- was a big deal when it was revealed she was a woman
Since this is coming up in the notes: Samus is not trans because a dev referred to her with a slur as a joke in an interview a few years ago.
Samus is trans because every piece of paratext for the original Metroid clearly depicts her as a man–not just the English instruction manual, but Japan-only manga as well. She is presented as male, universally, until you play the game, descend into chthonic/inner space to grapple with an explicitly female-coded brain, and the reward for doing so swiftly and skillfully is getting to finally present female. It almost certainly wasn’t intended as a transition narrative but it is absolutely a transition narrative–no credit for representation should be given to Nintendo/the devs, but nonetheless she is ours and always will be.
When farmers grow the same crop too many years in a row, it can leave their soil depleted of minerals and other nutrients that are vital to the health of their fields.
To avoid this, farmers will often alternate the crops that they grow because some plants will use up different minerals (such as nitrogen) while other plants replenish those minerals. This process is known as “crop rotation.”
So the next time you find that you need to step away from a project to work on something else for a while, don’t beat yourself up for “quitting” that project. Give yourself permission to practice “mental crop rotation” to maintain a healthy brain field.
Because I’ve found that when that unnecessary guilt and pressure are removed from the process, a good mental crop rotation can help you feel more energized and invigorated than ever once you’re ready to rotate back to that project.
: A crucial part of crop rotation is that the field is let fallow sometimes. You plant what’s called a “cover crop”, which is something you don’t expect to harvest– it’s there for its roots to hold the soil in place, and often it’ll be what’s called a nitrogen-fixer, i.e. a plant that can pull nitrogen out of the air and fix it into the soil with its roots (but sometimes it won’t, sometimes it’s really just there to shelter the soil surface), and then you’ll till in that cover crop, or let the frost kill it and the stalks lie as mulch, and then you’ll rotate productive crops back into that field the next season.
It’s important, though, to understand that during the fallow period, no nutrients are removed from that ground, and nothing is expected of it. Whatever the land grows then, it keeps, and it gets tilled back in or decomposes in place, to return its energy to the earth.
We’re not allowed, in our current society, to just let our minds be fallow for a bit, to produce nothing for export, to make nothing that can be sold. But it’s part of good land stewardship, to give every field time when it doesn’t need to give you anything back.
So yes, grow and produce different things from time to time, rotate them around your mind and exercise different mental muscles, take different things from your creative processes, yes– but also, give yourself a fallow spell now and again, and let the field of your mind grow things for itself to keep, to break down and save for later.
“What? Like, a disabled protagonist? How would that even work? How could someone with a disability be the hero in an action show?” local anime trash boy wonders while sitting next to his box sets of Full Metal Alchemist, showing no hint of irony or self awareness.
but is Ed really disabled? sure I get he lost his arm and leg
but he’s still able to move and do things perfectly
He has prosthetics. Having prosthetic limbs (that more than once break amd need repair) doesnt make him not disabled
It should also be noted that Ed:
-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail
-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of.
-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)
-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working
-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned
-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail
- it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.
-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down
-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).
-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)
So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with! And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm).
Arakawa did her research and thought it through. Automail is by no means a magic cure that solves all problems associated with losing a limb.
Disability isn’t defined by” struggle” or suffering. Having a useful prosthetic doesn’t make them not disabled. Get the fuck out of here with that.
DISABILITY ISN’T DEFINED BY SUFFERING OR STRUGGLE
I will also point out (quietly, because that last point was SO important) that choosing not to show it on screen does not necessarily indicate a lack of either adaptation or difficulty. It might simply be none of our business.
Reblogging for that last comment…it’s really creepy how voyeuristic people act about it sometimes. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean they’re not struggling…and their apparent struggle or lack thereof isn’t what “grants” them disabled status. It’s the fact of having a disability.
Also that’s just… not true. Hiccup DOES struggle sometimes and there’s a couple instances of them showing it. The Christmas special Gift of the Night Fury (which I am not even kidding, is canon, they reference it in the third movie) shows him having trouble on ice (you know, metal leg) and the movies do occasionally show him having a little trouble getting around.
A struggle because of a disability doesn’t have to be the most extreme thing. It can be a little extra annoyance that just makes things a little harder, or makes someone not able to do things like others would. Like a movie not having captions so a Dead/HoH person can’t watch it.
“But they have functional prosthetics so are they really disabled?”
Do you know the definition of the word disabled. Have you ever looked up what a disability is.
What the fuck is even happening here.
Hey, you wanna know what another incredibly common disability is?
Glasses.
And yet they are ubiquitous. Glasses are relatively inexpensive, and there are opticals everywhere.
No one pities or tries to suggest that myopic or presbiopic people don’t actually need their glasses. No one says they should “toughen up” or “try yoga” to fix their vision. People with glasses aren’t asked “what happened” to them by strangers on the street.
Needing prescription glasses is the gold standard of how all disabilities should be treated.
So, why aren’t they?
Just ‘cause you’re not suffering from your disability doesn’t mean you’re not disabled. A happy person in a wheelchair is still disabled, someone with an invisible disability is still disabled, someone like me, who has Tourettes but isn’t bothered by it, is still fucking disabled.
Disability isn’t a sliding schale depending on how much pain or discomfort you’re in, jesus.
Shit’s so fucked that my state passes a law yesterday that bans abortion pretty much like all together and I haven’t even had a moment to properly react to it.
With Roe v Wade’s end visible in sight, I don’t what to even say anymore. Just donate to your local abortion fund if you have a $ to spare. And buckle up friends, the end is fucking nigh.
This shit makes me not want to live on this planet anymore.
The worst part is, this bill refuses to make exception for if we are raped or victims of incest. Let me repeat that,
This bill makes no exception for rape and victims of incest!
This bill is NOT saving lives, its risking our lives. This bill will KILL us. This bill will allow abusers to rape their partners and force them to stay because they have a child together or at the very least, they have to stay in the lives of the victim because of visitation.
This is terrifying! My state literally said fuck you, I don’t care. You’re a woman and will be punished for having sex or being raped.
And if you think they will stop there, you’re wrong. Next they will come after the morning after pill because they swear it’s an abortion pill.
Then after that, birth control, because they think it’s also an abortion pill and/or its wrong because God decides when you have a baby, not you, and taking birth control is going against God’s plan.
My life means so little to my state that if carrying a baby to full term would kill me, they don’t care as long as that fetus lives and if the fetus dies along with the pregnant person, oh fucking well.
They do not care about children or saving lives. They care about controlling our bodies because we are just property of men.
It really is so fully atrocious and I feel all of this so much too.
It’s hard to even wrap my mine around processing how little our state leadership gives a shit about OUR lives while the claim being “pro life.”
If anyone wants to support reputable, trustworthy Texas abortion access/rights orgs, might I suggest:
