#internalized ableism mention

[ndcultureis]

Autism culture is not feeling things in the normal way and hating yourself for it

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[transintellectualistic]

I’m diagnosed as autistic, but I choose to label myself as transautistic despite that.

My childhood abuser used my diagnosis against me as justification for why she was hurting me. Even after I finally escaped from her I spent years hating myself and trying to convince myself I was one of the Good, Smart Neurodivergents who only had “high-functioning Asperger’s” and was “above being autistic”.

When autistic regression ate me alive at age 14 I very quickly abandoned that line of thinking. I’m 19 now and still coming to terms with the fact that I’ve been masking who I am for essentially my whole life.

Fuck that shit.

Being openly autistic in a world that is hostile to our existence is a beautiful thing. I want to unmask. I’m not “high-functioning”, I’m not “quirky”, I’m not “basically neurotypical”, and I will do everything in my power to make sure society cannot fucking interpret me in that way.

If outwardly presenting myself as a man to the public is gender transitioning, then outwardly presenting myself as autistic is autism transitioning.

I might have been autistic before, but nearly two decades later I’m only truly becoming Autistic now.

I am transautistic.

[solazu1]

[madlencen]

Comic accurate Moon Knight representation but at what cost?

[mutodaes]

Ableist self doubt is truly something else. 15 year old me jumped through a lot of guilt and hoops to justify not taking care and listening to my body. My late mother, a recent amputee, was struggling significantly worse when it came to mobility and chronic pain. It led to me viewing any sort of comradery with her as evil, selfish, and tainted because she needed a wheelchair to have any sort of autonomy, while I only "wanted" one for when I felt "weak".

In reality, disability is a spectrum. Just because my mother was entirely reliant on mobility devices shouldn't mean I should deprive myself of them. It genuinely wasn't until I watched Arcane that I started using my cane when I struggled to walk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[almostfini]

Brain bad, body potato

One of the things I struggle most to unlearn is the toxic punishment-driven, Almond Mom culture that was drilled into me growing up.

I have a mitochondrial disorder (I always say if the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell for healthy people then I have a potato battery). My body produces energy about, no exaggeration, 17x slower than it should which means I run out of it really really easily. Simple tasks like eating or going to the toilet are exhausting and if I overdo it i can become fully bedbound for weeks.

So I know that I need to ration my energy, right? And I've got a lot better at it over the years but I still find myself doing things harder than they need to be because I was taught shit like "stand while you eat so you don't reward yourself with food while you rest", "keep your stomach muscles tense at all times so you burn calories passively". That stuff was never healthy but it's actively dangerous for my disease.

But I've noticed it's extra hard to be aware of falling into old patterns when I'm really fatigued, which is when I need to be most mindful of it.

[nonbinary-wyvern]

my hip has been starting to hurt so much that i might need to start using a cane to help me walk but i feel really guilty about it? like, i only need it some days and I'm not actually disabled and i shouldn't use this thing that is for disabled people just because i have a little pain sometimes and i know that i should just in case i cause/get(???) further damage on my hip but i still have this guilt.....arghhg it's driving me insane. plus, i don't even know how to use a cane?? and i know that it's not just the way i sit or walk or stand because I've done so many things to try and stetch the muscle or stand sit walk different and it still hurtss. I've had to limp a lot. and it's like a recent thing?? it started like two months ago. it doesn't happen to either of my parents nor did it happen when they were my age.

and i just know that the people I'm near everyday are going to mock me for it and try and do something about it (in a violent way)

[devolusion]

it's become relevant recently, so i wanted to put a proper breakdown of elysia's body and how her prostheses work, as well as a bit about her relationship to her organic body ( since i've already talked about her relationship to her prostheses ). a lot of this is influenced by existing technology, but a lot of it is also me leaning into the fantasy aspect of the universe, so keep that in mind!

at the highest level, ely's entire left arm, the front of their chest and most of their internal organs that would be housed in said chest are prostheses. elysia built them all herself, and has been refining them for years — her first version was created when she was sixteen and on a terrible time crunch, so admittedly much of the tech was comparatively rudimentary. at this point, her body is extremely advanced. more advanced than anything the fatui have built, much to their chagrin.

getting into specific — elysia's ribs are all reinforced metal at this point, and they've reinforced the front of their spine as well. most of their ribs are "shorter" than organic ones to give elysia more room to fuck with their internals; they don't reach all the way around. their sternum and collarbone are combination of metal and bone. most of the remaining muscle in their chest is organic, but much of it is supplemented with mechanical parts, and they're missing chunks of muscle that they either couldn't rebuild or which weren't necessary once they redesigned their ribs. their entire right lung, much of their left lung, their liver, their heart, their gallbladder, much of their pancreas, most of their stomach, and about half of their intestines are all artificial. she lacks internal reproductive organs entirely, as well as an appendix. many of these organs don't look much like their organic counterparts; elysia has designed them to be more efficient / require less bloodflow to function / be smaller / etc.

the biggest difference is how their heart works and handles bloodflow. their heart doesn't 'beat' — it provides a steady, continual flow of blood, though ely still feels a phantom heartbeat / a phantom pulse. their blood moves through their body at a slightly faster rate than a human at resting heart rate, but their heart rate cannot 'spike' when panicked. that being said, it can still increase blood flow to areas that need it; the way your arms get more blood when you're exerting them, so do ely's, and it will move faster if ely is trying to get more oxygen or the like.

most of ely's veins are organic, but major connectors between organs are made of a fleshy substance ely developed that acts closer to what you might consider IV lines. this makes it easier to ely to "pinch one off," so to speak, disrupting blood flow to an organ they need to remove / replace / fix / etc. their body is designed so that each part of it can function without the other parts to the extent that that is feasible.

all of this tech is housed within their chest — their back is all organic, but their outer chest is made up of metal paneling. the two primary panels can be opened up like a cabinet to reveal muscles and organs, enabling them to easily make adjustments. the metalic parts are smooth, matte white, and wrap around the bottom half of their neck, cover most of their collarbone — though not their shoulders — and extend just short of the ends of their ribs. their back is still completely organic.

in the center of their chest, they also have something not unlike a "keyhole" — people who've seen elysia use their firearms will know that the keyhole looks roughly the same size as the elemental cartridges they've built to power said firearms. elysia has also designed their body to able to process and use their elemental cartridges in the event of an emergency if they don't have access to their guns, though elysia dislikes using this ability for a variety of reasons. they don't like turning their body into a weapon, and using the cartridges in their body also necessitates revealing that they're not all organic in a way that's dangerous for them.

that being said, when they DO use these abilities, they shove the cartridge into their chest, and their body processes the energy within, converts it to the appropriate elemental type, and feeds that elemental energy into their arm, allowing it to act as a canon ( or other things, the cannon is just most common ). their body stores most of the information about how this conversion is done behind most of their organs, closer to their spine. it looks a bit like the marks on circuitboards in a computer, thought obviously significant more advanced. the internal "logic" is clear to elysia and would be to most who are extensively familiar with engineering were they to see it, though it's originality is all - elysia and no one else has designed as efficient a way to store and use elemental energy without a vision, let alone inside a body without destroying it. it was a real bitch to install.

she has built the equivalent of nerves into her body, externally and internally, where appropriate to ensure she can tell when she's being touched, but tried to keep them limited enough that she's unlikely to be completely debilitated by damage to her prostheses. that being said, she built them with the idea of "i need to be aware when i'm hit in a fight, but i don't want to be in too much pain to function if it's bad," but not with edge cases like actual torture in mind — if someone was, let's say, vivisect her, that would still hurt a fucking lot. and the organic muscles in their body can hurt as much as any other person's.

the rest of her body is covered in scars ( most from the same event that lost them their arm and chest ), and she isn't particularly anxious about them. that being said, she is noticeably protective of their organic body, and while she's not precious about minor wounds, will go out of their way to avoid major ones and get visibly anxious should she feel like she's at risk of, say, breaking a bone in her leg, let alone actually losing any more limbs. little frightens her more than that. elysia, particularly when her mental health is bad, tends to view her organic body as the "real her" and she's terrified to lose any more of it.

[quantumdeath-possibility]

when you're a textbook example of a "confused girl" according to terfs i.e. autistic, traumatized, mentally ill, SA-ed as a child and etc etc so you live in a constant state of a battle with yourself trying to figure out if you really are trans or just trying to escape your body and dissociate from your "true self" as much as possible

[mixed-origin-culture-is]

Tw: internalized ableism (I think that’s the right term?)/mention of syscourse

Mixed origin traumagenic/endogenic culture is identifying primarily with the endogenic origins as most of us are endogenic, and thus feeling like we can’t use any traumagenic terms because we’d be “stealing” them from the traumagenic community.

And also constantly seeing anti-endo posts and getting so emotionally worn out from it and from being told we don’t exist because “endos aren’t real” and being sent into spirals of doubt because of it.

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[alicewritingstories]

Whumptober Prompt Fills Part 9: Breath

~Also on AO3~

No. 15: “I don’t need you to help me I can handle things myself.” | Makeshift Bandages | Suppressed Suffering | “I’m fine.”

No. 24: “I’ve got a head full of chemicals; mouth full of ridicule.” | Goodbye Note | Neglect | “I thought they were with you.”

No. 31: “I thought that I was getting better.” | Emptiness | Setbacks | “Take it easy.”

Warning: Brief mention of alcohol use, chronic cardiac and respiratory issues, internalized ableism

Central character(s): Sky, Twilight

As the stars were coming out and the last echoes of the Picori Festival's fireworks display were fading away, the Chain started to drift back together at their chosen campsite in the forest. Tomorrow they would travel on to visit Four's grandfather - Four had gone on ahead with his father to give him some time with his family before his other family descended on them - but tonight would be spent under the stars as usual.

The chatter among the little group was lively as they compared their experiences. Warriors was flushed and slightly giggly, relaxed after the entire bottle of something alcoholic that he'd drunk during the fireworks. Wind, meanwhile, couldn't stop showing off the beautifully-crafted knife he'd won, tripping over his words as he admired it and related his triumph in a quoits-throwing contest.

Twilight heard Legend drop the good-natured observation in Warriors' ear that the young hero really shouldn't have been allowed to join contests alongside ordinary children, but he agreed as Warriors said sleepily that it was good to see Wind act like a child for once.

"What did you do with Sky, Twilight?" asked Wild suddenly, looking up from where he was laying out ingredients for dinner.

Twilight looked at him in confusion. "Me?" he asked and looked over at Time, who was also looking confused.

"I thought Sky was with you, Wild," said Time. "I was about to ask you the same question."

Twilight blinked. "I thought he was with you," he said. "Didn't you go looking for souvenirs for Malon and Sun?"

Time shook his head. "I thought he was going around the food stands with Wild."

"I didn't see him after we separated," said Wild, sitting back on his heels. "I thought he went to watch the horse races with Twilight."

Out of all their Hyrules, Four's was one of the safest, but that didn't mean a missing hero was something to be ignored. Time eased back to his feet with a soft groan and started putting his just-removed armor back on, saying, "He's probably fine, but let's go and check. Wind, Twilight, and Legend, check north, south, and east respectively; I'll take the west. Return in an hour even if you haven't found anything. Hyrule and Wild, stay here and finish setting up camp."

"Shall I check the elixir supply?" asked Wild seriously.

"I hope we won't need healing, but it's worth knowing. Likewise, Warriors, I hope we won't need you to be sober." Time chuckled as Warriors shot him an unfocussed look that he probably intended to be irritated. The remark lightened the anxiety that had been starting to thread through the air, but didn't take it away entirely and as Twilight set out into the darkening forest, heading for the south side of the town, he could feel it twisting somewhere in his gut. He was sure Sky hadn't followed him when he set out through the busy streets, following the sound of hoofbeats and cheering. He really thought he'd heard the other hylian agreeing when Time had said he was going to find a gift for Malon.

What if he'd been wrong and something had happened to Sky when he was separated from the group? How long had he been missing?

Twilight tried to push down the worry. If one of them was going to disappear for a few hours, this was one of the safer places for it to happen. Most likely they'd find that Sky had simply lost track of time or forgotten the rendezvous.

It wasn't like him to have forgotten, but it wasn't impossible in all the noise and excitement of the festival.

And was it more or less likely than that something had happened? There had been no sign of so much as a keese anywhere near the town, but it wouldn't be the first time a member of the Chain, taken unawares, had fallen victim to hylian enemies of one of his brothers. Four had as many enemies as any of them with the exception of Wild and Warriors, who had significantly more.

Twilight gritted his teeth. A crowded festival… someone would have noticed the fight Sky would have put up if attacked.

He was sure he'd gone alone to look at the horses.

He was sure Sky hadn't come with him.

He was sure that if something had happened it hadn't happened right behind him.

His thoughts were interrupted as he caught a familiar smell on the breeze and saw something white gleaming in the forest ahead. Perfume and a white sailcloth. With a gasp of relief, he broke into a jog, calling, "Sky!" as he saw the figure of his brother in the dim light, sitting on a tree stump, leaning his elbows on his knees.

Sky looked up and waved as Twilight heard the wheeze on his breath and realized how fast he was breathing.

"Sky," he said more seriously, crouching beside him. "Are you OK?"

Sky nodded, his hand to his chest, the wheeze more pronounced as he sat upright. "Fine. Sorry, I… know I'm… late."

He couldn't even make it through a sentence without losing breath.

"Are you hurt?"

"No. I'm fine. This happens… sometimes. The damp… makes it worse." Sky forced a grin. "And I made… the mistake… of dancing."

"I didn't know you danced," said Twilight.

"I love dancing." Sky coughed and wheezed. "Unfortunately. Used to be… easier."

Twilight nodded. He wasn't sure what was going on, but said, "Do you need anything?"

"Just to rest." Sky shook his head. Twilight thought he looked pale, but as he propped himself on his knees again his breath seemed to come a little easier.

"OK. It'll be a bit before anyone really worries, so take it easy."

Sky nodded, laying a hand on his chest and wincing. "I thought… I was handling… it. It was fun… to dance again. Even… alone."

"Hey, take it easy. You don't have to make excuses to me and you've not got the breath for much talking, so just say what you have to."

Sky nodded.

Twilight patted his shoulder. "Is this… a new problem?"

"Since… my adventure. Well… mostly."

"OK, tell me the rest later." But he couldn't help asking, "Is this why you can't run as fast or far as the rest of us?"

Sky nodded.

"Why don't you tell anyone that?"

"I'd rather be… made fun of… than treated… like I'm broken."

Twilight started to argue, but remembered he was supposed to be calming Sky down and letting him catch his breath.

Slowly, Sky's breathing steadied and quietened. He sat up and pressed two fingers to the pulse point in his own throat, then nodded.

"OK, I'm all right now," he said. "Let's go."

Still, when Twilight offered him an arm he accepted it to get up.

"You can tell them you found me asleep somewhere," he said with a small smile as they started walking.

"I'll tell them no such thing," said Twilight. "Nobody acts like Time is broken. Nobody's going to think less of you because sometimes you can't breathe right."

Sky shook his head. "I can manage. There's a reason you've not seen me that bad before. But if everyone knows my lungs are always heavy and my heart doesn't beat properly any more…"

"We already know you can't run as far or as fast. What do you think will change from knowing why?"

Sky scowled at the ground.

"If you really want, we can still tease you about being slow and sleepy, but -"

Sky jutted his chin proudly. "But you'll keep a better eye on me to make sure I'm OK? Keep a wing over me in case I fall?"

"Just like with Four when it's cold."

That hit home. Sky sighed, bowing his head. Twilight heard the last of the wheeze.

He put an arm around his shoulders. "Listen, you don't have to tell anyone anything you don't want to, but I'm not lying for you and I think you should tell the truth. Nobody thinks less of you for having scars from your adventure, any more than they do of Wild or… or any of us. It doesn't matter that yours aren't on the outside. Nobody will think you're broken or useless or anything else."

Sky was silent for a long moment, then he said, "I'll think about it."

Twilight hugged him gently and they walked on.

[dc-said-bi-robin-rights]

The first floor window of the Ranger HQ explodes outwards as Steel crashes through it, plummeting several feet in the air before hitting the ground, rolling, his armored fingers carving a line into the tarmac as he digs them into the ground to halt his momentum and rises to his feet. Above him, Blindspot walks forward calmly, his cape billowing behind him in the cold December wind as he looks down on his fallen enemy from the window ledge. He can feel the power rushing through the neon yellow veins of his armored suit as he clenches his fists, the simple action diverting all the excess power that isn’t being channeled into his telepathic boosters straight into his diamond-tipped knuckles. It was Mortum’s latest masterstroke: a strength upgrade that didn’t require any additional power storage. Just the action of curling his fingers into a fist would fill his gauntlets with excess power, power that would then be diverted elsewhere as soon as he uncurled them. He felt a chuckle coming on—he was gonna have to send the good doctor another check. It really was a brilliant workaround.

The roar of rushing air fills his ears, and he looks up to see a helicopter with the LDNW logo hovering overhead. He smirks beneath his helmet, raising a hand up to his eyes as their spotlight switches on, illuminating him in all his glory for their millions of viewers to see.

That was more than fine by him. Let them watch. Let the world watch their heroes be embarrassingly brought low, again and again, until they woke up to the truth that they didn’t protect anybody, least of all them.

He walks off the ledge and drops down onto the parking lot, shockwaves emanating from the fist he’d smashed against the ground, breaking the windows of all the cars around him and splashing him with glass shards as he rose to his feet. Another gift from Dr. Mortum, one that was as much for the drama and intimidation factor as it was for the usefulness that clearing a room of goons just with his landing represented. Armored as he was, Steel barely felt the shockwaves, of course… but the little trick was a godsend in front of the cameras, and there were few messages that weren’t enhanced by a visible display of power from the one who spoke it. Even now, he could imagine the viewers at home oooing and gasping at his little display. The thought amused him, and he wondered what the Breaking News! headline was saying at this very moment. He hoped it was something scary: an intimidating reputation was as valuable as a dozen fiery speeches, if not more so.

“I don’t want to fight you, Cyrus.” Chen’s voice was serious and stern, and as irritating to his little fantasies as the stubbornly conscious state of the man himself. Even with half his visor torn off and his breastplate dented almost beyond repair, the Marshal of Los Diablos refused to bend or break, even to a man he privately wasn’t sure could even be considered a villain. “You won’t enjoy what happens if you make me.”

“Cyrus Brown died in an ambulance, alone and abandoned.” Blindspot’s voice is a garbled mix of his real voice and the intimidating growls produced by his failing voice moderator. The effect is disturbing, and more than a little offsetting. “Or at least, that’s what you told the others, isn’t it? But you knew better.”

A flash of something indescribable passes over the half of Chen’s face not covered by the ripped visor. “I would take it back if I could.”

“But you can’t,” Blindspot hisses as he walks forward, fists clenching, power filling his hands, his armor’s pulsing veins glowing in the dark between the black plates. His own featureless faceplate was still intact, but visibly glitching, showing more of his snarling face than he was comfortable with. That hadn’t been part of the plan. He was meant to be the coldly gloating one, hiding his emotions behind the stark neon wall that was his faceplate and the echoing nothingness of his voice moderator as he threw out vicious taunts and condemnations. Steel wasn’t supposed to be able to see the savage hatred on his face, and he was especially not supposed to be able to hear the broken fury in his voice. That had always been his problem. He succumbed to anger too easily. “You can’t, can you? You can’t undo what they did to me!”

“I can make it right,” he growls, as close to pleading as he’ll ever get. “I can help you. I can keep you safe from them.”

“No one can keep me safe from them,” he says, taking a steadying breath pulling himself back into neutrality with great difficulty. Not for the first time, he’s glad news’ helicopters don’t typically come with long-range microphones. “Only I can do that.”

“And Ortega?” They’re circling now, watching each other for the slightest sign of weakness. “I know she cares for you. I know she’d believe you can put this behind you, like I do.”

“And let them get away with it?” Blindspot demands, disbelieving. “Let them do it again?! To me!? To others?!” He gave a harsh laugh. “I chose this path for a reason, marshal . Not that I’d expect you to know what that is.”

“A path?”

“A choice,” he corrects, mocking. “The military man, through and through. ‘Yes, sir’, ‘no sir’, ‘how high, sir’? ‘How deep, sir?’ ‘The whole thing or just the tip, sir?’”

Steel meets his eyes for a long moment. “From what I’ve heard, that sounds more like you.”

The next thing he knew, Blindspot was pummeling Steel, frothing with rage. If it had been Steel’s goal to provoke him into a hasty attack, it’d worked too well: his fist crashes into Steel’s broken visor, cracking what remained of his helmet and smashing aside his jaw. Steel stumbles back, but Blindspot gives him no quarter, raising his fists above his head and bringing them crashing down on his shoulders. Steel is forced to his knees, but he still manages to catch Blindspot’s next kick and launch him backwards a few feet into the air.

He lands in a crouched position, teeth gritted behind his glitching faceplate. Okay, lesson learnt. There’s still a pretty sizable strength difference between him and Steel, and he needs to remember that. Fine. Let’s see how he likes a fight on Blindspot’s terms, then.

He plunges his hands into the tarmac, sending his nanovores towards Steel. The ground cracks as they approach him, and though he jumps back, deploying jets all along his lower body to guide his ascent, they follow him up, forming a long ramp that reaches out as if to catch him. Blindspot can see the controlled panic in his eyes as his jump-jets start running out of steam, but he pulls the nanovores back before they can swam over Steel and bring his career as a Ranger to a grisly end by devouring him and his half-cybernetic body alive, letting Steel crash to the ground. The fallen marshal’s heavy armor leaves a small crater in the tarmac, but it’s one he quickly picks himself out of, leveling an unguided wrist-mounted rocket and firing it at Blindspot. The Rat-King chitters out a warning, though it’s unneeded—the pressure on Blindspot’s mind has lessened somewhat, meaning some of Steel’s dampeners had to have been damaged by the fall. His will surges forward, wrapping around Steel’s mind like a set of hands and squeezing. The rocket goes wildly off-course, hitting a nearby car and sending it vaulting into the air in a fireball, the impact doing nothing but kicking up his cape as he advances. The part of Cyrus that was Sidestep registers Steel’s unwillingness to use the more dangerous class of missiles he has mounted on his shoulder somewhere in the back of his mind, but the rest of him is just focused on how sweet it’ll be to make the bastard pay.

“Tell me something, Chen,” Blindspot starts, his voice distorting strangely. “I’m curious. How many mes would it take to make up one Ortega? Ten? Twenty? By what exact percentage is my life less than hers?”

“You’re making this something it wasn’t,” Steel growls, leveling another rocket at him.

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t try it. We know how that goes.”

A pause. “I guess that’s true.” Steel slowly lowers his arm. “What happens now?”

“Now?” He gives a harsh laugh. “Now, we beat the crap out of each other for the cameras. And we don’t stop until one of is dead.”

“I don’t want to do that.”

“Liar,” he says calmly. “You’ve wanted that since the beginning.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re my enemy.”

“Do you?” Steel gives Blindspot a meaningful look. “What have I done to make you think that?”

“Left me in the Farm, for one thing.”

“I was trying to protect Ortega.” Another pause. Chen liked his pauses. “I thought you would understand that.”

“Didn’t tell me that you knew, for another.” Now who’s the one with the lists?

“You were dead. Then you were back. What did you want me to say?”

“You could’ve pulled me aside at any moment.” It was hard, to muster the anger from earlier into his voice. Even though he was angry. Even though he was furious. “Explained. Let me know what you had done before I started to get close to you.”

And there it is. The ugly truth.

They’d almost been friends. Now, they never will be.

“I fail to see what that would have accomplished.”

“I…” He let out a long groan of frustration. “It’s useless, with you. Guilty feelings aside, it’s like you don’t even realize you did something wrong.”

“I made a choice. I stand by it.”

“A choice to pick Ortega over me.”

“A choice to pick a living Ortega over a probably dead you.” Steel looks guilty, but not guilty enough to shy away from the truth. That’s something you can give him credit for, at least. “You weren’t a Ranger. There was no other choice I could make.”

“I was part of the team, damn you.” He feels so tired. “You know that. You’ve said that.”

“I do. I have.”

“So why…?” He chokes on his next words. “Forget it. Would you have made a different choice? If I wasn’t a Re-Gene?”

“I… don’t know.” Steel looked troubled by the admission.

“You don’t know,” Blindspot echoes, shaking his head. “I think you do.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You can say it. Either answer will make me hate you.” He wondered what the news chopper made of this conversation, being unable to hear it and yet still seeing him and Steel standing there, talking when they should be fighting. “Either you decided I wasn’t worth the risk because I was a Re-Gene, or you did it because I was inherently worth less than Ortega in your eyes.”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“I could rip the answers out of your head,” he threatens without any real heat. “Your dampeners are down. You’d have no way of stopping me.”

“Do it, then.” Steel looks about as tired as Blindspot does. “I’m as curious to hear them as you are.”

He almost does.

Almost.

His will surges towards the chopper like a spike, piercing their minds with urgent thoughts of heading home. He waits until they’re out of sight to remove his helmet, exposing his face to the empty parking lot. To Chen.

“I had plans for how today was gonna go, you know.” A slight chuckle. “I was going to walk in, all righteous fury, and take my revenge.”

Chen holds his gaze. “What changed?”

Cyrus laughs, the sound free and pure away from the voice moderator. “What makes you think anything has?”

“You’re not killing me.”

“No.” He leans back, taking a seat on the hood of the nearest car, which groans under the pressure of his heavy armor. It’s a very casual act of criminality, but he doubt Chen is going to lambast him for it under the circumstances. “I guess I’m not.”

There’s a long silence. Chen breaks it first.

“I saw your interview. The one on the bridge.” A slight pause, shorter this time. “I never knew you were into politics.”

“Any system that puts people through what I want is rotten.” He puts the helmet down and lays back, staring up at the stars. “We talked about it, you know.”

“It?”

“The sky,” he clarifies, like it’s not a total non sequitur. “What it looked like. Someone… I can’t remember who… thought it’d be green.”

“Oh.” A hesitant breath. Cyrus can sense Chen’s confusion… but also his interest. “Were you disappointed?”

“With the sky? A bit,” he admits, his eyes still skyward. “Then it got dark. And I saw the stars.” The last word is uttered with an almost dreamlike longing, with the tone of breath one might reserve for speaking about a goddess.

The Farm had taken a lot from Cyrus the second time around. But it could never take away the stars.

“They’re even more beautiful in the country.” Cyrus can sense Chen has no idea why he volunteered that information, but he continues anyway. “Especially overseas.”

“I know. Ortega took me to her ranch. More than once.”

Chen nods, but he doesn’t move from where he is standing. “You know I have to take you in.”

Cyrus sighs. “You don’t. You really don’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Cyrus could hear the stunner being primed, but he didn’t bother sitting up. “But I do.”

“Using my own tech against me?” He chuckled. He’d been wondering where that old toy ended up. “That’s a new low.”

“You were dead. It was a way to honor you. And it did it’s job,” he admits.

“Not well enough,” Cyrus says, before grabbing ahold of Chen’s mind and drowning it as violently as he could. Every thought he’d had in the last four hours, every memory, every possible impression is found and ripped out, violently brutally, viciously, without the slightest hint of mercy or consideration being given for the sanctity of his mind. By the time he is done, Chen is a drooling puddle on the floor, unconscious thrice over. Blindspot barely gives him a second glance as he walks away into the night.

[littlest-bugz]

I can’t believe I went 19 years of my life thinking I was completely, 110%, able bodied.

Like??? Girl ur ankles are about to fall out the socket bc u stood for an hour. Thats not very able bodied behavior.

What about needing wheelchairs when you do anything that requires walking for more than 45 min? Totally able bodied behavior /s/.

[valravn72]

THANK YOU for putting it into words I’m tired of people dogpiling on neurodivergent creators for being neurodivergent in ways other people don’t relate to . Kindly bringing up ideas or critiques is not making entire accounts and encouraging opinions to be turned into something kittycorn did wrong

YES THANK YOU. You are actually way better at wording than I am haha.

It kind of reminds me of those people who used to be overweight who take it upon themselves to shame fat people online in order to “help them” or something by exposing them to what people in the real world think of them. It’s this whole thing of well aren’t you lucky that someone who understands you is putting you down. If it wasn’t me right now it would be a bigot so I’m helping.

Questioning kit’s requests for people to respect their boundaries with their self inserts because “they can’t actually expect people to do that, it’s the internet,” getting mad at them for reacting negatively to criticism when they should expect that much and worse when within a public space, calling them unreasonable for expecting people to take their trauma into account, plus the whole thing about the trigger warnings and emetophobia and how people shouldn’t be that sensitive in response to cartoons, it all revolves around this urge for “tough love” which really just feels like internalized ableism to me.

I’m aware they aren’t all like that and most of them have some actual legitimate concerns about the comic, but the philosophy behind what they’re doing is fundamentally gross.

I probably shouldn’t have gotten myself in this situation to begin with tbh but I just saw this stuff and I was thinking about so many different things it reminds me of and how weird it is that things like this keep happening and I just really wanted to say something.

Also imagine being mad that there are not enough unisexual binary gendered men in a character lineup lmao

EDIT: fuck kittycorn but also none of you knew and you were all still being ableist as fuck at the time. Also some of you are literally proshippers

[another-whump-sideblog]

From your ask game. For any whumpee you'd like to gush about.

39. What is wrong with you?

20. Do you like [Whumper]?

17. What is the worst punishment you've received?

Thank you! I’m gonna do this for Liam/Bunny/Ethan/Austin

TWs in the tags

What is wrong with you?

Liam frowns. “I don’t— I don’t know. Whatever has to be wrong with someone to fall for a trap the way I did. And brain damage, now… I don’t know, I feel like a better question would be what isn’t wrong with me.”

Do you like Jane?

“…No? What kind of question is that?”

What is the worst punishment you’ve ever received?

He shudders. “That’s— that’s not—“ he covers his face. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

But he feels compelled to say it anyway. “When— after— she made me—“ another shudder wracks his body. “She— she made me— I had to eat them—“

He hugs himself and starts sobbing. “It was my fault!”

[mars-ipan]

i do love my family very dearly but the internalized ableism the men in here struggle with is. so much