I Want To Step Away From The Art-vs-artist Side Of The Gaiman Issue For A Bit, And Talk About, Well,

Look I clown veganism often enough but really, truly, don’t ever fucking feed somebody something without their knowledge or consent. It’s hugely fucked up and not OK.

well look who it is. my old friend. the conses of my quences.

Point

maybe i'm missing something, but why wouldn't you listen to a doctor's opinion of whether you're in pain or fatigue?

Okay, I’ve thought about this question for most of a day, because the obvious answer is “….why would I?”, but it’s clearly not obvious to you.

Now, I know exactly what you’re thinking. They’re a doctor. They’re a professional you’ve gone to for help. And pain and fatigue are, like, medical things, right? Going to a doctor about medical stuff and then saying “LOL NOPE” to what the doctor says is like hiring a plumber and then arguing about how to fix your sink, right? If you’re so smart, why’d you call the plumber over?

Okay.

But now imagine your basement is flooding and you call the plumber. While on the phone, the plumber asks you what the problem is and you say that there’s a pipe in your basement that’s burst and it’s now flooded.

And the plumber—still on the phone—says “LOL NOPE.”

And you say, “Excuse me?”

The plumber says, “Look, a flooded basement is a really severe problem, okay? Usually, these calls, they’re a clogged toilet or a leaky u-bend under the sink. Trust me, this is better. Those are a lot cheaper to fix.”

And you say, “I’m sure they are, but I’m telling you, my basement is flooded. I’m looking down the stairs and I can see the water.”

“I’m just saying, there are other things it could be. It won’t hurt anything to eliminate them first,” the plumber says.

And you say, “But I need my basement fixed! Look, I can’t go down in my basement and do laundry right now, and I have important keepsakes down there in boxes… some of them are already ruined, but maybe I can salvage some if we can just fix the problem.”

“Well, then it will be in your interest for me to check your toilets and your u-bends,” the plumber says.

“The problem is not in my toilets or my sinks,” you say. “I am looking at the problem. I called you because my basement is flooded, and I need you to help me fix that.”

And then… now, I’m not assuming you’re female, but I just want to emphasize that this is a starkly though not exclusively gendered phenomenon, so if you’re not female then imagine you are.

“MA’AM,” the plumber says, in a way you recognize. It’s the voice of putting you in your place, the voice of unearned authority, and with this voice, this word, ma’am, is not a title of respect, it’s a reminder and a command. “MA’AM, if you’ll just calm down. I’m sure what you’re experiencing seems terrible to you, but the truth is, it’s probably not as bad as it looks from where you’re standing. And that’s a good thing! Trust me, have been a plumber for 27 years. Now, when can I come over to check your u-bends?”

“It’s not my u-bends!” you say.

“Ma’am, if you don’t want to be helped, I’ll start to think you’re calling for attention.”

You see?

(Now for bonus points, imagine the plumber refuses to help you until you lose a statistically improbable amount of weight just to rule out that this might be flooding your basement, or is acting on the subconscious but deeply entrenched idea that people with your skin color are less susceptible to flooding and in less need of help, or believes that as a feeeemale you’re more likely to be suffering from emotional distress than a physical problem and suggests the preferable course of action would be for you to take a nap every time the supposed flooding in your basement bothers you.)

As I said in that post, pain and fatigue — like dysphoria — are qualitative experiences. This means they happen in your head and they cannot be directly observed or measured by anyone else (which would make them quantitative phenomena). 

The doctor talking to you about dysphoria —or pain or fatigue — is not a plumber in your house, they are a plumber on the phone. The only input they receive about the problem is your account of it. 

And if they’re not willing to listen to what you say and aren’t willing to take you at your word, then all the expertise and experience in the world doesn’t matter. You can have the most powerful calculator in the world but if you type the wrong numbers into it it will still give the wrong answers. Someone can be the best doctor in the world but if they’re ignoring the information they’re not going to give you the right answer.

I think one of the big strengths of fanfiction as a medium is that it can, on average, assume the reader has a way higher degree of familiarity with canon than like…canon can. If you’re in the Star Wars AO3 tag you probably like Star Wars enough to remember more things about it than the average Star Wars-enjoying-ten-year-old. Which makes it way easier for fanwriter a to get to the juicy stuff and really engage with the worldbuilding or minor characters without having to spell out like. Who Wedge Antilles is for everyone who forgot or never noticed him in the first place. You could write a book about Wedge in the old EU because EU readers could also be assumed to be serious fans, but you can’t make a new canon Disney+ show about him. Those cost money to make and are intended for a broader audience.

And all this means that like. A good fic writer can and often will surpass canon when it comes to like. Thematic resonance and stuff, because they can really dig into something. Star Trek 2009 gave Kirk a new, more generic tragic backstory because it couldn’t expect the average moviegoer to be familiar with Kirk’s old, way more interesting tragic backstory. (Frankly, I’m not sure jj abrams knew about TOS Kirk’s backstory) whereas I have read a LOT of well-written, interesting, deeply resonant fanfic examinations of Tarsus IV, and what it means for Kirk’s character that he’s a genocide survivor. Star Trek 2009 answers the question “why did Kirk cheat on the kobayashi maru?” With “‘cause his dad crashed a spaceship when he was a baby.” A close examination of TOS canon implies the answer is “because he lived through a real-life Kobayashi that did have a win option, but which wasn’t taken.” BUT—and this is significant—even the TOS canon movies can’t really assume knowledge of the full TOS tv show, so that implication is never examined or made explicit. Instead it’s fanfic (and maybe spin off novels? Idk I’ve only read 2 trek books, if there’s one out there that covers this that would be really cool) where we get dives into that thread, where Kirk gets a commendation for original thinking because he can look a testing board in the eye and say “I’ve seen what happens when someone is entrenched in this kind of thinking, and I cannot let it happen to me. I understand the lesson, but it’s not hypothetical anymore and it never will be. I did what I had to do.” And that’s interesting! That’s meaningful! That can’t happen in a summer blockbuster. But it can happen in fic, easily, and that’s a strength of fic, I think.

Abled people have seriously skewed the meaning of “recovery” and i am Not About That. 

Whenever I hear the word mentioned (both on this site and in real life), the conversational subtext is usually “when will you/they recover enough to meet the standards of abled society?” As if I, a nuerodivergent person living with chronic pain will one day get up and fit seamlessly into a society not made to accommodate me. (Or as if I have any interest in doing so, which,, HAH. Nope!) I’m basically resigned to hearing this from abled people by now, but I’ve noticed fellow spoonies getting frustrated about not being able to do stuff that Abled Society says they should and falling into the pit of “when I’m recovered I’ll meet those standards”. That is not okay!!

For one, chronically ill and disabled people’s lives fit a different pattern than abled people. There is no magical point where all our symptoms vanish and we return to mainstream society — the hint is in the keyword “chronic”. It means that our condition or illness is a) going to stick around for a long, indeterminable length of time, possible lifelong, or b) recurs frequently or consistently. For example, my autism will never go away and I am completely fine with that, but fluctuating circumstances may mean that I manage the traits better at some times than others. My RLS will never go away either, but unlike autism it isn’t constant — I can have weeks, even months, with no symptoms and then suffer for the next six months straight. If I say that I’m recovering, what I mean is “I just had a symptomatic flare-up that knocked me off my feet but I’m managing the fallout better and getting back to my version of normal” NOT “i am now Fully Functioning and able to do bed-linen laundry without pain and suddenly capable of stuff i couldn’t do before.”

Secondly, recovery is a personal experience that nobody else can define. I’ve said it already but boy is it worth reiterating: recovery for chronically ill/disabled folks means getting back to OUR individual version of normal, not ANYONE ELSE’S version of normal. This definition is particularly important when talking about anyone who used to be (more) abled because in those cases, recovery can mean finding a NEW version of normal. 

If someone is in remission for a disease — let’s say cancer, since that’s a Big Thing — they could end up symptom-free, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve recovered. Cancer (both the illness and the treatment of it) puts a huge about of trauma on both the body AND the mind, and they may need to adjust their lifestyle because of that. Expecting your life to go back to 100% normal after an illness/accident is harmful to your mental and physical health and I am SICK of abled society encouraging it. 

Recovery means understanding what your body and mind needs and learning how to provide it so you can live comfortably/manage your symptoms; NOT so that abled people approve of how you live your life! Just remember that 

fuck tumblr mobile’s most recent update

astonishing how good it can feel to get some chores done sometimes. you’ll be sitting there like damn i am some type of horrid little smeagol like creature who should be crushed to death. but then you do some laundry and you’re like wrow. im actually gods most fuckable soldier.

Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”

when i started watching Dead Boy Detectives, i was not expecting Edwin of all characters to have the funniest and most banger lines- like, just off the top of my head:

"she can go find that insolent little girl Emma and go take Polaroids in a graveyard or some nonsense."

"now, if she had died last night, i'd have no issue with her being here."

"perhaps it's your outfit."

"police don't know what to do with A FUCKING WITCH!!"

(sing-song tone) "that is not what i said..."

"what exactly is your malady today, Charles?"

"even if that were true, you're a bloody CROW!!"