comparable to horror/fiction

B, actually intentionally basing horror off real disabilities gets gross FAST

C, stereotyping is extremely important to avoid

D, horror/body horror can exist in a wide variety of forms that don't negatively impact perceptions of disabled people

And last but not least, E, any body horror or horror fiction creators should look at why they find what they do disturbing and make an effort to unpack any internalized ableism/stigma around their content

The same with anyone writing certain villain archetypes or disabled villains

The fact that someone has neurodivergent(and i mean that beyond just adhd/autism) traits or something "wrong" with their body should not be used as an external representation of their poor character

Nor sheerly to gain sympathy points for your bad guy

Nor just to fit your prejudiced conceptions of the world

[thedisablednaturalist]

so sorry ppl that cant read are sending you messages about those posts but i get it completely. rheumatologists and osteos and NP's want to hear more abt my decade old severe anxiety and depression and adhd and ~more~ diagnoses than chronic debilitating pain and just slap vitamin D pills on it and throw up their hands because "test results are weird idk what to tell u even tho i said it was this two weeks ago". abled friends and coworkers can have conversations about their mental health struggles but its looked at self pityingly if i bring up how my life is irreparably damaged by my physical disability because disabled people have to be strong and resilient to earn a place in their field and if you cant cut it just get on those snazzy disability benefits and let it get worse. i think a lot of abled ND people just cant accept that they do not experience the worst of life's struggles and that solidarity doesnt make us the same

I try to be understanding and answer peoples questions politely when I have the spoons and if they are genuinely confused bc I used to be ignorant as well about a lot of aspects of physical disability but it gets so tiring. Nowadays there are a ton of resources from physically disabled people talking about their experiences its actually quite easy to educate yourself on our struggles. Like sorry I get a little frustrated and rude when I'm constantly bombarded by ableism and rude ass people.

Also yeah that's exactly what I've been trying to say. Doctors can usually relate to people having mental health struggles and even some aspects of neurodivergencey. But they cannot understand someone looking completely fine and not being able to detect anything but complaining of horrible pain and constant tiredness outside of the lense of mental health. And if your mental health is managed or only suffering because you are in constant pain, they say you're faking, or OBVIOUSLY you just need to lose weight, or drink more water, or exercise more than any able bodied person does. People take one look at me and think the solution is obvious and I'm just too stupid or lazy to figure it out.

And me saying this isn't saying that mental illness is super easy to deal with. Its fucking awful as well and many doctors say this shit to neurodivergents as well. And this is especially true for poc and people with psychosis or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

I went to my first therapist in my sophomore year of highschool and got medicated that same year. I started investigating my health issues in college freshman year and have JUST gotten actual results from treatment. SIX fucking years later. SIX fucking years of CONSTANT PAIN. And I have great insurance and a great dad who just wants me to feel better (my mom is a different story). My parents are sort of upper middle class and I live in a very privileged area. Of course that means I can't afford to move out even with an ok salary, but at least there are plenty of doctors around to choose from and plenty of appointments available. I can't imagine how long it takes someone without those advantages. And even still I had to fight to be listened to, I had to listen to so much bs from doctors and had to go from doctor to doctor begging for someone to listen.

Like they really don't get how unbelievably hard it is to get care for physical disabilities, visible and invisible. If you're visibly disabled you get treated like a child and a monster and you're isolated from society. If you're invisibly disabled you get laughed at by doctors and ignored. If it's hard for you guys imagine that difficulty increased by 100%.

I try to be really visible when I'm working in a position I know has my back. I really try to educate young people and children on what my disability looks like and I hope disabled kids and kids who eventually become disabled can see me and know that their lives are valuable and they are valuable. And it is possible to find joy in your life and reasons to keep living. And employers shouldn't be able to throw away our resumes and pay us less just cause we may need a little extra help. I know what everyone thinks when they see me in my wheelchair and using my walking sticks and when I tell them I need to take a break as I'm running out of spoons. I know their first thought is what the hell am I doing here if I'm in so much pain? When people see me by myself in my wheelchair they think I must have gotten lost and separated from my abled handler. I love my job, I love what I do, and I want to be able to keep doing it. But I can't work as long as an abled person, I can't do it without accommodations. Hell abled people shouldn't be working as long as they do either. I wish to live a life where I'm free to do the work I love without killing myself and still be able to live a comfortable life. Every disabled person, working or not, deserves to live a comfortable life.

[thenightling]

In that Over the Garden Wall Facebook group, that Jason Nesbitt person, who was too rude to actually read why I was saying Crooked Moon is based on Over the Garden Wall, doubled down on his claim that I only see the similarity because of Americana. This is very insulting because I went into pretty graphic detail about the similarities, and not merely the use of early American folklore, folk art, and vintage postcards. Yeah... That doesn't account for the actual use of the Over the Garden Wall opening narration with just a few words changed. In fact the first change nearly rhymes. "Clouded" became "Shrouded." Jason Nesbitt also falsely accused me of ableism, saying my first reply to him was ableist and that I deleted it and replaced it. Saying "Don't think I didn't notice you deleted your first ableist reply to me." There was no other reply to him. I did no such thing. I babble when I try to explain something. The reply I posted was the only one. I edited it a few times but I never deleted it. The "edited" marker was right there on the post. I pointed that out to him, that all versions of my reply were still readily available and also I don't "Do" ableism. I'm borderline legally blind. And the guy doesn't even have a Facebook picture. How would I know he has a disability to be ableist about?! Again I pointed out to him that had he actually read my post and my reply to him he would have noticed I was talking about a lot more than the Americana aesthetic, such as The Crooked Moon using the same opening narration with just a few words changed and other things that do not come from just using the same American folklore. Next thing I know I was banned from the group. I think he wanted to create the narrative that I said something ableist and he banned me, rather than face the humiliation that I had given him plentiful examples that it was more than just the use of Americana that made Crooked Moon like Over The Garden Wall. As I write this I realize now, I'm not entirely sure he knew what Americana means. He kept using it over and over again but so vaguely I'm not sure he understood why it's not just the Americana usage that makes it similar to Over the Garden Wall. At first I felt like he wasn't reading what I wrote. Now I realize he may not have understood it at all. He never addressed that I said over and over again that it's more than just the aesthetic. The premise isn't actually from Americana itself. Here's just a few "similarities." 1 . They use the same word-for-word opening narration just with five words changed. "Clouded" for example becomes "Shouded."

2. The promise is the playable characters wake up on a black late nineteenth century style steam engine train and don't know how they got there. Hardcore Over the Garden Wall fans will know this was originally how Over the Garden Wall was going to open before they changed it Wirt and Greg walking through the woods. You still hear the train though a the scene fades into view from a mist (a mist described in Crooked Moon, by the way.) The train is talking souls to the afterlife, which was originally planed for Over the Garden Wall, by the way.

3. The concept art for Crooked Moon depicts a Jack-o-lantern Maypole. This can be scene as a trapping of Americana but it's pretty obscure as it comes from an early twentieth century Hallowe'en postcard adapted by Patrick McHale for Over the Garden wall. 4. A hunch backed dog (or wolf) with glowing, round eyes and a tiny pupils is depicted in the Crooked Moon concept art and in Over the Garden Wall's first episode. This is not from any Americana. No old postcards or folklore. This was an original creature of Patrick McHale. 5. The logo for Crooked Moon is nearly identically the SAME font as Over the Garden Wall! They even use the same chapter wood cut style art like Over the Garden Wall's Death's Head art. 6. They literally got the same people who did the music for Over the Garden Wall. Yes, both use Americana but it's Americana as it had already been filtered through Patrick McHale's style. 7. Actually, it would be easier to list the differences. The realm in Crooked Moon isn't The Unknown. It's Endless Night. That's the biggest difference. The Unknown still had day and night cycles while Endless Night is eternally Night.

_________

It's a shame there are so few Over the Garden Wall Facebook groups out there to discuss things like Crooked Moon. The fandom for Over the Garden Wall feels so tiny, like being into Nightmare before Christmas in 1994, only Over the Garden Wall hasn't earned the cult status it deserves... yet.

[hannahhook7744]

Badun Detective Agency Incorrect Quotes (Part 2);

Trigger warnings; Injuries, slight ableism, insults, etc.

Let me know if I should add to the trigger warnings.

Samantha is @casinotrio1965 's oc.

Previous parts: Part 1.

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Jace: Hey guys, I'm reorganizing my bookshelf. How do you guys usually do it?

Hermie: By color.

Harry: By size.

Reza, offended: You're supposed to do it aphabetically, you absolute heathens.

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Hadie: Eddie.. Eddie.EDDIE. How do you feel?

Eddie: Like I just got hit by a truck.

Reza: That's because you did, you absolute idiot.

Yzla: REZA!

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Harry: Okay I know I said I wouldn't judge but Danny Darling? Seriously? You could do so much better—

Hadie:

Jace: HARRY!

Harry: What? What I say?

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Harry: What's something you guys are better at than Reza?

Hermie: Monster Madness.

Eddie: Yeah, video games.

Yzla: Emotional vulnerability.

Hadie *without a second thought* Remembering things.

Jace: HAYDEN!

Hadie *confused* What?

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Eddie *pointing at Hadie* That is a morally gray child at best.

Hadie: I don't know what you're talking about. I'm an angel.

Eddie: You are the child of Hades and the brother of Mal. I do not believe that for a second.

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Random Ak: Aren't you embarrassed about dating Jace Badun?

Elle: Honestly I'm more embarrassed about being indirectly related to Harry.

Random Ak: Why—

Harry *walks in covered in pen ink and chicken feathers, not even acknowledging them*

Elle: See.

Jace *chokes on his drink from the corner of the room*

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Jace *dividing all the OG B.D.A members up into pairs for an investigation* Harry, you're with Yzla. Reza, you're with Hermie. And Mystery is with me. Eddie you good to be alone?

Eddie: Yup.

Reza: Oh, come on. Why does Edmund get to go solo?

Jace: Eddie gets to go solo because he doesn't have a kill count or a track record of endangering himself for no reason.

Reza: That is factually incorrect!

Eddie *whispering when Jace's back is turned* It doesn't count if he doesn't find the bodies or medical records.

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Harry: I'm not creepy.

Harry: I'm petty.

Harry: There's a difference, ya' know.

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Jace: How much did you spend on this date?

Elle: $1400. But all of it's on credit cards, so it's like $5 a month for the next 2,000 years.

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~~~Bonus: The Protégés~~~

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Lada, writing in their diary with a glitter gel pen: I'm losing my sense of humanity. Nothing matters. God is dead. There's blood on my hands.

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*Danny is ordering a cake over the phone*

Shop Employee: …and what would you like your cake to say?

Danny, covering the phone to look at The Squad: Do we want a talking cake?

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Hadie: I can't take this anymore, someone needs to take me out!

Danny: In a dating type of way, or an assassination type of way?

Hadie: I don't know, surprise me!

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Deja: My hands are cold.

Glauco: Here, let me hold them.

Deja: My lips are cold too.

Glauco *covers Deja's mouth with his hand*

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Lazarus: Just a minute. I need to go take out the trash.

Everlee: Oh. We're going out?

Lazarus: What—

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Samantha, at 18: Come to dinner tonight. I can’t cook, but I’ll bring plenty of free wine.

Panos, also 18: Marry me.

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Paro: We’re getting married, bitches!

Zuri: And we're about to make it everybody else's problem.

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Lada: I owe you one.

Avalon: That’s ok. You can just date me and we’ll call it even.

Lada: Are you flirting with me?

Avalon: Is that not obvious?

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*Miriam is crying after a breakup*

Khalil : There there, Miriam .

Miriam , still crying: Thanks, but how did you get into my room?

Khalil : Great question—

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Panos: I just had a long talk with Paro and Samantha about hitting and now they are yelling 'it’s my turn to perpetuate the cycle of violence' before hitting each other.

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Samantha : Many people are mildly dehydrated and don’t realize it. You should drink at least six glasses of water per day.

Avalon: No, eight glasses!

Panos: I heard ten.

Paro: You need to drink at least five glasses of water per minute.

*later…*

Zuri: Okay, I just read through every study I could find to try to figure out whether low-grade dehydration is even a real thing.

Samantha : What did you learn?

Zuri: If you spend all day doing research and forget to eat or drink, you start to feel pretty bad.

Avalon: I’ll get some water.

Zuri: But how many glas–whoa, feeling dizzy.

Lada : Maybe you should just drink straight from the tap.

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Inspirations: 1 , 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Hello i would kill for some awkward Connor attempting to comfort Chris during training please and thank you

Follow-up to this piece from yesterday

CW: Pet whump, implied whump of a minor, bruising, some dehumanizing language, BBU, facility whump, creepy comfort, The Moral Standards of Monsters, some implied conditioning due to ableism (blink-and-you’ll-miss-it)

“Hey, Manning.”

Connor looks up from his lunch - he’s at his desk in his training room, a sandwich, bag of chips, and bottle of his iced coffee set out in front of him while he finishes up paperwork from the last trainee’s fitness reports - and sighs. Fucking Luke goddamn Petrus. “Yeah?”

For a second, his stomach flips. Linda swore up and down that the complaint would be anonymous, and Connor isn’t the only person in the hallway who has brought up the screaming being… irritating… but still.

Luke is Director Renford’s favorite in a big way, her loyal henchman, and he can make a handler’s life a living hell if he wants to.

Luke leans against the open doorway, giving him a bright smile. Above the expression, though, Luke’s blue eyes stay cold as ice. Like the Director, Connor thinks sometimes. Two fucking peas in a pod, and Connor’s always a little bit on the outside.

Lately, though, he’s been feeling kind of grateful he’s on the outskirts. The Director’s approval is something everyone works for, but having her focus on you too long and too thoroughly sounds as terrifying as her anger.

“I just got called up to a meeting with Renford.”

Renford. Like they’re buddies. Like he’s equals with her. Connor keeps his mouth shut, but he wonders how the Director would react if she knew he calls her Renford when she’s not right in front of him. “Good for you. I don’t see why that should affect my lunch break.”

“The meeting could last a few hours. I know you’ve got the afternoon off from trainee work. Would you mind keeping an eye on one of mine? He’s just out of a week in solitary, so he’s needy as fuck.”

Connor perks up a little at that. Needy trainee and unscheduled afternoon sounds like just the pick-me-up he needs today. “He need any training work?”

“Nah. Do whatever you want with him.” Luke gives Connor a wink. “He’s got some top notch fucking flexibility. Just saying. You can twist him into pretzels. Tell him he’s being good and he’ll do it all himself. Kid’s eager as fuck now that we’re past the halfway point.”

Kid?

Connor swears internally but keeps his expression carefully the same. “What do you mean, kid, Luke? Wait a sec-”

“I’ll bring him in, hold on!” Luke’s already gone from the doorway.

Connor has a sinking feeling of realization that Luke didn’t just randomly decide to leave a trainee with him. He must’ve figured out who put the fucking complaint in. And he knows that Connor hates the screaming, if he knows that.

Which means…

Luke reappears, and sure enough, the little redheaded trainee who is the cause of all the wailing and sobbing is right beside him.

No weights hanging from his hands this time, but there are deep red marks around his wrists and bruises at his upper arms just below his sleeves that suggest he’s done plenty of training work this morning, whatever Luke says.

Jesus, this kid is eerily beautiful. Pale skin, flushed in the aftermath of tears, with a smattering of freckles all over like constellations of stars. His hair’s that rare shining strawberry blond, with eyebrows pale enough to make him seem faintly inhuman. Connor wonders exactly which piece of shit with a thing for teenagers put the order in.

He wants to make sure he doesn’t vote for the guy.

Not that Connor Manning votes.

But maybe he’ll start, and then start purposefully voting for someone else. That's probably way more effort than he'll ever put in to anything that isn't work or Socks, but it feels kind of nice to think about it.

The trainee keeps his eyes carefully down on the floor. Connor notes he’s not even wearing the shock collar any longer - just your average band of black leather, buckled at the side, no padlock. Not only not being shocked, or not needing it, but already far enough along not to try and remove his own collar.

“Luke. I’ve told you how I feel about the underagers-”

“Yeah, and I’ve told you that you can judge me when you're an angel, numbnuts. You’re not better than me. You just have different victims.”

“Oh, the Director would have a shit-fit hearing you call the trainees victims.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I’m the only one who really grasps exactly what it is we do here, Manning. I just also happen to enjoy it. Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life, right?"

“Go fuck yourself, Petrus. I enjoy my job just fine.” Why is he defensive about this? Connor doesn’t quite understand the surge of irritation within him. Why does he give a fuck what Luke goddamn Petrus has to say about anything, anyway?

“Yeah, for now you do. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve been at this gig for a long time, I see the ones who flame out, and you’re one of them. Anyway, I’ve got to go meet with Renford, I’ll be back by three. If you get tired of him, just put him on the mat and I’ll pick him up when I’m done.”

“Yeah, okay.” Connor frowns, pushing himself to his feet. “I do like my job, Petrus.”

“For now. Bet I’ll be the only person here totally unsurprised when you quit one day.”

“I’m not going to quit.”

“I’ll bet you a thousand damn dollars you do, and I’ll raise the bet to fifteen hundred that it’s over your fucking conscience making a reappearance.”

“Don’t have one."

Luke just sighs, and gives Connor a patronizing little smirk before he turns and leaves. The trainee looks over his shoulder to watch Luke go, pleading with his eyes but not saying a word. The door shuts, and Connor and the trainee are alone.

Connor clears his throat, picking up the sandwich but finding he doesn’t really want it any longer. “What’s your number, trainee?”

The boy’s eyes snap back to him, briefly, before they drop to the floor. Connor notes with vague professional detachment that they’re red-rimmed. He’s been crying again, but then, when isn’t this fucking trainee crying?

When he’s screaming instead, Connor’s thoughts answer him.

God, he wishes these trainees didn’t get to him so much. He can’t talk to anyone about it, either, word will get out Connor Manning has regrets. Questioning the company is a good way to find yourself on the wrong end of a shock collar.

“223499, sir,” The boy says. His voice is low and soft, and each number and word is deliberately placed, as if he’s carefully pacing himself as he speaks. “Designation… Romantic-”

“Yeah, I knew that already. That’s all Luke does.” Connor leans his chin on his hand, looking the kid over. There’s solid muscle in that kid, he thinks, legacy of whatever life he lived before. It’s wasting away under the carefully calibrated malnourishment they’re all subjected to, but the memory of strength is in there, still. An easy, unconscious grace that didn’t have to be taught. “You’ve already done training work today?”

Those green eyes flash up at him again, nervous. Frightened. The boy shifts from foot to foot, then goes still. His fingers twitch before he pauses that, too. Connor watches it all with a kind of slightly repulsed interest. “Yes, sir. But… Handler Petrus said that… that if you want, you can-... can test me-”

“I don’t want,” Connor says heavily, cutting him off with a gesture. The boy’s mouth snaps shut instantly. “Not in the mood.”

There’s an expression of genuine confusion - when is a handler not in the mood? - that flits across the boy’s face. It’s a look of such comedic bafflement that Connor ends up laughing, shaking his head. He doesn’t even put his sexy, dark laugh on, but just snort-laughs naturally, before he walks over to the kid, watching him pull into himself, shoulders hunched.

“Relax, kid. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The kid’s nose wrinkles. It’s adorable. “But… all you do… is hurt us.”

Luke’s fucking technique, Connor thinks. Luke’s trainees don’t forget anything he’s taught them, to be sure, but they never quite learn how to act like they’re in love with it, either. Connor can turn out a trainee who genuinely thinks he’s in love. Luke turns out trainees who hate everything they can’t stop themselves from doing.

Some perspectives are into that, he supposes. Connor thinks he’d rather have the act.

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to do that today. Come on,” Connor says, and his voice gentles a little. “I’ve got plenty to keep myself busy with. Why don’t you lay down on the mat and get some sleep while I work?” He puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder, feeling him trembling slightly through the thin cloth of his white trainee t-shirt. The boy moves when he’s nudged, carefully stepping across the room, tense as a wire about to snap.

“Are you-... are you going to, to, to, to, um-” The boy flinches back from an expected punishment when he stammers. "Silence is, is better than stammering, try again, silence is better than-... try again." The kid mutters to himself, takes a deep breath, tries again. "Are you... going to... give me a pill?"

Connor pulls his hand back, frowning. Now it’s his turn to look confused.

What the fuck is even going on with this kid?

“Nah. I don't even keep them in my training room. No worries, kid.” He pitches his voice low, soothing, reassuring. “The only thing I intend to do is finish up some papers, go take a smoke break outside, and then come back and get set up for my next rounds at seven before I head out. This is a real break. Okay? I’m not even interested in whatever it is Handler Petrus is doing with you. I just want to do my job.”

The kid looks at him. He’s almost always seen him drugged out of his gourd, barely able to focus on anything not right in front of his face. Right now, though, there’s a sense that the boy is considering his words, actually able to think about them. “Yes, sir. I can-... I, I can lay down?” 

 “Yeah, go for it.” Connor waves his hand again, moving back to his desk.

“Thank you, sir.” The kid’s gratitude is pathetic. Connor has to give Luke that, he does know how to make a trainee say thank you for just about anything. Connor’s method takes more work to get to that than Luke’s.

But Connor doesn’t have to drug his trainees to do it. And he doesn’t work with kids.

Shit. Maybe I am going to wind up with a conscience. Handlers get fired over that.

Or worse.

After a pause, watching him go, the kid kneels down, then lays down on his stomach, making as much contact with the heated mat as he can. There’s a soft exhale, something almost like contentment. Connor watches those tensed, probably painful muscles slowly relax. His bare feet start to rub against each other, back and forth, back and forth.

There’s a blanket nearby, and the boy hesitantly grabs at it, pulls it over himself. Breathes out, eyes fluttering shut as warmth surrounds him utterly for what’s probably the first time in a while. Or at least warmth that doesn’t come with certain conditions.

Connor’s eyes trace the line of the boy’s jaw - there’s a bruise there, too, like a thumb pressed too hard into delicate skin. Coppery eyelashes lay flat, long enough to just brush his cheek. His hair falls over his forehead and eyes.

It’s like looking at a fucking painting.

“Jesus, you’re pretty as hell, aren’t you?”

The boy’s eyebrows furrow, briefly, but he doesn’t open his eyes or pull back from the mat. He curls up tighter under the blanket, disappearing up to his chin.

Connor turns back to his work, filling out a questionnaire. He’s still working at it when he hears, just barely, the boy’s soft reply to his question.

“I, I, I wish I wasn’t.”

-

@burtlederp @finder-of-rings @endless-whump @astrobly @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @downriver914 @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @nonsensical-whump @outofangband @eatyourdamnpears

[c-is-for-circinate]

Thinking today about viruses, allergies, oppression, and anti culture.

(under a cut because WHOOOPS this got long)

Racism is a virus. Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, antisemitism, ableism, etc etc etc, they are all viruses--a topic that many of us have learned a great deal about in the past year. They are ideas, yes, not literal physical diseases, but the analogy holds up. They are infectious, and often spread from person to person without anyone involved realizing they have it. They can sit latent for years, never showing up because the carrier never finds themselves in a situation where the issue comes up, only to flare up and take over when you least expect it. And they mutate, just like the flu, just like the common cold; they put on a new jacket every year and slide in undetected yet again, slip past our internal sensors and bury themselves in our brains until we go in and deal with them as best as we can.

One more thing we've learned about viruses this year is how we can fight them. The viruses of oppression are a little different because they tend to hurt the people around their carriers even more than the people they've infected (although let's talk about internalized anything-ism sometime), but in a lot of ways the attack is the same. You treat the symptoms even when you don't know how to cure the disease: we invest in respirators, antiviral treatments, hospitals; we create and sponsor programs to help those who've been hurt by various oppressions, we uplift our neighbors, we try to keep people safe from violences both big and small. You work to stop the spread: we wear our goddamn masks, we stay home when we can; we train ourselves not to say racist shit that might foster a culture of hate, we stop that guy in our office from making rape jokes, we make slurs unacceptable. You pay attention to your immune system: we seek medical attention when we experience symptoms, we get COVID tests, we talk to our doctors before the symptoms get deadly; we protest and we pay attention to the people who do, we take them seriously when they tell us that something is wrong.

You vaccinate. We train ourselves and our immune systems to recognize the thing that infects us, the thing that we fear. We try to teach our children about history, bit by little bit, on fragments of dead violence the same way we train our bodies on dead virus shells, so that someday they'll recognize the live disease when they see it. We learn about slavery and Jim Crow and the Holocaust. We tell kids bedtime stories about why hitting and bullying is bad, before we ever start teaching them the specific shapes that violence so often takes. As we get older, as we get stronger, we learn about the living stuff, all the new forms that same old virus has mutated into; we educate ourselves, we listen, we read. Just like vaccines, of course, there are anti-vaxxers and denialists shouting about how racism and sexism are already dead and they don't need any propoganda besides Fox News. Hell, just like anti-maskers, there are plenty of people screaming about how political correctness is ruining the world and they demand their right to spread their virus to anyone they can. Often these are the same people.

But we try. And make no mistake, we all of us are already infected, and just like a real virus, once you've caught it once it probably won't ever go away again--but we can prepare, and we can try to lessen the severity of our cases, and we can support our immune systems of activists and protesters and our own internal sense of this is wrong, and we can work, bit by bit, if not towards eradication (not yet, not in this world, but maybe someday in another), then at least towards control.

And then there's allergies.

An allergy is what happens when a human body's own immune system freaks out over an enemy that wasn't particularly harmful in the first place. All our immune defenses--those precious immune defenses, which work so hard to protect us against all those viral, deadly ideas--go screaming into high gear. All of that fear and fury and attack power gets brought to bear all at once, against a bit of pollen or bee venom or cat dander or peanuts, and your body is left itchy and runny-nosed and gasping--sometimes literally--as it tries to keep up. Allergies are miserable. Sometimes they're life-threatening. And the biggest danger isn't the foreign agent that triggers the allergic reaction; it's the immune system trying to fight it in the first place.

Which, yes, brings us to anti culture--but not JUST anti culture. It's a good example, a little internet-centric microcosm of the same force that drives progressives to tear bloody shreds out of moderate liberal politicians. Hell, it's the same force that enables both TERFs and the Capitol rioters. It's a combination of an immune system that points in the wrong direction, flagging the wrong thing as bad, terrifying, danger, NO, and a freaked-out response that can manifest as anything from mildly irritating to absolutely deadly.

To be clear, I am not by any means equating the scale or even the source of these things, any more than hayfever is the same as anaphylactic shock. Likewise, the sources are different. Sometimes, a disease can infect an immune system and point it in the wrong direction. (Terror of the other is the absolute cornerstone of white nationalism, and when that terror gets triggered by a harmless environmental condition like, god forbid, other people asking for rights, the allergy response can be deadly.) Other times, it's the other way around. Our internal immune systems, so well trained to protect ourselves and those around us from the insidious viral ravages of prejudice and oppression, start seeing traces of it everywhere.

And they freak out. And we suffer for it.

We talk a lot of well-deserved shit about TERFs, but it's useful to remember how much their nastiness feels to them like activism. Their immune system, trained and primed and sensitized over years of exposure to misogyny and sexism, catches the tiniest whiff of something that might seem at some point to have possibly been taken for male, and freaks out, because why is that trying to get into our system. Never mind that they're wrong. An immune system that flips out over penicillin is wrong, too. It's still trying to help, and it's still doing more harm than good trying it.

So bringing this back around to anti culture, which was absolutely where I started thinking about all of this this morning: anti culture, the terror of porn and the attempt by antis to protect themselves an other people from sexual content, is an immune response. It is a trained immune response, in people who have been taught and re-taught again and again that rape culture is a dangerous insidious virus that should be fought at all costs. And, right, there's more than a bit of 'the sexism virus infected this immune system and reprogrammed it to fight itself' involved here, but look, we are all of us infected with all of the viruses at least a little bit everywhere. If we tried to direct our immune systems to rip every last shred of -ism out of every last bit of us, we'd rip ourselves apart. Which is exactly the problem.

Porn, in and of itself, is natural. As natural as environmental pollen, and living near dogs and cats, and eating wheat or nuts or citrus fruit. It's even healthy, for a whole host of reasons that belong in another essay. And citric acid and nut-based proteins and whole grains are nutritious, and pets are physically and psychologically helpful, and being exposed to lots of different environmental substances as a child can actually help train your immune system in the first place. Porn can help us figure out what we like. It can help us figure out what we don't like. And while the processes that create it are sometimes unethical and awful, we don't condemn all dogs because puppy mills and dogfighting rings exist, even if we do have dog allergies.

What we see in anti culture is often a good-faith attempt on the part of antis to attack and subdue an environmental trigger that they read as dangerous. It's a panic attack over something that is by nature harmless or mildly harmful, blown out of proportion by the very instincts that are supposed to keep us safe. It's the response of an immune system that's been taught over years and years, by everyone from parents to school systems to the activists they look up to, that negative stimulus is to be feared, avoided, and fought. Of COURSE they're going to freak out.

And of course, early exposure to controlled amounts of allergens can help prevent later allergies from developing. Of course when kids are raised with abstinence-only education, sheltered from the very concept of sex, they're going to grow up allergic to it. (Of course they're going to try to protect other kids from the same, like worried mothers who refuse to let peanuts or wheat products or dirt near their precious babies, whose kids grow up with a whole suite of allergic triggers because their bodies never learned what was okay in the first place.) And no, that doesn't mean we hand pornography to ten-year-olds any more than we should give raw honey to an infant--but of course if our culture refuses to introduce kids to the fact that sex and desire and the inside of their own brain can be messy and silly and kinky and downright weird, we're going to have a higher rate of allergic reaction to the entire concept in adults.

I wish I had a better answer for what to do with understanding that this is what's going through so many people's brains. The best I have is a prescription for allergy-sufferers, who probably haven't read this far through this wordspew of an essay in the first place--but we all get a little hayfever once in a while, and we all sometimes run into content that makes us angry. So some thoughts on how to deal with metaphorical allergic reactions, inspired by the ways we deal with literal ones?

First: we recognize that what is happening is an allergy. The thing we're reacting to might be gross, or irritating, or even unpleasant, but the danger is not and never has been the thing itself. Whether it's triggering a response because of its similarity to an actively dangerous pathogen, or our immune system just doesn't like it, our aversion to one kind of story or another universally says more about us than about it. Luckily, we have a lot more control over our social responses than our biological ones!!! If vocal activism is our sociocultural immune system firing itself up to fight an infection that may or may not exist, then we get to tell our metaphorical white blood cells to stand down. We get to decide.

Second: we get some space. The funny thing about allergies is, while early exposure to allergens can help prevent them, re-exposing yourself to dangerous allergens after you've already developed a reaction to them can make them worse. Anaphylaxis is always more likely after someone's experienced it the first time. Repeated exposure to triggers, whether biological or psychological, can make the effects worse. So stop exposing yourself.

If something makes your throat itch every time you eat it, stop eating it. If something makes you mad every time you read it, stop reading it. Obviously this can be easier said than done in a world that's a lot worse about warning labels on stories than ingredients labels on foods, but that's why fic tags exist. And: sometimes, the croissant is delicious enough that we decide we're willing to suffer through the way the almonds make us feel, just this once. Sometimes the ship or the characterization or, hell, those other kinks that we really like are tasty enough that we'll put up with the trope we hate. We're allowed to do that. But we do it knowing there will be consequences, and we don't blame the baker when they hit.

We also don't have to blame ourselves. It sucks to be allergic to shellfish when all your friends are raving about the new seafood place. But that's not our fault any more than it's theirs.

Third: sometimes, if we need one, we go to the doctor. Or a therapist. Yes, really.

Not because there's anything really wrong with an aversion or even mild breakouts of hives, annoyance, and bitching in your friends' DMs--but it sure isn't pleasant, and sometimes your doctor might have a better solution than 'avoid it and take a Benadryl' that makes you feel a little better in the long run. And sometimes, it's not a mild breakout. Sometimes it's the kind of story that lingers with you for days, makes your skin crawl; sometimes your throat swells up and it gets hard to breathe. Sometimes we get angry enough about something we've read that we can't stand down our immune system, don't want to stop ourselves from writing that angry comment, that tumblr post, that abuse report to the mods for something that didn't actually break any rules. And that's dangerous, because when our immune response can flare out of control like that, we don't always know where and when it will happen next, and the risk of what we'll do if it happens gets way, way higher.

Sometimes it really is worth getting a second opinion. Sometimes you need somebody to tell you, "actually, it is not normal to get tingly and sweaty every time you eat potatoes." There are ways to train your brain and leash your white blood cells that I sure as heck am not expert enough to address. There are, it turns out, ways to feel better. There are ways to mitigate the damage your own well-meaning defense mechanisms might do to yourself or other people along the way.

And: we can take a deep breath when someone with an allergy to something we've baked, something we've written, something we like, is lashing out trying to protect themselves and everyone around them from something they've registered as a threat. Of course they're wrong. Yes, we told them there were tree nuts in the brownies ahead of time; yes, they chose to eat them anyway. But it can be worth reminding them and ourselves that there's a difference between "this thing is toxic" and "this harmless thing has driven my own system into a defensive response that sure makes it feel like I've been poisoned." And it can be worth reminding ourselves as well as them that sometimes, that difference can be really hard to spot.

[grittyreadsfic]

very curious about the new brand of homophobia but also totally respect you not wanting to elaborate?

time is a circle and everything always comes back to people reinventing the wheel except this time the wheel is just homophobia

and you might be asking yourself: grits, we're largely here reading and writing queer stories, how could that be homophobic?

well!

it's not every fic, and it's not every ship, and it's not every writer. you might read what i'm saying and recognize an action you've done and maybe that means what i'm saying applies to you, or maybe it doesn't. this is the internet and it's full of nuance and this isn't a clear cut thing about someone just straight up using a slur (though hrpf did make me read the r slur with no ableism warnings in the last year, so honestly i wouldn't be surprised)

anyway: there's a trend i've noticed, in writing and just in how the community treats the player overall, that if a player displays any "feminine" trait-being on the smaller side, dressing in a nicer outfit, doing more than just basic hygiene, basically anything that distinguishes them from the stereotype of your basic bro-they take that player and make them a bottom. they turn it into an identity that is basically their whole identity and reduce the character to just that one trait.

and you know, there's a time and place. i've said it once and i'll say it again: if something exists, there's porn for it. if it's just porn? whatever, tag it appropriately, do what you gotta, i'm not here to kinkshame anyone. you wanna write force fem porn? sick, go for it

however, when it goes past that-when it's not just porn but it shapes how characters are written, how it influence the perspective on the players-or because this isn't unique to hockey fic, the characters in general-that's where my issue lies

because it's reducing queer identities down to a stereotype. this is inherently homophobic. it's worse than that, actually, because of the issues that arise with that stereotype too when you look at it through an intersectional lens, but that's a whole other can of worms that is for another post.

right, so, this stereotype: the "feminine" guy is a bottom (and like, not to be crude, but i'd argue that for some characters it reduces them further to simply a hole) and it turns the ship into a caricature of queer representation that reminds me way too much of the really limited mlm ships we saw in media ten, fifteen years ago-it feels like someone's about to ask who's the man in the relationship, and who's the woman. and sure, plenty of queer people have preferences about topping and bottoming, and i'm sure for some people it is a part of their personality, but like. i'm seeing characterizations of players getting reduced down to that and nothing else and it just makes me tired.

this becomes a problem when it's widespread. when it shapes entire views of characters or players or, fuck, carries over to how you view the real live gay people in your life.

anyway i was told i should give actual examples of what i mean so here are some of those:

-every smaller usndtp kid is automatically written as a slutty, bratty bottom, generally because of the kind of derogatory side of the stereotypes around twinks. these ones gets reduced to just a hole pretty quick, and like, again, if you're just writing porn, sure, go for it, but it's starting to become to full personality that people are giving them

-i've actually stopped reading tknp fic that isn't by authors i trust or is a fic i've read and liked previously because hrpf people took all the trans people projecting their gender onto summer nolan and essentially force femmed his character both like. in sex and outside of it? i don't know how else to describe it except i kept reading it and it just felt homophobic. it felt reductive and insulting, honestly

-some of you are here just to fetishize mlm and that's really not my business but you might want to unpack that idk

anyway the tldr of it all is that y'all turned top and bottom into secondary genders and there's a lot homophobia (and honestly, some transphobic implications as well lmao) because of it

[schrijverr]

The Media in a Quirk Society

An essay or more a thought piece about how the media adapted to the appearance of quirk. How genres changed and how the media influences and is influenced by society.

On AO3.

Ships: none

Warnings: none

~~~~~~~~~~~

Something that makes me so very curious is how media must have developed in the BNHA universe after the appearance of quirks.

We hear almost nothing of media other than the news within the universe itself. For now it escapes me if All Might Cartoons are actually mentioned in the show or something of fanfiction. But another fanfic phenomena are pre-quirk movies, aka movies of our time.

The latter is a thing we must agree on, since there was a time before there were quirks wherein movies were made. This also implies that the pre-quirk superhero genre has existed (think MCU or DC)

I want to examine how that must have changed with the appearance of quirks based of what we’ve seen in the show.

When we see the beginnings of a quirk society, we meet AFO, who rises in the chaos and especially the scene where he takes and gives a quirk stand out the most. Quirks weren’t excepted yet, especially visible quirks, while at the same time a quirk means power. We also know the hero profession rises here, because it was too much for just law enforcement.

So we have these components, which all make for really great stories… in hindsight.

After the fact there must have been many stories about a lone police officer, becoming a hero as he saw the force around him crumble. Or a weak person, suddenly developing a powerful quirk that helps them get out of an impossible situation. Or maybe even about someone who feels they are deformed and shunned from society by their quirk and how they overcome it.

But at the moment it was happening there was still a lot of resentment about quirks and people who had them.

When quirks first entered the stage, people who had them plunged the world into chaos or had to hide like the man who goes to AFO to get his quirk removed.

I can imagine that if movie productions could continue in those turbulent times they would focus on the normal guy, still fighting against a suddenly super-powered villain or a quirkist (as I shall refer to it) take on a person who gets a quirk and turns evil.

Or they might even ignore the whole quirk situation in general with a new genre that can be boiled down to ‘No Quirks – AU’ wherein the movie is based in pre-quirk times. This genre would have a lot of nostalgia at first, probably, trying to call upon how simple life was when villains weren’t terrorizing the streets and heroes were just a funny thing of TV.

Maybe it will develop later.

Maybe it will become how difficult it must have been back then with no simple quirk solutions to problems. It might even turn into a genre about invention, mostly, with a fascination in the public of how things that run on quirk-solutions now, could have been solved by a quirkless scientist in the before times.

But back to the developing genre that is set the BNHA real world. Wherein quirkless people might have gotten a center stage in the early years, before quirks became so entrenched in society that quirkism developed against what used to be a majority.

I can picture a young Midoriya watching old movies wherein the quirkless protagonist was the hero against the evil quirks, telling himself that one day that could be him.

However, with the rise of heroes the media attention probably shifted.

The manga/anime describes it as ‘ordinary civilians with their own Quirks decided to take matters into their own hands to bring order to society, and thus the first "Heroes" appeared.’ as it says on the fandom wikia.

This shifts the narrative of quirkless hero against the chaos of quirks, to brave citizen stands up using the power they’ve been granted. Maybe they gave it religious undertones or maybe it was the story of taking the moral high ground and doing what was right for your country and neighbors.

In those early days you probably have more stories reflective of the pre-quirk fictional heroes, wherein the main character has to hide that they’re out there every night breaking the law to bring order.

It can be that at this time the narrative that the police is just the ‘villain taxi service’ starts to originate among bitter storytellers, who have seen the police fail where heroes did not. Though this would be more older filmmakers after this era is over, who start this. When heroes have become accepted, but they still remember how bad the police reacted before.

But on the topic of heroes becoming accepted, that must have been a civil right movement, a right that had to be debated with villains reflecting how bad an idea public quirk use could be.

You can see in the ‘Liberation War Arc’ how something like that could have played out and how it makes for interesting media entertainment as it is a story arc in our world, meant to amuse. Mixed with the fact that the first heroes created order in the chaos, there must be a ton of movies following activists or a hero not only having to fight the villains, but also the system.

And then over time heroes morphed into what they are now.

Hero became a profession and quirks the norm. After a while, just focusing on quirks got less interesting and using quirks as just a backdrop became more interesting.

Sure, you still had the hero genre and with actual figureheads these can range from documentaries to inspired by real life movies or just fictive fights with characters that are obviously based off a real hero or just the real hero. Especially when heroes became depended on their popularity, there must have been plenty that signed an acting contract in the hopes of getting their name and image out there.

With Midoriya’s comment about Todoroki having the backstory of a protagonist, it is clear that the hero genre is far from forgotten.

However, the “normal” genres also developed with society and with quirks becoming normal and no one truly aching for the before times, they must be set in the BNHA world we know.

The tropes we know (and maybe love) will get a new twist to fit this society or maybe disappear completely. New stereotypes and assumptions based off quirks appear, even quirkism might become prevalent in media, teaching kids that those without quirks are freaks or weak and weird.

In my mind I picture a movie trailergoing “She has a water quirk, he has a fire quirk. Will they fall in love despite their different personalities?!?” or “When his family is murdered, he must track down the killer with only the quirk as clue. Will he find out what happened on that faithful day or will the path this sends him on be the last of him???”

The horror genre will also be transformed with the fear of people misusing their quirk being a big thing in society.

As for fantasy, this genre will change with super-powered people being the norm, you can have to get more creative to make it truly fantastical. World building, visually, will be more important to distinguish it from our world, creatures too since there are literally people with bird heads, for example, walking around.

Not to mention the potential of quirks being hereditary that can be used in dramas where the partner has cheated or as plot point as grant reveal of a main character being related to one of the antagonists or even in gang movies as them training together to use their quirks and them all being the same. That would make for a cool visual tbh.

Disaster movies also will be different than they are now. With protagonist who can have quirks that work against them in their situation or if it’s a more hopeful movie how they work together, piling together their quirks and other skills to survive.

And the crime genre will be so intrinsically tied to hero society and with the police being seen as kinda useless, it will be so different than how we know it now. Did crime become part of the hero genre? Is this a piece of cop propaganda left wherein the police tries to save their reputation? I don’t know, but I wanna think about it.

It’s just interesting to me how in a world where the super is normal, media has adapted and this has been keeping my mind busy over the past few weeks.

The transformation in society of quirks as something dangerous that needs to be stopped, to a few brave people standing up for what’s right to finally the commercialization of heroes so that they can keep doing their job.

You see these changes, that’s unavoidable.

Media is such a powerful tool and it’s hardly referenced within the source material (which I understand because there are already so many movingparts), but with the fall of hero society it is interesting how all that propaganda for heroes might disappear back to when quirks first appeared and how the cycle may start again.

~~

A/N:

There are probably so many genres and other stuff thatI haven’t considered, so tell me your thoughts about the media in BNHA!

((also I didn’t want to dive in how racism, homophobia, ableism will develop with quirks and notions people will have about them. It is important to think about, but I do not think that I am the right person to talk about it. If anyone does, tag me or comment the link, because I will 100% read it))

[confusedandhopeful]

Awesome Authors of Marvel Ao3

I need more flexibility to make lists (than Ao3 allows) because I'm fussy and pedantic. I have waaay too many tabs open on my browser as I try not to miss out/lose some of these great writers and artists. Here is my attempt at saving them into a list that I wont lose. Mostly Tony-centric, commonly fluff, smut or hurt/comfort.

Sidium I Want to Teach You a Lesson (In The Worst Kind of Way), not to mention everything else they've written ;) Also check out their bookmarks. WhisperElmwood The One Where Tony is the Meat in a Supersoldier Sandwich, which is exactly like it sounds. There is no Manual is an unfinished Autistic-Tony pov fic, that has him welcoming the Avengers into his tower. Wix writes a lot of salty Team Iron Man Fics Changing Fate is a time-travel WinterIron fix-it, Coming Unstrung which has TeamCap kidnapping Tony to try to sort things out (and inspired Revenge Fantasy by alioftwoworlds) Potrix Writes plenty of WinterIron and Tony/Bucky/Steve, among other things. Fluff and comfort abound. Their bookmarks are also pretty great for discovering a variety of other Marvel fics. Sineala writes universes from the comics. Features Cap/IronMan, and fics where Iron Man's identity is a secret. Think of This as Solving Problems (That Should Never Have Occurred) - "No one knows Tony is Iron Man. Then Tony gets amnesia, and literally no one knows Tony is Iron Man." Mercy in You, has Steve looking after Tony after an (offscreen) D/s scene gone wrong. A Question of Trust where Steven helps Tony after some self-bondage gone wrong. This Mortal Part of Mine has Iron Man taken advantage of by a tentacle monster. Cap tries to save him and they both escape, but then Cap is having Thoughts. Shaenie writes perfect BDSM fics Don't Look too Closely (all the angles are oblique) is the Cap/Ironman BDSM series, that has also been podficced amazingly by paraka. The series is unfinished but hella long and awesome anyway. Viklikesfic over 400 Marvel fics so far, including more BDSM fics! ^_^ Purify Me in your Muddiest Waters is a series about Tony liking humiliation, and Steve and Bucky teach him that kink doesn't have to mean abuse. Lots more fics that are Steve/Tony or Steve/Bucky/Tony. Featuring Daddy kink, humiliation, objectification and other BDSM adventures.

Shadowen Captain America is not a Republican; also lots of Clint/Phil, such as Friendly Fire - "Damages incurred do not decrease value" Badfinch (podfics) Thorns for Flowers deals with ableism from the Avengers around Matt's blindness. None So Blind also does, with the assumption Matt is illiterate. In Double Blind, the Avengers think Daredevil gets blinded in a fight and they try to help with the imagined fallout. Tony's the only one that can see wings in The Winged Soul. BadFinch also has great bookmarks with themes like Secretly!Asexual Tony in grey and other colours; Secretly!Deaf Tony in The More Things Change; Brett assuming Matt's being abused in A New York Cop, Scifigrl47 writes funny and fluffy fics. Three series' they've penned are The Toasterverse; In Which Tony Stark Builds Himself Some Friends (But His Family was Assigned by Nick Fury), and Tales of the Bots. NotEvenCloseToStaight writes lots of WinterIron and Tony/Bucky/Steve fics. Falling has MCU-Tony transported to a BDSM au and falling in love with Stucky. It's Our Pleasure has old-world-protocol sub Tony being rescued by respectful and loving Stucky. The Stories We Write has Tony secretly writing reader-insert fanfiction to deal with falling in love with Stucky. A Valentines Day Rescue has Stucky rescuing Tony from an abusive Ty at a diner. KetchupCrisp You Great Unfinished Symphony has MCU-Tony transported to a different BDSM au where he was the team's sub. They also have a hurt-comfort LittleTony series and a lot of great bookmarks. Nonymos bene castigat series - "Going to a professional Dom may be one of the weirdest things Bucky’s ever done. Especially since this skinny Steve Rogers guy doesn’t really look the part." drawn into something series - Eddie Brock and his bdsm alien foursome. RiotFalling has so many Tony-centric D/s fics. Featuring praise kink, consensual somnophilia, cuddles and aftercare and just generally soft loveliness. They also have great bookmarks.

[trulycertain]

I see you are rewatching Daredevil, and I was curious of what you think of the ableism in the characters themselves (because we all know how bad the show messes up itself). Personally, I find some of the actions of the characters pretty ableist at times (like Foggy asking if Matt, his friend of many many years, was lying about being blind after finding out he's a viglante. Or Karen and Claire asking him about his disability rather intrusively at times).

Oh, this is a really good question! And I also think it’s one I’m not really qualified to answer. But I’ll try, from my perspective. 

I think the characters in DD are meant to be flawed, and you’re right, ableism is absolutely one of those flaws. I feel like in Foggy’s case in particular, we’re meant to know that it’s a cruel thing to do, not a neutral action. The “Are you even really blind?” is when we’re seeing Foggy at his most horrified and hurt and furious, in an absolute crisis situation, and he’s both questioning everything he ever knew and going for a below-the-belt shot. (But it does matter that his mind stuck there so quickly. I think the ableism is in how he can get his head around everything else, nearly, but it takes a good while to work out the whole “Blind? Not?” thing. Not just the logistics, but in how far he’s reassessing how he relates to Matt.) And notice that we get a reaction shot at that point so we can see exactly how much that question hurts Matt. See also: “And to think all these years, I felt sorry for you,” which to me is the worst part of all that, and is the show very intentionally twisting the knife and going, Hey, you’re seeing this guy at his worst. From anyone else, Matt’d maybe smile and nod and then rip ‘em apart in court, but it’s his best friend of years, someone he doesn’t want to hurt, even though you can see him getting hurt and frustrated and wanting desperately to defend himself throughout that conversation.

But yeah, there’s plenty of well-meaning but awkward and, probably for Matt pretty isolating, fumbling in the show. Even putting aside how the guys met at Columbia (I’m gonna take Matt at his word that he’d rather have the honesty and have a laugh than people not knowing what to say round him), you have, yup... Karen and Claire. And Elektra, later on. I think that we’re meant to see Karen’s questions as her being overly, intrusively fascinated with Matt in general, and making it obvious she has a thing for him that can seen from space, but with the nature of her questions and how they contrast with the way the show chooses to matter-of-factly show Matt’s braille labels and display and all his gear, and everything else he does, and not linger or have long-winded audience-surrogate explanations about them... I feel like it’s meant to come off a little weird. Even Foggy raises an eyebrow and a half. And both of them acknowledge that they probably shouldn’t be fascinated by all this, so if push comes to shove, I think the characters would probably call it ableist too. Claire’s questions are sometimes medical, but I think mostly about trying to understand the superpowers, and while I get frustrated at “But what does that... look like?” - nothing, Claire, the answer is probably nothing and it’s going to be a metaphor for his mind’s eye, and trying to put it in sighted terms means you’ll always be scrabbling for answers - I feel like she’s the most matter-of-fact person about this. Though she does have her moments. (”I met a blind man who can see.”)

I’d also argue Matt has some serious internalised stuff going on, though that’d probably take a post on its own to talk about and I’m even less qualified there, and it’s not treated as a character flaw in the same way, because his arc is different to the secondaries’. Anyhow.

I think in general, there’s an interest in examining character flaws throughout DD, and you having to get past them or make peace with them to really jive with the show - Matt’s tendency towards violence to solve a problem, and sometimes putting The Mission ahead of individuals; Karen not being honest with people at times when she needs to, because she’s used to not being believed; Foggy trying desperately to balance his friendship with Matt and his own needs and running the firm... For instance, if you apply real-world logic, the show breaks for you, because vigilantism inherently tends to fall apart in real life. You kind of have to run with it. So on. I think this is meant to parallel the characters themselves trying to make peace with those flaws, and is a way of getting you into their heads. The show is trying to ask you uncomfortable questions at times; it’s just whether it pulls it off. The narrative treats the characters’ instances of ableism as one of these questions, in my opinion. And whether it should - this is where I pause.

This is why I say that, for all that above, I’m not exactly qualified: I’m sighted, and I think the show presumes a sighted audience. (And I bet there’s a ton of stuff I’ve missed.) I feel like the show does treat these instances as ableism, with one problem: it also shows this ableism as a forgivable flaw. And one’s mileage is going to vary hugely on that. There seems to be an assumption none of this will be a dealbreaker. And while it isn’t a dealbreaker for me, I can absolutely see it being for someone else - whether that’s someone who’s sighted but just can’t get past these character flaws, or whether it’s someone who’s actually had to deal with some of this sort of shit, or whether it’s someone who hasn’t had to deal with this shit but fears it. Or you might be dealing with all of that and it might not be a dealbreaker at all. I know a few fans of the show and these characters who aren’t sighted, and they’re legit too. Depends on the person.

[ultraclops]

I told ya

Days 7 and 8: Struggles & Freedom!

This one is based on my own experiences as an ace person, so I'm gonna slap a content warning for aphobia on this one.

[CW: Aphobia, s*x mention, ableism]

[Note: the red text boxes aren't any canon character, they just represent negativity towards aspec people]

[Dialogue transcript:

How do you know you're ace if you haven't had s*x?

But you'll have to have s*x some time!

You'll get over it eventually.

A relationship without s*x is meaningless!

Do you even love?

You just need to find that special someone!

But you're too attractive to be ace!

SCREW Y'ALL!

I'M ACE AND PROUD!

End transcript]

As I said in the intro, this comic is inspired by my experiences as an ace person. For a long as I can remember I've never felt s*xual attraction, nor enjoyed anything related to s*x (such as smut, NSFW art, mature movies, etc.). At first I thought it was normal, until I realized everyone else didn't feel the same way as I did. At first I figured it may be due to my neurodiversity, but my siblings are neurodivergent and they experience s*xual attraction. That's when I discovered that I was asexual!

The first person I openly told I was ace was a therapist I had while I was in foster care. She proceeded to invalidate me, saying that I'd just get over it and that I'd have to have s*x some time. It pained me to be utterly ridiculed by someone who's job was to make me feel better - but then again, this was the same woman who told me straight to my face that I couldn't possibly have PTSD because I was only physically abused for 16 years and she saw her best friend die in a car accident. Trauma ain't a goddamn contest, people.

I've seen plenty of aphobia online and offline, such as people framing our sexuality as if it's a "choice", something we'll "grow out of" or that we'll change our minds if we meet "that someone". I didn't make the choice to be born without s*xual attraction. I'm 20 - going on 21 - and I'm still asexual. I've dated like 3 guys in my lifetime, and - guess what! - I'm still asexual. It's exhausting to see other LGBT+ people spew out the same rhetoric against aspecs that was used against gay, lesbian, bi, pan, trans and nonbinary people without so much as thinking "Hey, isn't this a little f*cked up?"

So you know what? I'm ace. I'm s*x-repulsed and abstinent. My orientation isn't a decision that I can just change on a whim. S*x =/= love, LOVE = love. I'm ace, and I'm goddamn proud of it!

Tangent over, now why I chose Mao specifically:

Hehehehe projecting onto comfort character go brrrrrr

Mao doesn't really seem like the type of guy to be preoccupied with the thought of starting a family or anything along those lines - if anything he's just focused on becoming a legend, and the only family he makes is the family he finds along the way. He treats Adorabat like his own daughter and expresses grief when she's hurt or taken away from him, even if she's not his flesh-and-blood.

In Meet Tanya Keys, when Tanya keeps mock-flirting with him he barely reacts - if anything, he looks uncomfortable. He does blush briefly when Adorabat asks if he likes Tanya, but that doesn't exactly mean that they dated in the past - he's blushed out of embarrassment several times prior to this episode. Before you go "He told the King he loved him!" or "Then why couldn't he stop thinking about BC?", love =/= s*x. Also in Enemy Mime he makes fun of BC for flirting with the Mimic Blob sooo–

Not to be stereotypical or anything but I just really think it fits his straightforward, no-nonsense personality. "Why would I do that when there's monsters to slay, criminals to capture and people to save?" is probably his modus operandi

Literally the only suggestive joke he makes is about a tray of cobbler. I'm not saying ace people don't make s*x jokes (because I do too sometimes) but if this guy only jokes about screwing cobbler what makes you think he'll screw another person

Tangent no. 2, aside, had fun on this! Had fun on all my art for this contest honestly, but this one especially because purple and katana. I'm an ace that loves purple and katanas. I'm a walking stereotype.

Also for the bottom pose, I referenced the scene from Weapon Of Choice when he uses the Lunar Lash for the second time! Nice image 👌

[makiruz]

So in The Legend of Genji fanproject, the deal is that the White Lotus couldn’t found the Avatar so they made a fake one to avoid panic and now the real Avatar is running around doing stuff.

This is kinda like my AU idea of what if Kuvira had won; my Earth Avatar is an autistic young woman, so I imagined that Kuvira goes to find the Earth Avatar in the years following Korra’s death in order to control them, and one of the candidates is a clearly disabled toddler so she ignores her because the Avatar can’t possibly a r-word girl, right? Well jokes on you! That girl was the Avatar and now she’s gonna grow up to overthrow you because you were ableist slime.

Anyway, I was thinking you could actually do something similar in canon, where the White Lotus missed the Avatar because she’s developmentally disabled so they make a fake one; but then I had an even better idea: the White Lotus knows exactly who the Avatar is and since she is developmentally disabled they decide to make a fake Avatar because they can’t have the Avatar be a r-word girl (and the fake Avatar is a light-skinned boy because I’m making a point).

They even justify themselves saying that since the Avatar, let’s call her Jun, is autistic she can’t possibly handle the pressures of keeping the balance of the world; they’re doing her a favor really! That’s how they justify to the fake Avatar, let’s call him Qin, he honestly thinks he’s doing a good thing by pretending to be the Avatar when he’s not (that’s the thing about ableism, that a lot of people think they’re doing us a favor).

The Avatar of course does not think being gaslighted and lied to due to her disability is doing her favor; in fact, she is furious: I am not broken, I am not wrong, I am perfectly capable to be the Avatar, you ass. Jun realized she was the Avatar on her own when she was maybe 12 or 13 and accidentally started firebending, initially she could play with candles and shit (and it was a fantastic stimming) but eventually she learned that was firebending and went “wait”; later she tried bending Air and Water and managed and bit and was confused because the Avatar was that boy from Ba Sing Se, right? But with time she realized that that old guy who came to see her from time to time was a White Lotus member and eventually put two and two together and understood she was being deliberately misled about her identity and now she wants blood.

Naturally autistic girl claiming the Avatar everyone knows is a fake is not very believable, so Jun and her family (her parents weren’t on it) spend approximately 3 years trying to get someone to pay attention to her, but the governments were kinda in on it, and don’t really want the bad press so they suppress the story. Eventually Jun is like “fuck it! I’m doing my own Avatar journey!” And goes to the Fire Nation to learn firebending on her own and this is where she gets attention because she can actually bend more than 1 element, and people start noticing that they have never seen Avatar Qin bend fire in public. Basically my idea is that Jun creates her own Avatar team (mostly disabled) and they created a storm on social media, and it’s a scandal, because most people don’t want to have their preconceptions shaken, but plenty are willing to believe the authorities would hide the Avatar if they were disabled, disability advocates are all over this in a nano-second.

Also Jun does totally threaten to beat up the Faker in social media. Well, actually she challenges him to a duel to prove who’s the real Avatar, but does it in a way that you can tell she mostly plans to beat him up; which she can and Qin knows it and he’s quacking alongside the White Lotus. Now you might be asking “did they think Jun would never find out she’s the Avatar?” and yes, that’s exactly what they thought, they assumed her being disabled meant she was too stupid to discover her abilities, and it wouldn’t be a problem; one of them literally says “I like her better when she couldn’t speak” (Jun is semi-verbal, she can talk, but it’s difficult and she started late).

[janiedean]

you: complain people only ship sansa wit hot men and call em shallow you: never write smut of sansa in the ships u defend as not shallow but instead write lot of jb smut uhhhhhm

my dearest anon, I would quite like to point out to you that your reasoning is entirely not logical/consequential and that your argumentation honestly is... something, because first of all I never complain that people only shipped sansa with hot guys. sansan was the most popular asoiaf ship back in the day and it’s not like sanrion doesn’t have numbers, like... I never said people don’t ship sansa with nothot guys the way I was like ‘yeah but no one writes jonsam’ back in the day. I was specifically discussing the fact that a lot people who don’t ship either sansan or sanrion go harassing the shippers because they’re supposedly shipping smth horribly problematic when their own ships are problematic for the exact same reasons (see: if you complain sandor or tyrion are too old but then ship sansa/jaime when jaime is older than both of the other your argument makes no sense) and when they’re problematic for other reasons that they downplay it (I mean you can tell me that sansan is problematic for a shitload of reasons I can raise you that j*nsa is incest in two different ways) therefore creating a shit fandom climate where if you ship sansa with either sandor or tyrion and you have plenty of textual reasons to that grrm has put there then you get told you hate sansa or don’t understand the text... when then a lot of those other shippers basically grab the stuff your ship is about and applies it to theirs when it makes no sense instead of just liking theirs for what it is. also sorry but no one wants to get told that their own thing is ohsohorribleandproblematic by people who sanitize stuff that’s problematic af from the get go (see: sansamarg), but what have you.

I also never discussed the issue of writing smut and I don’t get what jb has to do with it - is it because you mean ‘you write porn just including hot guys and not sandor and tyrion’, because then you didn’t go on my ao3 where I have at least three sansan smut pieces [and I write sansan less than jb because back in the day sansan was wildly popular and jb was not and I happen to be more interested in jb and I leave sansan to people who have their main interest there but it doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it when I have the right idea!] there, > da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, somebody to love, for your sweet kiss is all I wish to be owning :) and I wrote porn with sandor and jaime too at some point just fyi, and when it comes to tyrion... surprise, as I ship sansan and I only write sanrion on request/for friends (because again... sansan is my main sansa ship and I like sanrion and I’d be entirely okay if it was endgame but it’s not a ship I have IDEAS™ for) I don’t generally go there for smut buuut.... spoilers, my #1 tyrion ship is with bronn not with sansa and *checks* out of the three fics rated explicit on that tag where they’re the main ship two are mine and I wrote it also not explicit so like I don’t think you can go and say I don’t write porn with tyrion, I do... just with someone I ship him with more than sansa X°DDDDDD and again my problem isn’t the porn quantity for whichever ship, my problem is that going around saying that us or sanrion shippers are perverts bc we dare ship sansa with supposedly gross old men when calling gross two guys who a) are disabled b) have trauma c) were actually better to her than anyone else that wasn’t related to her is admittedly iffy and reeks of ableism a whole damned lot doesn’t make you look progressive. nor it makes you look progressive saying that theon is a good alternative for her bc he can’t hurt her and they’re referencing to that thing that’s only show canon which honestly.... if you say that a dude wouldn’t hurt a woman because someone castrated him while torturing him it’s not the progressive take anyone thinks it is and I’m going to leave it there because idt it needs further explaining honestly

and the fact that I write a lot of jb smut has no relation to any of this because guess what... it’s my m/f otp for these books and the m/f thing I shipped more in my entire life never mind the only one I ever found one character in relatable for personal reasons so of course I’ll write it more than others? and it has absolutely zero relation to however much porn I write for other ships X°D anon honestly if you want to argue at least read my actual argument? because this isn’t the jonsam situation where we all know that if sam was standard hot nerd the ao3 tag wouldn’t be stuck at 132 fics, it’s something else entirely X°D

[moved-attre]

Rewriting Cyberpunk 2077 into a bullet point list! LET’S GO!

(Disclaimer: I’m trying to be realistic. So no, “every single detail of the game changes based upon every single choice V makes” but just things I expected in an RPG from an AAA company in 2020. I take a lot of inspiration from the old trailers, and rumors of pre-2018 development.)

And this is really long, too. Sorry. 😜

Okay, so first off: Act 1 generally goes off the same as it does in canon. I’m open to other ideas, but I don’t think it’s a bad starting point. I do think V and Jackie should have had more time together, doing smaller jobs until Dex calls. Like, there should’ve been side jobs that were only available in Act 1. You have to get a minimum of 5 street cred before you get the conversation with Jackie about Dex.

The heist still goes to shit; Yorinobu kills his father, Takemura rebels against him and Arasaka factions split. V inserts the chip into their head, Jackie still dies and Dex shoots V in the head. Takemura rescues V, kills Dex, V wakes up in Vik’s and is told they have 4 months to live. (2 weeks is not enough!)

On to Act 2! The origins actually affect the game, so there’s three versions of it you can play. (Some things happen regardless of the origin, though.) For example: Corpo V has contacts in the Corpo world and pursues leads about the Relic there through their old friends. Street Kid V has contacts in the gangs, like the Valentinos or Maelstrom, who have dirty dealings with corporations and can get V in on Arasaka knowledge, Nomad V has leads out in the badlands about the corporations and gets in that way, hijacking transports to get some info. All origins can work with the corporations (like Hanako’s branch of Arasaka, Militech, Biotechnia, etc.) or against them. Like, the point is to snoop around the corporations and dig up some dirt on the Relic and Yorinobu’s Arasaka branch specifically but each origin goes about it differently?

Maelstrom vs Meredith Stout choice actually matters. It’s one point in a subplot I mentioned above, where V continually makes choices on whether they’re gonna side with the corporations or the gangs/people of NC against Arasaka in order to be rid of the Relic. Also affects V’s relationship with Johnny. You can also have a real, long term relationship with Meredith if you pick her side and get Militech support, or count on Maelstrom to help you in the main plot against Arasaka. Both sides will still attack V if they poke their nose in, meaning random encounters can still happen.

^ The subplot is like, making a deal with the devils (The corpos) or... other devils (The gangs). One person objectively could say one is better than the other, but they’re both awful. Night City is kind of rotten to the core, and V’s problems can’t be fixed by a pursuit of justice. V can still be a good person in either case, and it’s still kept kind of punk by going against the head honchos. I think this more suits the “Wake the fuck up, Samurai. We have a city to burn.” quote because V is churning up a path to the top, even if their methods are purely selfish. V themselves can be uninterested in righting wrongs, but they kind of turn NC on its head by challenging Arasaka so changes come anyway.

Point, is you fuck everything up either way. THEN, V can choose whether to trust the corporations and work with Hanako to “change the system from within” without disrupting people’s day-to-day lives (short term good choice I suppose?) or to let the gangs rise up and cause total anarchy. (long term good? since the downtrodden are rising up and maybe there shouldn’t be absolute power in the hands of a few.)

T-Bug doesn’t die. V thinks she’s dead, but sometime in Act 2 gets an anonymous call and meets up with T-Bug. She went underground after the botched heist, and isn’t eager to work with V again. Maybe you do a few missions with her, and she comes around? Or you fuck up and never hear from her again. I imagine she’d love to poke around at the Relic, if V helps her.

Giving Jackie’s body to Vik has real consequences. If you give his body to his mother, you attend the ofrenda and get his bike, his mom allows you to use his den as a place to stay... It’s basically the ‘good’ choice, if you care about the characters. If you give his body to Vik, you unlock a side mission where Arasaka steals his body to find the relic. You have to go and find it but it was destroyed(?) at some point by Arasaka. You can get his pistols (Which are, aside from Johnny’s pistol, the best weapons in the game. I don’t get why they aren’t in canon...) in this route and whole lotta angst, so his mom basically hates you because she blames you for not being able to bury her son and the bar is off limits. No getting the bike, either.

More content involving Alt Cunningham. V still witnesses the scene with her and Johnny, her kidnapping and death. But, Ghost AI Alt allows V to look into Alt’s memories for information on Mikoshi. V accidentally accesses some more personal memories. We can see Alt as more of a fleshed out actual person, not just a tragic backstory for Johnny. Some of the memories do involve Johnny, and the tone is very different from her perspective. We see that Alt has genuine affection for him, but Johnny is possessive and abusive... It’s far from the relationship Johnny recalls. Of course, Johnny can see all this too since he lives in V’s head. He and V have a heart to heart afterwards, with Johnny realising how badly he treated Alt and yeah. I wasn’t satisfied with how Alt was just used as a sob story for Johnny, but I was sent an ask by an anonymous person about how the memory was from his perspective and thus biased. It really got me thinking! If I was more creative, I’d come up with a way for Alt to live... But Johnny still needs to bomb Arasaka and Alt’s death was the reason why he did that.

You have to return one of your apartments/safe houses every few days to wash and sleep. If not, V will get a penalty that means they are less accurate when aiming and slower when breaking in a vehicle. Also some NPC’s will refuse to talk to you if you don’t bathe, because... stinky.

And you have to eat! Otherwise you get hungry, and get penalties for that too. Can’t concentrate on an empty stomach. I’d say eating once or twice a day would be enough.

Instead of fast travel points (that are supposed to be taxi services, I think...? But we never see a taxi! And why can’t we just call Del? Ugh.), V takes the metro. There are side missions that can sometimes only start once you get on or off of a train. (You meet NPC’s in the train, or waiting for one.)

Takemura and Johnny are romance options, and are available for all genders. They’re the most difficult to romance, with some (kind of obvious) dialogue choices ending the possibility. Like, for example: Takemura’s romance ends badly if you choose to go against the corporations, and Johnny’s ends badly if you go with the corporations. It’s the same with Meredith, essentially, in that going against her won’t allow you to romance her. I know a rival-mance system is possible, but I think that might be too complicated.

Takemura and V’s relationship is much, much deeper. They have more time together, and grow closer. Takemura trains V in combat, and takes over from Coach Fred in the street fights side missions. You go with Takemura to fights, he’s your coach, is very proud when you win. (He’s basically training V in the event that they have to take on Adam Smasher and Oda. Like, why did we have no training montages with Takemura?!) V is able to choose romance or stay friends with him. There’s plenty more missions with Takemura too, mainly espionage stuff against Yorinobu. Finding out his weaknesses, replacing his staff with people that are loyal to Hanako, digging for dirt on him. Lots of stake outs, hehe. 😉 Romance!™️ Also makes it that much more tragic if V doesn’t choose to trust the corporations, since Takemura will end things and leave NC.

There are garages to upgrade your cars but Panam can upgrade it further if you do her missions + befriend her, and you can find super secret parts for your cars that Panam needs all around NC by stealing them from gangs or Corpos! Like, make your car go 200 mph fast or a setting to make it hover. 😎

FOUND FAMILY TROPE... Involving the LI’s + more characters. I wanted Misty, Vik, Judy, Panam, River and Kerry to all know each other and be friends. Also, somewhere for them to hang out. Judy coming down and hanging out with Misty and Vik would’ve been so cool.

Missions involving Vik. I think he deserved his own personal missions. Also, he’s gotta be romanceable! I’ll add more to this later.

I’m still figuring out how Johnny’s romance would go. It’s a tricky one. Lots of tension, jealously if V flirts with anybody... Heart to hearts... Holding hands... Passive aggressive confessions of love...

River is introduced in the main story. Maybe you team up to hunt down somebody who knows stuff about the Relic, like Anders Hellman, or something else to do with it. River’s like “What the fuck is going on?” but V doesn’t really tell him. Then, of course, you meet him later on and recognise him in the BD given to you by Jefferson.

Meeting Kerry earlier in the story, say mid Act 2? Ideally there would have been 5 Acts, and maybe I’ll edit this to include more once I figure out how the story could have gone. AND he’s part of the main story.

Less generic, “get in, get item and get out” side missions from Fixers and more side missions like the Peralez’s and that guy who got crucified. More freaky Cyberpunk subjects like what constitutes a soul, what is “intelligence” (What makes a machine different than a human? Without shitty false racism analogies), human rights abuses (and in that: classism, racism, ableism, transphobia), pollution, more on “Cyberpsychos” and how harmful that term is, etc. Nauced and thought-provoking. Reminding us that this is a dystopia and the issues are different but not all that wildly so from today. I would’ve developed Brendan’s mission more, because it seemed like we were going to see an earnest discussion on Artificial Intelligence but instead it was just confusing and “Haha, tricked you!” 🥱 Like, what if he really was a person capable of free thought and emotion? And that company still owns him and can overwrite him? Isn’t that fucked up?! It didn’t need a happy ending, just something to unnerve me.

Adding to that, Delamain had plenty of opportunities to discuss AI and the rights of individual contructs. His “children” could be freed, but nothing really happens as a result? I wanted consequences! The emails about human staff being made redundant because of Delamain were so interesting, too. I wanted to see something about the consequences of that in a city with no basic universal income. What happened to them? What can be done to help people who are made redundant by machines? So many possibilities for truly emotional and scary side missions!

I’m gonna watch black mirror for more inspiration, but stuff like the IRL blocking feature? Freaky as hell and totally plausible. Would’ve loved if one of the side missions involved V getting involved in some dispute involving something like that. “I can’t see his face!” or the copyright stuff about people’s appearances! Imagine if there was a Johnny lookalike? Engram Johnny would either find it hilarious or get really pissed off.

I’m hoping the DLC will deliver on more Takemura, so I’ll hold my breath for critiquing the Arasaka ending.

More to come! I’ll probably edit this later, if there’s any mistakes and/or I realise I hate an idea hehe.