marchek

[marchek]

[marchek]

I love the "glasses are disability" thing because it applies to basically every complaint abled people have about disability

"You're not even that bad, why would you get that?" Have you ever used a magnifying glass for small details or zoomed in on a picture

"Why do you have that accommodation TODAY?" Why do you wear reading glasses when you're reading

"It seems like your 'needs' are inconsistent." Yeah and you wear sunglasses when it's sunny and not all the time

"But you can technically walk without that." Yeah and if I put the page really close to your face you could read it, it would just hurt and be hugely impractical, inconvenient, and limiting

"But you COULD go without it all the time, you don't NEED it to live." And maybe you could technically see without your glasses, doesn't mean it's comfortable or practical day to day

"If you REALLY had a hard time seeing you would have glasses." Have you ever known someone who couldn't afford a new pair of glasses? Or eye appointments? Someone who needed vision therapy or special prism glasses? Someone whose vision only gets bad during migraines or seizures? Someone with astigmatism that glasses can't help? Someone who didn't qualify for LASIK?

"You only use it when you're out in public." Have you ever gotten up to use the bathroom at night without putting on your glasses

"Decorating it is just trying to get attention, and it's a medical device so stop glamorizing it." Do you hate any patterned or colorful glasses frames too? Art with characters who wear glasses? People who make OCs with glasses? Glasses chains, prescription sunglasses, aesthetic fake glasses with tinted lenses?

"There are secretly lots of people just using aids for fun and attention." There are secretly lots of people wearing fake glasses or colored contacts for fun and attention, it does not affect you

"We need to find fakers, they're stealing disabled resources!" Someone pretending to need glasses is "taking" a seat in the front from someone who might need it more. That sucks and they shouldn't do that. But I'm not going to scrutinize every person who wears glasses to see if I think they really need that seat. You personally are not the arbiter of who is (based on the random times you've seen them) secretly not disabled

"My friend has that and doesn't act like that." Does every pair of glasses in production, or even every pair close to your prescription, work for you? Is your vision identical to every other nearsighted person?

"If you can do X why can't you do Y? Some people with that can do Y."/"But if you have that how can you do X? People with that can't usually do X." Some people are nearsighted and some people are farsighted and some people are both. Some farsighted people can read some without glasses and some can't. And good distance vision doesn't mean you don't ever need glasses, it's just an entirely different reason you'd need glasses

"You're too young to need that." And there are young people who need bifocal lenses

"Why don't you use this DIFFERENT aid though, it would look like you didn't even have an aid." Why doesn't everyone in the world wear contacts

"Why can't I/my friend/my kid play with it?" Do you let random strangers and children try on your glasses at the grocery store

"I was just trying to help, I thought you'd need a push/you were in the way." Are you cool with me suddenly pulling your glasses off your face to clean them, or because the glare was distracting me

"You'll eventually stop using it though right?" Are you planning on no longer needing glasses someday

Disabled people are free to add

I am aware this is not a 1-to-1 perfectly accurate post. Do not come into the notes trying to "um actually this isn't a perfect comparison." I know. Just don't

[marchek]

Ok so I like boys and I might be a trans dude but I’m really attracted to the lesbian label idk why but aaa isnsuhsuwnsus Idk what to do what is wrong with me please help me

I have the same problem with the term ‘butch’, I really like it but I’m not a lesbian so I can’t exactly use it

so instead I just call myself a sparrow stag (meaning a sorta low-maintenance masculine nb)

[marchek]

“They’re trying to discharge her constructively. Do you know what Constructive Discharge means?” She asked.

As soon as I heard the term ‘Constructive Discharge,’ I knew I’d never seen it on a vocabulary quiz.

“No. What does it mean?” I asked.

She explained.

“Constructive discharge is a fancy way of saying “being forced out.” It’s not good. And if you’re not a lawyer or in human resources, you’ll probably learn what it means when it’s happening to you.”

“Oh my God. I’ve seen this my entire career and never knew it even had a name.” I thought.

You’ve seen constructive Discharge too. You may have experienced it. We’ve all made choices to avoid it.

Constructive discharge defined

“We can’t fire you, but we’ll make you so miserable you’ll quit, and then we won’t have to pay your unemployment.”

Then there’s the textbook definition:

“A constructive discharge occurs when your employer has made working conditions unbearable, forcing you to resign.”

Or as one person put it.

“I didn’t get handed a pink slip, but when you’re not wanted, people have a way of letting you know.”

HR isn’t always the secret police.

Employees aren’t always victims of evil-doers.

However, employers push employees out all the time to maintain and protect the, “We didn’t do anything wrong, YOU did,” power structure.

Constructive Discharge looks like this:

— Meeting invitations slow to a trickle, and you’re excluded from emails and generally looped out of what’s going on.

— People stop talking to you or stop talking when you walk in.

— Your emails don’t get answers, or they arrive too late to be of value.

— Suddenly, your work is not good enough, though nothing about your work has changed.

— Reviews, once good or even glowing, are now mediocre or bad.

— Instead of a bonus, you get a Performance Improvement Plan.

— Warnings and write-ups start so they can justify your eventual termination with documentation of your “poor performance”

— Your work, clients, assignments go away, or they overwhelm you with work.

— The words “Set up to fail” were practically invented to describe this scenario.

Constructive Discharge is illegal

It isn’t easy to prove you’re a target, and it’s even more challenging if you don’t even know constructive discharge is a real thing.

If you’ve ever experienced this and don’t fully understand what’s happening to you beyond knowing you’re in the process of being excommunicated, it can be hell. It’s not uncommon for the experience to leave long-lasting scars.

Talk to anyone who’s ever been through it. They’ll tell you.

Knowing constructive discharge exists and how it’s used gives you power to predict what’s coming and to protect yourself.

Seeing the endgame helps you in two ways.

You know what to expect. Having a sense of what’s coming next is enormously empowering. You can go on the offensive and protect yourself. Constructive discharge works to crush your ego, making you feel you did something wrong and deserve this treatment.

Without strategy, you end up being a miserable pawn in your employer’s endgame.

Remember, they’re almost certainly building a case to fire you in the event the hellscape they create for you doesn’t persuade you to quit.

If you’re getting pushed out, and you know what to look for you can prove constructive discharge and you can get unemployment benefits, be released from payback obligations on a signing bonus, and protect your mental health.

You’re not crazy, incompetent, or a failure. This is real and it’s carefully executed to leave you holding the bag and feeling like you did something wrong.

If they force you out, in addition to feeling horrible, you lose your paycheck, benefits health insurance, and possibly owe them money.

[marchek]

A quite insightful quote from Stormy Daniels.

[marchek]

Ableism in Subtitles

Something that really pisses me off is the litany of ableist issues found in subtitles. So, let's talk about 3 huge issues that need to stop.

Subtitles should never ever say [Speaking -language-]

When a hearing person is watching a TV show, or a stream, if someone starts speaking another language, if that hearing person knows that language, they will get to know what the person said, regardless of if the average viewer knows that foreign language.

Deaf and HOH viewers deserve the same opportunity, and to rob them of that opportunity by putting [speaking -language-] in the subtitles is ableist.

Every word spoken in a show or movie, unless given translated subtitles in the uncaptioned version of the show or movie, should have every word captioned exactly as it's spoken. If someone starts speaking Spanish, the words spoken in Spanish should be subtitled in Spanish. If someone starts speaking German, the words spoken in German should be subtitled in German.

When a show or movie is created, if you want a character to speak a foreign language, you get an actor who can speak that language. When you hire someone to transcribe a show into subtitles, your hire someone who can speak the languages spoken in the show, or you have them mark points where a foreign language speaker will need to assist and then have someone who speaks that language add in the parts that the transcriptionist can't.

Subtitles should never be cut short for convenience

This is something I see constantly. Shows and movies will frequently cut out words or even large chunks of a sentence from the subtitles to make the subtitles shorter.

When you remove descriptive words, parts of a sentence, or even whole sentences to cut down on the amount of subtitles in a given segment, you are completely changing the attitude, mood, and expression of those sentences. You can completely ruin all of the implicit feelings in a sentence if you remove words that show feelings or the way a person phrases things.

It is not your moral right, as a company or transcriptionist, to decide that deaf or HOH viewers shouldn't get the original phrasing.

I am not deaf or HOH. I have APD and have to use subtitles to keep up with what's being said, or I won't process it fast enough. Because of that, I get to see all of the ways subtitles deviate from the original wording all the time. This isn't an issue that just happens here and there. It happens in pretty much every episode of every show I've watched. And it's unacceptable.

Even if we ignore the way this impacts the intent of a sentence, this is ableist by its nature. When subtitles are made, they are made to fill the gap in a deaf or HOH person's TV experience. When you don't accurately fill that gap, or fill it partway, or half ass it, you are cutting corners on a disability aid. It's like if you sold someone a wheelchair with the wheels not pumped with enough air, or giving someone a hearing aid with damaged battery capacity.

When deaf or HOH people watch TV or movies and they use subtitles, they are relying on those subtitles to give them the most accurate wording possible. So why are companies directing or allowing their transcriptionists to half ass or cut down their subtitles? Every piece of media should be having its subtitles checked for accuracy before they're approved, and subtitles that cut corners should be amended before a show with subtitles is published or aired.

Subtitles should never censor words that aren't censored in audio

If a show or movie has swearing in it, of any kind, the subtitles should accurately depict what is happening audibly. If the audio has swear words censored, the subtitles should depict the noise - or lack thereof - that is used to censor the word. Subtitles should never be censored when the audio isn't.

Not only does this touch on the same issue from the last section, it's also ableist in another way. Not only are you giving deaf and HOH people a different experience than hearing people, you're also infantilizing them by disallowing them from hearing swear words that hearing viewers can hear.

Deaf and HOH adults are not children. They have just as much right to read the word "fuck" as a hearing person does to hear it. Censoring subtitles is disrespectful, ableist, and infantilizing and it needs to stop.

Make a change

I'm not familiar with the details of the ADA and how it regards subtitles, but if anyone would like to work with me to do something about this, I would really like to fight for subtitles to have more regulation.

If the ADA prohibits inaccurate subtitles, we should be reporting companies like Netflix who constantly provide inaccurate subtitles. If it doesn't, we should be fighting to amend the ADA to include regulations for subtitle accuracy.

Anyone who's researched this before or who knows more about it than I do, please tell me what you know or give me some sources I can look into myself. I would research from scratch but I'm disabled and don't have a lot of spoons for it, which is why I'd like to work together with others.

[marchek]

[marchek]

shout out to ace and aro kids who are constantly bombarded with the opinion that sex and romantic love are directly connected to living a happy life.

[marchek]

this sentiment is so true

[marchek]

“Holy shit! I followed this person back in the day on LiveJournal!”

-an actual thing I said about a tumblr interaction in 2023.

[marchek]

1. Fist: Make a fist around the epi-pen, don’t place your thumb/fingers over either end

2. Flick the blue cap off

3. Fire. Press down into the outer thigh (the big muscle in there), hold for 10 seconds before removing (the orange cap will cover the needle). Bare skin is best but the epi-pen will go through clothing. Avoid pockets and seams. 

- Ring an ambulance even if everything seems to be fine!

[marchek]

In the late 19th century, the idea that disease and death proliferated in poor black communities was taken as a given, even among doctors. Physician Rebecca J. Cole, one of the first black women doctors in America, pushed back against this racist assumption over a 30-year career in public health. As both a physician and an advocate, she worked to give her own community the tools and education they needed to change their circumstance, inspiring generations of doctors who focused specifically on black communities.

[marchek]

we expected nothing less… {x}

[marchek]

Finally, FINALLY, we have a new book out. Hell, some of you probably don’t even know I write books. ANYWAY.

Culinary school dropout Callie Giordano never intended to wind up in a small town with a terrible name, but after surviving a serious cycling accident in New York City, she needed a change of pace. At 26, she is now the sole doughnut entrepreneur living in Fly-Debate, Maine.

But Fly-Debate isn’t just a one-stoplight town deep in lobster country. It’s also home to the cast and crew of hit historical heist TV series, Hidden Cove. Beckett Brown, its star, may as well have a resume that says 44, single, and nesty, but between his celebrity status and a reputation for falling too hard and too fast, dating feels impossible.

At least until he meets Callie.

That Special Something is a high-heat, queer M/F romance featuring large quantities of sugar, bird watching, and more plastic prop lobsters than you can shake a net at.

Preorder on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BTZZMWB2

Preorder on other platforms: Coming soon.

Detailed content information and more about what we were thinking: https://avian30.com/2023/02/06/that-special-something-coming-july-11-2023/