cy-cyborg

[cy-cyborg]

My disability doesn’t need to be hidden

Two weeks ago, I made a batch of videos for Tik Tok that were supposed to be going up over the next month or so. However, out of the 5 uploaded and queued, 3 were flagged as needing manual review for potentially breaking community guidelines. The only thing about these videos that was any different from the other content I’d made in the past, or the two new videos that didn’t get flagged, was that they featured either images of myself where my legs and wheelchair were visible, or images of my fursona Nix (who has the same disability) where their legs and wheelchair were visible. I took all the videos down, since the later ones wouldn’t have made much sense in isolation and made a quick crop to the earlier ones so my/Nix’s legs were out-of-frame and low-and-behold, they didn’t get flagged. This isn’t new. In the past, Tik Tok has removed or hidden my videos (meaning they were stuck on 0 views and people visiting my page couldn’t see them) when my legs and scars weren’t entirely covered. I kind of expected it to happen to the video that used IRL footage of me and I had a backup plan, but censoring Nix in particular just felt… petty and uncalled for. It’s bad enough to do this to real disabled people’s bodies and that I even had to have a backup plan for it at all, but the other videos? They were stylised drawings of a purple dragon with simplified scars. A drawing I’ve used on other platforms with no issue by the way; I’ve uploaded videos with those same images to both Youtube (shorts and youtube proper) and Red Note. It’s only Tik Tok that has an issue with it consistently. Despite the vent I had about it all on Tumblr when it first happened, I will eventually re-upload the videos, as well as upload them to other platforms, but I have to figure out how to get around whatever is flagging them first. I won’t be hiding or censoring my/nix’s stumps or scars if I can avoid it. I know it seems petty and it’s going to make things harder in the long run, but I started my tik tok account to share my art, the vast majority of which has disability as a central theme in some way, shape or form, and to educate about disability, and I can’t do that If I have to hide mine. My body and my disability (whether depicted on me or on my characters) isn’t gore and it doesn’t need to be censored. [ID: An image of a purple dragon with yellow wings and a yellow underbelly, flying in front of the 2021 disability pride flag. The dragon is missing most of it’s tail and it’s hind legs, with the right leg gone from above the knee, the left from just below it. Both the tail and legs are covered in very visible scarring, and there are a few smaller scars on the arms. There is white text with a black outline on the image which reads “Disability just being visible isn’t "Graphic and Disturbing Imagery”“. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

Got to love the medical field sometimes.

Me: hey doc, you know how I keep getting all those infections that you said might be being made worse by my hormones, do you think my hormonal birth control might be contributing? Mine's overdue to get changed anyway so I'd like to take it out and see if things get better once it's out of my system.

Doc: Yes, I think that's a great idea! We can't do that here but go to this other clinic and get it removed and we'll do some blood tests in a few weeks once it has a chance to fully wear off.

Other clinic doctor: Hey so you're here to get your hormonal birth control removed but you're not getting a new one put in, how come?

Me: oh I'm getting a lot of infections all the time, all over my body, and my other doctor is trying to find out why, so we are trying to rule out if the birth control is contributing to my lower immune system.

Other clinic doctor: oh, ok. Well here, let me cut this out of you and leave a small open wound in your arm.

My partner: Hey doc, they're a high infection risk and can't take antibiotics right now, are you sure it's a good idea to leave that spot like that? Especially because they're a wheelchair user and that spot is going to get aggravated a lot whenever they move.

Other clinic doctor: Oh yeah, don't worry, it'll be fine.

A few days later: *Gets an infection in the wound*

[ID: A gif of a shocked pikachu where the camera zooms into it's face. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

This is your regular reminder to back up your stuff.

I’m not entirely sure why or how but the .clip files for the first 20 pages of Voidstar corrupted today. years of work just gone in an instant for seemingly no reason.

Thankfully I had everything backed up so I was able to recover it, but in the moment I kind of forgot it had been backed up 😅 so I just sat staring at the screen for a solid few minutes until my brain caught up.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to go make several more backups 😂

[cy-cyborg]

The way the NDIS is structured means you basically have to treat it like a job if you want to actually get your needs met. I need an OT for several things and in order to get everything done, they need to bill for about 30 hours of work (some of the assessments are all-day things, and then the rest are for actually writing reports). They can’t accept the job until I confirm I have that. The document I have about my plan don’t say how many hours I can get, just says a total $ amount. So I have to look up what the rates for OTs are (which of course is about to change) and do math to figure out if I have that. I think I do, but I’m not 100% certain because the rules about how I can use the funding keep changing. So I need to call someone to confirm. my LAC I think? But my LAC is only available Monday-Friday 9am-5pm. When I’m working. I work from home so it’s not the end of the world but these phone calls can take hours depending on what we’re discussing.

That’s not even taking those all-day assessments from the OT which are needed to get any funding on my next plan into account. Most OTs have the same work hours too. Also the specialists appointments I need to confirm my disability effects what I say it does so they’ll even look at the OT’s report, and everything else. so I’ll likely end up loosing at least a few days of work at least by the end of it all. Oh and if you don’t do it fast enough they take the funding for the OT away because, “well you’re not using it”.

And then the gov complains about how too many of us “don’t want to work” and are on DSP? How do you expect us to hold down normal jobs when you keep making us jump through all these ridiculous hoops that can only be done during work hours?? You can only take so many days off and answer so many calls on the job before your employer starts getting the shits with you, even if they’re legally not supposed to. Again, I work from home and the only people I need to answer to right now are commission clients who are generally very understanding, but even that’s hard to balance with all this stuff when I need big adjustments done to my plan. The closest thing I’ve had to normal jobs have all been with specifically disability orgs who are understanding of this, but when all your employees have to jump through the same hoops every year it gets hard to manage. They’re understanding but they still need staff to cover shifts. And what about those of us with full-time jobs outside of the disability sector? A lot of people I know end up using up their holiday time to sort all this out.

I’m not ranting just to rant, I keep seeing people not on the NDIS, people who don’t know any disabled people or are the friend of someone’s niece’s husband who’s disabled, complaining about how easy the system is to rort as an NDIS participant but they have no idea what the system is actually like to navigate. And this is all just if everything goes smoothly, it usually doesn’t and then you have to spend weeks, months or longer fighting with them to fix it, usually by getting more input from OTs, Specialists, and other stuff that all takes time and often our own money. It’s not some get-rich-quick scheme, we don’t even get the money directly. It’s locked up and has to be approved before we can even use it, and it can only be used on increasingly specific things.

[cy-cyborg]

It took a few iterations, but I finished the official cover for my webcomic Voidstar! With this and my page backlog done, I can finally start getting ready to post it! [ID: A digitally illustrated comic cover for Voidstar. The illustration shows Xari and Ravu in front of a starry night sky. Xari is a teal alien who is facing away from the viewer, with a determined look on their face. They have a long, kangaroo-like head with 4 purple eyes, looking back at the viewer, though only the eyes on the right side of their face are visible. They have 6 long, rabbit-like ears, two antennae and 4 arms, one of which is holding a ball of lightning, the other three are down by their side. They are wearing a blue sleeveless shirt that’s been torn and frayed around the edges. blue scar tissue is visible on their back, neck and arms, but their shirt is covering most of it. Ravu is a long, dark purple serpentine dragon with only two legs. They have a very short snout, 6 ears, two eyes and two tiny black horn stubs. They are wrapping around Xari and snarling. Above Ravu, over on the right-hand side of the image is the Text “Voidstar” is written in teal, blocky font, and “Cy Cyborg” is written down the bottom. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

Honestly Nebula would be the dream! I’ve heard a lot of good from both queer and disabled creators there. I’m pretty sure the ability to upload is invite only though and they’re pretty selective from what I’ve found from a quick google search on the topic.

Maybe one day!

Honestly I’m so close to just giving up on Tik Tok at this point.

Its always been weird about me showing my legs on camera because of the scarring on my stumps but now it’s not even allowing a heavily stylised PNG-tuber with the scars visible either.

This is the “offensive” PNG-tuber by the way. The same one I’ve used on YouTube and even Red Note.

I spent this week working on a batch of 5 videos that would be scheduled to go up over the next month or so. I’m still working on most of them but I finished the first one today and scheduled it for Sunday.

Left the Tik Tok studio page and it immediately said my video was under review for possibly violating community guidelines. It’s not even publicly visible yet?? It’s a video of me explaining where I’d gone for the last 6 months (moving, floods etc) and that I’m hoping to post more often in the future now that things are settling down. Nothing violated the guidelines.

So I did some more test with the incomplete videos. All the ones with the entire PNG-tuber (and one with my actual full body from a distance) visible were held under review, all the ones where the legs were not visible weren’t held.

They’ve done this with irl footage featuring my real legs before too. It’s not just the PNG-tuber. I’ve had videos get taken down or hidden (permanently stuck at 0 views and hidden if anyone goes to my page). It doesn’t even have to be content about my legs. I just have to be wearing a pair of shorts that don’t fully cover all the scars and that’s enough.

Disabled bodies aren’t gore.

My legs are not “disturbing content”

My scars aren’t “distressed imagery”

And I’m so tired of having to censor myself in ways others don’t.

[cy-cyborg]

Honestly I’m so close to just giving up on Tik Tok at this point.

Its always been weird about me showing my legs on camera because of the scarring on my stumps but now it’s not even allowing a heavily stylised PNG-tuber with the scars visible either.

This is the “offensive” PNG-tuber by the way. The same one I’ve used on YouTube and even Red Note.

I spent this week working on a batch of 5 videos that would be scheduled to go up over the next month or so. I’m still working on most of them but I finished the first one today and scheduled it for Sunday.

Left the Tik Tok studio page and it immediately said my video was under review for possibly violating community guidelines. It’s not even publicly visible yet?? It’s a video of me explaining where I’d gone for the last 6 months (moving, floods etc) and that I’m hoping to post more often in the future now that things are settling down. Nothing violated the guidelines.

So I did some more test with the incomplete videos. All the ones with the entire PNG-tuber (and one with my actual full body from a distance) visible were held under review, all the ones where the legs were not visible weren’t held.

They’ve done this with irl footage featuring my real legs before too. It’s not just the PNG-tuber. I’ve had videos get taken down or hidden (permanently stuck at 0 views and hidden if anyone goes to my page). It doesn’t even have to be content about my legs. I just have to be wearing a pair of shorts that don’t fully cover all the scars and that’s enough.

Disabled bodies aren’t gore.

My legs are not “disturbing content”

My scars aren’t “distressed imagery”

And I’m so tired of having to censor myself in ways others don’t.

[cy-cyborg]

No.

If a person is wearing a prosthetic they often do wear silicone socks/liners underneath the prosthetic socket, but they aren’t really comfortable without the prosthetic over the top. they’re also hundreds of $ and with a lot of modern prosthetic’s designs, a rip or tear in the liner can make the whole prosthetic limb unable to stay on, so it’s not something you just wear around casually without the rest of the prosthetic for protection. if you do try to replace these liners with a bandages under the prosthetic, it will essentially be like wearing a cheese grater and it will shred your skin

Some people also wear regular socks for warmth, but a bandage won’t do the same thing. A stump isn’t an injury, it’s just a part of our bodies like your limbs are, so unless you’re bandaging your arms and legs when you get cold instead of wearing a jacket or long pants, it doesn’t hold up as an explanation for an amputee either.

The other thing I’ve seen people mistake for bandages are compression socks, which new amputees are encouraged to wear for a bit before they get their prosthetic to help control the swelling while they heal, but it’s also not something a bandage can replace and also where the “less than a month ago” part comes in. To be fair, less than 2-3 months would be more accurate, most people heal enough to get rid of bandages and such within a month but there are always exceptions because bodies are weird. It is always a very short term thing though.

If an amputee has an injury at the end of their stump they might put a bandaid over it, but that’s not something you’d wear for more than a few days, just like any other common injury. If they have that there for more than a week and it’s time to see a doctor.

Early on, some implanted prosthetics do have a cap between the skin and the new implant, but again, that’s not permanent (I’m not as familiar with the healing timeframe for that, since I haven’t had that done myself, but according to friends who have, It’s usually less than a year, and that’s really only if you’ve had issues with infection in the implant site). a bandage won’t do the same thing there either since they’re also silicone.

This post was specifically referring to people who write/draw characters who’ve been amputees for long enough to be fully healed (eg they’ve been amps for years or even decades), but are still putting bandages on their fully healed limbs. It’s unnecessary, contributes to stigma about our bodies (you’d be surprised how many people assume my stumps are eternal, massive open wounds), and also not even practical, since most stumps are shaped in a way that means bandages will fall off easier anyway. Even when I was just in hospital sitting in bed doing nothing, I’d be lucky if a bandage would stay on for 12 hours, it usually had to be redone several times a day because my (and most people’s stumps) are wider at the top and thinner at the bottom, so there’s not really anything for a bandage to hold onto.

Just a reminder that unless your amputee character lost their limb less than a month ago, their stumps don't need to be bandaged.

[cy-cyborg]

So a very annoying thing I realised after I moved back home was that everyone here uses Facebook. And I don’t mean all the locals just use a personal page, no, I mean everyone, including the businesses use it almost exclusively. The vast majority don’t have their own websites, and if they do they haven’t updated them since 2015 and most of the info on it is wrong. Most of the time if anything comes up on google at all other than a Facebook page, it’s also wrong.

The does explain the big argument I had with my dad when I first deleted my Facebook account though. I stopped using it after my grandparents passed and hadn’t even looked at it in years so I thought it was really bizarre that he got so upset about it. He kept going on about how irresponsible it was. He’d even vented to mum about it after I left and everything. It makes a lot more sense knowing it’s one of the only consistent ways to find information about this town (which is…concerning knowing meta but anyway…). dad didn’t realise it wasn’t like this everywhere and essentially saw it as me making a half-assed attempt to go off-grid, meanwhile I was actively talking about running an online business 😂

[cy-cyborg]

Ref Sheet Commission for Vio of their fursona! [ID: A digitally draws character reference sheet for Vio the otter, drawn in a cartoony style with no shading. The character art shows Vio from the front and side sitting in a black wheelchair. They have brown fur, wear a blue shirt and long brown pants. In the side view drawing, they have both hands on their wheels, but in the front view one, they are waving with their left hand. To the left of the character drawings is a more detailed image of the wheelchair they are sitting in, which is labelled “main chair”. It is a rigid frame active chair with a low backrest and no push handles. To the right is another wheelchair, this one a foldable wheelchair with a high backrest and static push-handles. It is blue with dark grey accents and it is labelled “Alternate chair”. Above the illustration of the main chair is the character bio, which reads “Vio. Pronouns: They/them. Gender: Agender. Sexuality: Poly/Asexual. Main Wheelchair Name: Leah. Alternate wheelchair name: El Dorado.” There are also 4 pride flags beside Vio’s name, The Asexual flag, The Agender Flag, The disability pride flag and the autism pride flag. Finally, above all the art is a line of colour swatches, with the palette for Vio separated from the palette for their two wheelchairs. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

Every night I ask myself "is it better to stay up and make sure something gets done, or bank on going to sleep early-ish and being more productive tomorrow" and then land on a worst of both worlds compromise.

[cy-cyborg]

Nix’s Nexus: Siblings

My sister and I have a pretty good relationship, don’t worry, we just liked messing with each-other as kids.

[ID: A comic with 6 panels depicting two anthropomorphic dragons, Nix and Violet. Nix is purple with dark purple spots, dark purple horns and a yellow underbelly and wings. They are a double leg amputee and is wearing a navy blue shirt and black shorts. Violet is a more blue-purple, with short blue horns, blue spots and teal wings and underbelly. She wears a mint-green shirt and grey shorts. In the first two panels, the two dragons stand side-by side, showing Nix is taller. Panel 1 has a text box in the top left corner that reads “how people expected my sister and I to act when we were kids”. Violet has her head bowed and her eyes closed and says “This is my poor, poor sibling. They have no legs so I am extra nice to them because there is no possible way they could fight back.” while Nix looks to them with a blank expression. In panel 2, Nix closes their eyes and says “yes, and I am just a sweet, innocent disabled child, so I have no desire to fight with my sister like a "normal” child". Panel 3 has another text box that reads “Vs how we actually acted” and shows Violet running out into a yard and leaping off a wooden ramp with a pair of blue prosthetics in her arms as Nix, off screen, yells “HEY! Give me back my legs!” which is written in a speech bubble with a lot of spikes. Violet answers this with “No, you keep kicking me!” while she runs. Panel 4 shows that Nix has followed them out and is sitting at the top of the ramp, looking mad, while Violet looks up at them smugly. Nix says “You kicked me first” to which Violet replies with “I was just being annoying, your legs are metal! they hurt a lot more! Now, if you want your legs back, you have to come out into the bindis and get them!” There is a small yellow text box in the corner that reads “Bindis are a type of thorny weed that grows in the grass in Australia, and can hurt quite a lot to step on”. Panel 5 shows the pair looking down at the grass. a speech bubble with “…” hangs between them. Panel 6 shows Nix being smug, and asking “where’s your shoes?” and Violet responding with “shut up…” /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

When I created this account, I didn't expect tumblr to be my go-to place to talk about stuff in my personal life and vent - I've been doing that a lot lately lol, to the point it's getting hard to find my regular writing posts. But since I've made a new schedule for myself, I've actually remembered to work on the "writing disability" posts again, and it looks like it will be sustainable for once. Turns out the autistic ADHD person doesn't do so good without a scheduled and visual reminders, who could have guessed lol.

So, I'm going to keep this page/blog as just my general, all-in-one page and the place for my personal life posts, and move all the writing advice over to it's own dedicated page @writing-disability-with-cy (though I'll share them here too, just like with my art page). The posts already on this account will stay here, but I'll probably just reblog them through the new account. It might take me a while to do that though lol. I'm planning for the first new post after my unplanned hiatus to be going up on the 7th of July.

Also, I'm probably going to be moving the actual blog website over to be on the same hosting service as my website, mainly because I am already having to pay for that, and the writing disability blog site would benefit from the paid features I get there. I'm going to see if I can host my video content there too, but that's a bit more of a maybe. It also...looks a lot nicer than the old Blogger site. I promise this will be the last time it moves though, this is getting really hard to do now that there's a decent amount of content on there 😅

TLDR:

@cy-cyborg will be an all-in-one page for both my writing advice and art content, plus my personal life stuff. stuff from my art page and writing advice page will still be shared here

@cy-cyborg-draws will be just for my art and comics.

@writing-disability-with-cy will be just for my disability writing advice posts, with the goal to have a new post on the 1st Monday of every month starting on the 7th of July

Writing Disability with Cy Cyborg will be moving from it's current blogger/blogspot page to my main website and will, likewise, also have new posts on the first Monday of every month, starting on the 7th of July.

[cy-cyborg]

Big Red is another dragon from the book I’m working on. He is a kind of parent-like figure to Speckles, and helps him learn to be more confident. [ID: A reference sheet for Big Red, the dragon, drawn digitally. The Reference sheet shows two nearly identical images of Big Red from the side, the one on the left is shaded while the one on the right is simple flat colours. Bother versions show he stands on two legs with his front legs raised, like how a kangaroo stands, and he has a pair of torn, bat-like wings on his back. He has long, dark brown horns, though his right horn is broken, and on his chin, elbows and back he has sets of fins. He has red scales and a yellow belly, wings and fin membranes. On the top left of the sheet, it says “big red - Elder Eastern River Dragon” and on the top right it has his colour swatches. In the centre, between the two drawings, is the silhouette of a man, showing that Big red is around 5 meters tall. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

Lucy is the main human character in the children’s book I’m working on. She’s an adventurous 10-year-old who’s been looking for dragons, much to the dismay of the book’s protagonist Speckles. [Image Description: A Character reference sheet for Lucy Brown, a small human child with freckled white skin and fluffy orange hair. She is wearing a yellow shirt, brown shorts and no shoes. The reference sheet shows 3 drawings of her. One is directly facing forwards with her arms out in an A-pose, and shows that she is 3-heads tall. The other two show her holding a little black book and a pencil. In the middle image, she has the book in one hand and the pencil behind her ear, looking up and over the viewer at something off-screen. In the final image she is taking notes in her book with her tongue sticking out. At her feet are dragon foot-prints. Finally, on the far right side of the image, is the colour pallets used. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

Speckles

I moved recently and while I was unpacking, I found an old journal of mine from when I was around 10, dedicated exclusively to notes about finding a dragon I was CERTAIN lived in the bushland at the end of my road. I spent years looking for it, fuelled by whatever Dragonology books I could find at my school’s bookfair, and it got me thinking of an idea for a children’s book. I’ve wanted to do a picture book for a while now, and the idea of writing it from the perspective of the dragon trying to avoid the “scary” human child seemed really fun. So meet Speckles! I’ve got the story written out and am planning to start on the artwork for the book itself once I’m done with my commission work. [Image Description: A character reference sheet for Speckles the dragon, drawn digitally. There are two nearly identical images of Speckles, the one on the left is shaded, while the one on the right is just the basic flat colours. He stands on two legs with his front paws held up, like a kangaroo and has two bat-like wings. He’s a yellowish-green in colour with pale yellow belly and wings. He has long floppy ears that droop down to his shoulders and two stubby brown horns. On the ridges of his eyebrows, chin, elbow and back, he had a series of rounded spines, and the tips of his ears, tail, and paws are all a muddy brown colour. In the centre of the ref sheet between the two drawings is the silhouette of a human, showing speckles is about 2.5 meters tall. In the top left corner is rounded text that reads “Speckles: Juvenile Eastern River Dragon” and in the top right, it shows the colour swatches used on Speckles. /End ID]

[cy-cyborg]

So as it turns out, actually being allowed to hang things on my walls is MASSIVLY helpful to my AuDHD because the autism wants schedules and plans but the ADHD forgets about them as soon as they’re out of my field of view, but now I can put my plans somewhere I can’t ignore them lol.

I bought this big monthly whiteboard planner so I can figure out a schedule to work on all my stuff so I stop abandoning projects/social media accounts for months at a time. I tried doing this with my phone but without it being in my line of site all the time it just got abandoned too lol. So far this way seems to be working though. I’m hoping there’s enough variety too that I don’t burn out on it too quickly either.

[ID: an image of a monthly planner white board with a variety of different tasks on it. /end ID]