Metal Sonic being voiceless and that being played for the horror, but less in the way of "he doesn't physically have a voice box" and more in the sense that he's voiceless metaphorically.

Not only does he not possess the voice box, but he doesn't have any tools to communicate. He's never offered pen and paper. Never given the opportunity to write digital reports except with only the briefest of words. Never taught even a scrap of sign language, as crude as such a communication would be due to his lack of facial features.

If you handed him a speech generating device, would he even know what to do with it?

I’m rereading Po3 and despite its flaws I really enjoyed the introduction to the three. Jaykit isn’t mentioned to be blind in the first few chapters and instead they chose to show how much MORE capable he is compared to his littermates; until at the end of chapter 3, he brings up his blindness on his own. It makes forcing him to be a medicine cat SO much more frustrating because it really feels like they’re setting him up to be a warrior and choose his own fate (note i haven’t finished the reread this is just my first impression)

I like how you seem to take that path in BB regardless! It makes his arc so much more enjoyable

His arc in canon is super frustrating because he's such an independent character who clearly wants to make his own decisions in life, but then he just gets shoved into the medcat den. I LIKE that he ultimately goes there and that he enjoys it; but it was still really fucked up that they stripped away his autonomy in the process.

Re: they are not real, they are writing choices. Taking away the choices a disabled character can make over their own life, forcing them into a celibate nun role, and then going "awwwww dont worry see? he likes it! This was the best thing for him :)" was fucked up.

And imo it didn't have to be that way! You wouldn't have to go the FULL route I did with big changes, he could just be more involved in the descision to stop being a warrior apprentice and it would be fine. Minor change that would make a world of difference.

I do also have to interject to say though... blindness should really not be an extremely severe impairment for a ThunderClan cat.

I'm dead serious.

Whiskers are built-in sensors that tell you the exact position of everything within several inches of your head, ears swerve to pick up sound, and the jacobson's organ provides a sense of smell so keen that I have an entire Clanmew expansion draft because I needed to make WORDS describing the power of this sense that humans do not have. I cannot stress enough how delicate their other senses are, felines do not rely on their sight like primates do

ThunderClan lives in a mixed-oak woodland, where sight is already often obscured by foliage, objects are close together (for whiskers to feel), and nearly every movement makes noise against the leaf litter. RiverClan and (moor-running) WindClan cats would have a harder time with this disability than Thunder or Shadow.

Cat sight SUCKS to begin with. It sucks BADDD. They don't have color vision, they're significantly nearsighted, and they can't track up-and-down movements well. WC doesn't write realistic cats (more like small fuzzy people really) and I also work with more humanesque eyesight, but the only thing Jay should really lose is an ability to rapidly track a small animal swerving fast. Blind cats are often still excellent hunters in spite of that!

So it's an extra big waste that they railroaded him into a position he didn't choose, saying he couldn't be a warrior. This is the perfect disability to write, if you want to explore how ableism can impact the characters in this society who ARE legitimately still capable of nearly full independence, but still need to find accommodations for what they can't do.

In the same arc they're doing the dumb Cinder Reincarnation Plotline, no less!! Where SHE is also feeling like she has no choice over her "destiny," and gets a conflict over a potentially disabling injury

"Oh nooo if cinderpaw breaks her leg she wont be a warrior!"

"What the f-- Im Jaypaw and im reporting live from the scene where a Category 1 Idiot Moment is taking place. Woman breaks leg, suddenly everyone believes she is a horse, more at 11."

One of these days I should really make "herb guides" just covering how various sensory disabilities impact the lives of Clan cats and some tips for writing them as warriors, especially between Clans. Stuff you wouldn't usually consider, like how much noise deaf cats tend to make, how RiverClan would get a ton of sinus infections and lose their sense of smell, being blind in Sky vs Thunder, etc.

DP x DC (Or Marvel) Prompt: Pirate of the Underworld

(Again, this can work for either and I have no issues people changing up which Fandom they use because they're both good)

Youngblood was a great kid and that would never change. That being said he was a Ghost kid with a huge imagination and because he was a kid a lot of ghosts would play with him. Not normally a problem until Youngblood, Ember, Skulker, Kitty and Johnny decided to 'play' together in an alternate dimension after going through a natural portal!

But there they were,continuing to play and raise hell for a dimension who had little to no experience with the Ghost Zone. Thankfully, Danny had plenty of experience dealing with all of them, and while he wasn't used to it being so public he wasn't about to let the five (six counting Youngbloods bird-thing) torment this new dimension.

Now if only the heroes from this dimension would stop trying to interfere.

----

The last thing Bruce expected to see in the Gotham Harbor was a massive glowing pirate ship that seemed to rise up out of the ocean itself before sitting in shore. He also didn't expect flying figure's to start taking 'treasures' from all throughout the city. Gold, jewels, people, anything they could get their hands on.

His city was in trouble, that's all he knew and he wasn't going to stand for it.

Now if only this weird white haired meta would stop trying to interfere and let him and his team do their jobs.

Bro I hate fundamentalists and culturally-fundie parents they'll say shit like "spare the rod spoil the child am I right haha yea my parents used to have to beat my ass with a switch almost everyday but I sure did learn my lesson" but like??? no you didn't??? you were hit multiple times for something you very obviously did not, in fact, learn

Like studies about how harmful even lightly spanking children is aside, you're literally contradicting yourself?? Some even admitted they got worse as they got older cause they wanted to see how far they could push their parents before they got punished

And studies not aside, you're gonna get child raising advice from the same book that tells you to stone your wife if her hymen doesn't break on your wedding night instead of the decades of research we have now?? Just say you're a bad parent and move on my guy. Skill issue

Hm. I don't think we should support this artist.

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sorry but i love meta, multiple layers of narrative, authors being characters in their own stories shenanigans too much. sam lake is right if i wrote a story i would probably also have my characters kill me in ritual murder too

wait there are actually people out there who think roy would be completely 100% useless in a fight without his alchemy???????

I cannot even begin to express how much I desperately hope any and all posts I've seen that even remotely imply this are joking, because, unfortunately, yeah, some people do genuinely seem to believe that, and it drives me insane.

Henry, Darryl, and Glenn toddler/baby parenting headcanons, brought to you by discussions with my mum, studying attachment in psych currently, and @landrick-lycidas foolishly asking about them.

Henry and Mercedes are definetly on one of the Science-Aware Natural Parenting groups on Facebook. They always had slings ready to carry Lark and Sparrow in, (the twins probably prefered walking and running, so this was for when they got tired and clingy, or when they were babies who couldn't yet walk) and probably ended up amassing a collection, which then became repurposed/given to other parents when the twins were older. Breastfed for as long as possible, and very child led.

Carol and Darryl were much more a set feeding times, bottle-fed only and move Grant onto formula pretty quickly kinda couple. Very American from what I've seen. Grant probably slept in a crib in his own room, and I imagine Carol was a very "Let him cry it out" 90s style of parenting (which had a lot to do with Skinner's operant conditioning stuff!) but I don't think Darryl could bear to hear his son in distress, and would often go comfort him anyway. He probably would have worn those baby carriers if he was as comfortable in himself/his masculinty then as he is at the end of the show. Glenn and Morgan are a very specific kind of parenting I don't know how to describe. They never bought a crib for Nick, and always let him sleep in their bed until he was big enough to need his own. Much like the Oak-Garcias, very child-led but less in a concious, methodical way and more in a punk and/or "we're twenty and don't know what we're doing so lets just try and make our kid as happy as possible" way. Glenn is also definetly a picking up on Nick's alert phases and show reciprocacy kinda guy. In other words: very much a "hey little man" *baby gurgling in response* "hell yeah dude, that sounds wild". Engages a lot with his son's baby babble and treats it like serious conversation, strongly a play/talking kinda dad. Also, picture: Glenn lying on his back with baby Nick resting on his stomach for tummy time. Even then, they were best friends

I am obsessed with how narratively convenient Lark's divinatory abilities are. She's the only one of the protagonists who is both pragmatic and has a working sense of self-preservation, so having some internal impulse that is actually the guiding hand of the cosmos pushing her into doing the REALLY stupid shit is both necessary and really useful.

Like, I am the type of writer who kind of scoffs at the idea that characters are beyond the writer's control and will completely screw over your outline, because on one hand, a sensible outline will follow the characters' personalities and tendencies anyway. Obviously in an ensemble cast you will need to do some wrangling, but in theory your characters are responding to varying degrees of stimuli in order to maneuver them into the places you need them to be for things to all come together in the end.

But more importantly, "curse from god" is the funniest and easiest way to push any character to do things beyond the realm of reason when necessary, and frankly, what the fuck is the point of playing god if you don't embrace that?

I know 'person with secret to hide spots other person with secret to hide but doesn't say anything' is like. Thee trope in superhero crossovers, but come on! Some of these guys have been doing this for decades! There's tons of heroes that have gone to pretty extreme lengths to be Completely Imperceptible in civilian life.

Don't you think it's scarier, after all is said and done, to sit there and think I didn't notice a thing? I wouldn't have ever realised? I would never have known? To know that someone you were familiar with - close with, even! - had this whole other personality and skillset and powers and experiences and life just behind the curtain, and they hid it so completely you didn't even see it was there.

'I always knew there was something off' what if you didn't. How world shaking would it be to be so utterly blindsided? To know that this person had somehow learned to so deceptive?

its quite shrimple actually

drinking and doing ad-hoc repair surgery on a book from 1994, but pretending I'm a grizzled detective removing a bullet

I did a Deaf Chell Portal playthrough (no sound and no subtitles) and it totally works.

My two questions were 1) would it be plausible for Chell to survive to the end of the game? And 2) would Chell have any idea that GLaDOS even existed at all?

And the answers are 1) Yes and 2) No.

Basically, Portal is a very good game with very well designed puzzles. At no point do you need any verbal instruction from GLaDOS. All the information you need to progress is given by the actual design of the level itself. For instance, the companion cube level. I was initially worried that this level would rely very heavily on GLaDOS's dialogue. I was thinking that it probably wouldn't be obvious to Chell that she had to destroy the cube to move on and that it probably would take her some time to stumble upon the correct course of action while trying whatever she could. But no! The fact that you have to incinerate the companion cube is made very obvious. There's literally a couple of those hazard warnings on the ground in front of the incinerator that tell you to throw the cube in.

IMO it would be pretty apparent to Chell what she needed to do and how to move through the facility. She may not understand WHY but she would know what to do. Even the end of the formal testing part where she is about to be incinerated. I don't know if Chell would know if this part was purposeful or accidental but regardless, she would be able to escape. The long and short of it is at any point in the game Chell's only option is to move forward and there's only ever one way forward.

There is basically no indication of GLaDOS's existence if Chell is Deaf. Here are the clues you get:

-no other humans in the facility

-once or twice the door to a level doesn't open until she's done monologuing at you (Chell of course has no idea she's being monologued at)

-one of the scribbles in Rattmann's hideout says "She's watching you" (Chell would not be too surprised by this. The cameras and observation rooms are obvious)

That's it. That's all you get up until you open the door to GLaDOS's chamber.

And even then! Even then the conclusion she's going to draw won't be more complex than "this computer must be the thing keeping the facility running and it is currently trying to kill me".

Now the GLaDOS fight itself is probably the biggest stretch of plausibility. At first, before the neurotoxin, GLaDOS does nothing that indicates she wants to hurt you. A piece of her falls off. It's pretty obvious that you can pick it up and put it in the incinerator (again, level design) but why? Just to do something? This is the weakest moment in the whole theory. AFTER that though, the continued destruction of GLaDOS makes more sense. Chell sees the countdown timer. She sees the neurotoxin even if she doesn't know what it is and she probably feels it too. There is now one of those eyeball turrets shooting at her. It is reasonable for Chell to draw the conclusion of "this huge robot is controlling the facility" at this point. And if the robot is making things shoot at her it makes sense to destroy the robot.

So she does. And she gets spit up onto the surface with absolutely no idea that GLaDOS had spent the entire time insulting her or even that she was sentient in the first place.

Which is very funny.

shadowheart has such main character energy, you can't take her out of your party for a minute without some sidequest popping up involving her, she's just that powerful

genuinely kind of terrified as to what will happen to me when i see bare live in three (three!!!!!!!!) days. i will either go fully insane or transcend mortality or perhaps both. either way i will most likely end up full weeping.