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earthstellar · 7 months

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Currently combing through the Transformers Exodus novel, as I often do.

Some notes, by which I mean, this is going to be long:

Using an Abandoned Hydraulic Mining Facility as a Battle Arena: This Sort Of Happened in Real Life -- Know Your Labour History

The building in Kaon that is used by Megatron for gladiatorial battle is an abandoned hydraulics works, and on the page prior to this it refers to extremely deep slag pits, which indicates this hydraulics facility was almost certainly used for mining. The location is given specifically as "to the south of Kaon's centre".

This makes me wonder if the now-abandoned Orgreave Coking Plant may have been some inspiration to someone somewhere in building the backstory; A coking plant uses massive amounts of hydraulic machinery and components, and the location of this specific facility is to the south of the centre of Rotherham.

Plenty of Brits work on Transformers, and I wonder if any English people who may have been on the team for developing the Aligned Continuity bible/character backstories might have thought of Orgreave as some kind of inspiration.

It's worth noting Orgreave Coking Plant was famously the site of a huge labour dispute which turned into a borderline Battle of Harlan situation, called the Battle of Orgreave in 1984.

Which makes it excellent potential inspiration, both visually and in terms of historical significance in union/labour and working class struggle against the oppressive upper class- A significant theme in Transformers.

Nearby, there is also the abandoned Orgreave Colliery, and while all abandoned collieries would fit the mechanical and dark, heavy design of Kaon, Tarn (the location, not the bot) and so on, it's still worth pointing out that Orgreave has plenty of industrial ghosts (abandoned industrial facilities).

That having been said, hydraulic mining works could also refer to actual hydraulic mining methods rather than just any hydraulic machinery present, which would also explain the large pits that Orion Pax sees at the site in Kaon, and would add another level of horror: Using fluids to carry out this type of mining would be a huge hazard to bots. I'd imagine rusting was a common problem, not to mention gradual armour/frame wear, increased fall/slip hazards for most frame types, etc.

CONTENT WARNING: Here's where some medical conjecture begins, you might want to skip this section if you're sensitive to medical discussions! There is no detailed comparison to any particular real world cases in this segment, however there is brief mention of ableism in a fictional context.

This would also account for the description of optics and audials needing more frequent repair even prior to suffering any gladiatorial damage--

--In some frame types, these components/sensory systems may be more exposed to the environmental pollution as mentioned in the text, but also, would be sensitive to abrasive damage from spray back/high pressure soil/stone/crystal like particulate materials present in Cybertron's surface and sub-surface layers acting essentially as sand paper against their bodies as they worked in any such hydraulic mining sites.

This is the type of shit Kaonite workers in these mining facilities were likely exposed to on a regular basis, because they are Cybertronians and could physically tolerate this kind of thing without dying-- At least, not right away.

A combination of repeated extreme wear, chronic overwork, likely poor medical resources, and complicating factors like questionable access to healthy fuels etc. would have inevitably resulted in a generally very unwell population with high workplace casualty rates.

This was the type of life most low class/caste heavy labour designated frame types were assigned to, under the Functionist system.

I've talked about my headcanons re: hearing disabled Megatron before, and it's kind of interesting to see that canonically here, that's very much possible. Audial damage from mining, audial damage from the fighter's ring.

But in general, the Kaonite population is seriously at risk, especially medically. Same deal with other low class/caste designated regions across Cybertron. Much like many Appalachian mining populations, where COPD is as common as flies in summer, the chronically poor health of this population would be staggering in comparison to better-off polities like Iacon.

Rust in their optics, rotting their optical components from within, likely leaving many workers sightless--

--At which point they were probably deemed "useless" under the ableist Functionist system, as they would then likely be unable to work their prior jobs or would only be able to work in limited or different capacities; Any system that determines worth by perceived functionality is inherently ableist, and Primus knows there were almost certainly no disability accommodations provided or available potential repairs/treatments in places like Kaon on Cybertron.

As a result, these newly disabled bots were likely left unemployed and therefore without any income source for Shanix, therefore left to their deaths via fuel deprivation etc.--

--Unless they fell in with mob-controlled sources of materials or aid, as a last resort...

Apparently Megatron Displaced The Local Kaonite Mafia: Pit Bosses Could Be Mob Bosses Too

This is also a real thing, as a lot of productive industrial facilities (not just mining, but textiles etc.) were often tied into in local black market raw material goods and organised crime shit, owing to less than moral site owners and company bosses. (At least in the USA, it may have varied in other countries or from region to region.)

This is because if you have a productive facility, you can make a fuckload of money bypassing any common sense safety rules or proper waste/product handling or disposal protocols etc. and skip the whole regulated market and just go right to making a fuckzillion moneys from whoever will buy this shit illegally.

(This is part of why a lot of Appalachia is polluted to hell and back-- Even at the time, a lot of these industrial works and companies knew perfectly well that dumping coal ash and other horrible shit into every single river and creek available was a bad idea. They did it anyway. Why? It saved money overall and they didn't have to pay for more long distance drivers to reach actual approved waste sites etc.

For those of you who may not be familiar with this USA specific shit, let me introduce you to the concept of a Superfund Site. It's depressing. Most are former industrial illegal waste dumping sites. These places are so fucked up that even the American Government was forced to acknowledge how bad it is. Some of them are straight up literal nuclear waste sites.)

This has been a huge problem in American industrial history, because America can turn out some very, very productive sites using very, very unsafe and cruel means to force workers to work. Paying in scrip etc. were all methods to ensure a workforce could not leave. And so on.

Not to mention the horrendous impact on Native populations, the poor in general, immigrants in general, etc. who were all subject to the worst possible treatment throughout.

And there are many modern examples too-- Not just in the USA, but in many places around the world, such as Peru. Note that capitalism is often the facilitator of mistreatment, pollution, etc. and serves as the motivating factor for much of this fuckery worldwide. This also includes factors like western companies wanting to appear more "green", so they simply go abroad to abuse people in other nations and exploit their labour and raw labour products instead.

Capitalism is the root problem, on Earth and evidently, likely on Cybertron as well.

Can you imagine the amount of Shanix these fucking Kaonite mob bosses were making, possibly from selling raw materials and energon crystals mined in Kaon to other polities with fewer natural resources, arranging illicit under the table deals with large energy distributors etc. in other regions? Depriving Kaon of its own natural goods and stealing the near-entirety of their labour, constantly, endlessly?

(If this all reminds you a bit of Marx's Theory of Alienation, you are correct.)

Much of Kaon is, essentially, a Superfund Site. Dangerous industrial waste, materials, and abandoned facilities, all affecting the population in all sorts of ways into perpetuity even long after one industry dies and another rises-- Or a new industry never comes along, and you end up with even worse off sections of an already brutally deprived area, living in the remnants of an equally hellish past that was just marginally better enough to make some bots yearn for the good old days of having a job to be worked to death at.

If this is relatable or frustrating to you, you are correct. These are all real world problems. It's easy to relate to the plight of the Kaonites-- Megatron, at this time, is still largely a sympathetic figure to many.

Because of course, even from the outside, it is clear that this degree of suffering cannot be sustained. Even Orion Pax recognises this, despite his own total lack of exposure and lack of class awareness at the time in which he initially starts speaking with Megatron.

Anyway. Briefly back to our real world example, because it's important here:

All of this capitalist corruption is another example of systemic level rot; A lot of the time regulators knew that facilities were engaging in illegal dumping and worker rights abuses etc. but couldn't do anything about it due to a lack of federal involvement and lack of means or resources to raise a larger case or investigation on the scale that would be needed.

And of course, some regulators and investigators were paid off. Sigh.

It's genuinely impressive that Megatron was able to run off an industrial crime syndicate, because that shit goes very deep and has lots of tendrils that tie into pretty much everything else going on in a given area, especially in towns or regions where only one or two industries make up the entirety of everything.

It doesn't surprise me at all that Megatron gained such a large following so quickly.

Nobody else in Cybertron was willing or able to acknowledge (let alone try to address) the horrible abuses going on in Kaon.

Endless, brutal labour, often resulting in horrible deaths. No reward for any of their work, with much of their meagre pay going to the mob and likely to companies based in other polities around Cybertron, so none of the materials or money ever stayed local. No care was put into their living conditions or standard of living, with most bots being used up and worn down with nothing to show for it but the industrial hell that consumed their own region.

And by getting the organised crime rings out of the local industries and community, by turning this abandoned facility into a gladiatorial ring, that provided both a more personally rewarding use of their physical skills developed through hard manual labour and gives an opportunity to gain legitimate funds and potentially fame-- Granting a social status previously completely unattainable to Kaonites, while clearly being built up on the legacy of all of their prior labour.

No wonder the appeal to follow Megatron was so strong, even in the early days.

Not even Primus helped these people, none of the Primes helped these people--- But Megatron did.

And that is powerful, to be liberated by one of your own, someone you know truly understands the difficulty and suffering and misery of a cruel, unending grind.

All that most of these bots could ever look forward to previously was dying in a hopefully not-as-painful way.

Now, there is potential for a genuinely tangibly better future, quite possibly for the first time in Kaon's history. Certainly for the first time within living memory.

Megatron turned an immiserated local population with no hope and no prospects beyond being worked to death into up-and-coming athletic stars with a burgeoning sports industry, using their local culture and previously disparaged frame types to prove the inherent wrongness of the class/caste system to a literal mass audience.

Megatron essentially took waste from the Cybertronian equivalent of colliery spoil tips and used it to forcibly create some kind of real hope and better future for every Kaonite, both individually and gradually on a larger regional scale, while living under an oppressive system that was just as likely to kill him in the same way as it had been killing everyone else around him his entire existence.

Megatron turned an industrial hell into a revolutionary city-state.

And he started local, he started with the injustices closest to him, what was visible rot to him in the environment he grew up in. Start small, strategize, your morals are your fuel-- In part because they keep stealing the fuel we mine. Does that seem fair? Does that seem just? What sense does it make, to have a system in which your most important workers are kept deprived and struggling into perpetuity?

He is the perfect Cybertronian revolutionary, he is the figurehead the people of Kaon needed, and his words were heard planet-wide from an arena he facilitated the building of himself, that he reclaimed from decay and loss.

From the bare frame structure of an abandoned mining pit, Megatron spoke words that inspired the downtrodden and lifted up countless impoverished populations through solidarity, the collective power of the working class, the low caste bots, the low class frame types.

The people that were previously discarded, were now using their means and their frames for their own purposes, gradually weakening the grip of the Council, gradually proving to more and more bots that this system is broken and this world can be better and we deserve better, and by any means, we will obtain better. We will make it better, with or without your permission.

No wonder Megatron became so powerful, so quickly.

He appealed perfectly to his people and others in similar living conditions, he articulated perfectly the flaws in oppressive Cybertronian society, he showed that different frame types can and do have multiple uses beyond the classist interpretation of their build schematics--

--All Megatron did, fundamentally, was care.

He cared about what was happening around him, he did not buy into the idea that life has to be miserable and this is the way things are and it can never change or get better, he saw and lived the awful conditions and suffered discrimination and understood that working together for each other would improve things for all.

And he acted on this understanding. There is always someone who is first to act, because there must be.

And Megatron does not act in half-measures.

I like that they mention him getting rid of the crime syndicates, here; It gives you a good idea of his morality pre-war.

It would have been easy to collaborate with these crime syndicates for some time, to secure funds for a new gladiatorial ring.

But instead, he took out the crime syndicates entirely and opted to build his arena inside an abandoned facility.

No capitulation to capital.

No money was exchanged, not a single Shanix, no deals made. No fucking around. This is Kaon, and you are no longer powerful here.

Megatron is increasingly powerful, however, because he embodied to the people the collective power of the people; He reflected themselves and their experiences back at them. But actions like this also played a large part in gaining that trust, in proving his skills and worth as a revolutionary and potential leader. It's not enough to be like everyone else. You have to prove you're not just another asshole looking to exploit everyone for influence or other personal benefit.

If you want a collective movement, it has to be about the collective. And for Megatron, it very much was. And things like this helped him prove that from very early on.

The Council and the mobs effectively have no authority anymore; They are losing control. Megatron, very quickly, becomes the accepted authority. Kaon becomes a freed city-state, it escapes the grasp of Functionism.

Standing up to one crime syndicate may not seem significant in the grander scheme of things, knowing how things occur in the story from this point onward.

But it is hugely significant-- It is a very important thing to highlight.

Because it is "smaller" things like this which are actually massively important and impactful.

And each "smaller" thing built up, and improved things for people to the point where Kaon could function entirely independently with a better off population of previously severely oppressed peoples.

Every "smaller" thing counts. Every "smaller" thing is the entire world to someone, or to a lot of someones.

How many lives were saved and debts erased, when Megatron took out this one crime syndicate?

How immediately did that improve a lot of lives, how quickly did that endear those people to him, to his ideology, to his plans for their collective future? How fast did they start listening, when he started speaking?

This is how revolution happens.

Anyway, thank you as always if you read any of this-- I know this got very long and it is nearly 2 AM now where I'm at, so it may have lost a bit of coherency here and there.

tl;dr labour history is important, fuck capitalism (this includes fictional capitalism), and intersectional solidarity is key to collective survival in general but especially among the working class and all groups subject to systemic oppression/discrimination in various forms

#megatron #megatronus #orion pax #tfp #transformers prime #aligned continuity #transformers exodus #transformers novel #maccadam #maccadams #transformers #tfp megatron #kaon #cybertron #long post #tw medical discussion #I try to tag medical talk even fictional stuff in posts that aren't explicitly medical discussion focused #just because I know some people are not into the medical talk stuff #tw ableism

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cripplecharacters · 22 days

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Hi! I’m writing a story about a lady with Down Syndrome. I was wondering if you knew where I can find any resources about Down Syndrome made by people who actually have it, or any organisations that would be good to follow. Any resources made by people with intellectual disability would be really helpful as well.

I read your post about this and it was really helpful so thank you, I’m going to use it as a starting point for my research.

If you’d like some context about the story she’s literally a lady in the 1920s who’s trying to get control of her family’s estate from her brother. Shes underestimated for her disabilities and for being a women but I’m trying to not focus so much on the discrimination and work more on giving her an interesting mystery to solve with the detective she hired. I’d like it to be a bit lighthearted. Anyway, as she’s a main character I really wanted to make sure I wrote her well. Thanks!

Hi!

There aren't many resources out there unfortunately, but there is a page on the UK Down Syndrome's Association's website where members with DS share their opinions on representation in TV and film! You can read it here. For info on intellectual disability in general the best I can do is link some of my previous posts on it - there's close to nothing that's actually made by us unfortunately, everything that I was able to find is always made by someone who knows a person with ID at best. To be clear, not all of it is bad - I thought this interview (TW for abuse that happens in the movie's plot) about a movie starring actors with DS was pretty good - but it's still a sign that we aren't getting enough #OwnVoices representation. It's slowly changing though!

To learn more about DS I would probably recommend NDSS, it's one of the very few orgs that have people with Down Syndrome as board and team members (should be the bare minimum, but it unfortunately isn't). There's also information on things like preferred language and myths that often show up around Down Syndrome!

I'm not great with history, but in the 1920s she would be a subject to a lot more than just discrimination. Eugenics and institutionalization would definitely be present. Not sure what route you'll take there, but basically all the words around that time that she would be described with are currently considered slurs or pejoratives. The racist term for a person with Down Syndrome was officially used into the 60s, and the ableist one is still used legally in 2024. But if you want to skip past that, I think that's more than fine. You don't always have to aim for 100% historical accuracy, just be aware of the real history.

A detective story sounds very exciting! If you decide to publish it on Tumblr or other online site feel free to send me an ask with a link, I'd love to read it :-) !!

Thank you for the ask!

mod Sasza

I’m just popping in as a history fan for a couple bits of history notes — but again, like Sasza said, you don’t have to be 100% historically accurate if you don’t want to and if you don’t feel it’s necessary.

So, especially in the first half of the 1900s, a large part of disabled children, including children with Down Syndrome, were institutionalized very early in their life. Around this time the push that immorality caused disability was strong, and people were often convinced by doctors and professionals that the children’s needs would always be too much for them. Eugenicism was sort of reaching a peak around this time, as well—I would say it was at its most intense in the period of 1900-1940s.

Not all parents institutionalized their children, though. There was pressure to do so, but that doesn’t mean everyone fell victim to it. There wasn’t really any official support for parents who did this, and there weren’t official organizations for Down Syndrome. From my research, the current large DS organizations seem to have popped up in the 60s.

The term ‘Down Syndrome’ wasn’t in popular use until the 70s, and it wasn’t known that it’s caused by an extra chromosome until 1959.

Life expectancy in 1900-1920 for people born with Down Syndrome was 9 years old. Some of this could absolutely have been due to conditions in institutions, but likely even more relevant is that about 50% of people with DS are born with heart defects (also known as congenital heart disease) that can be fatal if not treated with surgery. Heart surgery wasn’t really feasible until the late 30s and early 40s. Another risk factor is a higher risk for infection, which isn’t easy to manage in a world that doesn’t yet have antibiotics.

I actually wanted to find pictures of adults with Down Syndrome pre-1940ish, though, to see real tangible evidence of adults being part of a community. First I found just one picture of a baby in 1925 on this Minnesota government website. But then I found a collection someone made of photos of both children and young adults, but they are not specifically dated. The first baby picture is from the 30s according to the poster!

Judging by the clothes I see people wearing in these photos, photo #4 (man with Down Syndrome in a suit next to a woman) seems to be from the 20s and photo #13 (young woman with Down Syndrome and very long hair) seems to be from about the 1910s. #18 (large family with a lot of sons, including one boy with Down Syndrome) could be from the 30s. Those three are the oldest people with DS in the photos, and they seem like young adults. A lot of these pictures show a community and aren’t just isolated kids, which I find nice.

It’s hard to find specific historical record of people with Down Syndrome from that period of time, but I wanted to show photos of real people in their communities to show, hey look! They were there, too!

Either way, I love detective stories and historical fiction and I’m glad you’re writing a story and that you care about your character’s portrayal but I totally know the feeling of that tricky balance between historical accuracy and modern acknowledgement that we should have been doing better.

— Mod Sparrow

#mod sasza #mod sparrow #intellectual disability representation #historical fiction #pretending that this answer isn't extremely late.. sorry #tw eugenics #tw ableism

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youngchronicpain · 4 months

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Just started a book that is a work of historical fiction for fun (I picked one that was an available audiobook through my library at random) and in the first chapter disabled babies are referred to as "human rejects." Oof oof oof oof.

#tw violence #death mention #oh and they are also killed immediately by their father #I am a fan of historical fiction but it is sometimes difficult to read because of this #I'm just trying to make chicken and dumplings for dinner and now I'm crying about these babies being murdered #ableism

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kuramirocket · 11 months

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I'm going through the proship tag and I see this take:

And I just -

'putting characters in the same traumatizing situations that you went through is not okay'

Like-

Ma'am, Sir, other, what have you; that is a fictional child you're angry about.

I normally just ignore and block anti posts but this one just got me cause it was too funny.

And this is also why it's important to learn actual red flags, abusive patterns and tactics that abusers and predators would use to lure in victims, and also to learn internet safety. Teach children and others these things to be safe. Censoring, banning and prohibiting art and writing won't accomplish anything and will affect the most marginalized and vulnerable groups like poc and the lgbt community as history continues to show to this day with things like on going book banning in the U.S.

#fiction does affect reality but not in the way antis think or on a 1:1 basis #I just #LMAO #proship #antis dni #proshipper #proshippers please interact #proship safe #ableism #tw: shaking gif #anti censorship

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beep-beep-robin · 2 years

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there‘s times where robin feels like all she can do for a bit is stare at the wall. it‘s not like that‘s what she really wants to do in those moments, but it‘s quite literally all she can do. it’s like her brain’s so overwhelmed it shuts everything down. it feels like it‘s turned into potato mash all of a sudden and every little noise that she hears exhausts her even more.

normally she‘d go through these things all alone. it‘s not like she could tell her parents about it, they‘d probably think she was exaggerating or even a bit crazy. if they didn‘t already think that.

but if there‘s one thing that robin knows about nancy wheeler, it‘s that she‘s persistent. so she doesn‘t even try to argue when nancy notices that robin isn‘t feeling too hot one day and tells her she‘s gonna come over.

there‘s almost always a buildup to those everything’s-too-much phases. robin can feel them coming, knows when she’d pushed herself too far, and most of the time she successfully doesn‘t meet up with anyone when they‘re about to happen.

but then there‘s nancy.

nancy who invites herself over because she can tell robin‘s not okay. nancy who let‘s herself into the house with the spare key that‘s kept under the doormat because robin isn‘t coming downstairs to open the door and she‘s worried. nancy who finds robin in her room, sitting on her bed and slowly rocking back and forth. nancy who doesn‘t push robin to talk to her, doesn‘t question what‘s going on because she knows if she wants to, robin will explain later. nancy who lets robin lay her head on her lap once she’s calmed down a bit and runs her fingers through her hair.

nancy who‘s just there.

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princesssarisa · 2 years

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More "Little Women" thoughts: Beth March and ableism (warning: very long)

@littlewomenchannel, @thatscarletflycatcher, @joandfriedrich

A few days ago, I was looking for articles about ableism in 19th century literature (because some of us casually do that sort of thing) when I came across this review of Little Women. It's a sad review: the author writes that Little Women was her favorite childhood book, but now, as an adult, she can't enjoy it anymore, because she's come to recognize the "ableism" of the portrayal of Beth's illness and death. As a chronically ill person herself, she used to enjoy identifying with Beth and looked to her as a role model. But now she realizes that this probably fed her own internalized ableism and taught her to suppress her feelings about her illness, because of the way Beth is admired for never complaining while she's sick. She also objects to the fact that Beth (a) has no ambitions or dreams for the future, as if sick people "aren't allowed" to have them, (b) is portrayed as "too good and pure for this earth," and (c) is used as "inspiration porn" to teach Jo and the other sisters to be better people.

I've written in the past about how much I dislike most of the commentary I've read about Beth's character. Without a doubt, critics tend to view her in ableist ways. But only in the past year, with this review as the culmination, have I considered that maybe her portrayal in the book itself is ableist. While I'm not chronically ill, I relate to Beth for different reasons, and I wish I could argue that her portrayal isn't ableist at all: not only for my own sake, but so the above reviewer could enjoy her former favorite book again. But that's impossible to argue. Still, I'd like to take some time to look at Beth's portrayal, through the lens of disability, illness, and premature death in fiction, and the complexities of how it handles those issues.

There's no denying that the book uses Beth's illnesses as a device to inspire growth in the other characters. In Part I, her scarlet fever is written chiefly as an ordeal for Meg, Jo, and Amy, which serves their coming-of-age journeys, and in Part II, her final illness and death once again serve the others' development. Namely by teaching Jo to be kinder and more patient, by reviving Jo's writing career as she works through her grief by turning back to her pen, and by finally bringing Amy and Laurie together as a couple. Of course using a sick or disabled character's suffering and death mainly to serve the healthy, able-bodied characters' personal growth is an ableist tradition, just like the "women in the refrigerator" trope (sacrificing female characters for male characters' development) is sexist.

There's also the fact that Beth is admired, both by Jo and by Louisa May Alcott's narrator voice, for being patient and uncomplaining throughout most of her sickness (though not through all of it– more on that below), rarely even asking for help or care, and "trying not to be a trouble" even as she nears death. Of course we should question the old tradition of glorifying people, especially women and girls, who efface themselves for others and who never complain no matter how much they suffer. Whether their suffering is illness, abuse, poverty, or anything else, the old-fashioned model of "bearing it cheerfully" should definitely be questioned. A chronically ill person should be allowed to fully express their pain and anger. And Beth's real-life model, Louisa May Alcott's sister Elizabeth "Lizzie" Alcott, was angry about her fatal illness – allegedly she became prone to uncontrollable rages in her painful last year of life, which her sister left out of Beth's decline to give her a more socially acceptable "good Christian death." The pressure to never complain, to "try not to be a trouble," and to be a role model of bravery for friends and family is a burden that no sick or disabled person needs! Yet as the above book review made clear, Beth's portrayal can potentially put that pressure on a sick or disabled reader. Just because it was common and accepted in the 19th century to portray illness and death this way doesn't make it any less ableist than it would be from a modern author.

Yet Beth's storyline is more than just a string of ableist 19th century illness tropes. To view it that way requires ignoring its context, both in Alcott's personal life and in the literature of her era.

First of all, there's the fact that Beth is based on a real person, Alcott's beloved sister. She's an idealized portrait, but she's still based in truth. Alcott didn't create a sickly fictional character just to kill off for the sake of the other characters' growth; Beth becomes chronically ill because Lizzie became chronically ill, and she dies because Lizzie died. By idealizing her as Beth and by portraying her life and death as inspiring her family and friends to become better people, Alcott meant to pay tribute to her sister – and maybe it also filled a need within her to find some meaning in her sister's suffering and in such a terrible, unfair loss. Of course just because Alcott loved her sister doesn't mean she couldn't have been ableist toward her, and just because she meant Beth's portrayal as a tribute doesn't mean it can't include problematic tropes. But the context is important to remember.

Besides, while Beth might seem like a figure of old-fashioned, syrupy sentimentality by modern writing standards, I would argue that compared to similar sweet, doomed female characters in other books of the same era, her portrayal is fairly progressive.

19th century fiction is full of angelic young girls, either children or teenage maidens, who, after short lives of gentle, selfless piety, waste patiently away from a drawn-out illness, and then die a "good Christian death," leaving their loved ones to become better people by their example. Two others I know besides Beth, and whom Alcott knew too, are Helen Burns in Jane Eyre and Evangeline "Little Eva" St. Clare in Uncle Tom's Cabin. (Anyone who calls Beth's death "the most maudlin death in 19th century literature" hasn't read Eva's!) Another famous example would probably be Charles Dickens' Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop, but I haven't read that book yet. Fairly often these characters seem to have been written as tributes to young girls in the authors' own families who had died: for example, Charlotte Brontë based Helen Burns on her sister Maria, while Dickens based Little Nell on his teenage sister-in-law Mary Hogarth. In some ways Beth is a classic example of this trope: that I'll grant. But I would argue that she's a complex example. I sincerely think Alcott set out to portray her as less of a romanticized paragon who exists to inspire others and more of a real human being than earlier authors' doomed angel-girls.

Beth is framed as a co-protagonist with her three sisters, not as a supporting character like Helen Burns or Eva St. Clare. This gets lost in the adaptations that focus more exclusively on Jo, but the book is called Little Women and not Jo for a reason. In Part I, despite idealizing her more than the other sisters and sometimes holding her up as their role model, Alcott still makes a point to say that Beth was "not an angel but a very human little girl." Just like her sisters, she dislikes tedious chores. She can be irresponsible, namely when her pet bird dies after she forgets to feed him for days. She can be moody, though it tends to manifest as tears or headaches instead of the angry snapping her sisters indulge in. And she has one big "burden" that she actively struggles with: her overwhelming shyness. She isn't a static character who inspires growth in others without needing to grow herself. Even though her flaws are minor, the idea that Alcott meant her to be a symbol of perfect goodness, too pure for this earth, doesn't ring true.

Her illnesses are also portrayed with a degree of harsh realism that sets her apart from the saintly dying girls in other books. The tuberculosis that kills both Helen Burns and Eva St. Clare is just a slow, gentle weakening with occasional coughs. But Beth's scarlet fever is frightening, both for her sisters and for herself, and her final illness, although vaguely described, is emphatically painful. Her body becomes a "prison-house of pain," as Jo writes, and her formerly calm, uncomplaining demeanor crumbles in a "rebellious" period of physical and emotional torment, horrible for her family to watch. This was clearly the phase when in real life, Lizzie Alcott became prone to fits of rage and dependent on drugs to manage both her pain and her moods; even though Little Women cuts those uglier details, we still feel the tumult, which isn't negated by the fact that it eventually passes and Beth's last days are peaceful.

More importantly, even though Alcott admires Beth for rarely complaining, she still allows her to be miserable about her condition, and the journey of coming to terms with it is Beth's own journey, not just her family's. Helen Burns and Eva St. Clare both serenely embrace death and look forward to heaven. But Beth? She's distraught to have her happy life cut short. True, she tries to resign herself and hide her sadness from her family, but it's clear that she's deeply depressed, and in two different scenes she breaks down crying in Jo's arms (first in bed, before she admits the reason why, and later at the beach after her reveal that she knows she's doomed). Only gradually, over the course of a year and after the above-mentioned period of anguished "rebellion," does she find inner peace, partly thanks to her religious faith, but thanks even more to the loving care and support her family gives her. She's not just a brave role model who makes peace with her fate all alone.

Now, about her lack of dreams and ambitions... This is entirely personal, but never once have I viewed this aspect of Beth's character as Louisa May Alcott "not allowing her" to dream and aspire the way her sisters do. I've always seen it as just a part of her personality, probably taken straight from Lizzie Alcott. Of course I don't know if this is true or not: for all I know, Lizzie did have grand plans for her future which her failing health shattered, and Louisa just chose to give Beth no ambitions to make her a better foil to Jo and/or to make her death less cruel. But why assume that? It's more than possible that even if Lizzie had been healthy and lived long, she really would have been content to stay with her parents until they died, then gone to live with one of her sisters afterward, and chosen to devote her life to taking care of her family.

This is probably a good time to discuss why I relate to Beth. I've written about it before, but it's important, and it explains why I've never viewed her a just a cardboard saint, nor viewed the portrayal of her illness and death as just "inspiration porn."

Even before she becomes chronically ill, Beth is different, and not just by being angelic. "She lived in a happy world of her own," Alcott writes in Part I, "only venturing out to met the few whom she trusted and loved." As late as age fourteen, she still plays with dolls, treats them as if they were alive, and has imaginary friends. She's also been homeschooled, because her social anxiety made the classroom unbearable for her; Alcott describes her shyness as "her infirmity," implying that it's not just a character flaw, but a disability. She never wants to get married, and not only does she have no worldly ambitions, she never even wants to leave her parents' house. Her fondest wish is to "stay at home safe with Father and Mother" forever – a wish that comes true in the saddest possible way, as she dies without ever having left the nest. Yet she's not just a childlike figure, as she has high emotional intelligence from a young age, and she even composes her own music to play on the piano. From a modern perspective, it's easy to read her as neurodivergent, and it seems more than likely that Lizzie Alcott would be diagnosed as neurodivergent if she lived today. As an autistic person, I see so much of myself in Beth... and that includes her lack of ambition. Leave the safety and familiarity of home? Live far from my family, the only people who really understand me? Go out into the big, unknown, anxiety-causing world? Give up my comfortable daily routine to make massive life changes? Not me, unless I have no choice!

This is why, when I first read the book, I found it beautiful that this odd, shy, sickly homebody of a girl, so easy to overlook or dismiss, is ultimately so adored and admired. Even though she doesn't sparkle in society, or defy gender norms, or have grand ambitions, or win any man's romantic love, and even though she dies so young and would probably have never "achieved" much or lived a "normal" life anyway, she's still valuable. Her kindness, her selflessness, and the love she gives to others are enough. Her low self-esteem ("stupid little Beth") and her regret for not doing more with her life are proven wrong, as during her sickness her family and friends reveal just how much she means to them, and even after her death she still makes a positive impact, as her sisters resolve to follow her example of selfless kindness and as she inspires Jo's writing. Of course it's not her job to inspire them, but is it really so problematic that she does?

Still, I've struggled with one possibly ableist aspect of Beth's characterization: the fact that, when she confesses to Jo that she knows she's dying, she suggests that "it was never intended that I should live long." Because she's never had any desire to leave her parents' home and live a "normal" adult life, she reluctantly views her impending death as "for the best." At least it's only Beth herself who says this and not Alcott's narrator voice or any other character; but unfortunately, no one argues against it either. I'd like to think that this speech only voices Beth's low self-esteem (possibly her own internalized albleism), which her family's love, care, and gratitude toward her refute. But the possibility stands that Alcott did rationalize Lizzie's death by thinking she wouldn't have been suited to a long life because she never quite "grew up," and that she expected us to view Beth's death in the same way.

Last spring, I had my first real health crisis since early childhood. For reasons I still don't fully know (probably genetics combined with weight gain and anxiety from two years of living in a pandemic), my blood pressure went dangerously high, and I spent two days in the hospital and still have to take stabilizing pills. In my hospital bed, afraid for my life, I found myself thinking "Maybe I'm like Beth. Maybe I'm not meant to live long. I've never held a full-time job, I can't even drive, socializing is hard, I still depend on my parents and I don't know what I'll do when they're gone, I'm oversensitive, and I feel so much younger than I am. I want to live, but maybe I'm just not suited to this world." Of course that was irrational, fear-based thinking. But it showed me that I have some internalized ableism, and that Beth's view of herself as destined to die young because she's different... doesn't exactly make it better. Just like her self-effacing patience and her role of serving her sisters' character development fed the internalized ableism of the linked review's author. While it hasn't made me dislike Beth or Little Women, it did force me to view her storyline as more of a "problematic fave" than I did before.

At any rate, though, I think the book's portrayal of Beth is much less ableist than most commentary written about her. From critics who insist that she is a symbol of perfect, ethereal goodness that can't survive on earth, to those who wholeheartedly agree that she dies because she's "unable to grow up," to those who view her sisters' admiration for her as inherently anti-feminist, I've read more bad remarks about Beth than I can stand! The worst is when so-called feminist critics conflate Beth's frail health both with her home-centered life and with her gender presentation, and think they're being progressive by saying, for example, "She's killed by her traditional femininity, which makes her too weak to survive," or "She has to die because her life has no meaning outside the home and a modern woman's life needs more meaning than that." Comments like those will always make me angry, but I don't blame Alcott's writing for them. I don't think those were the messages she meant to send.

So what conclusion should I draw from all this? Well, for one thing, I have to admit that Beth's storyline is a "problematic fave" for a disabled or chronically ill reader. I can't claim it's free from ableism and I understand why there's backlash against it. But I won't join fully in the backlash just yet. Alcott's use, and arguable subversion, of ableist tropes in Beth's characterization is complex. I think it's a topic that deserves to be discussed and explored, not used as a reason for readers who relate to Beth to dismiss Little Women altogether.

#little women #beth march #disability representation #chronic illness #ableism #louisa may alcott #elizabeth sewall alcott #fictional characters #characterization #analysis #long #tw: ableism #tw: illness #tw: death

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pbscore · 1 year

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‘MoSt AnTis ArE WhItE AmERiCaNs’

Bro, if y’all don’t take your lily white, sheltered asses outside and meet REAL LIFE poc 🤣🤣🤣 Y’all have NOTHING to back this claim up except tumblr and Twitter ‘discourse’. But of course, it’s convenient to change the language when you want and say silly shit like ‘uwu we don’t call people antis in real life, we just call them bigots and fascists’ as if that’s an acceptable excuse to paint people you don’t even know with such a broad stroke that you end up alienating people who ARE activists and actually care about social issues not pertaining to fandom bullshit.

I have never seen so many white nerds try to come up with excuses to just call people of color (especially black people) fascists on the basis of internet disagreements that won’t matter in real life.

#fandom dorks #tw negative #fandom critical #there’s no such thing as antis or anti antis in real life #and if any of you dorks ever brought it up to me in real life…i would humiliate you beyond repair #y’all wanna be heroes so badly but end up falling short of it because of your inability to #separate your fictional arguments from reality but then have the AUDACITY to bitch and moan #about how ‘fiction doesn’t effect reality uwu’ like TAKE YOUR ASSES OUTSIDE AND STOP SCREAMING ABLEISM #it’s healthy to leave your home (especially if you have the privilege of being able bodied)#and experience the world without the sheltered filter of tumblr #pbscore #ok to interact

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skrunklivflour · 5 months

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not the proshipper in the fukase tag pulling out the fucking ableist pronoun ideas 💀

(no offense to ppl who use monster/monsterself pronouns!! it's just pretty ableist in the context of being based off of Fukase :( also just to make sure its clear this post isnt anti-xenopronouns! also small rant in tags + please dont go harass the og poster of the ideas, harassment is not okay no matter what!)

#vocaloid fandom stop calling Fukase a monster for no reason challange go! (somehow impossible for some people)#is it really that fucking hard for some people to see someone with a disability and not demonize them #“but hes fictional!” it doesn't matter you're still setting an example of how to treat people with disabilities in real life #stop setting a precedent and reflect on your views on others you piece of shit #say it with me guys people who treat/see people with disabilities as monsters are absolutely disgusting #vocaloid #fukase #tw ableism #text post #sorry for being so aggressive/harsh im just fed up w/ this shit and also not really in a good mood rn

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myhaireatskids · 2 months

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sorry I dont usually bitch about other people's fandom post but like dihswwjbs

imagine seeing disabled people have fun and being like UHM ACTUALLY I think he's cool and skilled and perfect instead ahaha

#'he can adapt' motherfucker not everything can be adapted to how tf do you think disability works #ive had severe SEVERE depression & anxiety since i was 10 that doesnt mean my body 'apapted' to the stress in fact it literally lead #to chronic pain and pcos #evolution the human body is imperfect and a lot of acquired disabilities dont come from 'accidents' they come from that imperfection #uh anyways op if by some correlation you see this hi im not sorry youre legit ableist this post is gross. do better #doesnt matter that hes fictional youre still giving a huge middle finger to real life deaf and disabled people #rambles #ableism tw

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earthstellar · 5 months

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A lot of mini-bots (and quite a few other bots) have what might be considered neurodivergent traits (or have been confirmed as such), and I wonder if certain frame types or classes --or Cybertronians in general-- might have physically type-specific processor structures which allow for greater diversity of thought, and if some frame types or spark types might be more or less likely to have or develop neurodivergent traits

We know the Quintessons fucked with the Well of All Sparks in the Aligned Continuity which had unknown effects, and in IDW 1 given the spark as the core of a person's individual spirit (for lack of any better phrasing), it would make sense for Cybertronian sparks to imbue individual personality etc. while the processors are physical hardware with software flexibility to permit and adapt to those unique aspects of self

For example, in the continuities where spark development influences protoform development and therefore what type of frame a bot might ultimately have, it is still simultaneously possible to alter a frame to some degree with armour changes, mass manipulation, etc. (and in most continuities, alt-modes can be altered as well, to at least some degree within the range of someone's core specs)

But the processor and spark are the two things that generally (although we have seen some exceptions to this) cannot be physically altered without incurring significant damage-- Making them some of the few constant components in a species designed to physically change

Sparks have significant individual variation in terms of the personality etc. that evolves from each unique spark, so perhaps processors have some physical elements designed to best accommodate a certain frame type, while also allowing for individual experiences and perception etc. to form unique thought pathways for each individual -- This would allow for any Quintesson or Functionism-related frame alterations or requirements, while also still enabling a spark to produce a unique person as it forms and as experiences accumulate

Sort of like genetics vs epigenetics in human beings; Some things are physical and structural, but some things are informed by environment, experience, etc.

It's interesting that we do seem to see a lot of mini-bots specifically who might fall into a neurodivergent category or exhibit behaviours or thought process that might reasonably fall under the category, but of course it's not universal so there is still greater variation

Although characterisation varies from series to series, here's a couple examples:

Cliffjumper tends to have impulse control problems that are sometimes similar to ADHD impulse control problems, and he sometimes has difficulty prioritising or hyperfixates on one aspect of a situation, leading him to reach the wrong conclusion or focusing on the slightly wrong thing; He also struggles to manage frustration. This could all be related to something similar to executive dysfunction, as it commonly manifests in humans with ADHD.

Bumblebee seems to be conflict-avoidant to some degree in most continuities, and aside from that being part of his friendly nature and kind disposition, it might also hint at something similar to rejection sensitive dysphoria, or a greater sensitivity and emotional response to perceived interpersonal conflict or perceived failure. Some versions of Bumblebee have particularly struggled when faced with high stakes/high risk of failure scenarios, and he has a tendency to internalise blame, directing it towards himself even when a failure is not necessarily his fault or even truly a failed mission. This is often comorbid with Autism and ADHD in humans, but it can also exist on its own.

It's not just mini-bots; Misfire canonically has ADHD in IDW 1, Geomotus in IDW 2 is Autistic and his neurodivergency is even highlighted by other characters, and so on.

So all of this (and how it might work) varies from continuity to continuity, but I just like thinking about how neurodivergent bots do exist, and how that happens and how it manifests and how it is perceived by others and by society at large is interesting

In IDW 2, neurodivergency seems to be viewed in a more understanding and positive light. But in IDW 1, neurodivergency may be viewed in a more ableist way under the Functionist system, and in the Aligned Continuity, perhaps neurodivergency is seen as a potential indication of Quintesson alteration of the Well or of the individual themselves (this would depend on a bot's age).

We don't have too many details on Cybertronian medicine in general, but it's interesting to think about!

It's 8 AM I'm gonna go have a tea now lol

#long post #cybertronian medicine #minibots #maccadams #maccadam #medbay posting #idw 1 #idw transformers #idw 2 #aligned continuity #tf speculation #just thinkin #transformers #tfp #quintessons #disability in fiction #disability in media #tw brief mention of ableism

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aspd-culture · 10 months

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Wtf what did the social worker even do? Tell u to knock it off and cast a magic spell to make u think humans are good actually?

Tw s*icide in fiction, panic attacks, ableism

The social worker and me were actually cool, because I'd been seeing her for my panic attacks. Nothing she said helped, but they promised (and lied) that they wouldn't tell my caregiver if I went every week so I did. If nothing else, it was a way to get out of a stressful class when I wanted to.

As for her reaction to that essay, I'm sure they made her read it but I never specifically brought it up myself and when she did she shrugged it off as "not surprising considering you have a long term record of being very smart but having difficulty socializing" and "kind of ridiculous that they sent you to me for this because I'm not in the business of changing anyone's views on humanity". She also said that she was "not sure they actually know what a social worker is or does if they think this is where they should send you for this".

I admit she seemed less supportive of my views than annoyed with their lack of understanding of her job - but it worked out to the same outcome for me of not having to talk about it anymore soooooo I was cool. We spent about 3/4 of that period just venting about them not understanding her job.

But the rest of the year I got looks from that teacher and she refused to call on me after that, when previously and in all my other classes I was the go to student for "no one knows the answer? Ok well I know who does - X you wanna answer this?". It was obvious I challenged that teacher's worldview and she did not like it. But she also tried to tell me she would send me to the office for refusing to read from a book about s*icide with a passage where someone literally has a panic attack (the book is told from inside their head and was VERY accurately written - it caused me a panic attack when I was forced to read it to avoid the write up!) a year before I would start being wheelchaired during panic attacks myself because I could no longer hide them. That was hell, but since she REALLY wanted me to talk to the social worker, I did - about how distressing that entire book was and how the teacher ignored multiple requests to be out of the room for discussions of su*cide and forcing me to read a panic attack in first person perspective out loud to the class. She filed a report. Idk if it went anywhere but ya know, she was right about one thing, talking to the social worker did make me feel better once that teacher got reported lol.

It was an overall -a million/ten experience in her class and I would have happily told that teacher to go fuck herself if I thought it wouldn't ruin my angelic-ly good (in front of adults lol) gifted kid privileges. I was *not* giving up the fact that monitors and admins ignored straight-up excessive PDA, swearing, tardies, missing work, etc. just to tell that teacher off. But I *do* hope she rots in hell and I also hope she thinks about that essay sometimes. I really do think it haunts her haha.

#aspd-culture-is #tw vent #tw sui mention #tw sui in fiction #tw ableism #tw social worker #cw school #cw high school #tw panic attacks #a rare unmasked aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome

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thimbleling · 2 years

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not to poke my head in on a convo but i will say that as a disabled person, if i see ppl using disability/physical conditions purposefully to dehumanize a tiny character i will personally claw your eyes out

#unfortunately i have actually had people say really dehumanizing shit to me relating to this so! fiction like this CAN affect reality #txt #ableism tw #g/t

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trashendence · 2 years

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“examining your biases is internal work, no one can tell you to do it because you may have already done it and chosen to write what you wrote anyway” is the stupidest argument i’ve heard in a long time.

the invitation to “check your biases” is not made to invade your personal privacy; it is precisely made because you and your externalities - be them fictional work, meta posts, or even undercurrent narratives you perpetuate - are damaging someone else in the first place. biases have to be analyzed and corrected because of other people, not as a discovery of one’s personal preferences that may exist or may not exist. not as something unconsequential. biases are shaped by the social, political and economic context you live in, and it is your duty as a human being sharing a planet with billions of other human beings to make sure what you take away from your context is safe for everyone to replicate.

if you “examine your biases” and decide a harmful piece of work is not harmful to you, you have examined jack. you have “examined” what you want to create/have already created with the biggest bias you could ever pick out of them all: that you’re a good person and therefore you are the baseline on which morality can be measured. well, you are not. you are not infallible and you are not above the hurt other people feel. when you create something from scratch, when you put effort in building a piece of work that wouldn’t otherwise exist, you are invading others’ lives and you have to face the consequences - positive or negative that they may be. that’s the trade-off, that’s what your biases bring into the world and that’s how the world gets a right to respond.

“not writing in bad faith” is not enough. when all i get out of an experience you crafted for everyone’s eyes - mine included - is your blatant bias toward a specific group of people, faith is the last thing to be concerned about. “bad faith” would at least imply you were somewhat aware of the violence permeating your end results, while “not writing in bad faith” presupposes you have a major blind spot when it comes to that same violence you created. you are uncontrolled and unchecked in your own externalities, and that’s somehow even worse.

biases everyone should really keep in check, then, are ‘anchoring’ and ‘confimation’ ones. you cannot presume that the first positive response you get to one of your harmful works is representative of an entire group of people and you can definitely not expect to build a case on hand-picked considerations made by people who have the same blind spot as you. that’s just not how it works - not how it should work anyway - in inter-personal dynamics. if you talk to everyone, everyone will digest your words in a different way and, maybe, report to you how they felt about them. your work should have started before that, way before, but take the opportunity now to really examine your bias.

biases are inclinations of a plain, uninclined starting point of neutrality; you can notice the gap between what you think and this neutrality only when faced with other people’s stories and critiques of injustices you weren’t aware of. so if you’re told your biases are showing by the people affected by them, tear them down and start over. tear them down and make sure you bring into the world something as neutral as possible, represent reality as it should be - stripped of stereotypes and overcorrections. and if you can’t improve at all, producing fiction should be the last of your concerns.

#this is about a post going around that has recently been reblogged by the ao3 authors who’ve perpetrated racism and doubled-down on it #the post itself never mentioned racism in particular - nor the 911 fandom - and was published last year so i’m not answering to it directly #the op of that specific post may have been talking about preferences in fiction that are objectively personal #and i don’t want to accuse the post or poster of anything - it’s the reblogs and the context the post was put in that concern me #op’s considerations are valid when talking about subjective likes and dislikes (even if ‘biases’ is an ambiguous term)#but they are *not* acceptable when paired to racism/ableism/misogyny/homophobia #never #tw: racism #tw: fandom racism #fandom discourse #long post

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sunnysatori · 2 years

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tumblr anons rlly will come into your askbox and call you mentally ill for understanding the difference between fiction and reality or for being concerned about online censorship

#proshipper #pro ship #pro fiction #pro ship safe #anti anti #anti censorship #anti harassment #antis dni #ableism tw

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shiroi---kumo · 1 year

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Misterican Sky Children :: The Art of Flight

This one has been a long time coming guys, I have rambled about it a lot on disco so here we go because this is one of the most crucial parts of Kumo's character and I need to make sure it is covered thoroughly.

So if I haven't been forward enough about this before, Mistericans are flight capable beings. They have the ability to defy gravity itself and take flight into the skies above. They can do everything from full fledged flight to levitation. Kumo uses some form of flight nearly every day, the most common of which being levitation. While he does not take into the skies themselves very often, he still finds himself floating just above the ground more often than not.

When Kumo floats above the ground it can be anything from a couple of inches to a couple of feet depending on the circumstance and his company. If it is someone he is comfortable with and his only a few inches taller than himself, it would probably only be enough to match their height but if it is someone like Kaze, he will find himself at least a foot off the ground as Kaze is several heads taller than Kumo is.

Also depending on the person, Kumo will remain in a full levitation as long as that individual is in the room and he will not allow his feet to touch the ground despite any fatigue he may be feeling. Kaze is again, a prime example of this and this is due to the way the gun mage has used his physical mass to intimidate in the past.

Kumo's flight ability is a natural born skill and nearly all Mistericans can do so. It's the same to them as walking is to us and most Mistericans learn to fly at a very young age. Anywhere between 2 to 5. Despite this being a natural born ability, Mistericans still must attend a flight school to receive training on how to fly with proper speed and control.

All Mistericans must attend mandatory five years of flight training during their schooling years as a child. Further flight training can be sought after once these years are completed. Any member of the Royal Knights is required a mandatory ten years of flight training and they are given many rigorous courses in not just proper control but assisting others in the case of an emergency and advanced safety techniques.

The thing with Misterican flight is the skill has more uses than just transportation. It is also applied to fighting techniques and dancing. There are safety protocols that can only be performed through flight and it is also used as a way of escaping one's enemies. On top of this, Mistericas also hold a test of skill once every four years as a flying race that all are allowed to enter - public and royals alike. The only requirement of entering this race is that the Misterican is over the age of 10 years old and all their mandatory schooling has been completed.

You see, while flight is an ability that is natural born, the skill one possess ranges from Misterican to Misterican. Some Mistericans could hover well but not fly at great speeds. Some could take to the skies but only do so slowly. The top recorded speed reached in Misterican History is around 360 miles per hour and this record was held by one Eversti Revon Tulet.

The average flight speed for a Misterican ranged anywhere between 100 and 150 miles per hour, with a rare few being able to reach speed much higher. Kumo flies at a casual 200 miles per hour at any given day, but his top speed is around 700 miles per hour but doing this is extremely exhausting and he needs to really be pushing himself to get to such speeds. Kumo cannot take off at that speed but he can dead launch into speeds nearing 100 to 125 miles per hour. Otherwise he needs to raise his speed over time to get to such velocities. Kumo can reach such great speeds due to his status as an Unlimited, however his top speeds were never recorded as he was never put in a situation in which he needed to reach them before Misterica fell to Chaos.

Both Kumo and his older brother have been shown to fly at speeds so great they appear as beams of colored light to non-Misterican eyes (or non-Windarian for that matter.) When a Misterican reaches these speeds to create this effect, the beam of light they produce is generally the same color as their mist. Kumo is the only exception to this rule because as you can see, the resulting beam of light appears a bit white and blue.

Flight is one of the most integral parts of Misterican culture, and it is their main form of transportation - excluding the need to move items - import and export. This is why Kumo will float often. Even if it just moving through a space with his feet only inches above the ground. It is natural reflex to him to do so.

It's also high key where his agility lies in a fight. Kumo might not straight take to the air, because to him it means so much more than soaring into the skies. It means hovering just inches above the ground. It means using it to effortlessly skate through the air while his feet never touch the ground, even if it looks like they are. Mistericans consider flight to be anything that involves lifting their bodies from the ground even if it's barely an inch.

Because of this, there is the flip side that flight takes energy. This is why their bodies process foods and sugars differently from a human. Everything from hovering, to full floating to levitation to full fledged flight costs them energy. Depending on the activity and the duration of it costs a different amount and it's akin to running VS walking. It would cost a Misterican less energy to float above the ground than it would to go into full flight but they can still get tired if they float for extended periods.

However on that note, it costs a Misterican less energy to float than it does to walk or run, so this is why it's their first choice. The downside to this is though - it only costs them less energy to float over walking if they are doing it for short periods.

Long distance walks = less energy than long distance floating.

Floating is not meant for long distance travel, that's what full flight is for. It's much faster and accomplishes the trip in far less time. It should also be said that Mistericans tend to choose flight over walking if only because their bodies are meant for such a thing. They are creatures of the sky and have used this ability to avoid enemies and other ground bound dangers since the beginning of Misterican history. Their eyes have adapted to this skill and because of it they see differently than a human does.

Mistericans have a wider panoramic view of the world than a human does. So this means while a human would see this:

A Misterican would see this:

The peripheral vision they possess far extends what the human eye is capable of and as such that means a Misterican can see further than a human can in 360°. This is to assist them when in the air. Misterican sight has naturally enhanced itself over the years to provide a wider view of the space around them so they can see what's above and below them as well as off to their sides. It makes navigating the skies far less treacherous because despite popular belief that it would be easier with less to worry about - flying can be extremely dangerous.

There are other things and creatures in the skies to avoid, as well as keeping track of surroundings and places to land in case of exhaustion or sudden injury or aliment. Flight might be the faster option but it is not always the safer one. This is why Misterican stress the importance of being properly trained in what they consider the art of flight.

Now Misterica as a kingdom existed on floating islands in the sky, so one needed to be able to fly to access them. This is for previous mentioned reasons like avoiding enemies or hostiles, but also because a large portion of Misterica's resources were found on these islands, so it was only natural that they would form their society around the places there resources were in easy access. As such, a Misterican who could not fly due to injury, illness, or impairment was considered to be under a death sentence. Misterica as a culture frowned on the flightless, Mistericans or otherwise.

There was a bit of a superiority complex going on over the ability of flight within the space Misterican culture. They looked down upon any creatures that could not fly and saw them as being unfit of the "Celestial Mother's blessing". Because of this, they saw themselves as the superior beings simply because they saw themselves as blessed by Lady Tiamat themselves to obtain such an ability.

Therefore they also viewed creatures like birds as sacred children of the sky as well. Birds are beings of Mist and within the space of Misterican culture they are seen as sacred and a point of holy worship. Consuming one was wildly taboo and something only the heretics did. Kumo would rather starve than consume that is a bird or comes from a bird and that is entirely a reflection of both his religion and his culture on his part.

Mistericans are what as known as Sky Children, and they refer to themselves as this because they see themselves as exactly that. Children of the Sky. If you were to discuss such a subject with Kumo he would undoubtedly find a way to bring this fact up. Kumo of all Mistericans will bring up the phrase "Sky Child" one way or another due to his connection to Lady Tiamat.

Mistericans have a saying within the space of their religion/ culture that is "From the Sky we are Born and to the Sky we Return" and it means literally what they're saying. As Lady Tiamat is the ruler of the skies and creator of the heavens, Mistercans see themselves as not just flight capable but also born of the sky itself. So in death, their bodies fade and they return to the natural world to become one with the nature around them. To become one with the sky from which they were born.

So in turn, the ability to fly became indispensable to their culture and customs. Mistericans use the sky not just as air space to travel but also to maintain their body temperatures and as protection from enemies. Mistericans see the Mist in their lungs not just as a blessing of the Celestial Mother and as their very souls but also as the individual piece of the sky they were born of. The sky contains a vast hue of colors depending on the time of day and position of the sun / moon in the sky and Mistericans are born in nearly every single one of these colors.

They see themselves as the sky's hues fragmented into living form. They see themselves as the sky given life. So in turn, they refer to themselves as "Sky Children." They are not saying it because they live in the sky and they are flight capable creatures. They are saying it because they honestly view their people as Children born from the sky itself.

This is also why the ability of flight is seen as so sacred to Misterican culture and how the arrogance around it arose. Due to their nature as Sky Children and their ability to not just control but also produce Mist, they hold themselves in high reverence. They see themselves as the beings that are the absolute closest to Lady Tiamat herself, and therefore that arrogance was born.

Being so close in form to Lady Tiamat, the source of all Mist, is why Mistericans will look down on flightless creatures or hold themselves a little higher than any around them who cannot perform the action or/ are weak in the action. This was one of the major flaws of their society (but they wouldn't see it that way.) That's why I call it arrogance, because that's exactly what it is. Even Kumo possesses this negative trait, though he's not quite so forward about it and most of the time is hardly aware he's doing it. (He would correct himself, if pointed out to him however.)

#Topic: Misterica #Topic: Misterican Religion #Topic: Misterican Culture #Topic: Abilities #Topic: Tiamat #Topic: A Prince's Life #Topic: Misterican Physiology #tw; long post #The Mist in my Soul || Headcanon #tw; superiority complex #tw; religion #tw; fictional religion #tw; fictional ableism #// Kumo displays this arrogance in super unnoticeable ways #// like when he calmly says things like “I have come to find the flightless do not fair well when I get above the height of the trees.”#// He's being factual but it's the way he will constantly use the term 'the flightless'#// He doesn't even realize he's doing it #// it's just his culture ingrained in him #// Because after all his time with other cultures / species #// he doesn't honestly hold himself higher than them in anyway simply because he can fly #// but he has biases from his culture he needs to unlearn

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