Chill

She’s technically a monster too. She might not look it at first glance and seems mostly human, but it isn’t deniable even despite her looks compared to the other monsters. 

But she realizes that she is still not like the rest of the monsters either and may not have entirely the same experiences as them, which is why she feels that she might not belong to or deserve to go to the support group. By sometimes passing as human, she feels she isn’t worthy of the space. 

The sad reality though is even though she’s mostly human in appearance, that tail she has undeniably would still cause her some struggle. Humans are still gonna look at that tail and think she’s a freak. There are probably still accommodations she needs because of the tail that she may still struggle to have access to. Even if it is just the tail, that tail is still enough to other her from humans and cause her problems and discrimination. 

She should get to belong in that support group even if she gets told she’s not monster “enough”. She still shares some of the same struggles as them that are caused by being a monster, and needs support. 

Panel 1: A wolf man wearing a pale blue polo shirt and dark blue pants faces the viewer. He is saying, “Uh… I’m sorry ma’am, but this is a support group for monsters only.” With his right hand, he gestures to a group of monsters sitting around a table in the background. The monsters are a giant bat, a gorilla, and a dragon. They are facing away from the viewer.

Panel 2: A white woman with blonde hair wearing a pink striped shirt and dark capri pants says with a smile, “Well, actually, I AM a monster.” The wolf man replies, looking skeptically, “… How?”

Panel 3: The woman responds, while looking at the viewer, “Well, you see, my mother was a mermaid and my father was a minotaur.” Above her head, there is a thought cloud depicting a mermaid in a tank holding hands and looking lovingly at a Minotaur who is standing outside of the tank.

Panel 4: The wolf man, still looking dismissive, says, “Riiight. And let me guess: You got the human half from both of them.” The woman responds, “Exactly!” The wolf man says, “Gotcha. Hardy har har.”

Panel 5: The wolf man points and makes a snarling face at the woman, saying, “Ya know, it’s insensitive mockery like this that makes us need these groups in the first place.” The woman holds up her hands defensively, leaning away and looking surprised. She says, “Huh?”

Panel 6: The woman says, “Listen sir, I’m just here to drop off my brother and I’ll be on my way.” She still has a worried expression and gestures to her brother behind her. Her brother has a Minotaur upper half and a fish lower half. He is riding a mobility device. He says, “This guy buggin’ you sis?” while raising an eyebrow.” The wolf man looks astonished.

Panel 7: The woman is shown walking off-panel to the left. She says over her shoulder, “I’ll be back to pick you up at seven.” Since her back is to the viewer, we can now see that she has a tail. Her brother says, “Sounds good, thanks.” The wolf man continues to look astonished.”

This is how I feel as a dynamically disabled person.

I’ve never had the words to describe this like the comic described this.

supernatural occurrences mostly get blamed on the fact they are living in an old house they bought as a fixer upper:

of course it’s full of strange drafts and weird noises–the insulation is a mess and there’s a family of racoons in the attic

no shit the lights are flickering, the previous owners tried to do the electrical wiring themselves and now the whole place is a fire hazard

yes the ventriloquist dummy keeps appearing in strange places, Little Suzie is always leaving her toys lying around, at least this is less dangerous than the roller skates on the stairs.

and ok sure it’s a bit weird that household objects are levitating, but this town is built on a huge fault line and the realtor warned us about microearthquakes

Things going missing. Have you checked in the fridge dear?

Chairs in the middle of the room. Probably forgot I was going to sweep the floor.

That banging in the wall. It triggered a long forgotten song and they are now humming in tune without thinking.

Kid suddenly talking in tongues? Darn their audio processing is bad again today. Just nod and carry on.

Time stands still, they black out for hours. What else is new? at least they’re still on time to pick up the kids from daycare.

Sudden freezing temperatures. Yeesh they clearly were too distracted to notice the temps changes, probably should turn up the heater.

Odd messages on the mirror. Huh one of us must have wanted a reminder.

So the Kid is weird? Meh what is normal anyway, we know a good therapist and some love and understanding can fix anything. They’ll grown into it. We did. The creepy doll gets treated as another beloved member of the family (the Kid thinks it is alive and it’s important to encourage imagination) to the point where it’s so confused and unable to do anything bad, because everything gets met with Parenting™ and why does being hugged all the time feel so warm?

The poltergeist can’t do anything to draw enough attention. The parents are bigger disasters of chaos than they could ever possibly be. So you know what? Fine! If they can’t be a hindrance, they’ll be aggressively helpful and make sure no things are ever forgotten in this house again. Writing reminders everywhere.

The house initially tries to creak and break and cause upset, but all it gets is one of the parents suddenly hyper-fixating on undoing whatever mess they believe a previous owner caused. And then getting decorated in pretty colours and motifs, because everyone needs a bit of dopamine. Apparently even a haunted house.

A witch’s curse? Meh nothing worse than living in the current capitalist hell scape how would they know the difference. And if there at one point happens to turn up an old woman to give ominous warnings they just assume the lady is lonely and neglected and we might as well invite her in for tea. And cake. And want to meet the kids? Before she knows it, she’s been adopted as an honorary grandmother.

A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.

Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic?  She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing.  But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great.  She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success.  So - what gives?

His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear.  Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles.  He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses.  You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on.  Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered.  He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit.  That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.

I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way.  I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did. 

It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this.  But no one ever told me.  I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes.  No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.

I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed.  I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to.  No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to.  I guess I just didn’t know.  I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.

I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.

I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.