One of the big themes I want to emphasize in PB is disability acceptance.
As "PAPERBOY" progresses, I'm gonna be showing off how much it hurts to live in a world without it-- having people not accept you solely because of conditions you can only help so much is horrible. And we all deserve to be accepted as we are by the people around us.
But at the same time, you shouldn't feel obligated to love every part of your disability either. Self-acceptance doesn't come naturally to everyone. And who knows, maybe your disability really does get in the way sometimes!
Amelia, Aza, Rudy, etc. don't really mind their situations. They're just used to it, and it barely bothers them, if at all. But maybe you're not like them!
Maybe you're like Wilbur & his Blindness, where your disability is taking away things you loved, leaving you to grieve.
Or maybe you're like Linus & his Epilepsy, where you've found a way to make life work for you but still think it's annoying sometimes.
Maybe you're like Karl & his Down Syndrome; it's not something that you can hide, but sometimes, you wish you could. It'd be nice to blend in with everyone else for a second, you know?
Or maybe you're like Matthew & his health conditions, and you've faced a lifetime of abuse for being born that way. And you're having a hard time accepting yourself as a result.
Or maybe you're like me & only recently got diagnosed with something. And you don't know how to handle it.
...
I got 4, if you're wondering. Autism. Asthma. MDD. But a while back, I found out that I've been suffering PTSD, too. And I didn't take it well. Honestly, I'm still not.
I don't know if it ever truly goes away, and I don't want to live with it. I'm not going anywhere, of course. But I've worked hard enough, man, give me a break! Am I supposed to just be okay knowing that I'm gonna keep having flashbacks & nightmares over stupid shit nobody understands? Having a TV in my head that constantly loops home videos I never wanted to see again?
It's not fair. I'm not even 20. I shouldn't have such dark, smudged skin under my eyes.
I revel in being autistic. I've made it work for me, and in my case, I find almost no downsides. And I don't really mind my Asthma anymore. I've had it pretty much my whole life now, & I'm kinda just used to it. Same thing with Depression, although I'm obviously not happy to have that one, either.
With PTSD though, it's newer. I've only had symptoms for a few years, and I've only known what was wrong for one. And I have to worry.
Is something gonna set it off? What do I do when it acts up? I'm interested in someone-- is my PTSD gonna be too much for them to handle? I feel weak, and if anything, I'm mad at me for getting traumatized in the first place!
I know I was a kid & that the trauma was genuinely bad, but... I'm a bit of a New York hard-ass. I'm supposed to be tougher than this, man! I was supposed to come out on top, brush it off & overcome it like I'm the shit.
A life with something as debilitating as PTSD is not what I had in mind. It's like... an injury, almost. You look at the damage and go, "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
And I know I have to learn to accept life with PTSD one day. Because if I don't accept myself, I'm gonna be fighting myself & making it worse as hell. But I don't like how it holds me back in life. Or the toll it's taken on my body. And y'know what, we disabled people can be mad about that shit!
Why shouldn't we?
...
We're allowed to be hurt over it. We're allowed to be angry, annoyed, displeased, or whatever else we feel about it.
Getting back to Paperboy, we already know that Matthew struggles with being a disabled kid because he's been brought up to believe that being so is synonymous with worthlessness & inferiority. Not only that, but it's been a lot of bad people's "excuse" for targeting him. So... he hates it.
And that's okay for now. It's his to think about. Not anybody else's.
But he's not going to stay there, either. Because if you wanna live your life to the fullest, you're gonna need to live *with* disability. Because it is a part of life. Like it or not. And one day, he'll find a way to live with that.
If you notice anybody struggling with internalized ableism, or disability grief, or even just frustration... help them, but don't push them into acceptance too hard, either. It's a process.
Trust the process.
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as much as i want the Players to win (because of how much they’ve been fucked over by pb&j), I also want to see pb&j as the sole survivors. what kind of peaceful ending do you get when it is only your team left? i want them to live with their actions of making other players ban themselves for them. If they want to win, they should deal with consequences, and hold their empty victory in a deserted server. Because ultimately, it’s not a server of gods bending to the will of mere mortals, it is the players scrapping together pyrrhic victories, living with all the bad that the conflict has brought to them, like it has alway been. no one wins a conflict without sacrifice, but pb&j don’t see that: they are trying to have a complete and utter victory. They can’t just flip a switch to revert everything to how they want it — they need to preserve it and make an effort to actually achieve the goal that they want, not just pvping the shit out of the other team. Part of their goal IS in fact get rid of the other team bc they want to ban people, but the main objective would be that they actually HELP the other players on the server, not getting them to ban themselves for fighting them better. Along their way of obsessively trying to get rid of the Players and their violent ending, they have been pursuing a violent ending, perhaps even better than the Players, with them getting other to ban themselves. They complain about the moral debates, yet their entire purpose is because of the morals they claim to have (even though they are VERY contradictory), with the conflicting ideas of peace and violence. So when the Players bring up that they have been going against their morals (by getting others to ban themselves), they immediately shut it down, because… they are right. Because if they don’t deny it, they are forced to recognize they are no different to the Players, perhaps even more ruthless being tunnel visioned on a side goal.
no matter who wins the physical war, who is left standing on the server in the end, both sides will have proven that there can only be violence, that lifesteal can never end in peace because of the lengths the server members will go to win their physical battles. PB&J can’t even stick by their own ideals to win the war, and instead give in to the gritty cruel nature of the server to be able to gain advantages, which is fine, except for the fact that one of their main goals is… to NOT have people banned? (esp because both sides keep saying that the war is between people who WANT everyone banned and those who DON’T, and yet those who don’t keep getting others banned… And, they are the ones that started it first, thus making the Players also plan on doing it… so which side has honor and morals again?)
it is also interesting when pb&j say that they don’t really have a ‘reward’ for winning, but they quite literally did that to themselves. LS has gods and exploiters, but it still is up to the players to forge their own victories, and relying their entire victory (of bringing everyone back when they ‘win’) on gods is kind of… eh. YOU make your victory, and if that victory includes banning people for another edge in pvp, then so be it (you, after all chose this, without any prompting or getting the ideas from the Players. it is naturally a place that brings the worst and cruel out of people.)
pb&j are also made up mostly of new players (and ash who is new to the whole ‘heroes’ thing), and they don’t seem to understand that a victory of their morals and being on the ‘good’ side requires sacrifice. They seem very bent on getting a clean, holistic victory, but when you fight those who want to ban everyone, you can’t get that (and pb&j have already been doing that to themselves by getting others banned, but they want a full revival to have their ‘perfect victory’). pbj are new: they don’t really see the suffering and pain previous ‘heroes’ (aka zam most of the time) had to go through, and ash is new to the whole ‘good person’ thing: he is used to complete and utter victories and power that compromise and sacrifice (something not really a problem in his godly endeavors) are a cost of pursuing their goal.
their goal for the server is unattainable, and they proved it themselves with their obsession of beating the other team
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