feotakahari

Depending on the colony they live in, Tinkers may experience social pressure to get brain-mods that eliminate things like hallucinations and mood swings. However, it’s usually not a crippling stigma for non-soldiers to refuse to use brain mods. And some conditions are generally accepted, particularly autism.

The Pure are all over the place in terms of attitudes. Some accept neurodivergence, some fear it, some medicate it, some oppose the use of psychiatric medicine . . . The only common link is the rejection of brain mods.

A noticeable minority of Nomads experience paranoia and hallucinations. The most common is a sensation of being watched by an unblinking eye. It’s common and accepted to use calming mental exercises, and mild downers are readily available (think caffeine but in reverse.) Stronger psychiatric drugs are available, but only used when necessary. Don’t ask them about the Prowlers, which they pretend don’t exist.

Prowlers are defined by their brain damage, and it gives them a variety of deficits in their ability to trust, value, or interpret the emotions of others, even other Prowlers. This is somewhat of a hindrance to the overall Prowler agenda, as they can’t cooperate well enough to pull off large-scale plans.

Builders see a place for everything, and for people who see the world differently, that place is often religious. Even Builders who choose secular work gain a certain degree of respect for “visions,” and a bit of leeway even if the things they see and think go against the social order. It’s certainly possible to be too strange to accept, though, with the kind and level of unallowed strangeness varying from one colony to another.

As a species evolved to consume and safely integrate wildly differing minds, Scholars are immune to most forms of psychosis. They can start out with deficits in reading and understanding others’ emotions, but regular interaction with other hive minds helps them understand even non-Scholars. However, Scholars can and often do think in divergent ways about the things they perceive.

Riders fear and condemn mental illness for much the same reason some people on Earth fear demonic possession. Some younger Riders push back against this, but progress has been slow.

Scrappers are almost impossible to brain damage unless you starve them for months at a time, and they have a lot of redundancies that usually prevent psychosis. Neurodivergence is possible, but not often thought about in terms of either discrimination or accommodation.

Stewards look down on anyone who can’t fulfill their assigned duties and safeguard the Goddess’s legacy. They may have jobs that can accommodate your issues, but if those jobs are already occupied, you’re viewed as a parasite. The Entitled welcome everyone, though, because they’re too few to be picky about membership.

Winnowers strongly disrespect any form of mental illness, and it’s a major dishonor on a parent to let a mentally ill child survive to adulthood. Winnowers aren’t exactly evil, but they’re still vicious bastards.

Tinkers and Builders can think Nomads are cowards. They pop in and out of hyperspace for ambushes. They don’t stand and fight like true heroes.

Tinkers and Nomads can think Builders are cowards. They roll up in their shells and use their telekinesis to fight while staying safe.

Nomads and Builders can think Tinkers are cowards. They aug their strength, they aug their durability, and some even use brain mods to aug their reaction time. They’re too afraid to fight with just what nature gave them.

Scrappers can think all three races need to learn to appreciate a good scrap.

The Pure can think all of the above are freaks.

Tinkers with cybernetics don’t generally think of themselves as disabled, because Tinkers in general don’t think about “disabled” as a category.

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I get why people are sick of tropes like the blind swordsman or the autistic detective, but I think it’s a mistake to frame it as just an “inspirational” thing abled people write. Disabled people can also fantasize “what if my disability made me awesome?”

I’ve seen “this character is evil because they have narcissistic personality disorder,” “this character is evil because they have dissociative identity disorder,” an absolute shitload of “this character is evil because they have antisocial personality disorder,” and I swear I am not kidding about this, “this character is evil because they’re face blind.” I suppose it’s par for the course that Meta Runner eventually pulls “this character is evil because they have bipolar disorder.”

There were these interviews with the scriptwriter for 12 Years a Slave where he talked about how horrifying it was that this intelligent, accomplished person could be enslaved. I saw one person react by saying he was putting a weird amount of emphasis on social status, as if it would be less messed-up to enslave a lower-class person.

I don’t expect people to know that several years prior, he argued that poor black people were only poor out of laziness. He never wrote anything like that again after the backlash. But it felt frustrating to see someone groping for the reasons why his other statements felt odd, knowing there was a missing piece that put it all together.

Sometimes people talked about how a certain rationalist blogger’s political statements seemed questionable at best and heartless at worst, and I remembered the time he told me genocide was a good thing. Or . . . I know some of you won’t be as offended by this as I was, but there was this one rationalist blogger who told me disabled people should be paid less for the same jobs as abled people, and in my worldview, that was the unforgivable statement that made all his other questionable statements make sense. I can’t have any reasonable expectation for people to know they said those things. It’s just frustrating sometimes.

Whyyyy are writers still doing the “mental illness makes you a murderous subhuman monster” trope?

(If I rage about Primal, is it Primal Rage?)

More for the “you’re projecting so hard” files. Conservatives accuse folks they don’t like of trying to forcibly “save” conservatives without ever asking if they want to be “saved.” E.g. “Lefties hate the Bible because in it, people can be saved without their help.” Conservatives claim folks who don’t live a “traditional lifestyle” are helpless brainwashing victims who need to be saved. E.g. all that stuff about how trans folks aren’t actually trans, but have been forcibly convinced they’re trans, and it’s up to conservatives to make them realize they’re cis before they “mutilate” themselves.

Yes, racism is bullshit, but I’m sick of people saying it would justify slavery if it was true. I don’t believe it’s justified when companies underpay intellectually disabled laborers, so I don’t think “black people are all intellectually disabled” leads into “we shouldn’t pay black laborers.”