Chapter Text

*************************

I wanted to have another short, direct communication with all of you, my friends that type to me, and Aireagoir agreed to submit this. Jarvis refuses to post for me on this site. He says Stanley could sue for copy write in fringes. Whoever Stanley is, he has seriously terrible taste. Have you seen fringe in real life? Steve wore fringe on a cowboy outfit for Halloween and I called him the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Mission Assist Aireagoir and I have something in common: we both look young and yet people have seen our bodies and minds are not standardized model. This is apparently sometimes labelled being a “person with a disability” although I think being able to throw a car is a serious fucking ability upgrade. Aireagoir didn’t get serum; ability to throw a car at people improbable. She also can’t lift her own cat without two supportive devices and some strategizing. However; over 40% of people in her state say they plan to vote for Donald Trump and she has a multiracial family, so if she totally loses her shit she might try tipping a Mini. EDIT: Trump won my state by an enormous percentage. I couldn't find a mini, but I successfully started a flamewar by saying I was proud, as a woman, that at least I had the CHANCE to vote for a woman. That's never happened in my state before, even waaaaay back when Elizabeth Dole, a trailblazer, tried. Result: 7 friends lost, 1 gained, had to define "flamewar" for own mother, no vehicles harmed. Continue.

We agree PTSD and other mental illness can be a major life-altering bitch, but if you’ve had the misfortune of living through something so unbelievably awful it literally warped the way your brain coped to maximize survival, then let’s give your brain a round of applause! It adapted to save you. Because it knew you were worth saving. And it DOES know, because it has been with you since wheels up.

It’s not our fault our brains went haywire. Sometimes it’s a perpetrator’s fault. Sometimes it’s a sad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes you’re born that way. People who think needing a doctor for your brain makes you lesser should not be trusted with your heart, soul or peanut butter cookie recipe. They are deficient. There’s never shame in asking for an instruction manual for modifications you didn’t order.

If you’re like us, (physically, mentally or emotionally,) and have recently found yourself wanting company, a chat, or ideas for keeping your relationship with “able-bodied” people fresh, we hope you'll comment or come hang out.

Bucky Barnes' Incomplete Guide to Body Modification Acceptance and Having Fun with Standard Issue Humans.

1. SURPRISE!

Know they’re going to get embarrassed when they first meet you and realize you’re not what they expect. To put everyone at ease, be equally surprised.

Question: You’re blind?!?

Answer: You can SEE?

Question: You have bipolar disorder?

Answer: I do? THAT’S AMAZING! (Throw off your clothes, run down the street in unbridled jubilation, then crawl into fetal position and rock slowly while crying and wondering if you’ll die alone). Or maybe that's how the subject came up. It's still cool to be surprised.

Question: You need a wheelchair?

Answer: Isn't wanting it enough?

2. Lie like a fucking rug.

This isn’t for everybody. Some of you may be very proud that you, for example, lost a limb fighting in Iraq, or snatched your dingo from the jaws of a baby. Or Captain Steven Grant Rogers didn't just nip down and take a quick peek after you fell off a goddamned train, a train you were on at his request, after you had protected his ungrateful skinny ass from every 14 year old thug in all of Lower New York. DIDN'T EVEN REQUEST A SEARCH PARTY. But. If you’re in the mood to dick with super-rude people, you have the right to a good origin story.

Question: What happened to you?

Answer: My copy of the Kama Sutra left out a VERY important word on page 32.

Question: Did somebody do that to you?

Answer: Yeah, it’s what people do to strangers that ask “Did somebody do that to you?”

Question: Does it hurt?

Answer: Not as much as a complete disregard for conversational etiquette.

Question: How did that happen?

Answer: Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Very. Slowly.

Question: No, really, how did it happen?

Answer: HYDRA.

Question: I’m for real though, how did it happen?

Answer: Horrifically. Thank you for the reminder.

Question: Can I touch it?

Answer: You can do when I smack you in the balls with it.

Question: Can you still have children?

Answer: Yes, but I have to braise them til they practically fall off the bone.

Question: How do you…have relations?

Answer: Same way I always did. Tied to the back of a Chevy Corsica, getting pissed on while I insert the beads, then having three pygmy girls in go go boots stomp on my ass while I rim a leather dyke named Kenneth.

3. Discover and marvel at the plasticity of time and comprehension.

You will meet people who Just. Can’t. Get it. Bless their little hearts, but they seem surprised when you show up with the same problem every time. Like, you’ve worn the same shirt into the office every day this month, you accidentally forget today isn’t Disabled Friday. Aireagoir runs an errand weekly to a store where the woman says “Aireagoir, are you still walking with that darn cane?” It has been 14 months. The woman knows why she needs it, and it would be super obvious she would quit using it if she didn't need it, and as a special added bonus... Aireagoir has even told her "thanks for asking, but when I don't need it any more I'll just say so." Every week.

Every week.

I call these people Goldfish. They have a three second memory. Standard identification of Goldfish is easy. These will be the people that you use the word ‘still’ in italics.

Example: Oh, are you still having trouble with your stomach?

It would be accurate to reply “yes, I am still having trouble with my stomach, as you can see by the fact that I require this colostomy bag, customized feeding tube and I have been using this walker for over a decade now.” But this will destroy your soul, because the Goldfish have three second memories. Unless you’re willing to put it on a T-shirt, and I realize for a few of you out there that might actually be a pretty good option, you’re simply going to have to learn to put up with the Goldfish. Unless you can throw a car at them. Protip: I like to throw assuming it will flip down and smash people with the top, but Bruce says if you can get the grip you take out a lot more at once launching it football-quarterback style.

4. Get kinky in bed.

Not because of this. I mean in general. As long as everyone involved is an informed, consenting adult, I say it’s nobody else’s business why you want made-to-scale wax replicas of all of the Golden Girls.

4.5 Let sex be what you decide sex is. Sex is bodies, and that can be really complicated due to pain, non-compliant body parts, weight, fear, shame, gravity. Naturally, if you don't want sex of any sort, then you do you. Or not do you. But if you want it, and bodies can be so fucking fucked up about fucking, consider this: tell your lover you want to redefine sex. Sex is fingers, or sex is awesomely filthy pictures together, or sex is letting somebody grind against your rockhard metal thigh while they talk dirty. Sex can be putting things in other things. But it doesn't have to be, and you're not obligated to restrict it.

4.6 Uh...consider what happens if you get, I don't know, lube, or raspberry jam or whatever lodged in your prosthesis. Those seeds will jam in there for weeks.

4.6 a I hear.

5. If kids stare, let them. They probably don't care, they just have a question.

6. If an adult stares, let them. However.

There are always going to be people who can't look away from your scars, or whisper about your time in "that ward," or look down to see you're in a wheelchair and then somehow figure because your head is lower things are somehow weird to talk now. Whatever the jackassery is, deal with it. Then, as the interaction is coming to a closure, take a quick but obvious look at their junk and snicker the second you've turned away from them. Yes, it makes you a 7 year old brat, but it is REALLY funny when expertly applied.

7. Be all that you can be.

Most of all, remember, there are tons of us non-standard humans out there. I am not for one second suggesting that if necessary, we will rise up and overtake the “normals."

But.

FOR THE SAKE OF ARGUMENT.

… if someday you get tired of feeling like you’re weird just because you have a severe mental illness, or were born without a leg, or you’re in constant pain and nobody knows why, or you need a cane, or use sign language, or were burned in a fire, or lost a foot to an IED, I invite you to imagine this: as an army, we’d look Cool. As. FUCK, right? Look at us! I wouldn’t want to fight us. Something already tried to fuck with us and we’re still here.