#there is nothing ableist about being realistic to MY experiences

[thelegendofmik]

Stop Defending Ableists Challenge (Level: Impossible)

So the other day I made a post listing all the ableist things Jacob Richmond has included in Legoland and Ride the Cyclone.

And the response was abysmal - the amount of "well actually..." kind of responses I got was disgusting and I took down the post because I find it counterproductive to argue with teenagers on the internet. However, I stand by the belief that if you think you are old enough to post publicly on the internet, you are old enough to be held accountable for what you post.

But I think what I had to say was quite important, so I am going to reword it here.

TW here for the discussion of ableism and ableist slurs (they are all censored)

There is ZERO (0) justification for the use of THREE (3) ableist slurs across both works. I don't fucking care if it was the 2000's. The ADA predates both shows and disability activism had existed for decades before that (as yannick very kindly reminded me). So no, it was not ok for Richmond to use those slurs in his works, regardless of the time period. Because there is nothing "correct" (politically, or otherwise) about ableism.

And before you say "Oh, but it was the character who said it, not the writer..."

CHARACTERS ARE NOT SENTIENT BEINGS! They are not created in a vacuum. Their thoughts and actions are often a reflection of the author's own beliefs and morals.

It was not Ocean who decided to use the word cr*pple. It was Jacob Richmond who decided to use it. Same with the r word and sp*z in Legoland. It wasn't Penny and Ezra who decided to use those words, it was Jacob Richmond. Because each character's actions are dictated by the decisions that the author makes for that character. And in this case, the author decided to be an ableist asshole.

Yes, characters can be assholes. They can be complex and nuanced beings. But there are better ways to portray such experiences than being violently ableist (i.e.: without using slurs). And why does the ableist character get complexity and nuance, but the disabled character is simply the sad, disabled kid, with not much else in his personality until he magically becomes abled bodied. Like we deserve nuance and complexity as well, people!

In a 2022 interview with Curtain Call Bway (here), when asked who his favourite character to write was, Richmond responds with the following:

Ocean is definitely my favorite character to write because it’s based on certain people I’ve met and certain aspects of myself too.

Like he literally admits it himself, that his decisions when writing an ableist character were based off aspects of his own personality.

The reality is, disability has never been more than a comedic plot point to Richmond. He has never cared about portraying a realistic disabled experience. He has never cared about disabled people.

And the cherry on top is that his response to yannick-robin being hate-crimed was to rewrite Ricky so that he could be played by an abled and therefore production teams wouldn't have to give a shit about ensuring their spaces are safe and accessible for disabled performers. If he actually cared about disabled people and properly representing our experiences, he would have worked with a disability consultant and fixed the issues within the show. Instead, he doubles down and causes even more harm.

To add insult to injury, he then licensed that script to Sarah Rasmussen and her team of ableist cronies for the DC production. Because him choosing to continue working with Rasmussen and her team just shows that he shares the same ableist values as the McCarter/Arena team.

So by saying that "its the character, not the author", you are defending Richmond and his violent ableism. You are attempting to justify the harm he has done and CONTINUES TO DO to disabled people. YOU. ARE. A. PART. OF. THE. PROBLEM.

Ride the Cyclone and Legoland (in ALL its forms and versions) contains so much ableist violence. This violence has traumatised REAL PEOPLE, but yannick, myself, and other people speaking out are the ones ruining the vibe by calling it out? Be fucking for real people.

Now if only my university papers were this thorough...

[ursie]

TT isn’t ableist it’s DC/the editors/ect stop blaming him ok but he wrote these scenes he wrote this dialogue and this is just off the top of my head not even touching the “subtle” ableism woven throughout the run :

⚠️

Major tw for ableism :

These may seem minor to you but they’re overt to literally any physically disabled person

-why couldn’t Barbara eat pizza in the park before? Take down low level thugs? She literally could. She literally did. This retroactive take on her years as Oracle is ableist. She was not miserable or useless or anything like that. She was quite literally still a crime fighter living an active lifestyle. She was happy as Oracle. In her own words “the joker took nothing from me”. But TT does not understand the disabled experience and cannot write a woman ok being disabled-this is not about Babs being able bodied now-this is about the language used. There are plenty of similar examples throughout the run (and dc period atm) TT did not have to write such dialogue. He chose to do that. It should also be noted that he wants credit for giving Babs accessibility aides but does not have any real interest in showing her use them (the justification of her not using a chair anymore) or writing her as a Disabled woman at all (a similar issue applies to his writing of Dick)

-Why reintroduce Risk and make the point to remember his prosthetic (I should also note he’s a recovering addict as well) just to kill him brutally and rather intimately on panel. It’s important to note that for all intents and purposes Risk was an invincible hero. Killing him (and frankly for shock value) is ableist. I’m not saying you can’t kill disabled characters but if you do it after consistent allegations of ableism it’s hard not to see Risk (and any physically disabled person in his run) as a proxy for the disabled people who criticized him after all they only seem to show up to get brutalized or be a joke. It’s important to contextualize that this was his introduction into main continuity again-they made the point to retain his disability (whilst under scrutiny for ableism) just for killing him without an once of dignity. It’s just horrific and genuinely these panels may trigger me the most.

-now I understand you may not see the big deal here because hey he’s not being hatecrimed here but yet again disabled characters are either brutalized or made into a joke. There’s multiple issues wrong here . You do not touch a hoh persons hearing aides. 1. You don’t touch anyones accessibility tools (especially hearing aides which are delicate at the best of times) w/o explicit permission. This joke is not funny to disabled people this is our lived experience and it’s called assault. 2. In line with TT previous inclination to not actually write the disabled experience this person does not seem to have any emergency setup such as a bed shaker for example which while not criminal does show a lack of research. TT would rather have a joke at our expense then just write a disabled person living realistically. And 3. Dick does actually canonically know sign language. There was no need for ableism in the first place. Instead of highlighting Deaf/Sign culture TT opted for dated jokes and further erasure of Dicks competence (which is a separate conversation). It should be noted that showing sign in comics is not new or impossible if Hawkeye can do it so can Nightwing.

Again these are just three out of many examples and that’s not counting TT’s ableist behavior on Twitter. That’s not talking about the artist. But three is enough. Three is a pattern. At a certain point when people refuse to reflect and address their behavior-when they refuse to even entertain the notion of fixing it-real accountability must be discussed, and if you cannot handle disabled fans discussing his accountability here-if you’re ambivalent, if you’re defensive, if you’re apologetic for him, you’re complicit as well. It’s 2022 we can do better. It’s July. It’s Disabled Pride month. Listen to Disabled voices. Do better. Or be quiet.

Ok to add on and discuss but no clowning and if you are able bodied you do not get to debate the ableism at hand.

* if anyone could write the image ids that would be great my hand feels like it’s going to fall off :(

image ids :

[Three panels from Nightwing comics by Tom Taylor. In the first, Babs is saying, “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together.* (*see batgirl: three jokers) I’m happy to do most things--eat pizza in the park, take down low level thugs--but leaping from rooftops seems unwise” while Dick looks on. This is from Nightwing 79.

The next part is two whole pages. In the first panel, Dick in a narration box is saying, “..in metropolis” while there is the skyline of metropolis in the background. The next panel is Risk jumping off a building while his prosetic arm is clearly visible. The next three are of him saying, “enough running. I don’t know who you are but we are clear of civilians now. I’m ready to hit back.” The next panel is of him being hit by a purple laser while in the next he says, “ha! I’m invulnerable.”

The next page starts with three people in black suits and jetpacks flying towards him while the lead one says, “we know.” In the next panel, she has Risk slammed on the ground while saying, “we know all about you Risk.” In the next three panels, she drags Risk towards the water and sticks his head in it while monologuing, “we know you were a Titan. and we know that you still have to breathe. The rising has begun.” The last panel is of some bubble underwater.

The third example is one page. In the first panel, Dick (Nightwing) is hitting down a wood door while calling out, “Maurice!” In the next panel, Maurice is in bed while his hearing age is pointed out by zoomed in bubble. In the next panel, Dick has grabbed Maurice’s hearing aid, and is holding it out to Maurice while saying, “Hey. I just need you to put your hearing aid in.” Maurice replies while looking angry, “Is that what you do? Steal hearing aids?!” In the final panel, Dick says while looking confused and still holding out the hearing aid, “what, I’m not” before Oracle interupts him over the comms, “Nightwing!” He responds, “Oracle” end id

[cripplecharacters]

My MC uses a cane and experiences chronic pain. I was thinking about making the cause of this chronic pain stem from them being a magic user. In my story, magic users often have chronic pain or need to use mobility aids due to the idea that magic is unable to be contained within organic material (ie a human/animal's body) for a prolonged period of time. Not every magic user has chronic pain and when they do it would impact them in very different ways but I was wondering if this is in anyway ableist? Im not intending to make it seem like disability is a punishment for using magic or anything but I wanted to make sure that this idea wouldn't be offensive or stereotypical towards the disabled community. I'm open to suggestions on how to fix/rewrite this if it is.

Hey there, thanks for your question!

My biggest concern with this premise, as you've expressed, would be the framing of disability as a punishment for something--in this case, being a magic user--as well as a potential association with "otherness" depending on how magic users are treated within your setting, especially if they are oppressed or mistreated in any way.

I do want to point out that the fantasy genre in particular has a tendency to depict disability in ways that are fundamentally divorced from the real world, like being acquired in exchange for something like special powers or being a condition of some kind of mystical ability/bloodline/whatever. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, per se, but its predominance makes it--in my personal opinion--a bit of a tired trope.

That said, while these types of premises aren't my favourite for the above reasons, I don't inherently dislike this idea so long as you take care to make sure that their disabilities are not seen as or intended to be punishments. You can avoid this in part by:

Not having the characters resent their disabilities or wish that they weren't magic users.

Not treating magic users poorly in your setting (I don't know if they are, because it isn't included in the ask, but since it's a common fantasy trope I'll add it anyway).

Depicting what kinds of accommodations would reasonably exist in a setting where magic use is tied with disability would also go a long way, especially if magic users make up a large portion of the population. This would help the disabilities not seem like a fun flavour thrown in for drama while not actually being realistically thought through.

Finally, I also strongly recommend including disabled characters who are not magic users in your story. Disability in speculative fiction is rarely shown just... existing the same way it does in real life. Disabled people exist all around you, not just as a quirk to serve in fantasy worldbuilding, and I certainly encourage all fantasy authors in particular to remember this.

Other disabled people are welcome to add their thoughts as always!

-Mod Faelan

[blindbeta]

Would it be ok to portray a deafblind character as not wanting to be blind specifically because vision is important to Deaf culture? There are other blind characters and not all of them feel the same way about being blind. Also the deafblind character doesn’t get cured, and their attitude is more like “yeah I don’t like it but I need to learn to accept it” instead of thinking their life is ruined or something

A DeafBlind Character Not Wanting to be Blind

Note: DeafBlind is written with an uppercase D and B with respect to Deaf culture and for the ease of screen-readers respectively.

I am not DeafBlind myself and so I’m not sure. I think all the additions you listed could be beneficial, but I don’t have a way to measure how beneficial. I don’t feel comfortable giving an answer about blindness here because I am not DeafBlind. However, I didn’t want to leave you with nothing, so I wanted to share a few links.

Vision is indeed important to Deaf culture. However, there are Deaf people like YouTuber Jessica Kellgren-Fozard who are blind in one eye or otherwise visually impaired. There are DeafBlind people such as writer Elsa Sjunneson. They are still part of Deaf culture.

A character who loses vision may have all manner of difficult, alternating feelings about it, particularly when learning new ways of doing daily tasks or if the vision loss progresses over time. However, realistic, messy feelings can still read as ableist (or not) depending entirely on how it is written and the way the story treats blindness and DeafBlindness. My suggestion is to try to find DeafBlind people online and listen to their experiences, perhaps even get someone to read your story. If you’d feel more comfortable, you could also ask blind people who aren’t Deaf to read your story as well, as extra readers. It sounds like that might give you more peace of mind.

Good luck and I hope this helps some.

Would any DeafBlind people like to add anything? Reply, reblog, or send an ask or message with your thoughts and I will add them here.

@wolfrayets added:

I am only Deaf, but I've found that since Deaf culture tends to be proud of/unapologetic for their Deafness (in terms of culture and a very widely accepted social model of disability), many DeafBlind people I meet in Deaf spaces are similarly unapologetic and outspoken about being DeafBlind. Deaf people communicate with DeafBlind people by signing against their palms, or in cases of low vision, DeafBlind people can often still make out ASL because it's based less on detail and more on overarching handshapes. Check out adapted ASL, tactile ASL, tracking ASL. So they definitely wouldn't need to be language deprived or isolated from the Deaf community if they are DeafBlind.

BlindBeta: I also notice something similar with a lot of blind folks, so I think this would be important for DeafBlind characters. Perhaps the character meeting DeafBlind people in the community might help them feel more confident.

This has been cross-posted on WordPress.

[outrunningthedark]

I'm sorry beforehand, but can you please explain why Ana's talk with Eddie about horse is considered an ableism? I read it once in your post about it being rooted in one but is easy to miss by general audience because "she's being realistic about Christopher's disability" but I don't really understand?

I'm not sure I can explain it any better than I already have, but I'll do my best. The dialogue: "There's a lot to be said for getting back on the horse, but there's also some value in learning that you don't like horses. (Eddie: "I'm sorry?") Sometimes, our limitations tell us when to stop. But sometimes, they can show us where to look next.

Ana was suggesting that Christopher falling off the skateboard is a sign that he should find a different interest, one that is safer and more realistic given his "limitations". To the able-bodied viewer, her opinion seemed reasonable because (in their mind) it makes sense that a child with CP wouldn't have the necessarily balance and strength to ride a skateboard the "normal way". There's two problems with what Ana said, however: - Ana was employed by an inclusive school. The definition of "inclusive education" has expanded over time, but it was initially used to refer to school settings that allow disabled students to have the same opportunities as their non-disabled peers by bringing the two groups together both in and out of the classroom (think recess or field trips, for example). If a teacher at an inclusive school decides one of their disabled students "can't" or "shouldn't" do something...they're not the right person for the job. Inclusive educators are supposed to adapt to students needs and figure out how to make sure nobody is left on the outside looking in. Ana should have been the one to mention researching adaptive skateboards because she should have had experience in helping students with physical disabilities feel like a "normal kid". But she wasn't. Because she was never going to be the "perfect partner" for Eddie. - Even if Ana didn't work at that particular school, her comments would still be ableist because the whole point was that she came to her own conclusion about Christopher without actually knowing what his "limitations" were. All she saw was a boy with CP fall off a skateboard and decide that was enough proof he shouldn't try again.

This is all too common for the disability community. Able-bodied and neurotypical folks think nothing of telling us what we are/are not capable of just by observing us. And if you make your diagnosis known, they will use that information to come up with their own idea of how it "must" impact our daily lives, but then act surprised when we say the opposite: (These are some of mine) "You went to a regular school? And were on the honor roll? Wow." "You can dress yourself?" "You're very articulate." (As opposed to...) They're even shocked when I can transfer myself from surface to surface without assistance as if I didn't start learning how between the ages of one and two (when my parents could recognize something was different about me compared to my sisters). When a nondisabled person makes remarks like that, they're exposing just how little they pay attention to those of us that are "different", and in doing this, they're also telling us our existence - and the struggles that come with it - doesn't matter. [And before anyone hops on this post to say "Eddie was against skateboarding, too!!!" We know. But he eventually put in the work to see if there was a way to make it happen because he realized his opinion was rooted in fear rather than facts. There's your difference.]

[anarchy-and-piglins]

(I'm glad you deleted my ask that had the story end with it all being a hallucination. It was absolutely not a good ending.)

An explanation if my thought process with that ending (because I feel like I should explain myself), if you want know:

I was trying to follow more of a maladaptive daydreaming, (you know how abused kids have daydreams of being saved from their family? Like he was having a daydream about that, that he got too wrapped up in. The idea was partly brought on by me thinking about my old versions of that daydream).

Anyway! Thank you reading my explanation (or not, if you chose not to!) And for deleting my previous ask, the ending was not okay.

(Also I'm sorry if this feels awkward or off, I'm not completely sure how to apologize properly, outside of "be sincere and acknowledge what you're apologizing for")

Hope you're having a good day/night

-Star

First of all, sincerely thank you for this ask, that's very considerate of you <3

I do wanna clarify: hallucinations can definitely be an interesting thing to write about, especially in whumpy settings. I've written before about Techno being thrown into Pandora's Box and having a vivid hallucination brought on by the torture and isolation where he thought Phil was saving him.

And I honestly don't even think that your idea had a bad plot/ending per se. In fact, an abused kid getting fixated on a maladaptive daydream due to wanting to escape from trauma could make a pretty decent story if it's handled well! Which is also where the problem lies for me.

Plots that revolve around characters experiencing hallucinations are very rarely handled well (in my experience). They rarely touch on the more intricate parts of mental illness and trauma that are the underlying cause or mention any other symptoms, and they just go "ooh look, this character sees things that aren't real". They're not often written realistically, just as a vehicle for angst. Or like I said, they're portrayed in an outright ableist manner. This is the same reason why I balk at most 'Asylum AUs'.

On a personal taste level, I'm just not a big fan of stories where the fact that the character is hallucinating is like, the ENTIRE plot. Or it's the Big Plot Twist. I like (realistically portrayed) hallucinations as part of a bigger narrative about trauma or mental illness, but not so much when they're the 'main event'. I also don't like stories that try to 'trick' the reader. Stories where the point is that the readers don't know the character is hallucinating, just so it can be revealed for a cheap twist and the writer can go "wow weren't I clever? Won't you look at the rest of the story differently now?". They irritate me and are not my cup of tea. I'd be way more interested in a story that's upfront about its subject matter and addresses hallucinations realistically. Make it so your audience starts to doubt its perception as much as the character. It's so much more interesting to me when I have to question myself "is this real" as I'm reading a character with a shaky touch to reality, than it is to have a writer go "psych, it was fake". I don't like 'it was all a dream' endings for the same reason.

TLDR: - I am weary of stories that use 'it was all a hallucination' plots because I have bad experiences with them and don't see them done well very often - even if they're done well, I'm just personally not very interested in stories where the fact that the character is hallucinating is the main plot or the big plot twist Sorry for this big ramble, words got away from me xD I just wanted to write this out because I wanted to make it clear that you have NOTHING to apologize for and your idea was by no means bad! You just brought it to the wrong person ^^'

(The main reason I didn't post the initial ask was because I would have felt awkward having to post it while basically going "eh, I don't like this" as an answer lol)

[voskhozhdeniye]

I hadn’t read that Bill Zeller suicide note since I posted it on here two years ago. Rereading it last night reminded me why I felt it belonged on here in the first place. While some of the things he mentions in it are somewhat different from my life, I could almost write that verbatim. I’m alright for the moment if you’re wondering, and I’m not what this post is about in the end.

When he talks about how friendships and relationships did nothing to bring him relief, he confirms something I’ve pretty much known for a while now, but have been trying to hide from myself. I wrote, but never posted a post the other day that said something along the lines of, “the more I attempt to interact with people, the more social energy I have to exert. I’m exerting all of this energy, and getting nothing in return.”

I could go on with this, but I have something specific to talk about, which is connected to that last thought. Because of the nature of the site the note is posted on, there’s a comment section underneath the note. I don’t know if I ventured into it last time, but I did last night.

Watching people try to argue with a dead man about what he should have done different was both amusing and deeply unsettling. He spends the entire note talking about being sexually abused for years as a child, and how that experience has infiltrated every aspect of his life. How his parent’s warped religion, and the betrayal of his trust by them and others destroyed his desire to continue living.

One person retorts with the if only he had the right religion in his life excuse. Another wonders why he refused to go to the police, or reveal who abused him. There are others that chimed in with their thoughts, but all of them do exactly what he talks about over and over throughout the note. Instead of listening to what he has to say and acknowledging the insurmountable damage that’s been done to him, they run to prove him wrong. Even after he’s dead and gone, they still refuse to even attempt to understand. “If only he had approached it from this angle, or another.” I was reading something else yesterday that made me think, a lot of people seem to think life is like modular patch cables. If something goes wrong just unpatch and restart. I don’t know what’s going on in their lives, but I wish it was that easy.

A year or two ago I saw a post on here that said you can’t therapy yourself out of a sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, classist and xenophobic society. I’m thinking about this post I made. I’m also thinking about that Palestinian therapist who said Palestinians do not suffer from PTSD, because in order to suffer from that you have to be removed for the situation that caused the trauma. She said Palestinians continue to be traumatized everyday, so they aren’t suffering from PTSD. They are still actively being traumatized, so they can’t even move onto the PTSD phase of whatever recovery is possible.

I read that note, and I saw someone articulating feelings that I never get to see talked about in an open and honest way. He said it took him a year to complete his suicide note. A year to write about how childhood abuse had dismantled any ability to pick the pieces of his life up and attempt to piece together something. And instead of sitting down, reading what he wrote, and actually reflecting on what he said and his decision. People are trying to talk a dead man off a ledge.

This reminds me of why the it gets better campaign pissed me off so much when that was happening. You had all of these people telling kids that life gets better. When there is no guarantee that’s a realistic outcome. People are more worried about preventing suicide by spreading good vibes, than actually sitting down trying to understand what leads a person to come to that conclusion. I think that’s a larger problem in our society. People on here love to tell people to go to therapy for their problems, but completely ignore that sometimes being a friend, financial stability, health insurance, a mobility aid, access to HRT and other things are suicide prevention tactics.

My father went to the funeral of the father of my abuser last year. He saw the abuser there, and asked if I remembered him. His father was a high ranking member of the church. Around that time I learned the son of another high ranking member molested my sister. My sister is seventeen years older than me, so this was years ago. Unlike me, she told my parents. They didn’t believe her, until years later when he got a girl pregnant. I never really had a chance.

That Hereditary post from last night sums it up. Pawns in this horrible, hopeless machine, which is probably bleeding to death.

This part of Bill’s note really struck me,

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I’ll never be able to change. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I’m not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.

I didn’t realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn’t stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I’d be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it’d be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

I don’t think Bill was evil but when you’re abused, and the coping tactics you use to survive in this world make you seem corrosive to people. While your abuser is popular with folks. It’s kinda easy to see where that mode of thinking would come from.

[herd-of-ponies]

Ok see here's the thing. I haven't watched the series itself yet bc quite frankly the movie was just. Horrendous in ways I still go into a blind rage over. So full disclaimer all my complaints stem from there alone.

But like. Firstly you have a ""Good"" Cop character. Then you have a Bad Cop who receives literally zero repercussions for his actions. His fascist overbearing mother likewise is unpunished in any way, shape or form - save minor embarrassment over her son who she raised this way herself. As a funny little joke.

The one character who Consistently has the solutions to get the group places, Izzy, who In Fact is the entire reason the movie got anywhere in the first place (because Sunny never left town herself fsr??), is treated as a joke character, Pinkie but incredibly dumb or nonsensical and who needs "looked after" by the main character (see everyone's favorite 'iconic wlw song', it's never Sunny being looked out for). Wild part is a) she's Obviously smart and clever and creative and self-capable enough to wander the continent Alone with Nothing to help her, and b) she's also voiced by a non-white va which uh. Makes the narrative's treating her like a joke idiot look really dicey!! So got some ableist AND racially charged takes going on here!

Speaking of, Sunny gets to take all the credit when she has Izzy to thank for a lot of what happened. Yes, it's because of 'her' (her dad's) message in a balloon Izzy ever even looked for other ponies but. Sunny never reached out again or tried setting out herself, despite having that sureness and tenacity to do so? Izzy didn't even KNOW that other ponies were safe, she didn't have anyone in her village to tell her anything else, but she STILL took that chance to go looking, risks herself and meets Sunny. So Sunny can then take the credit and get alicorn'd or whatever.

You could say it's that alicorns need to inspire others or whatever but Sunny clearly wasn't doing that to anyone else, because her speech flopped Every Time, including when she was put at risk of bodily harm in the beginning. Inspiring One pony does not a princess make.

(And yes, somehow that same canned speech inspired everyone once her house was destroyed but. Given how people didn't care in the beginning of the movie when she was put in direct danger, I really don't think her house being destroyed should have made an impact)

I could honestly keep going, about how everyone was so bland bc they acted so 'staged', never moving or speaking independently if it wasn't Their Turn; or how there were attempts at characterization that had Zero Payoff and thus seemed weirdly shoved into the writing for no reason (Hitch's dancing didn't have any impact to the story, Izzy makes comments on auras seemingly just to paint her as weird and laughable) ; or primarily how no one has any Flaws, and you can argue they technically do, but none that they get narratively held responsible for!

Actually I will keep going on that last point - in the g4 movie, characters mess up, and get narratively 'punished' for! Either drawing attention of the villains or getting offers of help rescinded (thanks specifically to Twilight! The protagonist!) Their actions and shortsightedness lead to direct consequences, and others around them also recognize this and typically disapprove if only for a moment.

The g5 movie... really does not do this. There's no 'punishment', the rejection and loss the characters experience aren't because they messed up. It's only to show how Tragic they are or to move the plot along (like the house). In fact, there's one instance of genuine criticism - Hitch being upset that Sunny is purposefully endangering his job because his livelihood isn't as important as her ideals - and tbh, given he's a cop, that really doesn't need to be a concern - but that's retracted and used to paint him as wrong for ever doubting her, despite the fact that realistically? She was prioritizing poorly!

No one listened to her and everyone rejected her tired speeches, and that's common knowledge by that point. Her choosing One More Tired Speech over her friend's job and reputation, when she's only ever seen failure, isn't her making some 'for the greater good' choice. That's stubbornness and pride speaking, no matter how well-intended, and she put herself and her friend at risk for a pointless gesture. And she gets ultimately rewarded for this via the rest of the movie proving her right, and awarding her the role of princess.

Anyways. The movie was awful and if anything felt like pro-cop propoganda cleverly disguised as pro-activist sentiment, and while it's been a bit I watched this movie three times to break a lot of this down and I can keep going if needed.

Idk about the series, but the g5 movie sucks and honestly is horrifying to see as accepted by the fandom, because in terms of writing and in terms of meaning it is literal shit.

[muldxr]

hi seven hope you're doing well <3

just saw your little tag rant about fics dealing with disabilities and if I'm being honest I don't really know a lot about it but I do kind of understand your point there? Of course I won't be able to relate to this as much as you or other disabled people like you do but I would really like to gain more understanding about it, about disabilities and such experiences in general and fics have always been a good way to open more windows of knowledge for me. which is why I've come to you. to ask you which fics, in your opinion, have dealt with disabilities in a proper, realistic way, to put it in the perspective of your tags?

hope the point got across and i didn't phrase anything the wrong/offending way! if i did I genuinely apologize I really didn't mean it I'm just bad at interactions. but yeah I'm asking for fic recs here, if it's not bother to you? also sorry this got so long heh. <3

Hi, thank you for coming by with a great question! Nothing about it comes off as disrespectful because you're here for information, and I'm happy to help. I'll link the tag post referenced in the ask for context.

Under the cut is an explanation of disability representation and my thoughts. Because I went overboard in my explanation, the fic rec is in a separate post ➡ HERE ⬅

- Disability representation and why it's so, so important -

In order to answer this question, I think it's necessary to put more context to the purpose of what I was trying to say and to help educate more people. As a Deaf person, I have a lot of experience and passion for this sort of issue.

Disability representation in media -- film, theater, books, or in this case, fanfiction -- has been historically misconstrued for years by the entertainment industry (1, 2, 3). Able-bodied people (people who don't have a disability, often known as ableds) both contribute to and encourage ableist beliefs and stereotypes by creating and consuming these pieces of media without a second thought to who these stories are about (x)

25% of the United States population is disabled, and I'm positive that this large percentage can be applied in theory to the rest of the world. Every single group of people, every single country, every single culture has a population of disabled people. There are also disabled people who have more than one marginalized identity (race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, social status, language barrier, or more than one disability!) This overlap of identities acts as a double-whammy of society knocking you down even more within the system. Disabled people also do not have equal rights, despite what the ADA (1990, x) wants you to think.

Representation is so important because we want people to be able to consume media and recognize parts of themselves within the stories, to be able to say, "Hey, that's me!", and to have a more diverse storytelling pool for audiences to consume. The world is diverse, so why shouldn't stories be diverse, too?

Accurate rep is even more important (1, 2). Going off the previous paragraph, we want viewers to recognize stories that are not over-the-top, that are not portrayed by actors who are abled in real life, and that simply do not view disability as a bad thing to be fixed. As an example, I'll point you to some films where hearing actors played Deaf characters and were portrayed poorly, and where Deaf actors cinched a role (Bad: Hush, Shape of Water. Good/Better: West Wing, Children of a Lesser God, CODA). This miscasting also happens to blind characters (In The Dark and Daredevil), and autistic characters (Music). Another good piece is Special on Netflix, a semi-autobiographical comedy about cerebral palsy with the author as the lead role.

- "Which fics, in your opinion, have dealt with disabilities in a proper, realistic way?" -

The main fic rec you're looking for is HERE, but I still wanted to address this question without overshadowing the rec itself.

The rec itself isn't 100% perfect, and there's a notable difference in the number of fics by disabled writers compared to abled writers. This may be because these stories have not been written yet, or are not given enough attention, or the writer has not disclosed their disability as freely as another writer would. If more disabled people were involved in fandom and wished to write, then stories would feel much more authentic and offer unique perspectives when applied to a character's life. Disabled writers, we need you!

I'll be honest; I never bothered to read or seek out these stories myself in the past because the ones I tried to give a chance were consistently inaccurate so I stopped caring. It sucks because it's a big part of my experience and I'd love to see it done right in fic.

The reason for my avoidance and call-out is the constant glorification and inaccuracy of the diagnoses by both writers and fandom. I get it, fics are fictional, but when people try to portray a real-life condition in a misleading way, and that piece of content gets a much larger audience than content created by disabled people, disabled readers feel misunderstood. It leads to sensationalism and the "savior complex" view of disabled bodies as "less-than" unless someone else enters their life; they are only thought of as undeserving of love until someone else "fixes" them or "helps" them.

Again, I am not trying to say that everyone should stop writing disabled characters. I am saying that we need more authenticity in these stories, and especially we need to uplift stories told by disabled people; their experiences, their stories. If an abled writer wants to create a disabled story, they need to consult people who have those disabilities and work closely with them to make sure their characterization is accurate, respectful, and realistic without dehumanizing or glorifying anything. On the other hand, we can't control the audience's response after the work gets published (which is another layer to this issue). I think if we begin at the writer's level, we can do good work in recognizing privileges and marginalized experiences in a way that is not gleaned over or taken directly from a "disability 101" course.

I hope this explanation helped you in some way and that you learned something new!

[jackoshadows]

The ASoIaF fandom can be so frustrating sometimes.

It’s okay to admit that one doesn’t like this or that character. There’s nothing wrong in disliking a character.

I am pretty open on my blog about my indifference towards or dislike for Sansa because of her stans. I don’t make disclaimers about how much I love the character before proceeding to criticize Sansa. I am not a Sansa stan and that’s okay. My blog is a place for me to jot down my thoughts and celebrate characters, books and shows I do like. If you love Sansa as a character, block me, don’t follow me etc.

What’s obnoxiously annoying are the folks who claim to love all the characters the same and then give their ‘unbiased’ opinions which are held up as canon facts because they came from neutral book reader experts. To hell with that nonsense.

These posts reek of hypocrisy and double standards. It often tears down some characters while subtly propping up others - and it’s gobbled up by the wider fandom as unbiased interpretation of the text.

One example is pushing forth the notion that calling Arya pretty (Something that both her father and brother tell her she is in the books) is wrong, it’s sexualizing her, it’s okay for Arya to be ugly, she’s canonically not pretty because Cat/Sansa said so and no other interpretation is allowed etc. And then the same person who says all this celebrates Sansa’s beauty and ships her with a 27 year old man who falls in lust with Sansa.

Or when they say that the Arya-Lyanna (and Sansa/Lyanna parallels, because it’s always important to mention Sansa with respect to Lyanna even if said person claims to not care about Lyanna as a character) parallels are overrated and not important and they don’t care about Robert’s Rebellion characters but on their blogs there’s all these posts, fanarts and meta about Elia Martell - a Robert’s Rebellion character.

A so called book expert would note that GRRM has several characters outright compare Arya to Lyanna or mistake Lyanna for Arya in the books while Sansa has no such comparison. But no, the unbiased book expert thinks that the Arya-Lyanna and Sansa-Lyanna parallels are equivalent and are both overrated.That post just annoyed me excessively into writing this long ass rant post.

Why are these neutral, unbiased folks so interested in stripping away from Arya’s story?

In the books Jeyne Poole is masquerading as Arya Stark - but that story is only Jeyne’s, has nothing to do with Arya or Arya’s importance to the North. 

Arya is a strong warg, Nymeria and her wolf pack are a ‘Chekov’s wolf pack’ that GRRM has hung on the wall  -  Our expert opinion is that Direwolves are not all that important in the grand scheme of things.

Arya is pretty - why needlessly call Arya pretty, it adds nothing to Arya’s story and is all about sexualizing a child.

Arya-Lyanna parallels - why do we need these parallels, Arya is distinct and interesting without them.

These aspects are all important parts of the character’s story. There are so many very well written essays exploring these concepts with respect to Arya’s journey of self discovery in the books, the narrative significance of her parallels to Lyanna, her bond with Nymeria and her warging talents. For those who are interested, here are two bloggers who actually like Arya and have written about her character and character arc.

https://donewithwoodenteeth.tumblr.com/meta-masterlist

https://ashotofjac.tumblr.com/tagged/arya-stark

Some of these same people will rush to condemn any reading of the books that does not have Sansa wielding power at the end as being ‘Sansa hate’. But they will have no issues to undermine and devalue Arya’s actual book story, the relationships she has, the parallels she has, the skillsets she has, her appearance, her importance to the current story happening in the North.

There is a whole ass plot currently in the books of Northerners rallying for Arya Stark and preparing for battle against the Boltons for Arya Stark. But that’s not important because it’s actually Jeyne Poole and Arya’s story is about sailing off west of westeros.  But hey, Sansa will definitely go North and hold power and that’s like 100% happening because we are the unbiased book experts and we say it is so.

Or when all else fails - Arya is a Mary Sue, she’s a fantasy character, she’s a ‘strong female character’ because she fights with a sword, people like her because she’s a tomboy who fights. Sansa is realistic, Sansa is complex - but here are all the essays that basically transfer Arya’s complexity and story to Sansa - because it fits more with their fave, because these aspects would fit better with the traditionally feminine character even though they never tire of talking about how GRRM is deconstructing tropes. Because the trope deconstruction is only applied to Arya, Jon and Dany. Never Sansa.

And honestly, why are these people reading a high fantasy series if they hate fantasy and fantasy characters so much? We love Sansa because she’s so non-magical! Then go read non-fiction books. They also twist Jon, Arya and Dany into ‘fantasy’ characters - despite these characters going through some very real and human experiences. What’s fantasy about Arya’s experiences in war torn Westeros, Jon dealing with bigotry at the wall, Dany trying to rebuild Meereen, while dealing with famine, disease and insurgency?

Or how Jon and Dany getting any kind of happy ending or becoming rulers would be so boring, sweet, predictable, conforming to tropes, a happy ending etc. But Sansa getting love, romance, going home, becoming the Stark in Winterfell, getting her fairy tale ending - that’s totally what GRRM is going to do! No trope deconstruction there!  In may ways, Benioff and Weiss’ ending is not all that surprising -  Mad Queen Dany, Jon remaining a bastard with the freefolk, Sansa having power as a leader - are all popular theories among bnfs in the fandom. D&D wanting to wind up the show quickly with easily found fan theories is not that much of a stretch.

ASoIaF reddit is equally frustrating. Instead of Sansa stan bnfs on tumblr who pretend to like Arya and Dany while subtly undermining their story and importance, on Asoiaf reddit it’s Stannis stans who dislike Jon and Dany because these characters present a challenge to Stannis. The mere suggestion that Jon may play a role in the battle against Ramsay sends them into frothing at the mouth rage. They hate Jon, Jon is a Gary Sue because he dared advice Stannis - the greatest general ever - on Northern military strategy. Never mind that Jon grew up in the North and learned from Ned, how dare Jon Snow know more than Stannis! Unacceptable!

And I love Stannis Baratheon. I want Stannis to crush and defeat the Boltons. But unlike reddit dudebros, I can see that he is a secondary character, a tragic character who is most probably going to perish and Jon takes over because Jon Snow is a central protagonist in the story.

I feel it’s the same with Sansa. IMO, GRRM clearly doesn’t see Sansa in the same way as he does Arya, Jon, Dany, Tyrion and Bran. Whenever he is asked questions about the books, book plots, long term arcs, endings, age gaps etc it’s these characters he often brings up and references. It’s these characters who are important to him.

And that’s why there’s a lot of undermining and undervaluing of these character’s and their stories, them being described as fantasy characters, tropes, Mary Sues and Gary Sues, ableist rhetoric about Tyrion and Bran to undermine them.

I am damned certain that if it was Sansa who had all the parallels to Lyanna, or if she was the warg, or Jeyne Poole was impersonating her, this would all be ‘VERY IMPORTANT’ and on all the gifsets and essays. But she isn’t. So fandom bnfs are reduced to talking about how these aspects are not all that important anyway.

It’s like how this quote - ‘You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts’ turns up on gifsets every other day on the Arya tag but this quote - ‘Sansa could never understand how two sisters, born only two years apart, could be so different. It would have been easier of Arya had been a bastard, like her half brother Jon. And Jon’s mother had been common, or so people whispered’ very rarely does and will not get reblogged when it does.

Or when Sansa sees Joffrey trying to kill Arya and sides with Joffrey or when Sansa throws Arya under the bus and tells the Lannisters that it’s Arya who is the traitor - just sisters being sisters y’all!

It’s all about maintaining a certain narrative about Sansa - and when others point out her actual relationship with Arya in the books, we are accused of hating and wanting Sansa dead and how we should be criticizing Tywin and the Mountain instead. This is nonsensical whataboutism and ignores that people talk about  these aspects of the books because sometimes bullying, getting mocked for one’s appearance, abuse and neglect from parental figures etc. can resonate with certain readers unlike getting one’s head smashed in by Frankenstein.

At the end of the day, I wish these people would be honest about the characters they like and relate to. We are all biased. That’s why our opinions and interpretations are subjective. There’s nothing wrong in saying, hey, I like Sansa more than Arya or Dany, I relate to her character more.

I relate to Jon Snow a lot, I see things from his POV, I would disagree with the characters who disagree with Jon,  I enjoy his story at the Wall and the North. My interpretations of the text are therefore colored by my bias towards Jon. 

For others, it’s Dany or Sansa or Arya or Tyrion or Jaime. And that’s okay because these are fictional characters and liking one more than the other is not going to earn anyone woke points and lead to women’s rights.

And finally, there’s nothing edgy or cool about disparaging the central protagonists of a high fantasy series as being fantasy characters - go read other books if one is not into fantasy.

[autumnblogs]

Day 45: Dead

https://homestuck.com/story/5443

You are now Caliborn.

The narrative introduces our young villain formally without any humanizing elements. No hobbies, no interests. Caliborn cares about nothing, and wants nothing, except for power.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/5446

Jujus serve, I think, as a symbol representing cultural norms - sets of rules and expectations which have no discernible origin, which are seemingly arbitrary, and which can easily ruin our lives if we fail to adhere to them. Being a Cherub is like perpetually being Alice in Wonderland, unable to make heads or tales of the strange grown-ups and their strange ways.

This is the lens that Caliborn grows up viewing the world through, and it is the one he will carry with him into adulthood - or whatever parody of adulthood he ultimately achieves by becoming Lord English.

https://homestuck.com/story/5457

The primary parallel being drawn between Caliborn and another character here is Karkat of all people! Which I don’t think is wrong. Caliborn is something like a bizarro world Karkat, an angry temperamental piece of shit who really is a complete piece of shit, rather than having solid gold beneath his irascible facade.

He is also aware of the narrative. The narrative denies (unreliably, I might add) that Caliborn is actually cognizant of it, and it does it in such a way that makes me suspect that, like Carapacians, Cherubs’ consciousness exists, to some extent, on the narrative layer.

Or it might be that Caliborn is a Lord and uniquely predisposed to take notice of it.

Or it could be the big goddamn signal tower on his planet with a narrative prompt, making it unmistakable that his thoughts are being authored by a third party.

https://homestuck.com/story/5466

Mere seconds into this adventure, and friendships are already strained.

Jane is literally at Dirk’s throat.

https://homestuck.com/story/5477

I’ve never thought to read what is obviously metanarrative shenanigans as Caliborn experiencing Calliope Thoughts as though they were from inside his own noggin before, but I kind of like that reading, and I wonder to what extent it’s true? It’s never hinted at in the text, but the idea is intriguing. Even if he has not properly absorbed his sister’s consciousness in order to become whole, some parts of her nature no doubt linger in the shared body, like a vestigial organ, or the phantom pain from a severed appendage.

Sadly, we don’t have a lot of evidence to work with.

https://homestuck.com/story/5480

What’s the function of Caliborn having a learning disability? Does he actually have a learning disability? It seems like he does. Is it a case of inspirationally disadvantaged? Are we to find the story of Caliborn’s journey to strength in spite of his inherent disadvantage compelling? That is troubling, especially because of the kind of weirdly ableist judgement that the story passes on Tavros and Jake respectively for more or less failing to be strong in spite of their respective disadvantages (Tavros being a paraplegic is pretty obvious, and I don’t think it’s remotely a stretch to say that Jake has some pretty obvious PTSD). Are we supposed to laugh at him because his disability is another form of misery inflicted on him? That’s even worse. Is it just an extraneous detail? I have a hard time believing that.

Maybe Caliborn’s learning disability is imagined, self-diagnosed, and he’s actually just a stubborn asshole who won’t learn how to do new things.

Hmmm.

All troubling possible answers to that question.

I wanna be clear here that I like Homestuck; clearly, or I wouldn’t be writing this. But I think it is at times a troublingly ableist work of fiction.

https://homestuck.com/story/5481

Andrew seems to confirm the “Inspirationally Disadvantaged” take here.

https://homestuck.com/story/5484

I’ve gotta tell you, to whatever extent Caliborn is actually a surrogate for the audience, I feel considerably more sympathy for him this time around. My own increasing suspicion of Andrew, and antipathy toward the antagonistic writing of Homestuck.

https://homestuck.com/story/5496

Andrew’s choice of words here in describing the people who get Yaldabaoth as their Denizen is telling - the Demiurge is reserved as a challenge for Warriors. All kinds of characters in Homestuck fight and some of them who are not warriors are extremely deadly - Kanaya for example - extremely deadly, not a warrior.

A warrior is someone for whom war is their career. It is what they do with their life, and historically, their form of retirement is to grow old and slow and be taken down by younger and more spry adversaries.

While, to invoke my recurring refrain, if you have gotten this far, you probably already know, the Demiurge Yaldabaoth is a figure from Gnostic Religions, early counterparts to Orthodox Christianity, for which a central theme was the idea that the God of the Old Testament was not the same entity as Jesus Christ, but a hostile and extremely powerful spiritual being named Yaldabaoth, a being born into a material world alone as a result of divine reproductive incontinence, believing he was the only thing that existed, and proclaiming himself as God.

An Evil God who attempts to keep all of his subjects in the dark so that they will not achieve Gnosis, and transcend the material confines of the cruel universe he has constructed to torture them. Sound familiar?

https://homestuck.com/story/5505

So here are a few more things to sum up about Caliborn that aren’t exactly revolutionary, because a lot like Equius, much of the point of Caliborn is to explicitly state a lot of the comic’s antitheses.

Caliborn is extraordinarily morally myopic and hypocritical, and while he sometimes entertains the idea that anything he has done might have been in error, he usually chalks up success to his own skill and “virtue” if it can be said Caliborn is in any way virtuous, while blaming other people, or bad luck, for his misfortune (rather like Vriska does).

Caliborn’s experience of the present is pretty much always miserable; he constantly bitches and complains, and his only real source of entertainment seems to be nostalgia concerning his own exploits - he greatly enjoys engaging in reverie on the subject of his own evil deeds. I believe we’ll find that Caliborn feels equally good about his future, but the present is always miserable for him. He only ever gets to enjoy himself vicariously - looking forward to what he’s going to do, or looking back on what he’s already done. (Kind of the opposite of Karkat’s continuously hostile relatioinship with his past and future selves!)

He regards other people almost entirely in terms of either the utility that they bring to the table, or their ability to gratify him personally. Violence is his absolute first instinct though, when encountering another living being, and he basically only entertains other possibilities if he cannot realistically kill them. At least at this stage.

https://homestuck.com/story/5510

In any case, we’ll check in on the Alpha Kids tomorrow. For now, Cam signing off, Alive, and Deeply entertained by Caliborn pretty much as always.

[harrowdubois]

okay, i said if there was interest i would think about making a post listing all the references i squeezed into the locked tomb fic i spent the last month or so writing, and now i’ve realised i don’t care if there’s interest because i want to be self-indulgent SO

under the cut is a (somewhat spoilery) chronological list of all the memes, vines, and cribbed tumblr posts, as well as homages to various books, tv shows, song lyrics, etc. that made their way into blessed with a wilder mind! 

(cw for suicide mention)

this is of course a reference to the legendary bodybuilding forum thread where they did, actually, argue over how many days there are in a week (cw for ableist slurs in the thread)

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buzzfeed unsolved meme. i am dirt and i love to eat dirt

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this is so well-known it’s almost not worth listing it but oh my god they were roommates

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in itself, this isn’t a reference to anything in particular, but if you didn’t do this on your first read then i’d recommend taking another look at this scene and thinking about the specific wuthering heights/frankenstein/rebecca excerpts discussed by harrow and mercymorn but in relation to canon!harrow’s trauma/relationship with the body in htn :~) 

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also not really a reference to anything in particular but when i looked back over the fic for this post it struck me that the ‘sex panther’ phrasing was probably at least partially unconsciously inspired by the shoebox project (professor mcgonagall’s oiled man panther was a formative moment for me, truly)

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cw gross/unsanitary: it’s the tinder poop window incident. i mentioned this in the end notes of the fic as being what i had in mind for that scene but if it’s too gross for you (UNDERSTANDABLY) then feel free to Death Of The Author me to your heart’s content!

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i listened to a lot of orville peck while writing this

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 very very very loosely inspired by this clickhole article

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respectively: fourth of july by sufjan stevens / wuthering heights by emily bronte

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TWO BROS, CHILLIN IN A HOT TUB, FIVE FEET APART BECAUSE THEY’RE NOT GAY

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there was absolutely no need to stretch this across three paragraphs, and yet

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iconic

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i already linked to this one in the end notes of the fic itself, but it’s good, so here it is again

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 i can’t find the actual original post but it’s this fucking horrible thing 

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the last line is a reference to the secret history by donna tartt:

“Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls- which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skinned knees, that one's aches and pains are all one’s own. Even more terrible, as we grow old, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think?”

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a lyrical double whammy!

from ‘last words of a shooting star’ by mitski: “they’ll never know how i’d stared at the dark in that room with no thoughts like a blood-sniffing shark”

from ‘a better son/daughter’ by rilo kiley: “sometimes in the morning i am petrified but can’t move/awake but cannot open my eyes” 

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*

shout-out to maybe my single favourite video game moment, the encounter with the sky cat in night in the woods: “There is a hole at the center of everything, and it is always growing. Between the stars I am seeing it. It is coming, and you are not escaping, and the universe is forgetting you, and the universe is being forgotten, and there is nothing to remember it, not even the things beyond. And now there is only the hole... You are atoms, and your atoms are not caring if you are existing. Your atoms are monstrous existence.”

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“Nothing is ever fulfilled, not until the very end.” - rust cohle, true detective s1, this reference is VERY tonally dissonant because in context it’s actually grim as all hell but w/e w/e i couldn’t resist the shout-out

also harrow quotes from the goldfinch again here! i had the reference included before i read this post and realised tamsyn muir also quotes from the secret history in htn. terrible synergy 

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they are in fact all real. you’re welcome

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this one’s doing a lot of work lmao. it’s paying homage to this quote by tamsyn muir talking about the draco-in-leather-pants trope in relation to ianthe by loosely referencing drop dead gorgeous, the best drarry fic ever written, in which harry is part veela

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“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.” - that’s right it’s another reference to the secret history, with a little bit of mary oliver (tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?) sprinkled on top for flavour

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a small one, but it’s the goldfinch again: “And I feel I have something very urgent and serious to say to you, my non-existent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you...”

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my FUCKING cinnamon apple

 what if i... put my minecraft bed.... next to yours... aha ha just kidding.... unless?

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[cw: suicide discussion in these next two]

*

robyn can have little a rust cohle quote, as a treat.

1. “I'd consider myself a realist, all right? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist... I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody... I think the honorable thing for our species to do is to deny our programming. Stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction; one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal.”

2. “This... This is what I'm talking about. This is what I mean when I'm talkin' about time, and death, and futility. All right, there are broader ideas at work, mainly what is owed between us as a society for our mutual illusions. Fourteen straight hours of staring at DBs, these are the things you think of. You ever done that? You look in their eyes, even in a picture, doesn't matter if they're dead or alive, you can still read 'em. You know what you see? They welcomed it... Not at first, but... right there in the last instant. It's an unmistakable relief. See, cause they were afraid, and now they saw for the very first time how easy it was to just... let go. Yeah, they saw, in that last nanosecond, they saw... what they were. You, yourself, this whole big drama, it was never more than a jerry-rig of presumption and dumb will, and you could just let go. To finally know that you didn't have to hold on so tight. To realize that all your life - you know, all your love, all your hate, all your memories, all your pain - it was all the same thing. It was all the same dream, a dream that you had inside a locked room, a dream about being a person.”

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ahaaa this one’s particularly rough. evil monkey no one alive dot jpg

“Later, that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they’d never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.” - annie proulx, brokeback mountain

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a TRIPLE lyrical whammy!

- harrow’s words to gideon in the dream are a bit of a vague reference to the song ‘adventures in solitude’ by the new pornographers (”we thought we lost you/welcome back”) - gideon’s words to harrow are a reference to the song ‘blush’ by wolf alice (”you’ve got two hands to take all you can/but don’t take too long”) - what harrow texts to gideon is a line from ‘about today’ by the national, aka the most devastating song ever written (”hey, are you awake?/yeah i’m right here”...)

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i CANNOT find a clip of it but harrow’s repetition of “life is short... it’s short” was me paraphrasing from memory a line from pride (2014), because i am the worst

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spooky scary skeletons! 

“jail for gideon” is obviously a reference to the “jail for mother” tweet that tm also referenced in htn. so, not original in the slightest, but it’s a great tweet

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one of my favourite tumblr posts

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because naberius tern absolutely would watch rick and morty. he would. i know it in my heart. 

---

and that’s it, i think. hope you enjoyed this horrid little post and my horrid little fic!

[beizhuo]

alright folks , i made this post last night about amending my carrd rules . & now , after calming somewhat down from getting sick to my stomach about it , i must now make one final update post about this to make people really & fully understand where i stand . why ? because i am , once again , having / needing to finely comb through the people i want to follow & interact with due to some very , VERY toxic behavior & terrible , childish individuals that think its real cute to stalk , harrass , steal , & gatekeep folks . 

understand that i will NOT be namedropping anybody in this post . this is not my intention . i am not out here to isolate folks or make people ‘ chose sides ’ . making people do that is absolutely horrible ! i do not give a damn who other people interact with . i do , however have extreme issues with theft ( amongst other things ) . i can draw a god damn line at theft ! 

harassment ? don’t care . you’re trolling , i can ignore you . gatekeeping . you’e petty and attention seeking im here for friends anyway . but actual literal theft - i can draw a line there . please get out & OFF MY BLOG if you are so unoriginal that you haveta steal from me or my friends !

please know that you can interact with those thieves & gatekeepers , i don’t care ! but understand that i will most likely softblock you because i genuinely do not want them to find me . no hard feelings . ( they have found my other 2 blogs , and i am tired of them finding me ! especially for baizhu ! i don’t even follow some of my friends here cause of this ! ) i am not even in the genshin community to begin with . my group ? we don’t do communities for toxic behavior and people being so exclusive to the point of driving people out & away . its distasteful and mean ! do you know that i have some friends that were cut off from communities entirely all because they were a dupe ? tHAT is the kind of dupe drama i fucking hate . along with theft . anyway . i will start from the beginning of my rules that i deem important .

DUPLICATES . ( AND MIMICRY / THEFT )

the irony that this is the first point . it is like it was a wonderful transition . anyway . this is actually having to deal with two rule points . and i want to group them together cause they are related .

myself & a few other people have come to find out that .... there is somebody AT THE VERY LEAST taking inspo from us . i will start with dupes .

my friend has a character and was WHOLLY mistaken for another mun . which is fine . that happens , but things took a turn for the worse when they were then shunned / cut off because they werent ‘ good enough ’ . do you know how HORRIBLE that is ? to be told that you aren’t good because you weren’t the mun that they wanted ? this is the type of shit i cannot stand with dupe drama . DO NOT EVER COMPARE DUPES WITH ONE ANOTHER !!! i mean it . 

i follow different childes ! and you know what i adore them both . they are both amazing ! 

sure i may have my mains / exclusives ( and im not inclined to interact with other blogs of that same character ) but i still like portrayals . i do , in fact , just READ threads sometimes . i don’t necessarily follow for interactions . like ffs man . i like variety . jesus christ .

going to mimicry / theft . you know ... i have fucking seen this with a couple of friends . there is a difference between coincidental similarities , however ! for myself & for my friends , we have SEEN inspo taken from us . im gonna say this really loud for people .

MIMICRY IS NOT FUCKING FLATTERY . 

do not take inspo from me . especially without credit . absolutely do NOT do it . you are very unoriginal for doing that shit . 

now , you like something i make / made ? you are inspired to want to make something ? fine , that’s okay , you can ALSO fucking ask me , you can also credit me . as you fucking should ! you can notify me and go , damn , i really like your style , do you mind if i use it in xyz ? sure , go right ahead . do it . im begging you , go ahead and do it IF YOU FUCKING ASK ME . god im so fucking angry about this , but this is some vile shit . and im angry .

i am angry and terrified cause i literally cannot get away from these people cause they seem to be wherever i go . i DO NOT DO COMMUNITIES BECAUSE OF THIS .

as a good friend said : it’s like they are a virus that you cannot get rid of .

thats what happens with attention seekers unfortunately , but for the sake of my safety & health , i will not have it on my blog or dash . if i see these people on my dash often , i will unfollow .

and it isn’t like a specific person , its a GROUP of people . which leads me to my next point .

DRAMA / CALLOUTS.

imagine having beef with an individual , and then going around and gatekeeping that individual and getting people to unfollow / block them . im not talking about , ‘ hey this person is vile because they ship incest ’ . i am talking about ‘ i had a disagreement with this person & they hurt my feelings >:/ they are mean and will hurt you . etc etc etc . ’ 

i do not give a flying fuck about somebodies issues with another person . so you guys don’t get along . not my problem . i have people that hate me . i have friends where i hate their friends . shit happens . i am probably absolute scum to some people lol . i get mistaken for other people sometimes . it’s fine , hate me cause you think im that person . that person is snowflake repellent anyway , go choke on your kool aide that you are drinking ig . 

okay sorry i am angry but still . people claim and cry about wanting to talk & communicate . but then . guess what . sometimes shitty people are like , so this person said this to me , and they are mean . IF YOU ARE THE PERSON THAT GOES ‘ OH MY GOD HOW DARE THEY ’ AND BLOCK THEM THEN YOU ARE THE PROBLEM . i will give an example . of using my two names that i have .

somebody goes to amphy and says ‘omg ghost said this , and im frustrated and angry with them cause what he said was uncalled for . ’ if amphy goes ‘ omg ghost is shitty ’ and then unfollows / blocks them without any other discussion , then thats an issue cause ghost has no idea wtf happen . amphy got involved in YOUR relationship with ghost even though ghost has been nothing but kind and sweet to you . you also don’t know if amphy is just victimising or being emotional either . so why they fuck would you believe somebody who is venting to you about it and then block somebody who did literally NOTHING to you .

i dont know if i explained that correctly but i will give you something more realistic , again without namedropping .

i have a few friends that hate one another . i’ve known all of them for years . but they all , i kid you not , they ALL fucking hate each other . there’s three of them . and they cannot stand each other . i just happen to be somebody who gets along with all of them . you bet your ass that at one point , they all came to talk mad shit about the others . what did i do ? i went , oh okay . well im sorry that you have issues with them . sounds like a bad experience , but i can’t do anything about that cause i am not you and i am not them . if you are gonna change my mind , it isn’t gonna happen , sorry !

i have had people shit talk people i have no idea who they are , and i just sit here just being a source for them to vent , but i never NEVER EVER act on anything i hear . why ? cause its petty drama and gossip . if you do that , then damn , sorry kiddo , get some help on that alright ? maybe be nicer . i dunno .

now . racism ? pedophilia ? incest ? HARMFUL SHIT ? that’s different . but again , theres a lot of miscommunication . i have people coming and pulling the cards like they are hot shit  and that isn’t fucking cute . THAT ISN’T CUTE GUYS . you are the problem if you try to victimize yourself cause of something YOU misinterpreted .

i have a friend that has this on their blog .

i am literally going off on a god damn tangent . anyway . :) 

fuck you if drink kool aide .

THERE ARE OTHER MENTAL DISORDERS! YOU ARE ABLEIST IS YOU ERASE THE OTHER (UN)COMMON ONES.

i know that autism is the ‘common’ one here . you are valid okay . but guess what . ADHD , BPD, DiD, and straight up depression and anxiety are also things as well ! there are MANY folks here that are also undiagnosed as well OR they lay on some sort of spectrum as well . I am once again not going to disclose my own things here cause again THAT IS PRIVATE INFO , but fuck you if you refuse to see other disabilities .

also there are physical disabilities as well btw .

if you are not understanding of any other disability , or you wanna mute / deafen other mental disorders , YOU ARE THE FUCKING PROBLEM .

end of story . 

treat other people how you want them to treat you and don’t you dare ever shove your baggage at them . thanks . 

please be more understanding that some people are not okay:tm: . 

i implore you to get help if you need help , but sometimes some people dont have to take your shit . and they most certainly do not need to sit and take your issues if they are not okay either . its toxic and very unhealthy behavior to expect others to help you . they can help you as best as they can , but you need to understand that everybody has their moments . do not guilttrip them . do not gaslight them . 

but also understand that sometimes , people are saying things cause they genuinely need help ! you can be there for them but as a friend , you need to also tell them your own boundaries as well and tell them that they need to seek professional help .

but also , if somebody refuses to get help , then that is on them . not on you . 

anyway another tangent , but back to the point . autism , while you need to understand is something you need to see and understand , is not the only mental disorder ! and you need to understand that some people suffer from really REALLY shitty things and are sometimes undiagnosed . i am really REALLY tired of depression , ADHD , BPD, and DiD getting brushed under the rug like they are not important . cause guess what , there are spectrums ! all mental health is important . fuck you if you disregard the other disorders , you are being ableist .

STOP HATE READING PEOPLE.

im really sick and tired of this . you don’t like something somebody said ? you can either : ask what they meant or block / unfollow them . 

DO NOT FUCKING STALK THEM EITHER . 

you have an obsession if you hover on their blog too .. do not do that . that is SO unhealthy for you . here is what a friend said on twitter . ( not name dropping them , just copy pasting them )

❛ i stg people need to fine a better hobby than to hate read a persons blog or profile. not a good look on you when you go and read what they post about just to get angry at something you think they said and then you go off spewing lies about it cause 'youre offended.'  

like you already hate them in the first place. you weren’t 'looking to see if they were a better person.' youre just looking to find another thing to hate about them. 

that is what hate reading is about. so you can read their posts and find just another reason to hate and laugh at how bad you think they are.

but it doesnt make you a better person. it just makes you a sad person with no life. stop hate reading people. grow tf up. go breathe on some plants or something idk.

i say this very loud and clear . if you hate read me , i live in your head rent free . not my problem . but it does become my problem if you begin to steal shit and start spewing lies about myself or my friends . grow up and move on with your life . sorry my life seems more interesting than you ig . idk .

anway this got long , and at this point i am going off on a tangent but !!!!

TL ; DR

read my rules ig . idk .

you can dm me for more info if you want . at this point i have blocked the problem blogs for myself. if you are curious you can ask . HOWEVER. i am not going to tell you to block or unfollow . why ? cause at the end of the day , it is MY beef . this are my issues . i am NOT here to gatekeep .

i will say that i will tell you IN private the for MY story . but keep in mind that it is MY story . not yours . not theirs . it is all about perception .

my perception is that they are scummy gatekeeping thieves . they gatekeep the people they dont like or are intimidated by . i am somebody who fucking bites and calls people out on their shit , because of this ? i make enemies . but my enemies are not yours . i dont care .  dont give a damn . i am intimidating to people who are cowards and i don’t care . 

if they feel bad when i call them out , if they try to go around and do damage control , then that means they are guilty .

and then you can ask yourself this : why are they reacting like that ?

i am once again going to bring up that other twitter user that i quoted before .

❛  you dont like hearing that because someone is holding a mirror up to you and it makes you uncomfortable because you know you . and you know the parts of you that are good . so in your heart you have to come up with a narrative that makes you feel better about the fact that somebody is asking your to confront the parts about yourself that you hate the most .

anyway . this got long . im so sorry for the long read . im so sorry i sounded hostile ad angry . im just volatile sometimes . im just really tired . and i dont need to come on this blog and have a panic attack . 

anyway . cheers loves ! stay happy , stay healthy . drink your fluids . take your meds !

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Disability and Loren

@zarohk asked for my thoughts on a Disability Studies/Media Studies perspective on the disability depictions in Animorphs.  Which was foolish, because I’m teaching an entire dang class on the subject of superheroes and mental health, so I have Many Thoughts.  [PLEASE NOTE: I am nondisabled, so if I err, please tell me so.]

Loren’s role in #49: The Diversion does a lot of things right, and a lot of things wrong.  She incurs a traumatic brain injury that results in memory loss and blindness a couple of years after Tobias is born, and lives with said injury for about ten years before Tobias finds her and gives her the ability to morph, which restores her sight but not her memory.

A few places where I commend the depiction of Loren:

It gets into the massive underemployment of disabled Americans.  Loren is smart, canny, athletic, compassionate... and working a call center job in exchange for state benefits.  Said state benefits do not afford her a decent standard of living; Tobias notes that she has few possessions and almost no time for leisure activities.  Americans with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed as those without, and those who do have jobs are ten times more likely to be paid less than minimum wage, e.g. in sheltered workshops.

It shows how inaccessible a lot of systems are in the U.S.  Tobias notes that Loren accidentally grabs an expired quart of milk — because nothing on the label is printed in Braille.  Putting raised text and/or Braille on food packaging is a health and safety issue, one that the U.S. ignores even though it violates its own laws (e.g. the ADA) because companies tend to do what they want and “what they want” is usually not to spend more money on packaging.  The call center and bus system are both marginally more accessible, especially when Loren has Champ to help, but they’re still clearly spaces set up for sighted people that don’t take blind users into account very well.

It shows some of the workarounds that help deal with accessibility problems.  Loren’s house is set up so that there are clear paths to and from all of the relevant spaces.  She’s doing that to allow herself to move around comfortably in that space, because she’s made it accessible for herself.  She memorizes the layout of the local store, and uses that to get around as well.  All of those details help show that she’s adjusted, and actively interacting with her own circumstances.

It drives home the difference between service dogs and pets.  This distinction is extremely important, and it gets ignored all the time by entitled ableists who want to bring their pets into stores.  Tobias and Marco both assume from the outside that it can’t be that hard to become a service animal — just do what Loren says to do, right? — but it takes Tobias 0.02 seconds to realize that it’s not that simple and that he cannot imitate Champ’s lifetime of training on the fly.  He says that he manages to get his mom home in one piece, and that that’s about all that can be said for his sad performance as a guide.  Champ has skills like ignoring interesting smells and applying exactly the right amount of pressure to the harness that most pets don’t have and also most pets can’t learn.  Champ is not a pet, at least not while he’s in that harness; he’s a gainfully employed expert assistant.

It rounds Loren out as a character, and definitely does not just make her into a lesson or problem for Tobias.  Loren is gently humorous, tolerating her coworkers’ teasing and Ax’s attempted juvenile delinquency with an eye-roll.  She’s compassionate, listening to other people’s problems on the phone with genuine concern and not swatting flies if she doesn’t have to.  She’s tough-minded and stupidly brave, chucking rocks at Visser Three’s head and flying at attack helicopters as a three-pound bird.  She’s fallible, unable to support Tobias emotionally even when he asks her to do so and unwilling to check in on him after leaving him with her sister.  She’s a fully rounded person, one whose personality is informed but not defined by her disability.

It talks about some of the unromatic aspects of a Traumatic Brain Injury.  Too often in other works of fiction, we see a person get bonked over the head and wake up with no episodic memory but all other brain functions intact (*cough* Rachel in MM1 *cough*).  Loren actually gets into the fact that she forgot huge chunks of language, forgot how to brush her teeth, forgot how to walk across a room.  She obviously lost her sight as well, and she mentions lifelong balance and coordination problems.  Even her amnesia isn’t absolute — she has some traces of recall, but can’t make anything coherent of her impressions.  Her injury isn’t 100% realistic, but it’s more so than many TBIs we see in fiction.

It focuses on the intersection of disability and social class.  Tobias notes that Loren is under a compounded threat because of her inability to move to a more secure neighborhood and her obvious vulnerability.  He feels a lot of disgust with himself when he and Marco and Ax are harassing Loren, because it’s so clear that this isn’t the first time she’s been harassed.  Tobias understands that his experience with poverty as a nondisabled male minor is different from Loren’s for those reasons.

A few places where Loren falls into the common traps of implied ableism creeping into fiction, as written about in Narrative Prosthesis: 

She gets “cured.”  Loren falls into the “kill or cure” dichotomy, like most of the other disabled characters in Animorphs.  In her case, it’s that she gains the power to morph and in the process regains the ability to see.  It isn’t a complete cure, true — she still has no memory — but it means that she’s no longer blind for the rest of the series.  Having the occasional character no longer be disabled sometimes isn’t automatically problematic; having every disabled character get either “fixed” or killed off inherently treats the disabled body as a problem that needs to be solved, through sci fi nonsense if no other way is available.

She implies that she’d rather die than continue to be disabled.  When injured by dracon burns, Loren initially refuses to morph out even though Tobias tells her she’ll die if she remains a bird, because (they both assume) to morph out is to return to her blind human body.  This moment buys into the stereotype that it’s better to be dead than disabled, again inherently devaluing the lives of actual blind individuals.

There’s a certain amount of mystery around how she became disabled.  It’s interesting that we never actually get a definitive answer on that one — Loren says she was told it was a car crash, but there’s also an implication that she was attacked by controllers, and we don’t know for sure.  However, the fact of her disability is treated as an aberrant state that needs to be explained, the book inherently asking “why are you like this?”  By contrast (for instance) she doesn’t ask Tobias “why are you in the body of a hawk?”

She views herself as a burden, and the narration doesn’t do enough to contradict her.  Loren says that she couldn’t possibly be expected to raise a child while also blind and coping with a TBI.  Real blind people raise kids all the time, however, including blind single parents, and it’d be nice to see some evidence in the story that Loren’s assumption is wrong.  Loren also apparently assumes that she can’t begin to play a role in Tobias’s life even now that Tobias is more self-sufficient, again because she views herself as relatively helpless and non-contributing due to her disability.  There are some hints that she’s wrong, but we don’t really see her either begin to contribute to the resistance or build a relationship with Tobias until after she’s become un-blind.

Tobias’s view of Loren is often pitying.  As much as Loren doesn’t initially view herself as a potential maternal figure to Tobias, he doesn’t view her as a potential mentor either.  He repeatedly expresses horror or sadness at her life circumstances, and assumes that her life must be barren due to the spartan nature of her home.  (Of course, that begs the question of why the hell a blind woman living alone would ever bother hanging pictures on her walls or putting doilies on her coffee tables, but Tobias doesn’t consider that angle.)  Again, Tobias is allowed to assume that her life must be meaningless if she’s disabled, but it’d be nice to see some contradictory evidence in the form of her having close friends or inane hobbies or some other proof that to lead a disabled life is not to automatically lead a lonely one.

Loren expresses bitterness and desperate desire to be nondisabled.  Again, it’s fine for any character to say “I wish my life was different,” and it’s a common consensus among blind writers/bloggers that being blind is often a pain in the butt.  However, views as extreme as “you need vision to have a fulfilling existence” or “vision is part of what makes us human” are ableist crocks of shit.  Loren doesn’t go so far as to espouse those extreme views, but she also doesn’t seem to view herself as having a well-rounded life in spite of her disability.  It’d be nice to see Loren talking about sight as handy or enjoyable or a thing that the designers of 99% U.S. environments assume everyone must have, rather than a necessary precondition for a minimum standard of life.

Loren’s disability is somewhat medicalized.  Same caveat as above: disabilities are by definition medical things that some bodies do or have that other bodies do not.  However, discussing disability primarily through “this is how your body is different from Implied Normal of Nondisabled Body” and focusing on doctor’s notes, diagnoses, physical differences, etc. can serve to disconnect the lived experience of the individual from their body.  It also tends to focus on the ways that the body is “the problem” rather than focusing on the ways that environments and attitudes are problematic, which then prevents anyone from asking hard questions about the environments and attitudes.  Loren’s doctor’s note, discussion of scarring and loss, and repeated physical descriptions are somewhat more medical than social.  It’d be nice to see a little more emphasis on the social factors that make blindness a disability (e.g. improperly labeled milk), and less on “your eyes are different from those of Implied Normal Nondisabled Person.”

[fanmode-activated]

Things I ought to talk about regarding skam france s5 (basically a long ass rant)

Being the first original Skam season to be made by a remake, there is, of course, going to be many things to discuss about Skam France. It has always been the more dramatic one of the remakes in terms of cinematography and events. The show looks like you’re watching something very produced and professional as opposed to the more “authentic” look that the original show had. It’s not that important honestly for me regarding the quality of the show, it’s more a question of taste, whether you like it or not. The actors are older than their characters, which is not a bad thing in and of itself. It hasn’t been affecting the show negatively is what I’m saying (unless we’re talking about Charles, but I lowkey love Michel and Marilyn’s chemistry, it made me care about their relationship in s2. Only s2. Otherwise fuck Charles). Like every other version, the cast is talented and fits each other well. I think my main issue is that Skam France (and some other remakes, but this is about France) seems to have missed the purpose of Skam, which is to give teenagers hopeful stories that teach them how to communicate.

I want to start by saying that there were a lot of good things in s5. The choice to make it about Arthur was smart, because he is a mysterious guy who would say the weirdest shit unprompted, like how he slept with a 34-year-old woman (we still don’t know what that was about btw), and we basically knew nothing about him, except that he thought his dad was an asshole. He was a blank slate to work with, which is somewhat of a dream.

Making the main theme of the season be about deafness was, in my opinion, a good idea. It had the ability to teach people about a community that is very rarely portrayed in media. It gives D/deaf people representation, which is always good, as long as it is done carefully and respectfully. Luckily, the Skam France team seems to have done its research. They worked with a deaf run theatre company and made sure to hire deaf actors, just to be accurate. Whether every medical detail of Arthur’s sudden deafness is realistic and accurate, I can’t say. It seemed reasonable to me, but someone with more experience would have to tell me. On the technical front, everything seemed fine. 

Having Arthur’s dad be abusive was a good idea, because it is a reality, and it would be beneficial to show in the Skam style how this reality affects teens and how to potentially get out of a bad situation.  In theory, I am on board with that. What I have an issue with is the second part of that story, which I will address here. 

Like I said earlier, the deaf storyline was a great idea. They managed to include other disabilities through the characters of Melchior and Laura, which was amazing. They are adorable and I know some people felt really happy to be represented that way. Noée and Camille are a great addition to the cast, I mean Noée is an adorable badass, and Camille is a toned-down Mika, I could not have asked for more, they’re literally perfect. I think there was a great potential to make them sort of guides for Arthur, friends he needs in this new journey and they achieved that in many ways. However, I could have done without the love triangle. Mainly because, love triangles are so overdone at this point, it’s painful. I mean, literally everyone is so done with love triangles, can we come up with something else, please? From Skam, I would expect a little more originality. Especially Skam France, who unnecessarily pushed the love triangle in s4 with Manon, Sofiane and Imane that didn’t really exist in the original and got a pretty huge backlash. I thought they would learn from their mistakes, considering that the characters often mention previous seasons in s5 to refer to mistakes they made as people, so it’s kind of ironic that the team wouldn’t make an effort themselves to correct their mistakes. 

The first major problem with this for me is that they introduced Arthur and Alex as being in a happy and loving relationship. Now, personally, I would have loved if they weren’t in a relationship at all because I mean a) imagine a season where the main character’s problems don’t revolve around a ‘love’ problem somehow, and b) it’s not really realistic to me that they would all be in relationships seeing as they are teenagers. But, forgetting about that because my personal experience of being a teenager is not necessarily universal, since they decided to have them be in a relationship, what was the point if it was only to throw trouble at it? It’s absolutely believable that they would have problems in their couple, and the first part of the season was actually very good at showing that. Arthur’s main problem was acquiring a disability and having to learn to accept it and live with it. The journey was very realistic, and the way Alexia reacted to it was also good and realistic. I was absolutely happy with that. But then, at the same time, we had Noée. She was purposely coded as a romantic interest, but not too much (she was introduced in a pool, the most romantic Skam location, I mean subtlety much?), just enough to confuse the audience. She was what Arthur needed a lot of times, a friend, a guide, and we could see that she had some feelings for him, but if we actually look at the facts, they didn’t interact that much, and a lot of those initial interactions were spent fighting because they had different views about Arthur’s deafness. But let’s say that I ignore the facts and focus on their emotional connection, which I totally believed, on Noée’s side anyway. Why did they do it? I have a few theories. Arthur is constantly torn between his hearing and the deaf world and they decided to represent that with his relationship with Alexia and Noée. Now, I’m not one of those people who need to pick a team (because binary is bullshit, black or white, male or female, good or bad, life is more rich and complicated than that, I don’t subscribe to a binary view of anything), and for those who do, remember that both of them are amazing representation, a confident bisexual girl and a deaf girl as romantic leads is badass either way. But, I reiterate, why make the effort of making Arthur and Alexia’s relationship strong and rootable for, if you’re going to introduce another viable love interest? My guess, like I said is that both girls are representative of the deaf and hearing world, and his relationship to Noée mirrors his relationship to his disability in some way, but if that’s the case then, it’s pretty reductive to both girls. 

Noée was shown from the very start as being this independent, strong, confident, caring badass woman. She immediately reached out to Arthur when she saw that he looked like he needed help and guidance. She headbutted a guy who came onto her when she repeatedly told him no. She’s very proud of her deafness, and she has issues with hearing people because of childhood bullying and her father not loving her. In short, she seemed like a complicated, three-dimensional person. So, when clip 12 of episode 8 happened, I was very confused. The way the scene was written is very messy. First off, Arthur only “breaks up” with her because he doesn’t want to be like his dad (which is another thing we need to address later). He refers to the obstacle of their relationship as being communication, which is not actually an obstacle because, with patience and care, any language barrier is obsolete. I mean there are plenty of couples who don’t speak the same language that exists, deaf and hearing people included, so, not really an argument on his part. The second problem with that scene is that it’s constructed in a way where Noée is the one who has to run after Arthur and make the effort of talking out loud. Disregarding the fact that I hate the trope of “the deaf person who doesn’t like using their voice using it in a dramatic moment to be perceived as romantic” (I didn’t like it in Switched at Birth, I don’t like it now), it’s a very ableist view of what qualifies as romantic. I guess there is an argument that could be made about the fact that it’s like if let’s say someone is afraid of heights, but they go on top of a building to save someone who’s about to jump or other instances of conquering one's fear for a loved one. I don’t agree with it, but the right arguments could convince me maybe one day.  Noée having to go against something she’s been uncomfortable with forever to say “I love you”? I absolutely do not believe it at all. She doesn’t love him. She cares about him, sure, she likes him even, that of course, I see it, I have eyes, but love? Big word for someone you met what, 4 weeks earlier? Either she doesn’t know what love is and said it out of fear, which I don’t know about, but it could be realistic I guess in some parallel universe, OR it was a ploy by the writers to be dramatic and have Arthur look back at her in a telenovela, 90s soap opera, early 2000s K-drama fashion right before getting hit by a car. Now, could it be argued that Noée suffers from abandonment issues because of her dad? Maybe, but if that was the case, based on the content we’ve had, it’s a pretty far-fetched theory that seems like an attempt to redeem bad writing. I mean, just the fact that he literally gets hit by a car adds to the very unrealistic dramatic flair of the entire clip. It feels like every drama show, which Skam is not supposed to be. It’s hard to enjoy the good acting when the story is so out there. My other main problem with this story is that they want us to believe that Arthur is also in love with Noée. The problem is, they don’t show us, they just tell us. “Show, don’t tell” is a pretty basic film technique, especially in Skam. If they wanted us to really believe that he loved her, they would’ve shown him stalking her Insta, or researching CIs after she talked to him about it, we would’ve gotten some clips of him alone obviously thinking about her, but we never do. The only time she’s relevant is when she’s physically there, or when it has to do with Alexia somehow, he never seems to think about her in a romantic way, only when she might be a problem. So when he tells her that he loves her in the last episode? I don’t believe it for a second. 

The love triangle also reduces Alexia to an “issue”, because in the second act of the season, she goes from loving supportive girlfriend to “oh no I hope she doesn’t find out”. At that point, the only outcome was for Arthur to end up alone and figure himself out, which I think was their goal, they wanted him to end up alone and figure himself out, and that’s an amazing lesson to have, I mean it was the ending of season 1, but they didn’t execute it well. There is something there that didn’t need to happen or needed to be handled differently, and it wasn’t, which just left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I know better than professional writes, but as a Skam watcher and general TV and movie watcher, even I can tell that this was not handled properly. I did like Alex’s break up song, not gonna lie. 

Now, onto the matter of his dad. As I mentioned before, him being abusive is a good storyline. Arthur had mentioned before that his dad was an asshole, so that being the reason is actually good. However, I don’t think the execution was well done. The set up was perfect for a good story, but somehow it fell short. The first clip Arthur’s father was introduced was perfectly executed from a storytelling perspective. There was an immediate shift in both Arthur and his mom’s demeanor, where they tensed up as soon as he got home. Then Arthur looked clearly uncomfortable when his dad was pressuring him into medicine. Everything about that scene screamed “something is not right here, but I can’t tell what”. Very good setup for a physical or emotional abuse situation. For the next few weeks, every scene with the dad was a bit meek, meaning he was being harsh, but so was Arthur and it was understandable. Arthur was going through the biggest change in his life and his dad just wanted him to look out for his future. While the way he talked seemed a bit asshole-ish, it can easily be explained as a parent wanting his kid to be okay. It was confusing, because the “threatening” aspect seemed to be gone, so we were left wondering where was this going. Then came the big reveal in episode 7, that Arthur’s dad is the one who made him deaf in the left ear by hitting him too hard (which by the way, I did not need to see, what is this, wtfock?). Before we continue, let’s take a second to look at the format the original Skam followed for its stories. The main character is faced with an initial problem that lasts for half the season or a few weeks more (Eva is friendless and she doesn’t trust Jonas, Noora is falling for William but doesn’t want to, Isak is gay but can’t admit it, Sana struggles with her dual identities and liking Yousef). That first problem is half-resolved and the main is faced with problem 2 (Eva cheats on Jonas and is being bullied, Noora gets assaulted, Even turns out to be bipolar, Sana loses herself and fucks up with her friends). Then by using communication, they fix both problems (Eva fixes things with Ingrid and her friends and breaks up with Jonas to find herself, Noora talks to Mari, confronts Nico and fixes her relationship with William, Isak talks to his friends and Sonja, accepts his sexuality and gets back with Even, Sana talks to Isak and her friends and fixes things with them, before fixing things with Yousef). If we follow this model with Arthur, this could have worked perfectly. Problem one, Arthurs becomes deaf and now has to learn to live with it. We see the impact it has on his relationships and himself. Problem 2, we learn that his dad is abusive and now this is his problem for a few weeks, like he tells Noée about it, and she tells him that this is abusive behaviour, and he tries to be like no it’s not, but then it becomes undeniable as the weeks go by and then he talks to someone about it, maybe his mom and/or the police, and so we get a mini-resolution that’s not necessarily immediate, just like with Noora and Nico, where we don’t see the trial or anything like that, but just the action of admitting that his dad is an abusive person and taking actions to protect himself. Then we conclude with him finally fully accepting being part of two worlds, and maybe those two worlds start to merge. This would have perfectly followed the format of the original and would have kept the realistic yet hopeful message. And there is no need to put a love triangle in the middle of it!

This was a very long tangent that addressed both the abuse and the love triangle to get to a specific point, which is that, the dad cheating storyline is very out of place in a show like Skam. I’m not saying it’s not out of character for him, I very much got cheater energy from him, but the stories told are supposed to be about problems faced by teenagers that can be fixed by learning to communicate (or made better, I’m not saying Noora’s story was fixed by talking, it just made her more in control of her situation, but it was still a very serious problem.) But Arthur’s dad cheating on his mom is not something Arthur can fix, it’s not even related to him, it’s a parent problem. All he can do is live through it. Does it affect him? Yes absolutely. But did they need to parallel Arthur’s behaviour with that of his abusive father for him to realize that it was wrong? There are other ways to do that! It feels like they just wanted to have the dramatic dinner scene, where Arthur and his dad scream at each other and reveal everything in a very dramatic Hollywood way. ( And that storyline took us away from his deafness for a while by the way, like did he momentarily stop being deaf? Idk, it was weird for a while. Also, did Arthur need to out Alex at dinner? Lmao, talk about trying to shock your parents.) And, quick tangent, when Arthur told his friends about cheating, can we talk about Yann and Lucas’s responses? They tell him not to say anything? May I remind you of season 1, when Emma tells Lucas about her cheating and he told her not to say anything because he knew that if she did, she would be forgiven? And Yann, who knows what it’s like to be cheated on, and knows that telling her himself directly might help (or not, but still) is also telling him to not say anything. Like, did they forget about their own lives? This is just more proof that they wanted drama from this situation, which is kind of sad. Basically what I’m saying is they made the second half of the season a dramafest, which turned me off so much. It reminded me a lot of s3 of wtfock, which relied on drama way too much for its own good and mad me constantly mad at a bunch of fictional teens. And, maybe this is going too much into details, so I understand if not a lot of people agree with me on that but, Arthur was never alone. In every season, the character reaches a point where, in their POV, they feel like they are utterly alone and that no one cares for them, and they have to be the one to make a move to reach out and communicate with others. It never felt that way with Arthur. He always had either the boys, Alexia or Noée in his corner, he never reached that point of total despair. It’s not a bad thing per sé, it just feels like something that is supposed to happen in Skam, it’s part of the character’s journey, and here it was left out, but instead, we got a lot of useless plots.

Now, the last thing that irked me about the season, (and I know it’s nitpicky and detail-y) but I realized applied to the whole series was the dialogue. Skam France’s dialogue was always too fast, but I always saw it as “oh well the French speak quickly in general and their humour is very quick and dry”, so I didn’t mind it much, because I was used to it and at least we had some quiet times. But in this original season, they talked so much! It’s like, they’re always on, there’s no pauses, no awkward silences, and Arthur doesn’t have many clips where it’s just him alone thinking. They don’t seem to realize people aren’t always funny, they’re not on all the time. It worked well when it came to showing Arthur’s personality, he’s the guy with the jokes, and he makes them even at awkward times, but in group settings, it’s like we were in Gilmore Girls, like, breathe. 

Last thing I want to address before concluding this very long and unnecessary rant. The finale. I didn’t want to write about it before I watched the live on youtube after the season, but I was translating and the live was lagging, so I barely caught glimpses here and there, therefore I cannot talk about season 6, since I have no idea what they discussed, and I can’t talk about what Niels or David said about the choices for the season. But I can talk about the finale. That last scene with Noée and Alexia was very weird and felt very forced. What was its purpose except make Alexia and Arthur be on good terms for next season? I don’t know. It’s like they wanted to wrap it up immediately when it’s not something that can be done naturally that way. I do wanna shout out Alexia for learning more signs than Arthur in days than he did in weeks, what a queen. Second thing, I don’t know what all the thing with season 6 is, like what veto on characters they got from NRK or whatever, but what is clear is that they wanted the season to revolve around Daphné, since she’s the one we’ve been getting hints of for the entirety of season 5. But if that was the only way they could thing to introduce Lola, it was weird. She just appeared out of thin air (except that one scene in detention where we saw her back), and so I don’t care about her at all. Like, I have no investment in seeing her POV, so making her appear suddenly in the finale is not the greatest move. I wish they had built her up at least a little, like her herself, not just by having Daphné acting weird. And let’s talk about that last shot, where a group of people stood in the middle of a party in front of a mural, holding hands. Realism who? is what they said. I mean sure it was cute or whatever (why was Lucas crying, y’all are seeing each other next week, i-) but it did not have its place there. It felt like they really wanted that scene but didn’t know how to wrap the season nicely. Something felt really off to me. Then again, the entire second part of the season had me very confused, so maybe my perception is biased. Maybe I’ll love it on a future rewatch. All I can say is that it didn’t feel Skam like at all.

I don’t want to end this on a negative note, I mean I tried giving my opinion with somewhat coherent reasoning behind it because you can love something but still critique it, but I know negativity is a very easy train to get on, so let’s finish with the stuff that I loved this season.

Emma and Arthur’s relationship, I actually missed her and loved that they managed to seamlessly bring her into Arthur’s life, I was afraid she would be left behind because Manon isn’t there. 

Basile and Arthur’s friendship, it was honestly the highlight of my week a lot of times, they literally destroyed toxic masculinity.

Alexia in general, I was glad to see her be overall amazing, we love the bi rep. 

Lucas’s hair. Do I need to explain it?

Background Elu and Background Sofimane. We like happy couples. 

No Marles (I don’t hate them I just don’t care for them).

Episode 2, Clip 3. 

Camille watching the drama unfold in the background and being like 👀

The LSF lessons 

Melchior and Laura

Camille and Mika

Robin’s acting, he’s very talented, he made me care about Arthur.

Some other stuff that is not coming to me right now.

[rochey1010]

PART 2: 👋

Lucas: Ok, so Lucas's arc this season is connected to Eliott who has focus, instead of Eliott being connected to Lucas like always. His arc is a relationship one and he's also there as background in the insulated intimidating crew contrasted with the isolated lonely outsider in Lola.

So in S5 Lucas moves in with Eliott and we see them in love and domestic. Lucas has independence and has matured. The show really builds his connection with the group too. He is around a lot and basically boy solidarity to support Arthur's story. 🤘Lots of boy group instas fill Lucas's account. Friendship is just a huge theme this season. Lucas also was part of the girl group and had a special connection with manon in S3, Imane in S4 and was more loyal to the boy group in S5 (more on that later) in S6 he is seen having a special connnection with Daphne.

Lucas makes mistakes in this season 5 which i feel is genuinely consistent with who Lucas is. We saw Lucas in S3. And it was his story and a huge part of this story was his epic love with Eliott so he was loving, soft, vulnerable, hurt, angry over his identity. But generally it was exposed Lucas. In S5 we are in Arthur's narrative. Arthur hasn't been there for Lucas crying, spilling his heart, cuddling and loving Eliott. All the things that would make you see just how soft a person can be. In the boy group is how Arthur sees Lucas. That is stupid, silly, chaotic and affectionate. But they're boys so they're moody and annoying and prank each other and can act like assholes. All things we see. Also Arthur's Jerome is Bas and not Lucas.

Lucas is being set up for S6, so we see the slow creeping abandonment issues come back. We see him saying ignorant and prejudiced things. Again all consistent with the character and his behaviour. Things happen with how Lucas treats people and situations that crop up again in S6, and Lucas shows his moral line too. So first the prejudiced things. This time he acts inconsiderate and ableist to Arthur on Valentines. and Arthur tears him a new one. Lucas looks guilty but also strained (something is going on which comes up big time in S6- home issues) he lashed out and was a hedgehog (prickly and reactive)

He apologises some time later after he calms and thinks about it. We repeat this behaviour in S6 and Lucas dismissing Lola's problems, and Eliott calling him out for his judgement. He's prickly and reactive and then clearly calms down later. All consistent with wanting to protect yourself and your environment. Hedgehogs show their quills to the unknown. Lucas all over. 🦔

Lucas in his new home opens it up to the group. They sleep there, don't leave, have meetings, scream and play video games and Lucas joins in. It's a chaotic loud mess basically. This crops up in S6 when Eliott has a new friend Lola who needs a place to stay after a horrible ordeal and Lucas acts hypocritical and says to Eliott "This is not a hotel" and yeah she slept in their bed because Eliott is decent and respectful and gave her the bed, just like maya did too, because she needed it more. And yes i can see that Lucas felt blindslided but as i said before, the moral line with lucas. It is a pattern with him. If you are close and known it's a free for all. If you are unknown and an intruder have some quills. And i genuinely feel if Eliott copied Lucas and brought home loud friends who wouldn't leave. Lucas would not have that at all = Insider v outsider.

Lucas hides stuff from Arthur because he and the gang don't know how to approach Arthur and be honest with him. They love him but the HOH is a new world for them too, so they mess up a lot. They lie and attend a concert that Arthur sees them at. He calls them out in detention. But generally the mistakes are well meaning. They don't want to hurt his feelings. But they set Lucas up as someone who hides things to try to protect those he cares about. Sound familiar?

The big one the fanbase rioted about: Lucas's advice to Arthur about Alexia. Like i still feel this is consistent with Lucas and again the moral line. The 2 groups have merged but they clearly show the boy group is more tightly knit. So now it becomes about group v group. Arthur is a great friend of Lucas's and Alexia is a friend. Like Lucas isn't close with Alexia. So it becomes about Loyalty. He's already failed Arthur so when he gives the advice to keep the kiss from Alexia i feel it stems from him not wanting Arthur's world to implode and knowing the drama of Alexia finding out could bring to it. Like Arthur even says it to the girls. Don't punish the boys, they were just trying to protect Arthur. So i don't feel that Lucas was OOC because he's generally a dumbass in a group of guys chatting in that dynamic, and doesn't want his friend hurt. His moral line is Arthur is more important. I'm not in agreement with fans saying you learn from your mistakes and that's it. It's not though, your own issues can affect your mistakes, your environment can affect your mistakes, your feelings can even affect your mistakes. Like different circumstances can change how you view something e.g. eliott and his problems v lola and hers.

Finally the biggest development with Lucas, and that is the ongoing abandonment issues. So basically how Lucas's abandonment issues work is again very consistent. They stem in the show from S2 but overall it's a life thing. So Lucas's mum is mentally ill and has raised Lucas in that environment. That's trauma, and especially from a young age. The father and the mother obviously have an unhappy marriage. And enventually it breaks down and the mother is in a clinic and the father leaves the family. Lucas is abandoned and feels it too. He runs off to live elsewhere and in S3 he's with Mika and Lisa.

His father is dismissive and his mother very unwell. I don't know but i think the mother is schizophrenic. I'm unsure on that though. But Lucas has issues. But what he starts to do and how they manifest is that he projects them on to his environment, and if he feels a danger of someone leaving he twists it to him being unlovable and people getting sick of him. Now some of the things he does, he creates some of these issues for himself e.g. Mika and Eliott, and some are out of his hands e.g. Yann. But overall he's generally wrong and get's the wrong idea because of the reflection of how he sees himself.

So Yann leaving becomes about Lucas not being worth it instead of Yann leaving because he's hurt that several times over the season to that point, Yann cornered lucas and begged him to confide in him, and Lucas wouldn't. So lucas gets the wrong idea and Yann handles it badly.

So Eliott ending the relationship and going back to his girlfriend is about him being a party/fuck boi and using Lucas, instead of Eliott leaving because lucas broke his heart and inadvertently revealed his skam to him.

So Lucas through the abandonment issues ends up twisting perception and judging people. Like i said before. No favourites here. Lucas had a lot of trauma so i understand what he carries. Roll on S4 and they're back and Eliott isn't ready to tell his story because it was so painful that he never told Idriss he was bipolar and cut the friendship in shame and ran away. "He was alone for a long time i think" and Lucas pushing out of insecurity and fear and they end up fighting. And yes i believe like Imane said it's Eliott's story to tell and he'll tell it on his terms. So i don't agree with what Lucas did there. But abandonment issues are irrational, so i get it. (Roll on S6 with it being Lola's story to tell)

Roll on S5 and there's a talk about cheating and perception. They're in a group and chatting at the van about cheating. And you notice each boy gives their version of their story. So Yann cheated but justifies it as he fell in love with Emma. Eliott is more realistic and calls it like it is. He cheated on Lucille and he's not proud of it but he found Lucas. (And roll on S6 and the mental illness talk with Lola focusing on the need for lucas to the point he hinges his mental health on it.) So pretty consistent with "but i got to be with Lucas" Bas is niave i feel, and gives a very black and white view of the topic. Just end it and move on.

But i've always had this view myself. I have experience with cheating. My dad cheated on my mum and yet i still feel this view. That sometimes it's not that simple. It's not that black and white, and in Eliott's case burying your mental illness in the relationship to the point you're afraid to leave. And in my dad's case. Being in a failing marriage with a mentally ill wife that you still love, children and a mortgage. I'll always maintain that cheating is wrong but i have sympathy and understanding in certain cases.

So anyway, Eliott in answer to Bas's POV does the Eliott thing. He comes at the topic in a empathetic and non judgemental way. He says generally sometimes human want more and are not satisfied so seek it. Now Lucas does the same thing again, twists the perception and projects his insecurities onto Eliott. Eliott who is petting Lucas's hair isn't even thinking of the relationship. It has nothing to do with Lucas at all. It's basically philosophical thinking in that hipster way. That humans are greedy and they want everything e.g house, car, money, job etc. And he's right. Humans have done horrible things to each other in the pursuit of what they want.

But it eats at Lucas because his abandonment issues are more than just a relationship. They are deeply rooted and a huge issue. In reality he should be seeking help. It has to get to the point where you can't blame others and you need to accept that they're bigger than you. And he confides in Arthur instead of Eliott out of fear (roll on S6 Eliott doing the same thing with Lola) this is the establishment of the love bubble and they're both doing it as we can see. So lucas tells arthur that eliott cheated on Lucille and he could do it to him.

My issue with that was, Lucas cheated too but he justifies with him being gay. But the simple fact is he played Chloe and he pursued Eliott behind her back. And when Eliott hurt or disappointed him he played her even harder. So i do find this hypocritical i must say. Then he acts panphobic, but the thing is lucas isn't panphobic. His abandonment issues project and he feels fear but it's really about Eliott leaving him. So he says Eliott goes down the street and he has more choice e.g. Both boys and girls. Add aliens and robots etc. Eliott is pansexual. So he's showing he's scared that eliott will get sick of him and eventually leave (roll on S6 and Eliott having a friendship with a girl, and Lucas scared to be real, and what is about to happen with the spoiler movie)

He very clearly says he hasn't confided these fears in Eliott for fear it may rock the relationship. Oh hi love bubble again. Arthur emphasises Eliott's love for Lucas and how greater it is than his love for Lucille. (Roll on S6 and Eliott emphasising the importance of Lucas and his need for him)

The last we see of Lucas is him crying looking at the friendship mural and Eliott in love and gratitude.

So guys i said this would be 2 parts but i think it'll be 4 because again length here. And i wanted to do Eliott in this post but it's too long now. Next part will be Eliott.