He’s so real for this

why do i have the same “there are too many good emotions happening in me” noise as trent crimm

knight terrors is fucking killing it lately

guillermo del toro’s pinnochio… heads up everyone we have a new best pinnochio movie..

Man... this is gonna make no fucking sense to literally anybody but GLOBBY AND RORY ARE THE SAME CHARACTRR IN DIFFERENT FONTS AND I WILL DIE ON THIS HILL-

Having thoughts about the concepts of common sense, learned behaviors, and cultural norms; how different cultures, I’m sure, have varied definitions of each, and how even within any culture the definitions can be different based on generation, socio-economic status, and minority group (gender/sex, sexuality, race, ethnicity, neurotype, etc.)

A few articles (like the fun almost Buzzfeed type ones) gave examples of ‘common sense’ such as ‘‘don’t touch a hot stove’’ or “don’t walk in front of a car”- which are all technically learned behaviors. ‘Common sense’ feels like something that should be innate but a lot of the examples aren’t. Yes, keeping oneself out of danger is innate and a natural-instinct, but we’re not born knowing the specifics of that in this modern world. We don’t automatically know that getting hit by a car is fatal, or the way heat works and can be painful.

A lot of the other ‘common sense’ examples had to do with like “dressing formal at a job interview” and “knowing when to go to a doctor”, which are definitely very culturally-based. Even within different local communities, I’ve heard people in more rural places won’t go to the doctor until a limb is falling off or something, simply because it’s not convenient or worth it otherwise. Hell, it might be ‘common sense’ for someone who’s been verbally abused to understand love in contexts of insults, and that could be paralleled by so many other hyper-specific situations surrounding the way that a child grew up!

So if all ‘common sense’ is a learned behavior, and is so dependent on the backgrounds and experiences and teachers one has had in their life, why is it such a widely used concept? Clearly there’s no way to generalize it on a grand scale, not enough for it to be accurate or valid, just in a way that’s easy for people who would be inconvenienced by the questioning of their mindset.

And why would it be assumed that the only way to amass ‘common sense’ is through worldly experiences? Why would it be assumed that reading something from someone else’s perspective, even from a fictional standpoint, would not help broaden your own perspective? I was a constant reader in my childhood and that is where I learned/solidified a good portion of my empathy and morals. Honestly, I wish I would’ve read more varied books to expose myself to more perspectives, because I tend to stick with YA realistic fiction or fantasy, and there are a lot of overused tropes and plot lines in those genres.

But in comparing myself to someone who’s lived, say, 40 some years longer than I have but has read a fraction of the books, who surrounds herself with the same types of people over and over again when I actively seek out situations where I’ll be interacting with new demographics, who just accepts ‘social norms’ as the way they were when she was my age as opposed to trying to understand the way things are now, I would say I could be considered on the same level of ‘common sense’. I don’t care that your “IQ” is higher, in general that is a bullshit arbitrary system that just gives a sense of elitism to some, I know how to debate points and research as well as you. I know how to ask and talk to other people almost as well as you. I may not know as much about how the bank works but if I decided to, I could learn the whole history and create my own understanding that would make much more sense to anyone who asks me to explain instead of the “that’s just how it is” gospel you spew.

me grabbing jon sims: i diagnose you with ocd.

screaming crying throwing up y'all need to read the house in the cerulean sea right now!

I hope yall realize what an incredible loss RWBY will be if it doesn't get picked up.

Two of the main female characters are sapphic and in a relationship. Blake is canonically bisexual and a survivor of abuse. Yang is disabled and went through an entire arc about her ptsd and dealing with her trauma. Its also worth mentioning Blake is voiced by an openly bisexual woman.

the main character of the entire shows VA (lindsay jones) is gender queer and Ruby canonically neurodivergent, as well as aroace coded (she is not canonically confirmed to be aroace but she's widely considered to be at least ace)

It has one of the best written trans characters I've ever seen, voiced and written with the assistance of a trans woman.

The show openly shows other queer romances, with at one point a pair of married women being shown on screen with their baby, and yes the two characters had a real role in the plot.

While they haven't been amazing about poc rep before they are actively taking criticism and in recent years have learned how to write good poc rep.

RWBY, at its core, was an indie animation project. It was created by a small team of people on an incredibly small budget. Its gotten bigger and bigger over the years with a larger budget, RWBY is proof that an indie series can get massive, it is a massive win for indie animation all together.

When people say they struggle with keeping track of all the tone tags (the ones like /j or /gen), everyone who disregards that by responding "it's just memorizing some abbreviations/acronyms, it's not that hard, stop complaining" is ableist and a fucking hypocrite. If you're going to advocate for accessibility, advocate for accessibility for all of us.

You can't claim to be an ally to neurodivergent and disabled people and then shit on us for our symptoms. If you actually care about helping us, why aren't you listening when we say we struggle with something? It's never okay to tell disabled people they should be able to do something they can't, that it's not that hard, but it's especially not okay if you do so while pretending to support disabled people.

Also, in addition to the "it's not that hard" statement being ableist, it's utter bullshit. There are so many tone tags to keep track of and memorize. I did a quick google search and one of my top results had ninety one tone tags. That's a lot. That's probably a lot even for a neurotypical person, and I'm not a neurotypical person. I struggle to remember a lot of basic, necessary tasks, so I really can't memorize ninety one tone tags.

Especially when some of them are incredibly ambiguous- only one letter? Acronyms or abbreviations at least give you some clues, one letter tone tags are so incredibly confusing. Like, what does /t mean? There are a lot of words that start with T! (This is a rhetorical question. I know /t means "teasing," but I only know the answer because figuring that out was a memorably frustrating experience.)

And /t is just one example of a tone tag I learned because I kept seeing it in conversation and not understanding and being really confused and frustrated. I can't tell you the number of times I've been messaging someone on discord, and they say something with a tone tag I don't recognize, and I just open a new tab to google the meaning, which is where I find lists like the one above. I usually rely on google instead of asking the person what they meant, because I feel stupid and embarrassed for not knowing this code that everyone else seemingly gets.

Which is exactly how it feels when I don't understand someone's tone in real life! Confused and frustrated and ashamed. And tone tags were supposed to help neurodivergent and disabled people not feel that way, so I don't know how we reached a point where they cause those feelings in many of us.

I can't deny that tone tags are a useful accessibility tool for some. If you find them helpful, it's genuinely good that you have that resource. But they're not accessible for all of us. It's incorrect to act like tone tags are a perfect way to communicate, and it's ableist to disregard our struggles with them and tell us to just try harder.

Either listen to those of us who say they have trouble understanding tone tags, or stop pretending you actually give a shit about accessibility.

How to Write Disability: SPOP vs ATLA

(TW: ableism)

(before i start talking about this, i have to tell you that i am not physically disabled so my observations may not be a 100% correct. i'm only writing this post in relation to my experience with autism. if you feel like something i've said is inaccurate or insensitive, please feel free to let me know!)

so the two characters i wanted to talk about, in reference to writing disabled/neurodivergent characters, is Entrapta from SPOP and Toph from ATLA.

Entrapta is an autistic woman who grew up in solitude, only surrounded by robots. as a result, she is desperate for human etherian connection while at the same time, struggling with social interactions because of her autism.

she was pretty heavily autistic-coded, even before the writers confirmed that she was canonically autistic; she has a hyperfixation on tech and machinery, she is shown to stim a lot, she has a preference for tiny food (likely a sensory issue) and she is not good at reading social cues or communicating in a way that neurotypical people would understand. she is also an extremely intelligent and intuitive person who is not only good at handling tech but also shows love and affection towards people in her own way.

Toph is a character from ATLA, who was born blind. not completely unlike Entrapta, Toph was also raised in solitude, although she had her parents and servants to look after her.

her parents were convinced that Toph was incapable of being independent, because of her blindness, and were unwilling to look past her disability and treat her as a person. as a result, Toph is extremely rebellious and stubborn. she is an incredibly capable individual who learned how to navigate her way through earthbending. however, she still faces difficulties due to her disability and has to rely on her friends every once in a while.

the trope that these two shows share in relation to their disabled characters is the humor. there are jokes made about Entrapta's and Toph's disability in both shows. however, the key element that differentiates these jokes is the target.

Toph was never the butt of a joke in ATLA. in fact, she was the one making jokes about her disability 90% of the time. Toph was comfortable enough with her blindness that she didn't mind joking about it or even pranking the others sometimes.

in fact, one of the running gags in the series is that the other characters forget that Toph is blind because of how insanely capable she is.

Toph is never the butt of the joke, she's the one making fun of the others for forgetting about her disability. and it's all done in good faith.

and whenever someone is being ableist towards Toph, it's taken seriously. it's not played off as a joke and the narrative doesn't act like people mistreating Toph is this funny gag that everyone should laugh at.

now let's come to Entrapta. there are “jokes” in the show made about her disability as well, except these jokes are often made at her expense.

one of the most problematic parts of the show concerning Entrapta is the way Perfuma leashes her TWICE, because she was worried that Entrapta would get distracted and leave the group. so instead of holding Entrapta's hand or something like a normal person would, Perfuma decides that the best way to tackle this situation is to treat Entrapta like an animal and put her on a leash.

this is shown as a joke and is never addressed seriously. the show writers think that Entrapta being dehumanized and infantilized is supposed to be funny and quirky. Entrapta never gets to confront Perfuma about this or gets any kind of closure.

this was the main example of ableism in the show but there are also other minor scenes where we see characters treat her in a way that other characters aren't treated.

examples being Catra using Entrapta's trauma and loneliness to manipulate her, and Mermista literally yanking on Entrapta's hair and yelling at her, because she couldn't understand social cues.

there are also multiple examples of what i'd like to call the “translate nerd language” trope, where one of the other characters get irritated at Entrapta for using technical terms while speaking, and she has to dumb it down for them.

there's a way to write disabled characters and while Entrapta was a very relatable and sympathetic character, the ableism towards her is never addressed. the princesses are never called out on their actions, while Catra gets off scot-free after a vague apology.

when ableism was portrayed in ATLA, it was always taken seriously. Toph was allowed to leave her toxic parents and find people who accepted her for who she is, she was allowed to prove people wrong and be a powerful character in her own right. meanwhile, Entrapta was forced to be friends with the people who mistreated her and she was only kept around because she was useful.

Me when I'm so entirely normal about this character, he so queer and neurodivergent coded<3

Your honour his religious trauma are his daddy issues, i consider him not responsible for anything he's ever done

Say what you will about the Hellaverse's colour palette but there is power in evoking an incredible emotional response by making a character's eyes like a little more orange than yellow

I wanted God to be quite a loving and gentle entity but also very motive driven, He did make these things for an intended purpose and He's not upset when they stop being useful, they just aren't a part of plan anymore so He moves on, tools break after a certain amount of uses, they get warped into new shapes, put em aside, get out something else and continue

and a favourite tool gets worn the quickest

God is surprisingly physically affectionate with archangels but it is getting hugged by mist, idk maybe that is comfortable compared to how touch adverse the rest of heavenborn culture is

Anyway both Lucifer and God have fun dialogue quirks that I wanna talk about, they both have to do with capitalizing nouns and pronouns in reference to Him

God's committing crimes against English grammar by only capitalizing references to Himself and structuring the rest of the punctuation around that, God said "the sentence starts when I show up"

Every character will inherently use capital nouns and pronouns with God in dialogue, except for Lucifer who was assigned a terminal case of disrespectful at birth and has to consciously choose to use capitals, hence him using "(Y)ou" at first but dropping into lowercase after being startled

him wanting to show his Father respect and also paying enough attention to remember about it are 2 pretty rare events especially to overlap so you won't catch him doing it very often

I was originally not going to make a post about this, but after seeing a few other posts about it, I wanted to make my own. I have a LOT to talk about.

TW: Transphobia, Homophobia, Ableism

If you don’t know what I’m taking about- there was a post made by a user, who’s name I will not disclose or share, who discussed how they would rewrite the new Monster High G3 Cartoon. While some of the points were mundane, or points of preference, others made me very uncomfortable, as they got rid of much of the diversity that G3 has brought into the Monster High Universe. I want to quickly go through three of the points that I felt were erasing these steps in diversity, and my thoughts on each one, and why I think that it’s iffy, to say the least.

First is the statement “all of the couples from G1 will stay together”. While this may read to some as a preference for the old couples, in the context of rewriting G3- it comes across as the erasure of both couples involving a neurodivergent character being the subject of a crush, and being seen as desirable and loved (Manny x Twyla), and what probably was the intended couples they wanted to seperate, the canonically queer ships. In particular, this is most likely against Clankie (and POSSIBLY an s2 ship which I won’t say by name because some people want to go in blind. Instead I will refer to it as 🧡💚.). In this rewrite context, wanting to take away queer relationships which many writers and designers for Monster High have fought for in many shapes and forms. G1 never had explicit queer characters, the closest things being a scrapped SDCC diary entry (Valentine x Spelldon), Post-Ending 3rd party statements (Clawdeen is a Lesbian, Rebecca x Venus, etc.) and implied characters (Kiyomi). While these are okay, they are NOT the same as explicit queer couples, which are arguably more important to push forward in the talk and scope of present and future representation.

While it is okay to prefer the G1 ships, in the context of bringing them back for G3, it erases these queer couples, and ignores the lore and universe of G3. In G3, Cleo and Deuce are exes. And if you don’t like that, you can still watch G1!! It’s not magically disappeared, the movies and shows and music is all still out there, and most of it is free! But, erasing Clankie, 🧡💚, and other potential queer ships in G3, for the preservation of a m/f ship isn’t okay.

On the subject of erasure, there is the statement “Frankie is still non-binary, but now uses she/they pronouns”. A character canonically using they/them in cartoons, especially ones made for kids, are uncommon. Honestly, I don’t even know if I could name 10, and that says more about the state of non-binary representation than it does about me. While changing the pronouns of a cisgender character to gender neutral ones is often done in fandom, and often not a point of issue, taking a character who is canonically non-binary and solely uses they/them and giving them typically gendered pronouns erases that under represented group, and allows for transphobes to ignore the “they” in “she/they”, and only use “she” for the character. This is an issue in real life too, for many who use multiple sets of pronouns, including myself (they (preferred) / he) ! We deserve both of their sets of pronouns to be used, and people who only use they/them deserve to be referred to by and as they/them. These changes hurt everyone.

Then, we come to the one I see the most talk about, and the one that made me audibly yell “what the f-?!”- taking away Twyla’s canon autism diagnosis, and symptoms & traits, and replacing it with autism coding, so that she is easier to identify with. First of all- easier for who??? Neurotypicals ?? It is incredibly rare to see a character on kids TV outright say “I am autistic”, and Twyla is wonderful as representation. Twyla will not resonate or be relatable to every person- but that is true for all characters, not just autistic ones. Autistic people are not a monolith, it is a spectrum, with many different ways to present itself. Also… taking away all of her traits and symptoms to make her more relatable? These traits and symptoms are what would have made her “autistic coded”, and without them, you have a character who is NT.

Autism isn’t a quirky word you can use to describe anyone, it is a disability, that myself and many others have, and see misrepresented time and time again. And to say that a good example of it is not good, and would be better off to be erased and replaced with coding is insane. Coding is okay, but that’s all it is. Real spoken representation matters so much to me, and so many other people, even if the characters we see are not identical to us in those symptoms and traits they exhibit. These characters should not be changed, but rather, more autistic characters, with different presenting symptoms and traits, should be introduced !

You can like G1, you can prefer G1, but that does not mean that you have to make a sanitised version of G3, that makes it identical to G1. In terms of representation, there is no arguing that G3 has G1 beat. The poster said on their post that “any new characters would be made more relatable”, but… to who? Because I relate to a lot of the G3 characters more than the G1 ones, and I grew up loving G1! It’s not been wiped, all of the media still exists for you to watch, and make headcanons for ! If you like G1- good for you! But please, stop trying to make G3 exactly like it. Because change is inevitable in these kinds of reboots, and it allows for the representation some want to take away.

Thank-You for those who read all the way!

Things I never would have guessed from fandom osmosis before actually playing the Dragon Age games:

-Alistair is actually pretty smart, and has a lot of knoweledge to share about the topics he's interested about.

He's also not that shy, and flirts with a warden pretty smoothly, if a bit innocently for his lack of experience and general humorous persona.

And his primary motivator is revenge which is an interesting way to take a character like him.

-Zevran is the only character who actively searches for consent even in simple flirting like calling someone beautiful. If you tell him to stop he never makes a mention again.

He's also one of the most loyal and sentimental companions you can have. He cares a lot, want to admit it or not.

-Merrill is one of the most educated and smart characters on the series, she takes calculated risks based on her own studies and research, and the only reasons she fails is because nobody trusts her and refuses to treat her like an adult.

Part of it is also the game refusing to frame her as anything but a naive child when she's anything but.

-Isabela has the most emotional intelligence out of all the characters in DA2, she knows exactly what they're feeling and what they need to hear at all times. It's clear that she's wise and worldly, and just needs time to build confidence between her and the others because she's been hurt a lot and her respect is gained.

-Fenris has an amazing sense of humor and you can find him consistently laughing at both Hawke's and companions he likes silly jokes. He's just really deadpan when delivering his own jokes.

He's also considerably patient and doesn't lose his temper unless confronted with people who have actively abused him.

-Anders spent SEVEN YEARS protesting peacfully, and it took the risk of genocide on his people to reach the desperation of act 3.

-Dorian is incredibly reserved. He tries to avoid talking about his life with a veil of humor and sarcasm, but he's specially guarded around his sexuality and love life. He only comes out to the Inquisitor in a moment of fury to piss of his father and he may have not done so if not pressed.

If in a romance with Bull the only reason the others find out is because Bull exposes it in front of everyone (I wish they would have find out a better way to let the player find out than Bull ignoring Dorian's wishes of privacy)

If romanced by the Inquisitor he's in his first real relationship and it shows, he's lost most of the time but tries to hide it by acting cocky. It's really funny.

He's also a huge nerd, I wasn't expecting that but I was pleasantly surprised.

-The Iron Bull it's not just smart, he's so caring, he shows you around so you can meet the people, the ones nobody cares about, he introduces you to them.

-Sera also goes to the pile of characters who are really smart and nobody gives them credit for it. She says it herself, she's just really bad with words, but as long as you try to understand her she makes a lot of sense.

The game just gives you no other option than to treat her horribly, which I sense a pattern of framing the neurodivergent coded characters in a certain light with Merrill and Anders.

-Vivienne is the only one (with Dorian) that asks the Inquisitor if they're okay after Haven, and gives beautiful words of afirmation.

She's really affable if you bother to befriend her.

u should do sunstone (peb x suns)!!!!!!!!! tyyy!!!!

Sunstone (request 1/2)

I have come to the realization that I am very bad at drawing 'romantic' scenes, as they usually end up coming off as strangely platonic or incredibly neurodivergent-coded.

I do hope you enjoy this and the next one though, my back hurts so much.

(Also, Something in this image looks inexplicably awkward and I'm not sure what! My apologies!) (At least this gave me an excuse to draw my srs design again, their ref will be done soon btw!)

random question but i came across a post of yours where you talked about how mark oshiro sort of erased an aspect of nico's ADHD by making a joke about how he only liked mythomagic cards because he's gay and there are hot guys on the cards, and then TSATS also seemed to really downplay the themes of neurodivergence in the series. and it made me wonder if you have any thoughts on how the show has portrayed the demigods' ADHD and dyslexia so far? i've seen some people say that the show also downplayed it a lot, and i'm inclined to agree... which feels really weird considering that rick's own son's neurodivergence was specifically a major inspiration for him writing the series. but if i recall correctly a lot of scenes showcasing that in the first book were taken out of the show.

Oh absolutely, a lot of scenes and general discussion about adhd/dyslexia were removed in the show (and some of the disability-coding in general - i appreciate the change they made with making Chiron disabled based on his mythos rather than just using a wheelchair as a disguise, but i wish they had kept Grover's crutches in a similar manner honestly) - I've made a couple of posts discussing it: here, here, and this reblog is relevant to my opinions about the matter. There's probably some other stuff in my pjo tv crit tag.

I think the main sentiment i have regarding it - which i've seen a couple of other people mention as well - is how much the show ignores or outright removes and downplays Percy's personal struggles with his disabilities to instead emphasize Sally's experiences instead, particularly in manners of her taking out her stress on Percy - which alongside being completely antithetical to Sally's role in the books, is pretty ableist and why I continually compare show!Sally to Autism Speaks Parents. Autism Speaks tends to make an emphasis on the struggles of the parents of autistic children rather than treating autistic individuals like a person experiencing their own struggles. One of the major points of Sally's character (and later Paul) in the books is that she's an incredibly accommodating parent and works hard to make sure Percy is supported when he's struggling with his disabilities, because he's not been able to find that accommodation elsewhere. That's part of why Sally is such a great mom in particular, and is intentionally supposed to directly contrast Annabeth's home life struggles with her parents having difficulty navigating how to provide that same level of accommodation to help support her (and how Annabeth finds that accommodation at CHB instead, because that's the metaphor that CHB is supposed to represent - an appropriately accommodating system they can rely on, and then exploring how that's still a flawed system and looking at how disabled kids/demigods fall through the cracks and how to change the system to better support them).

The show also almost completely ignores Percy's ADHD/dyslexia experiences in general after the first episode. I was honestly really happy with, in the first episode, how clearly Percy's poor experiences in the American education system, particularly relating to his neurodivergence, have informed his reaction to situations such as people trying to tell him he's a demigod in coded language. It was essentially the perfect update to something i've discussed in the past here, about how the original "all demigods have adhd/dyslexia because it's secretly SUPERPOWERS" thing was presented as the basis for the series and why that teaching/parenting style fell out of favor. We see Percy in e1 acknowledge how dismissive of his struggles it is to constantly just be told he's "special" - and we even get explicit acknowledgement of how that description is used aggressively and for ostracization (from Nancy), which is extremely true to the experiences of kids who grew up with that teaching/parenting structure. But then we get to episode 2 and... all the acknowledgement of ADHD/dyslexia/etc is gone. We get at most a one-off acknowledgement from Luke that demigods are all neurodivergent and that's it. Pretty much nothing else for the entire rest of the season, save for flashback scenes that only emphasize Sally's experiences, not acknowledge Percy's. No further acknowledgement of Percy's dyslexia, or Annabeth's, or anything about their ADHD, or even Percy's completely removed PTSD (which we know for sure because of both writer commentary [see: that second post i linked about the LA Times article] and Percy's total lack of reaction to Mr. D). Nothing.

It was extremely disheartening to say the least, having such a strong start and it evaporating completely, and I fully agree with you.