pffffffffft

I know we all love the ‘humans are space orcs’ concept… but imagine, onboard the new ship they’ve been assigned to, the human meets an actual space orc. A massive monster… fangs and tusks and scars and a battle-hardened stare, looming over all the other life forms on the ship in its thick indestructible armour it refuses to remove. It barely drinks, it doesn’t need sleep, its massive shoulders are heavy with the terrible things it has experienced. Compared to the squishy & delicate human body, this thing is a walking tank.

… Except instead of hating/ignoring one another, the human and the monster start bonding over both coming from death planets. The human is excited to find a life form who doesn’t quiver with fear at the vague description of a jellyfish and the monster is ecstatic to meet someone who understands the feeling of being bitten by a qua’lem (cats are pretty close). They sit together and compare dangerous animals and locations as the other aliens look on in confusion and fear… oh, you also have dense jungles of deadly hidden predators, boiling acid lakes, tamed predatory killers, and areas with horrendously high and low temperatures? Sick!! 

It doesn’t take long before the two of them become totally inseparable. The human loves not feeling like some kind of crazy outsider and the monster is overjoyed they’ve finally found an equal in this unkillable marshmallow.

AU where Harry remains a parselmouth and becomes a snake breeder

cleaning or wipe your bare feet

breaking off a piece of bread and handing it to someone

putting the weight of a basket on your hip or head

eating nuts or berries while hunched over close to the ground

seeing something startling just out of your line of sight and very quickly stepping or leaping on to a larger object to get a better view

cupping your hands into running water to wash your face

the unanimous protection of a baby or child in a public space where women are present

seeing something beautiful and gesturing for the nearest stranger to come look

rolling over a log to see the bugs on the underside

poking at things and creatures on a shore

i can lose hours thinking about such a culture. the rituality and cyclicality of it. how they turn a simple, survivalist drive into story after story. how they build their lives to be abandoned for a while every year.

underground, beneath every house, hospital, and community center, is a chamber nobody enters - except for a certain week at the end of autumn. it’s a week of chores and feasting. and in the evenings, families begin to clean out these dim, quiet rooms, making sure to tell their children why this is all so important.

people stop going to work. they bed down their gardens and let their fields lie fallow. the stores pack away their merchandise. the boats are hauled out of the water. maybe the power grid and the internet shut down. 

everybody covers their furniture in sheets. white, for the clean snow where no feet ever step? or maybe black, for the safe darkness below? they burn strong-smelling plants in their houses to ward off pests, and they hang amulets on the doorknobs - because just think how many monsters and demons were born in their culture to wreak havoc on a winter house.

or on a hibernating body, and the tetherless soul inside it.

so they must be very careful, as they cross over. they eat the correct last meal and sing the correct last songs. they wash themselves clean in freshwater and exchange their living clothes for wrappings, like a chrysalis or a shroud. they cover their eyes with jewelry, so no unwanted visitor can slip inside that way.

i’m not sure what the underground room looks like on the inside. they might cover the floor with pillows for comfort, or dried flowers for significance - or they might lay on the bare ground, as they have always done. they might carve pictures into the walls. they might take their valuables down with them, or they might simply leave all that stuff in a box upstairs. after all, thieves have to give themselves to the ground too.

you light a lamp, and keep it lit until everyone’s safely asleep. then it burns out on its own. the door is closed. it’s as dark as the inside of the earth.

above, the weather and the animals pass through ghost towns.

and when the thaw begins, when the first plants wake up and the cracking of ice shakes the waterways, the people come out. they chase the dust and ghosts from their cities with noise - anyone who can’t play an instrument bangs on a cooking pot. they run up and down the streets, arms extended to the sun. (the sun!) they wash the sheets that they’d used to cover their houses and hang them out to dry on every clothesline, until it looks like the buildings have grown wings. 

oh yeah her? she’s trustworthy, kind, reliable, DID super try to poison someone once.

or like. they were close friends with a serial killer for years and didn’t KNOW know but did kind of know. the friend is in jail now but they still visit from time to time.

or, Wow! it took surprisingly little for you to snap and rob that train.

Escalators and electric toothbrushes are perfect examples of things that many able-bodied people assume exist for their own convenience, and this post is a perfect example of that unconscious assumption.

An escalator that has broken down is still perfectly functional, right? 

Well, sure–if you could have used the stairs to begin with. 

But for people like me, for whom the escalator was not a convenience but a mobility device, a broken down escalator is not functional. 

An electric toothbrush might seem like something that could be just as easily used turned off as turned on, but for someone with Parkinson’s, or any other number of nerve, coordination, or grip issues, the function of the electric toothbrush is a necessary feature, and without it, the task at hand becomes far more arduous (or even impossible). 

I’m not angry or trying to point out why this post is “bad” or “wrong”–I’m simply trying to point out that people who assume every time or energy-saving invention was created as a means to help able-bodied people be lazier should consider re-examining those assumptions. It might help you become more compassionate toward your disabled friends and family, or at least more aware of the struggles we face daily. 

Remember Snuggies? The blanket with sleeves? It was designed for wheelchair users/people with mobility issues so they could be warm and still use their arms without being trapped under a blanket. They were SO popular for a while, and everyone had one… which meant that if someone who was able bodied came over to your house and saw you had one too, it was less of a chance of being made fun of for it, and more like an opportunity for a conversation on about how they want one too. 

The slap chopper is also another great example. I know so many people who are able bodied that had/currently have one and sure it makes things quicker and easier for them, but someone with motor control issues or bad arthritis can use it. It won’t be an awkward “why do you have this thing” conversation. It is a “woah, I have one too!” or “I love mine, so glad you love yours too” sort of thing