#with making life miserable for disabled people

[peepeepy]

a lot of people who've watched gravity falls think that stanford is unsympathetic or a bad character, and most of the people who dont think that think stanford is at least selfish and flawed, which i can't really refute, but it always made me feel so awful, and i never realized why until now.

if you look at stanford pines as an allegory for a child with a developmental disability like autism or a "gifted kid", then a lot of the pieces start to fall together.

⚠️spoilers for gravity falls, the website, and maybe a bit of the book of bill⚠️

stanford pines was born with an "extra finger", a symbol for a disability. for a while, everyone thought it was a flaw. he was teased and shunned by his peers,

but then, people began to notice his genius. it even says on thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com, when you enter "sixer" or "stanford", that he has a "hyper-ability", something many people will say about "gifted" autistic people.

as soon as people started to point this out, everything felt like it made sense to ford. as a person who grew up with autism, i can relate to feeling alienated from my peers, and wondering "why? why, in a world made for normal people, was i made wrong?"

that kind of thought can lead to a sort of delusion.. that maybe you were destined for something great. maybe you were different because one day you would use it to change the world. i believe this is the way ford felt when he was approached by bill

bill came to ford and told him everything he'd ever wanted to hear.. that this feeling was real. that he was destined for greatness. that he was better, smarter, more special than the ones who had shunned him.

bill told ford that building the portal would make him a hero, make people finally see him as more than an extra finger. the one problem?

bill was a liar.

he used ford's selfish thoughts to trick him into making a gateway that would end the world. he used the years of mockery, the alienation, the loneliness, and he came to ford when he was alone, trapped, with nowhere to go.

he offered ford the opportunity to get back at a world that was built to knock him down at every turn, a world full of people who would never understand him. he offered to make ford a god.

and ford refused

he refused, even in a world that had done nothing but tear him down, to hurt others just to feel better about himself. he only had a few people who had ever cared for him, and yet, he was willing to destroy his life's work to save everyone who had made him miserable.

remember, he fully intended to stay trapped in the portal for all of eternity. that's why he was so frustrated when stanley brought him back. what we saw as a heroic act from stanley, ford saw as stanley refusing the sacrifice he had made to save him. he didn't thank stanley because nobody thanked him. no one thanked him for his hard work or sacrifice or his years of suffering just to protect stanley.

that, of course, led to this scene, which many people saw as stanford's most frustrating moment.

i think this post sums up really well why stanford, in this dire moment, would choose to insult his brother. because stanley was being selfish, too. stanley refused to help save the world, save his brother, all because ford never said "thank you."

they were both selfish. everyone is. they didn't fight because they were bad people, but because they both saw things from their own perspective. they were each hopelessly lonely without each other, but both too prideful to admit it.

in the end, they make up, and both follow their true dream. not money, not fame, just staying together.

stanford pines is not a bad, unsympathetic character. he is a complex, misdirected, "gifted" child. his only flaw was not seeing that he wasn't alone. his family was right there to support him the whole time.

[naamahdarling]

I'm about to hit a really rough patch, since my psych is adjusting my dose of something and it is load-bearing but also will require a PA for a controlled substance, so who knows how long that will take, and in the meantime, I will have nothing. I'm going to be restless and bored and depressed for anything from a few days to a whole month. I don't even get to know how long.

My boyfriend is in the same boat, just more indefinitely, as his insurance has REEEALLY fucked things up and his clinic is...not hostile, but definitely unhelpful. The pharmacy, which used to be really good, has gone downhill recently. So we have to prompt all three to do their jobs as each step is completed and sent along. Multiple times, since insurance keeps fucking up. As a result, he is acutely miserable and unable to do much of anything, and we don't know when that will end.

I'm...having a hard time with this. Facing down an uncertain length of time with diminished support from both sides and unable to help my boyfriend through the same issues. It's really painful, I miss doing the fun things that made life marginally more tolerable, and I don't have much going on that I am enjoying. I'm riding a temporary hyperfixation that is winding down, and once it's gone, I'm at the mercy of hoping another one comes along. This sucks.

I hate. I tried to qualify that statement but I just can't boil it down. I just...hate.

[arctic-hands]

I spent FOUR DAYS in an E.R bed because there were NO beds open anywhere in the hospital proper. I get discharged after a week of being dangerously dehydrated despite the constant heavy duty electrolytes being pumped into my veins round the clock and in the third worst pain of my life, only to watch on the news at home a report about the days-long wait times in hospitals and hear that the reporters have the audacity to wonder why hospitals are overcrowded again

It's covid. Stop being wilful idiots

[medicinemane]

And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"

I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse

And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa

And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house

I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished

...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)

And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff

There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government

No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)

Like have some accountability there and in every situation

Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free

If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off

I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)

But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced

Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around

I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)

...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change

(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)

(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)

[twistedappletree]

lmao so i think the other girl working for my client is about to get fired for trauma dumping and making out of pocket passive aggressive comments constantly akdnakjds why can’t anyone just be fucking N O R M A L

**also pls excuse the typos in my tags omfg i’m so annoyed that i can’t type ahahahHAHAHA

[toxtricity-v]

I know posts aren’t written with a universal audience in mind and that when people make posts like this they are probably not talking to me but

I HATE posts that are phrased to talk to everyone and say shit like “you NEED to be eating X”

shut up! you do not know a persons needs. just saw one that even went so far as to say they didn’t care if a person has a condition that makes it hard. shut up shut up! things that are healthy for most people are not necessarily good for everyone! like. my body does not tolerate cellulose. it makes me throw up. I can only tolerate vegetables in very specific circumstances, and I’m even then I will, not might, WILL, throw up part of the meal. I also receive premade meals in the mail as a disability accommodation. These meals are inevitably designed to cater to the Healthy Diet For Everyone. and as a result, I can’t eat like half of every single one because it’s steamed vegetables that will make me sick. nothing I can even do about it. it’s not possible to receive medical meals for MY medical needs. not to mention all the other stuff they send me that is prohibited for me (whole grain bread —I’m on a low fiber diet. milk —lactose intolerant. pineapple fruit/juice —allergic. tomatoes…allergic again.)

idk man it is an active problem in my life that everything presumes there is only one way to be healthy. I’m so sick of dealing with it. I DONT want to see it on tumblr too! leave nutrition advice to people’s doctors!!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

it's not about that you "have" to get to exercise your autonomy. b/c like, yes you do, but not in the way that "if i don't get to do that Now i will explode & evaporate (& die)" which is what people keep leveraging to be like "so you don't have any valid argument for getting to act out your own choices"

therein is another issue of "why do you need a 'valid argument' to get Exceptions as ruled by this person to exist autonomously, unpunished" like why's this person an authority who gets to punish you. nonrhetorically, why do you have to appeal to their maybe possibly deciding to Let you be a person. should you "have" to.

and if you don't get that Permission that you supposedly "have" to get, you also will not immediately explode and die if you do that unpermitted thing, but shocking how "you don't Haaaave to" is only invoked re: things you want to do for yourself, and not what they want you to do for them....because it's Not Really About "Literally literally Haaaaving to"

the alignment between people getting on one for years about asexuality, and while doing so maxing out the saturation on their bullshit on any & everything, b/c you're just getting into anti autonomy, so ofc you're also just stoking & expressing "arguments" against autonomy that are deployed in plenty of other contexts, including against other queer identities....and that particular resonance with biphobia & transphobia, and how either groups are theoretically thwarting the Truest Gays because how will we have a valid argument against the truest cishets agenda if we can't convince them we haaaaaave to be like this instead of that no, we won't explode & die if we have to be repressed or at least closeted another day, and another, and you won't explode after another, either, etc. rather than thee point of "asexuality autonomy = queer autonomy = Your queer autonomy = Anyone's Autonomy" and "why do we 'have' to Convince anyone to go 'oh alriiiight' abt one's choices about how they express their identity, what decisions they make about having sex"....it's about anyone having the power to preclude & restrict others' autonomy & constrain their existence between one kind of more imminent, immediate harm/death & a more drawn out one where you exist as a resource for others' use but at least you aren't Literally dead today. so what if someone's saying "well i don't think your gender/sexuality stuff is Real" so long as they can't get in the way of other people living that out anyways. so what if someone's supposedly like "well, but everyone could be bi" (which they don't. just like ppl were never 'pretending' to be asexual to nefariously stand around in the queer space that never rigorously vetted everyone anyways? Making Up A Guy To Get Mad At) to supposedly argue that if all of you are bi you can just restrict yourself to the Cishet Appearing manifestations (which they don't) where what's that even matter if this [guy to get mad at] can't make that anyone else's problem? if he can, why can he. should he be able to. that's the problem, not "have we all tried the constant biphobia wherein they're always thwarting & sabotaging the rest of us?? like how trans people are keeping us from being legitimate?? with the opportunity for some trans people to also try declaring other noncis people Not Legitimately Trans?? well the cishet agenda loves asexuals, actually, they want everyone to never have sex ever (they don't want that, and that's not what being asexual is)"

using the "you can't Know through Direct Perception or extrasensory phenomena what someone else's Thoughts And Feelings are" both ways; wherein their assertion of their intentions, true or not, gets to be treated as an assertion of Reality, meanwhile b/c Your intentions/thoughts/feelings can't be directly observed, you're just lying or exaggerating or misremembering or failing to Express yourself correctly b/c they would've surely interpreted it correctly otherwise, or [anything else] re: your inner experiences that you can't "prove" are one way or another, so this other person gets to always decide for themself what they must be (why?) and if they just so happen to decide they Must be in alignment with what they want (good) or unacceptably, evilly, incorrectly Against Them, they also get to flex their control over the entire situation via their Authority / control over resources / the person's lack of other options b/c of isolation & that, say, breaking away from a family, job, marriage or just deemed correctly romantic relationship, is punished by the larger system of How Things Are, through a lack of resources that makes you more vulnerable in general as well as vulnerable to further punishment in how you might try to respond to that situation, through the general stance that maintaining cohesion of a Unit like the nuclear family, the "romantic" "man"/"woman" couple, is good, so breaking from it is deviant........anyways it's like. if you're like "well i'm having sex b/c i want to" and someone is like "well i say YOURE LYING" like, what? "isn't there someone you forgot to ask" shit. why should that get to affect things. whether you're like "oh no. what if they could say 'you're lying...b/c how do i knowwww you're not BI. where you could want to have sex with someone BESIDES this one person rn?? or ACE??? if you Don't have sex rn and you Don't explode and die 5 min later we will Know you Could Be Asexual" like, this isn't how it works anyways obviously but theoretically if it did: we would not be like "oh sorry guess that's what matters" unless what mattered was some people's being lower on a hierarchy and at the quite literal disposal of those with more power than them. what would the crisis be of someone going "well i think. every gay person? is bi" or someone going "you've just told me your name is gloria but i think your name is actually tetris...." or "i'm so embarrassed i wish everyone but me was dead" if none of these things can hinder the existence of people having sex w/autonomy for all involved or people getting to tell you their name or all other people being alive

the banger quote on my imdb page was saying "no, i don't 'Have' to, but i'm going to" to an authoritarian in my life, concluding several minutes' "negotiation" of [i 'have' to hang up on this call now b/c the movie i'm standing in this movie theater to see is about to start. no i won't explode and die if i don't. i also won't explode and die if i don't keep "talking" to you (being Talked At / lectured & upbraided from afar)] funny how that works. i also Know this was a checkmate b/c that person gave up on responding (or, technically, switched to The Silent Treatment, which worked even worse via phone than in person) and i did hang up rather than miss the movie i showed up for and then they had to resort to Other Methods: telling someone willing to take on the enabling cop mode that i had Essentially said Go Fuck Yourself. like well that's right, and the fact that it's a "go fuck yourself" to get to say "i am going to end the call b/c i choose to do something else" and then actually do so is a real testament to this relationship. and if one had said "i can't keep talking, i have to go" and someone's like "sldfj you mean thou MAY not keep talking" teehee i don't know, CAN you have the peas????? it's like this obviously doesn't matter. i can choose to do shit and choose to not do shit without exploding and dying right this very second, except for taking 5 sec to eat a deadly bomb with a timer set for 5 sec. This Is Not The Point. why is autonomy off-limits to Anyone.

[crippledpunks]

chronic fatigue weaves its way into everything. people love to tell disabled people they'd love to rest as much as we do, but they fail to understand how tired we are while we rest. we are not relaxed, we are generally pretty miserable, either from pain, irritability, or fatigue- which bleeds into every aspect of your life. being too fatigued to get up off of the couch means that you're too fatigued to get to the cupboard to pull out pans to attempt to start cooking.

the steps hidden within steps that are required to do a lot of tasks related to being a "functioning adult" are daunting, there are often way too many steps necessary to make "Simple" foods or do "simple" chores for disabled people to accomplish these tasks. chronic fatigue often means that even waking up from a nap or night's rest requires time to adjust to and power through

waking up is a process for me. im often no more alert and awake hours after i've woken than I am right after doing so. caffeine does not help fatigue- at least not at safe doses, for me, anyways. many days the act of moving from my bedroom to my living room is too much. taking dishes to the sink can be too exhausting. i have began falling asleep in front of the kitchen counter while standing because i realize the amount of steps required to clean the counters, or do the dishes, or prepare a meal that all of my energy instantly bleeds away

it's okay if you feel this way too. i have been dealing with chronic fatigue my entire life and it cost me my best paying job. i lost my ability to work because of it. it's not just you being "sleepy", you are genuinely too exhausted to function. you do NOT have the energy levels other people do, and that's okay. it's okay to let yourself be tired sometimes and address that instead of trying to pretend you're not tired.

i wish you good luck. you are loved

[twdgs]

other than my friends and those teachers, i only keep going to school bc of orchestra, extracurricular theatre, and art classes. bc when most of your day every day for as long as you can remember is full of bullshit teachers and shit ass treatment like being unable to go to the fucking bathroom because they lock. them. during class. that sorta shit starts to grind on your soul a little.

[chroniccoolness]

this post is for the people with memory issues

people who's memories are getting worse every day, who's memories are stable but poor, people who can't remember what they did today or yesterday or this week, people who's childhoods are a faded blur. people who have slow greying-out amnesia that seems to just fade in and out of existence, and people who have complete blackouts, and people who have both. people who mourn the happy memories they know they've lost, who fear the bad memories they've lost that still affect them.

people who have "emotional amnesia" that makes it feel like none of their memories are their own, because there's few or no feelings attached. people who can ONLY remember the feelings from certain or even most memories, not actual events. people who's memory issues scare them or make them angry or make them miserable. people who's memory issues get them called childish or difficult or rude. who can't remember the names or faces of those they love. who are constantly forgetting the things that "you'd remember if you really cared". who misplace everything. who remember so little of their lives that they barely know who they are. people who's memory issues come from trauma/dissociation, ADHD, traumatic brain injury, brain fog/chronic fatigue, drug use, alcoholism. people who have no idea what causes their memory issues. people who's memory issues come from something else entirely.

i love you, you're strong, and you deserve support and care for what you're going through. memory issues can be frustrating and upsetting and disabling, and your suffering deserves to be recognized. whether you're soaring through recovery or are only ever going to get worse, you deserve good things in life and to live the fullest you can, regardless of how much you remember.

[dearharuto]

uma coisa que eu gosto no tumblr é que ninguém fica falando o tempo inteiro sobre como linguagem neutra não é certo, às vezes ler essa merda tanto no twitter me faz perder a fé na humanidade

[fizzie-frog]

You know, the Stolitz scene was a trainwreck as a whole (they usually are), but what honestly got me most was the way Blitz started pleading when he thought his livelihood was going to be taken away.

THIS IS NOT A STOLAS SLANDER POST. I'm coming from a place where I've seen Blitz being mostly, if not entirely blamed for their lack of communication most of the time.

Moving on...

People keep going like "Well if imps are so low in the hierarchy..." - Let's take a break to think. Blitz isn't rich, he's just getting by really. And how is he getting by?

By prostituting himself. To the upper class.

That's what it is, he's a certified whxre. Things may have evolved in the meantime, but that's how it started. Blitz got asked for the deal while being chased by a crazy lady and him, wanting to keep his business and livelihood, said yes, obviously.

Now Stolas was suddenly taking the book back with no apparent explanation (until they got to the crystal), so of course Blitz thought he was doomed. On a side note, why couldn't Stolas say "You won't need the book, I have an alternative" instead of the ominous "I'll need the book back, permanently. I have made up my mind." I would be scared out of my mind.

He teared up immediately and started pleading, you could already see what was going through his head. He won't have the means to support his business anymore, to pay his employees, to afford a home, he'll be homeless and have no means to take care of Loona. Everyone will leave him again and he will starve on the streets all alone.

He'd do anything to be able to live a life a bit better than miserable, of course he would.

And this brings me to Stolas's treatment of Blitz. I see that everything tends to fall on Blitz, and I'm not saying he has no fault (in fact I didn't even like him at the beginning of the series too much), but Stolas treated him like a peasant. Just the episode before Ozzie's he's called him his "impish little plaything" and asked for a reward for the rescue. He put out cigarettes on his horns, he ignored his "stop" most times, he addressed him in this little baby voice with babying diminutives. "Itty bitty" imp.

And I am sure Stolas is socially clueless. He was brought up alone and sheltered, taught to be a prince first and foremost.

Stolas probably saw this as playful banter, as something that is inoffensive, silly. It was only in the Ozzie's episode that he finally saw that actually, his silly play served to make Blitz feel smaller.

And of course in this scenario, Blitz would see this coming out of the nether. He reacted quite badly, but why would this prince be actually in love with him? As he said, he needed to have a minute (or several) to think about everything. They needed to talk this out, and Blitz was about to apologize when Stolas cast him out.

They were both emotionally charged. They fucked up. But I can see Blitz's side. And the power imbalance is so evident, that hierarchy that everyone keeps saying is irrelevant - in a moment's notice, he could have his life swept from underneath him. Just like he thought it happened in that split moment; it worried him so much that he cried and pleaded (and that's not in Blitz's character to do).

And then he was so scared of not being enough too, ugh, his little "I can always do better!". He's so used to everyone just seeing him as a lost cause, better to be discarded. With this amalgamation of things, no wonder he can't believe Stolas would have feelings for him.

So uh, I don't know what the conclusion to this is. Normalize getting imps some actual comfort? So far the only really privileged imp in Helluva Boss is Fizz after getting rid of Mammon. And when I say priviledged, I'm referring to wealth and upper class, not taking into account personal issues such as disability and so forth.

Anyway, this was my two cents on Stolitz. I honestly haven't thought too much on them, I'm riding on the Fizzarolli high. I'm chill over here in my Fizzmodeus bubble, but doesn't mean I have no thoughts on Stolitz.

[honeydewcorporation]

Some Things I Did Not Realize Until Later In Life

When it is sunny and miserably hot (>65F) outside and someone tells you to "enjoy the beautiful weather," they're not being ironic and genuinely think it is pleasant weather.

The default amount of pain most people are in is literally 0, not figuratively.

Most people feel a compulsory urge to breed with their preferred variety of people. Sex isn't supposed to be some kind of trial you endure to prove you love someone, and it's ok if you don't want any.

Polyamory doesn't have to be [people A-N in a relationship with each other at the same time] it can be (and is much more logistically feasible as [person A in a relationship with every person B-N individually]

If you think something is wrong with your body, follow that hunch as far as it will go. Your body doesn't just hand out warning signs for fun, those serve a purpose. Sometimes your body spamming you with warning signs for no reason is the problem in and of itself, and you should see a neurologist.

The golden rule is usually pretty good, but it can get you in hot water if you're autistic and trying to help someone. (I don't have a fix for this, just try to make sure people know your intentions before you speak to them.)

You don't need a "type"

You don't need a label.

You deserve accommodations for any disability you have, even if "it's minor" and you can live without them.

People tend to want to help each other out. Often you do not need to make it worth someone's time to ask for help, and they would prefer spending time to help you over spending time watching you flounder around without help.

It's ok to stop talking to people you don't vibe with, just be nice about it.

If you know someone who has a condition triggered by someone doing something they can't control such as Misophonia (when certain sounds send them into a panicky rage) triggered by a family member's eating noises: Neither of them are at fault, and it's ok to for either to ask the other to leave.

Equality is great in an ideal world but we live in a horrible bastard world where equity (certain marginalized groups receiving the aid they need before and in larger volume than advantaged groups) makes more sense.

Capitalism will always be at odds with general prosperity.

People give each other gifts because they like them. You should not feel obligated to give someone a thank you gift or feel guilty or indebted in any way. They would not like that.

Visualizing things from other people's perspective if you have low or no empathy is made easier by picturing it's you in their situation. A reminder that the world is complex and all those other people living in it are like you sort of.

Sorry this turned more into life advice! Hope it helps at all!

[leviathanleva]

Daisy

Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Fem Reader [DARK FIC]

Description: Cooper Howard was not a kind man, he cared for nobody, but himself. Then he found you, a lost little dove, barefoot and crying, torn dress and big innocent eyes staring at him like he was a hero. He knew you’d be a burden, he knew you couldn’t survive in the wasteland, he was doing you a favor.

But he couldn’t pull the fucking trigger...

........................

[4k words]

🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼

Chapter 1 "The Savior"

Since the day you were born, there was something horribly wrong with you.

You had no immune system, your skin was paper-thin, you couldn’t exercise without collapsing, and every nerve in your body was in constant pain. There was no use for you aside from being a measly archive keeper and book transcriber. Your father was a weak man, despite your disabilities and how costly it was for the rest of your Vault, he kept you alive, consumed by the idea of finally finding a cure for his little girl.

Every single moment since your birth, you had spent in this squeaky clean, insanity-inducing, paper-ridden medical room. Everything was plagued by the stench of medicine and spirit, disinfected down to the core. The floor and walls and even the ceiling were covered in a leather cushioned layer to prevent any injuries, sparkling white, of course. Who needed color when the stench of new paint might cause you a migraine?

In honesty, you’d give away half of your miserable life just to see color outside of the packaged book covers stacked neatly on the floor. You built a makeshift city out of them, following the pictures drawn in an old magazine you’d read ages ago and kept hidden under your pillow. With time, you learned how to make paper flowers out of some stray files that nobody would miss. You had to find some solace, something to keep you from crying your delicate heart out every night because this was no way for anyone to live.

You weren’t just isolated from the world above, but from everything, only getting glimpses of the bright metal vault corridor and bustling dwellers whenever your father would open that wretched vacuum-sealed door to give you medicine. You knew people’s names and faces, everyone in your vault was memorized to the letter, but you’d never met them and probably never would.

You were never given your own Pip-boy, never assigned as a potential marriage candidate, and you’d never have children or any family once your parents passed away. A small part of you knew that you wouldn’t even outlive them, frail and genetically inferior as you were. You’d die within the next few years and you’d take the burden of your existence off the shoulders of everyone who worked tirelessly to find a solution to your illness.

You waited for that day with hope, dreaming of the end of the torture and solitude.

You had pleaded with your father that night with angry tears in your eyes to at least bring you coloring pencils or crayons or a radio to chat with the rest of the residents and make friends. But, as usual, he had refused gently while rocking you in his arms, cooing at you with a regretful tone and pain carving deep wrinkles in his features. Then he’d smiled at you, melting away your worry and frustration and misery, and he’d kissed your forehead tenderly. He still treated you like a little girl and to him, you’d always be one. He wiped your tears away and hope shone in his eyes, they looked exactly like yours, that was the only thing you’d taken from him. Everything else was a gift from your mother and you often looked in the mirror just to remember what she resembled.

She’d stopped visiting a long time ago, months, maybe even years, you weren’t sure. The passing of time was a fickle matter when you were caged in a cushioned prison every single day.

Your father hummed softly, lulling you while he gently tucked you into the nursing bed and secured the oxygen mask over your mouth. He was your angel, your only salvation, your only source of conversation and comfort and interaction and love. He adjusted the catheter back into your vein before fluffing up your pillow.

“This might be it, Sweetheart.” he whispered while watching you doze off slowly, his gaze held such affection for you. He placed a new IV bag to drain into your arm, one you’d not seen before, but you trusted him. This was nothing new. He came up with a new medicine recipe every month, without fail. “This might just be the cure. You’ll tell me how you feel tomorrow.”

You can only sigh and give your best smile, unable to share his enthusiasm after so many failed attempts. He rubbed a thumb over your sickly-colored cheek, his skin like sandpaper against yours, worn and calloused from spending a lifetime in the vault’s field.

“Have some faith in your old man.”

“I do, dad…I’m just so tired of this…”you bite into your tongue to keep more tears from spilling, and your bottom lip trembles despite your best efforts to tame it. Watching his face falter breaks your heart and you suck it up, push your tantrum down and pout instead. “And you’re not old.”

He laughs at your whiney remark, the first laugh he’d had in a long time, and he slicks back your hair, taking note that he needed to trim it soon before it got too long. Maybe when he had the energy, he’d sit down for more than a few minutes and braid it like he used to when you were just a child.

“I know you are, Baby girl, I know.” he shushes you with the utmost care and stands. “Just a little longer and you’ll be strong enough to help your pop pick out the tatoes. Get your pretty hands all dirty and then have a big plate of spam for a job well done.” he gazed at you, masking his sorrow and bitterness at the cruelty life had forced upon you. His hand hovered over the lamp switch and he glanced one last time at the brand-new IV bag slowly emptying in your bloodstream. “Night, Sweetheart. Love you.”

Too stricken with grief over your miserable lifestyle, you didn’t return his tender words, hoping he understood and knew that you loved him just as much if not more. When the lights went out, your eyelids closed, squeezing out a few lonely tears in the darkness before you begrudgingly drifted off to sleep. A dreamless slumber when you were gently rocked through the foggy confines of your subconsciousness.

Your one wish was to see the world outside, uncaring if it were a wasteland or a paradise, ignorant of the dangers and naïve towards the people who potentially lived up there. You just wanted to be free, even if it would cost you your life, you wanted to see the sky just once, wanted to prove to yourself that no, it looked better than any picture your father had shown you. You wanted to swim in the ocean and see fishes and see a whale, a creature so big it was unfathomable to imagine, you wanted to taste the salty sea water and become sick and just be happy to be alive for once. You wanted to feel the grass beneath your feet, to touch snow and dance in the rain until you slipped and fell in a puddle only to splash in it because you’d never seen or felt any nature.

You just wanted to live…

The hours ticked by in a hazy blur as you lay lifelessly on your bed. Your room was partly sound-proof, you heard nothing of the ruckus slowly brewing beyond your medicinal prison. Sleepy soundly, you didn’t hear the slaughter, the begging and pleading voice on the brink of crying before the sickening cracks of broken bones. You didn’t hear the crazed ramblings of the raiders stalking your fellow vault dwellers like it was a game of cat and mouse. Your vault was slowly succumbing to chaos and rampage and it was only when the electricity went out and your door unlatched that you were startled awake.

You bolt up with wide eyes and in a panic, gaze averting to the door and heart skipping a beat when you realize it’s open. With a small grunt and a relieved inhale once the oxygen mask is ripped from your face and tossed on your pillow, you scramble to stand. The IV is disconnected from your arm with an expert touch, replaced by a cotton ball to obscure any heavy bleeding from the open puncture wound. Your bare feet shuffle over the soft floor, slippery against the white leather because you’d unknowingly started to sweat from anticipation.

Was this just another cruel dream?

You walked to the exit with timid footsteps before opening the door wide enough to stick your head out. An incessant voice kept repeating how disappointed your father would be if he saw you sticking your nose out and potentially catching an infection from the unsterile air. That voice was dismissed promptly, this was your first chance at seeing anything beyond the medical room and you’d rather die than miss it.

Had the power gone out? But that was impossible. The power never went out, there had always been a steady flow of electricity for as long as you could remember.

The lights flickered, most were broken, letting the eerie darkness overwhelm all corridors except for one.

“Hello?” you call out hesitantly, shaky voice hoarse with sleep and anxiety both. Looking around, you couldn’t see much, there wasn’t a soul in sight and the silence was deafening. “Dad?”

Nothing. Nothing and no one.

A hand clutched at the door to support your buckling knees and you breathed deeply, encouraging yourself to be brave, that this was your chance. After dutifully gnawing on the inside of your cheek you stepped forth into the crossroads of corridors, letting go of the door and leaving everything familiar and safe behind. Your head whirled so much your neck popped multiple times as you frantically looked around in the scarce light and as terrifying as all of this was, it was also heaven unknown. You had never seen so many things – plant pots, plants, all bright green and juicy, you’d stuck your nail in a particular one only to feel a strange gooey discharge on your finger. It was a succulent, you’d read about those somewhere, very sturdy indeed, very pretty, but had no smell. You liked them already.

The further you went, the more a nagging thought kept creeping up your spine like a chill.

Where was everybody?

You kept looking, following the corridor and under the guidance of blinking lamps. You knew the Vault like the back of your hand after spending countless hours studying its diagrams, having nothing better to do. Now you were experiencing it in person. No longer needing to strain your imagination to picture every nook and cranny, you could see it with your own eyes. The floor was so cold under your feet, but you didn’t care, too high on adrenaline and pure joy to notice such a small inconvenience. A hand glided absentmindedly against the wall, tracing over pipes and posters and glass windows until you prickled your finger on a jagged edge and winced away.

You stuck the winger in your mouth with a pained scowl and glared up, searching for the source of your misfortune.

You froze.

Blood, everywhere, oozing down the wide hole in the window and silently gushing out of the disemboweled corpse of a human being, still warm. And even through the liters of blood and the sickening feeling of nausea that had your eyes dart to the floor, you immediately noticed the dark blue suit they were wearing. A dead vault dweller tossed through the window so hard they’d broken through and gotten impaled on the glass.

A vault dweller.

Dead…

DEAD!!!

You stumbled back and wretched, stuffing your mouth in the crook of your elbow and sputtering saliva as your stomach churned with bile. You bumped into a metal cabinet in your stupor, scraping for purchase as your legs lost all function, knocking over a clock and a radio that came to life as soon as it hit the floor. The sound echoed through the Vault, like a haunting melody to the arrival of a new victim, lured out and ready for slaughter. You.

Horror. A massacre, as the light flickered your eyes feasted on more marred flesh and ripped skin and so much blood. Crimson splatter and trails of handprints were strewn over the walls, the echoes of an dire struggle which ended in vein, trails of violence were etched into the hallway. You couldn’t hold it in anymore, you threw up, clutching at your stomach as you let out the traumatizing sight the only way your body knew how. Doubled over and twitching as the shock was replaced by such a raw feeling that you nearly lost your mind.

Corpses littered the floor beyond, caked in their own entrails, skulls bashed in, unrecognizable and still and…

“Hi there, Princess.”

A chill went up your spine as you realized that the frilly white dress you wore wasn’t enough to keep you warm beyond your room. Your skin littered with goosebumps, thin hairs standing up in fear as you stiffly craned your neck and looked back to the other end of the corridor. What little color was left in your face dissipated at the sight.

A man, disfigured and disgusting, with wild hair and wilder eyes and a grin that shook you to the bone stood there. He was shirtless, showing off a large hairy belly and covered in stick-poke tattoos, one of his legs was replaced by what you made out was a metal stick of sorts. He was three times your size…and he looked at you with such perverse intent that you nearly screamed. A vile creature, not even human anymore.

“Don’t be scared, Pretty.” he leered, chapped lips and rotting teeth and a foul blackened tongue, and raised a large palm in front of him to halt you from moving. “It’s okay…Come here. Come to me.”

Instinct took over and you automatically stepped back, not daring to take your eyes off him.

“Ah, don’t do that now.” he warned sweetly and slowly began walking towards you, creeping closer every time the lights flickered off. “You’ll just make this harder for you, yeah? Come to Eddie, Sweetheart. I’ll take care of you.”

Everything about him screamed evil. He looked deranged and capable of things you’d never even begin to imagine.

A surface dweller. A survivor. A killer. A monster.

The moment his boot sunk in a pool of blood and squeaked against the floor realization hit you like a speeding truck. The grim expression should have been his sign to catch you, but you were already leaping over corpses with a blood-curdling screech. Your mind raced as you tried to orientate yourself through the corridors, bolting over shattered glass and spoiled food and so many dead bodies.

You needed to get out. Leave. Escape.

OUT!

His hollars bellowed behind you, alerting the rest of his friends because of course there were more and now they were aware of you and hunting you down like a deer in the forest. You let the tears run down your cheeks, forced the questions of your parents’ whereabouts and health because you already knew the answers, but you let them sink you’d end up like them or worse.

A horde of footsteps nipped at your bare heels and you sprinted and begged your weak little legs to go faster. Sucking in air as adrenaline pumped through your veins like poison, you jumped and ducked and whirled and assured yourself that you had the upper hand here, you knew the vault better than them. You stood a chance, you’d survive.

When the elevator came into view after you rounded a corner you nearly cried out in delirium. A roar nearly deafened you and you flinched, but your pace only increased as you pleaded and struggled not to trip over your feet. They were desperate, clawing at the air to try and reach you before it was too late. Your lungs burned with strain, your muscles felt like they’d tear any moment, but you kept pushing, high on horror and anger and a newfound zest for self-preservation

Salvation. Your only chance to live.

Your shoulder screamed in pain when you slammed against the metal walls of the elevator and thrusted your fist against the button vigorously.

“Come on. Come on. COME ON!”

“Get back here you little whore!”

“Please!” you wailed, screaming and stumbling back when a rusty axe collided with the shutting doors and made sparks fly with an ear-piercing screech. A hand flew up to cover your squinted eyes, sneering and sobbing as the raiders banged on the outside of the elevator and shot conniving curses at your crumbling form. You were slammed down on your arse by gravity as the elevator finally moved, taking you away from certain death as a slew of grim promises were expelled at you from below.

They’d find you, rip you apart, and make you wish you’d just died like the rest of your pathetic vault dwellers. You balled your eyes out, choking on spit and tears and gulping down air as your body shook violently. Clutching at your face, you stared down at your bloody feet with wide, unblinking eyes.

What was this nightmare…

When the elevator came to a halt and the doors reopened you barely managed to stand, the numbness in your limbs proving too much to handle and your upset stomach only contributing. But you had to keep moving, you had to run.

“Daddy…”

With ugly sobs and meek noises of strain and discomfort and utter distaste for your cruel fate, you tumbled towards the ajar vault entrance. Pressing down the button timidly before taking the discarded Pip-boy from the severed hand, you lock your tormentors into their grave and hurriedly tread towards the slowly closing vault exit.

The sun nearly blinds you and the hot desert sun knocks you to your knees as your hands sink to the wrists in sand. You gasp, squeezing your eyes shut before blinking rapidly and shielding your sensitive pupils from the blaring light.

It’s…barren.

A desert, stretching as far as your sight could reach, heated enough for the air to wiggle and dance in the distance, a decrepit city can be seen nestled not too far. A plethora of buildings crumbled to their bases hide away the sealed entrance to your vault, bones are scattered through the coarse sand, human shapes frozen in time, hinting towards a previous era of life on Earth, an era you’d only read about. Again, there wasn’t a soul around no matter how many times you circled your vision.

A wasteland. Painted yellow and orange and contrasting so beautifully with the clear blue sky.

You wanted to marvel and swoon and you would have given any other circumstance, but now, after everything you’d seen, after your mind had been so brutally defiled with images of slaughter, you were incapable. You stood, resisting the harsh breeze and angry sun, clad in nothing but a Pip-boy and a thin summer dress that was everything but white.

You had to walk, seek help, do…something. Anything.

And so you did. Trudging through the sea of sand and stepping hastily as the heat beneath your delicate feet nipped uncomfortably at your skin. Sweat clung to you like a protective layer, washing away any trace of the sensitive lavender shampoo you had used the previous night. Strands of hair clung to your flushed face as you fought a silent and unfair battle against the burning sunrays, one step at a time, with the wind as your only companion. Your nostrils struggled to breathe in enough air, but you didn’t dare open your mouth despite the temptation, fearing dehydration and death as it loomed over you like a shadow.

You walked for what felt like miles, accompanied by your thoughts and nothing else, until the Vault was hidden behind the golden dunes and your feet felt raw. The city was so close now, yet you were so tired, sucked dry by a heat you’d never experienced before, if it hadn’t been for your Pip-boy crackling to life you would have collapsed, too burdened and weak to continue.

You raised your wrist and looked down and were met by a familiar meter.

Radiation.

Something around you was radioactive enough for the device to pick up easily, but there was nothing but waves of yellow hell and you doubted the ground itself was emitting it. Then you heard it. That strange, high-pitched chirping, an alien sound that made your skin crawl and scraped at the back of your head tauntingly.

A scream loud enough to shatter glass ripped through your throat as a sharp sting pierced your ankle. You hit the soft sand with a whimper and rushed to turn on your back before kicking blindly at your assaultant. An ambush from below. Blood trickled from the gash, painting your skin a deep ruby red and spilling over the ground, luring out your predators like moths to a flame.

Insects, roaches too big to be real and too much for your fickle mind to comprehend crawled out of the sand. You’d fallen right into their trap, an unsuspecting victim, a banquet they’d probably not seen since they’d hatched.

Your heart pounded frantically, pulse thumping in the side of your neck as you flailed and screeched, chucking sand at them as they circled you. You wanted to run, every cell in your body fought for you to stand, but you couldn’t, you had no fight left. You’d die here, alone in this decrepit desert and eaten by giant cockroaches and this was going to be the story of your life. You sobbed so pitifully, so angry and bitter and bratty that after everything, this was to be your end. The world spun painfully fast and you wanted to vomit, but your stomach was empty and you only gagged.

With one last scream, you curled in a ball, covering your head with your arms and your legs protecting your belly, as one of the insects lunged forward.

When the gunshot rang in your ears you froze in place and time stopped. The roach flew back, slimy green entrails covering your form like a canvas. The other two hissed and you revolted at the noise, but they were shot a second later, blown to bits, dainty skittish legs twitching as the last few beats of life escaped them. The shadow of your savior dwarfed you completely, giving you respite from the cruel sun.

You roll over and sit up on your knees within a blink only to be met with the barrel of a gun too ratchet and rusted to belong to anyone but a wastelander. You recoil and blink through tear-heavy lashes before roughly adjusting your dress to try and cover your bare thighs from what you presumed was another man. The tip of the gun slid under your chin and guided your eyes up to feast upon your hero. You gulped and whimpered.

He was grotesque, like a man skinned alive and somehow survived, melted skin deformed his features and you’d bet your dinner there wasn’t a strand of hair under that worn cowboy hat. He had no nose, no eyebrows or even lashes, not a spec of hair. He grinned something awful down at you, looking at you like you were a fresh piece of meat, a delicacy among a table covered with rotten food. His stance was wide, torn dark cloth swaying dangerously in the breeze, he seemed almost aetherial in his own twisted and rugged way. You mewled softly as he turned your head from side to side with his gun, gently, mockingly, drinking you in from every angle as if you’d disappear if he so much as blinked.

Your hands clutched at the edge of your dress when he finally spoke and his voice made you inhale sharply and clench your jaw in anticipation.

“Well…Aren’t you a pretty little thing…”

🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼

(Listen, it's 7AM and I need sleep, but this mother trucker didn't want to leave me alone so have a chapter from my hastily strewn-together upcoming story. I'll post it on AO3 and probably here if it even happens. I'll fix mistakes later, don't eat me please.)

Chapter 2 >>>

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Masterlist

[saffricatrice]

what annoys me about posts on the novel frankenstein in this site (besides the blatant ableism towards victor frankenstein from people who swear they "care" about disabled people) is the amount of readers that forget that the bride, had victor truly put her to life, would in fact have the same amount of autonomy & free will as the Creature does.

i talked about this in some reblog before but really it is incredibly annoying, seeing people who claim to be feminists and advocating for the rights of women saying that oh! victor should've just not given her ovaries/not given the Creature a cock and so that would fix everything! so they shan't be able to reproduce an dmake evil moster children! just in response to this one thing in that chapter:

"one of the first results of those sympathies for which the dæmon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror."

it is true that victor worries about them reproducing, but how did they miss these lines from the first paragraph of the chapter?:

 "He had sworn to quit the neighbourhood of man, and hide himself in deserts; but she had not; and she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation of being deserted by one of his own species."

it's literally longer, reader can't have somehow accidently missed it? frankenstein thinks of her free will, that is so much more important. he worries of her consent in the matter. it is in my belief by ignoring this you are ignoring the voice of mary shelly, daughter of a world known feminist, who is against arranged maariages of which this situation very closely resembles.

even if we ignore the fact that people somehow managed to not read a significant amount of the text, why do people belive the victor owes the creature a wife? do you think men are owed wives? that women, without a say in what they want to do, must become a wife to some random man just because he wants her to?

people here woobify the creature so much that they literally act extremely ableist and anti-feminist on accident. i am not saying the creatture is pure evil and victor is pure good, i am very against black and white readings, but is this not common sense? and honestly, the way the creature speaks about the bride is gross anyways. here are two examples:

"one as deformed and horrible as myself [would not deny herself to me]" & "(…) of the same species and have the same /defects/".

is that not odd? how the creature Wants her to be miserable and ugly so she has no other choice but to be with him?

not to mention how the bride parallels elizabeth and the relationship between her and the creature would've probably parallels the relationship of alphonse and caroline frankenstein, how the creature would've (accidentally?) groomed her and how pedophillic it kind of is if you really think about it. but that's a whole different can of worms

i know you guys love adam and hes interesting but jesus fucking christ

[beggars-opera]

Hey, so we don't talk enough about A Christmas Carol as being at least a little bit about not continuing a cycle of abuse and neglect, both against others and yourself.

In the book little Scrooge is left languishing over the holidays in a boarding school for some never-explained reason, but it is made very clear that this is miserable and unfair, and that his father is doing this on purpose. His sister specifically comes to tell him that "father is so much kinder now than he used to be, that home's like heaven." This also reflects a bit of Dickens's own childhood when his father went into debtor's prison and little Charlie was forced to support his family working full time in a shoe-blacking factory at the age of 12 (which is also why so many of his books seem to have a moral of "hey, kids are people too and maybe we shouldn't make them work in the mines.")

Whatever family reunion happened after didn't work out, because Scrooge continues believing that no one is coming to save him and pulling himself up by his bootstraps at the detriment of all other social relationships is the only way forward. And the more he lives by that philosophy, the more miserable he gets, because obviously he pushes away anyone who has that hope that he lost. They threaten to break down the walls he's built and teach him that a big pile of money doesn't have to be the only thing that he can rely on, if he'd just let himself be vulnerable and have a relationship with people who care about him, because they're out there even if he's ignoring them.

There is a certain type of person still very much out there who thinks this way. "I've never been happy in my life, so no one else has a right to be either. I was abused in my childhood so it's only fair that everyone else suffer as well." We see this in parents who still try to use corporal punishment, and in wealthy people who ignore the social factors keeping others down and scream that everyone else is just entitled, that only those who suffer and scrape deserve happiness. And they especially hate the people like Fred who represent the past that could have been, who have maintained hope for the future, and seem to be rubbing their optimism in your face, when in reality they're just maintaining hope because it's the only way you can survive.

It's so important for Scrooge to actually see the impact this thinking has on both himself and multiple generations. Rich people have this weird hangup about this story because they think Scrooge is bad because he's rich. He's not, he's bad because he's a horrible person and a miser - he doesn't use his money to better anything, including himself. Salting the earth, everyone suffers here, including him. And he learns that he's going to die old and alone without ever having spent or enjoyed his money, and that his family feels sorry for him, and that the nameless masses of poor people out there that he decries so much are in fact living, breathing people, including tiny disabled kids who don't deserve to suffer just because you decided life isn't fair.

In the end he takes responsibility for actually uplifting the people in the next generation who are trying to make the world a better place and no longer punching down, because it doesn't have to be this way. So many people out there just give up hope because things are hard and they think trying to improve things is a pointless exercise that makes them look dumb. How dare you grow a year older and not an hour richer! How dare you marry for love! That's the only thing more ridiculous than a Merry Christmas! When in reality, there are plenty of people who would love to see them happy if they just had a chance.

It's really sad that, while the language used to describe it has changed, these problems still persist. That people feel so wronged and isolated that they spend their days ensuring everyone else will be as well. That they fail to see their fellow humans as fellow humans who are just as deserving of love and kindness and a roof over their heads. I don't care what time of year it is, we should all be lifting each other up rather than tearing each other down.