Don't mind me

The parties are not the same

The parties are not the same

I added the numbers in a high-visibility way in case the image was hard to read for people.

It was one of Crowley’s better achievements. It had taken years to achieve, and had involved three computer hacks, two break-ins, one minor bribery and, on one wet night when all else had failed, two hours in a squelchy field shifting the marker pegs a few but occultly incredibly significant meters. When Crowley had watched the first thirty-mile-long tailback he’d experienced the lovely warm feeling of a bad job well done.

This, the boredom, the apathy, the thinly veiled disdain, this is Hell happy with Crowley. This is what they look like when they’re about to give him a commendation. He gets a commendation for this project. It’s so popular that Satan mentions it decades later (instead of mentioning something else Crowley has supposedly done, like the Spanish Inquisition or World War II). Like, look at the senior demons. These are their happy faces.

I mean, the book and script book aren’t even very subtle on their hints that his superiors will be happy to torture Crowley if he does something to displease them (and it sounds like this wouldn’t be a first time). Even the things that stayed in the final version of the show make it obvious that Hell is happy to dole out violence not even only as punishment, but as a daily regular occurrence. Their paperwork burns your fingers when you sign it, you might find yourself thrown into a Hellhound cage as a snack because you happened to walk by… Hell is cruel, and it’s open about it, and I think this is the form of Hell’s violence we see more easily and focus on. We see Hell’s physical violence, and Heaven’s gaslighting and cold indifference.

But Heaven and Hell are the same. Sandalphon is as happy to punch Aziraphale as Hastur would be to punch Crowley. “We’re angels, we do Good” is exactly the same empty doctrine as “we are the Fallen, never forget that”.

We see Aziraphale reporting to Heaven only about the Antichrist thing, but we hear him say what other instances were like: he isn’t consulted on policy decisions. Heaven doesn’t care one bit for Aziraphale’s work and effort, and this being completely ignored is one of the ways they hurt him.

It’s easier to assume Hell is more active in their hurting Crowley, but this, up there? That’s the same thing. It’s so easy to swap the colour scheme of the room and imagine it’s Aziraphale giving a presentation on something he is doing, and the reactions will be the same. Bored, detached, uncaring, apathic. Heaven might add fake enthusiastic clapping, but that’ll be it.

And, again, this is a scene of Crowley giving a presentation that will be favourably conceived! This is a good reaction! Probably the best he can hope for! Especially for a personal project he actually did, and not some human atrocity he just took credit for. Crowley has fun doing his own brand of mischievous temptations. Like the telephone stuff, he is proud of the M25. And the best thing he can hope to get is this.

The best you can achieve in Hell (and in Heaven, I think, because they’re the same) is indifference (and absence of punishment).

some people go a little farther and understand them in terms of daily life functions, like adaptive clothing, or pre-cut food. still, these things are only seen as needing access tools because they’re baseline human functions. eating. walking. wearing clothes.

my vibrator is an access tool. because of my conditions, i can’t hold my hand where it needs to be long enough to masturbate. masturbating isn’t a necessary human function. i will not die if i don’t do it. i won’t lose my job if i don’t do it.

but the thing about a vibrator, is that it makes an aspect of life that i want to enjoy possible. disabled access is not only about the barebones basic necessities to literally be alive. if someone wants to have orgasms, a vibrator is an important tool to a pleasurable life. food delivery makes eating delicious food possible. sensory friendly live performances makes enjoying theatre and music possible. shower seats mean people can sit and enjoy a long shower that otherwise would have exhausted them. service dogs let people go out with their friends when they wouldn’t have otherwise. my cane doesn’t just help me walk, it helps me keep balance while i’m dancing at the club.

There is a sort of punitive mindset when it comes to disability – you cannot ask for accommodations if you don’t really need them, it has to be for something essential, something you can’t live without, can’t do your job without. I think this – in the end – comes from the very ableist idea that people aren’t disabled unless they have somehow failed to not be disabled. The Puritain mindset which says that disability is a punishment for failing to be good – somehow – and that it is a punishment for sin – somehow – informs this particularly noxious bit of garbage.

If you want help, you have to suffer for it, because you wouldn’t be in this situation at all if you didn’t deserve it somehow – and that goes double if the help that you need is disability payments or Medicaid/Medicare or something else that’s an ‘entitlement’. If disabled people aren’t in sackcloth and ashes, they can’t really need help.

And like, fuck that, actually, and fuck the idea that only ‘good’ disabled people deserve accommodations? Even if my disability was the result of having driven my car recklessly and crashed it into a tree, I don’t deserve to never know joy again. Even if my diabetes were because I had eaten nothing but spoonfuls of confectioner’s sugar for three years, I don’t deserve to suffer.

한밤 중이니까 R-18 걸고 잡담

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