#eye deformity

WTF…

This is deformimisia.

It's genuinely so infuriating how people will see someone with even the slightest physical difference, and immediately begin acting like a petty highschool bully.

What is funny about the direction your eye is facing? How is that so hilarious that she can't even take your order seriously, and literally calls a group of people over to look at you like you're an animal in a zoo?

I feel very sour about it now

This is deformimisia.

Besides having strabismus, I also was fat, already had a visible varsex trait (arm hair) and was the tallest among the girls in class. I had a such low self-esteem…

This is deformimisia, neuropsych ableism, fatphobia, and varsexism.

Strabismus does often co-occur in autism (with an estimated 15% of autistic people having it), and autism often co-occurs with learning disabilities. There's also genetic syndromes that cause both strabismus and intellectual disability. So I understand that in some cases, strabismus is indicative of neurodevelopmental or learning disabilities.

However, strabismus can occur outside of these things. Strabismus has so many causes, and it's not right to make assumptions about why someone has the condition.

The episode takes place on Halloween. The episide’s title is “Nightmare on Pound Street” and the puppy they’re trying to find a home for is named Freddie.

Freddie has an underbite, hanging tongue syndrome, and ptosis in one eye. He’s also apparently designed to be a xolo mix so I think the tuft on his head and tail are supposed to imply he’s hairless. But with the way the fur is drawn is this style is not really clear.

The person who contacts them to dump Freddie on them is from another pound, and hides him behind a dumpster before dipping out. The Pound Puppies just do not want to deal with Freddie. The entire time, everyone but Lucky is talking about how ugly and unadoptable they think Freddie is behind his back. Both children and adults scream when they see Freddie’s face.

The other dogs, save for Lucky, seem uncomfortable dealing with the dog. And even though Lucky is treating him about the same as he would any puppy, the language he uses when talking about the puppy is softer than the others but still implies he thinks the dog is ugly. He even hopes Freddie will get adopted because people love things that are “creepy” on halloween.

They dress up in costume and go out to find Freddie an owner, but for some reason every prospective owner thinks he’s wearing a costume and then freaks out because they realize its his face. When he overhears that they all think he’s creepy looking, the kid runs away upset declaring that he’s the world’s ugliest dog. In the end, he does find a family who loves him and thinks he’s cute — not because of the Pound Puppies, by the way, Freddie found his family on his own.

I think the episode was trying to have a good message and failed horribly. The bullying was unnecessarily harsh and made the main characters look like out of character pieces of shit who’d abandon their core values — “there’s a pup for every person and a person for every pup” — in a heartbeat if they had any prejudice against a pup. I get that having a character be wrong is a good thing that gives them room to grow, but there’s not really any proper apology given to Freddie — nor is the agent who dumped Freddie on this sector of the Pound Puppies ever given any reprimand. And the end of the story comes off as “someone will love you even if you’re ugly” rather than “no one is a lost cause and it was wrong of us to treat you like one.”

This is deformimisia.