#Also don't give me that ''but it's more accessible for poor and disabled people who can't make art :('' bullshit

[moongothic]

I wish AI image creators (and pro-AI image people in general) understood was that there is, in fact, a fundamental difference between artists referencing each others work and a computer (re)generating an image

And that’s respecting the time and dedication that went into creating the piece being referenced to begin with

If an artist uses someone else’s work as inspiration for their own, they have to recreate it from scratch. You can use the composition of a piece, but you still have to draw the whole thing all over again. You can color pick a palette but the shading you have to do on your own. You can study the way someone draws immaculate, fine details, but you still draw every single line with your own hand. And doing all that work makes the person look at what the original artist had done, understand how they made their art, what it took to make it, and learn to respect their effort and dedication even more.

Hell, even if someone traces over another person’s work, without consent and refuses to admit to it (which generally speaking is a dick fucking move), even then the tracer will deep down know the limit of their skills and see what the original artist can do but they can’t (yet).

And these are all things that neither a computer or the person feeding a prompt into the computer will ever do.

AI image creators will never put in the same work and effort to “create” something, and thus they will never understand what it takes for an artist to draw or paint something from scratch.

You told a machine to make a dish, the machine makes a dish based on approximations of what goes into it based on what chefs put into their dishes, and you claim to be the chef that cooked it.

AI images and their creators are inherently disrespectful.

[drdemonprince]

all the recent talk about not voting has me a bit worried, for lack of a better word.

on one hand, yes so much yes, stop throwing all your time and energy in the insatiable maw of electoral politics, 5/5, no notes.

but on the other hand, where does that time and energy go then? despite lots of talk about mutual aid it doesn't seem to progress much beyond the abstract (at least in the various leftist groups/communities/etc. in my neck of the woods). it's held up as an ideal and great big important thing, but when there's shit that needs doing, it's *crickets*.

maybe it's because so much mutual aid is care work and thus, and i very much disagree with even though i care not for the label, not real activism i guess? like, a while ago a disabled comrade had ran into housing issues because of their illness, so we rustled up some folks to help clean and unfuck their home. which, yet again, were the same (also disabled) people that always show for those things.

coming of four years and counting of pandemic, that's been a consistent pattern. at a time where mutual aid was so needed, such a vacuum left by a state that didn't and/or wanted to do shit, it still fell on the shoulders of disabled people to do all the actual work while the rest just talked about abstract shit. or, to name another thing, diy hrt initiative where it's just a bunch of poor ass trans people scrounging up money to pay for supplies for trans people who have fuck all access, while the rest debates in the abstract about a more better system or whether it's even something they need to concern themselves about.

and like, yes, not pissing away your energy pleading with assholes who don't give a fuck about you is good, but it should only be the start. it sometimes feels like the big plan is: 1) not vote, 2) ???, 3) glorious anarchism/communism/mutual-aidism. i'm not arguing that they need to have it all worked out, but with so much shit that needs doing in the here and now i get a little worried. because that's going to take real work, not talk, and they're not putting in any of it.

I mean, most people won't do (what gets viewed as) "real activism" either. They don't go to protests, smash windows, call jails to check on the status of incarcerated people, cut supply lines, or anything else. And they don't vote either.

We live in a highly individualistic, atomized society filled with people who have been conditioned into an abiding self-interested apathy, and everyone is overworked and broke as shit and juggling a bunch of disabilities while not having any experience with building genuine community and lacking most of the infrastructural and social tools to do so. The number of people who are avowed leftists is vanishingly small, and among them the people who actually walk the talk or have the education and community ties to even be able to is even smaller. Not disagreeing with your read of the situations you're dealing with here, just putting them within the broader context of many very similar problems that I see touch every single aspect of organizing today. even like the most tepid liberal get out the vote kind of organizing is plagued by this, and of course that is by design.

What gives me hope in the present moment is just how many people are completely fucking done with the prevailing system, and how many are refusing to play along with its rules. A lot of the people who aren't voting are not leftists. At least not yet. Just like many of the people who are quiet quitting and half-assing it at work or just vibing on unemployment for as long as they can are not communists. But they do know that the system is bunk and is failing them, and they are refusing to be compliant within it any longer. I believe that a lot of people's better natures do get inspired during a moment of collapse. I also think there is a profound rot at the heart of settler-colonial states that fills them with people who do not recognize themselves as having any responsibility to others. That's all the more reason for such an empire to fall.

I think you're right to worry for the future, though I don't think the reason to be worried is as simple as people not people caring about disabled folks, or any other group. I always wonder who the mythical abled people are who are abnegating their duty in such an understanding of the world. I sure haven't met any of them. I only meet people who are also disabled and don't realize it.

[totally-sick-blogger]

Sustainability is rarely accessible

This post is dedicated to Audrey, hi king!

Like many people, I think sustainability and taking care of the environment is really important; however, something that I feel isn't talked about enough when discussing ways to be more sustainable is how it's often inaccessible to disabled people and low-income people.

A lot of "alternative products" aren't viable options for disabled people because of factors such as cost, how easy they are to acquire, or physical accessibility issues.

some examples include:

paper straws and wooden cutlery - I know that for me both of these products give me major sensory issues and as for wooden cutlery I'd also like to note that they're much more difficult to eat with which could cause problems for someone with poor dexterity or fine motor skills.

pre-packaged foods - a lot of disabled people rely on pre-packaged meals and snacks for all kinds of reasons such as sensory issues, having specific safe foods, fatigue, and physically being unable to prepare foods. etc. One example I see often is being told off for buying precut produce because why not "just cut it up themselves" when in reality, some people physically cannot cut it up themselves or don't have enough spoons to make that a priority; not to mention that frozen and pre-cut produce is often cheaper than fresh produce.

medical supplies - A lot the medical supplies that disabled people rely on every day are made up of single use plastics and most of the items aren't meant to be used more than once (though some products can be used for multiple days if cared for properly) that being said, disabled people tend to produce more plastic waste but it's not our faults so we shouldn't be getting flack for it!

Another element of environmental advocacy that a lot of people talk about is veganism; which is of course great thing to practice if that's what works for you but a lot of people (disabled or not) cannot be vegan for dietary reasons. This could be because of allergies, intolerances, restrictions, location, finances, etc. For example, I've got a soy allergy and I've got a friend with a severe nut allergy. This means that neither of us could be fully vegan because the majority of vegan products are made with soy and nuts. I also rely partially on tube feeds for nutrition and as far as I know, there aren't any vegan, soy-free formulas yet (and if there are they're probably absurdly expensive)

This brings me to my final point about cost. A lot of alternative options for vegan and sustainable products are significantly more expensive; making it much harder for people who are already struggling financially to afford those products. Not to mention people who live in food deserts (areas of a city that don't contain grocery stores) or rural areas. There are very low chances that either of those places is going to have specialty food stores or even have alternative options in the few stores that they do have!

In conclusion: stop blaming poor and disabled people for the awful state of our environment and start blaming billionaires and massive corporations!

[lastoneout]

It's also like super fucking infuriating to see people continue to argue that generative AI is the best way for disabled and/or poor people to make art because like, you know what helps make art more accessible? Giving poor and disabled people money.

Like take me for instance, I'm disabled. I get severe migraines and intense leg/back pain if I sit at my computer for too long, my hEDS makes holding pens and pencils hard, my ADHD makes it hard for me to start certain tasks and/or stop them before I potentially hurt myself, my neck also hurts if I look down too much, my dyslexia AND my ADHD both make it difficult to keep track of a story as I write and use correct spelling and grammar, plus, I need to prioritize taking care of myself and going to appointments and keeping my house clean and that takes up a lot of my free time. All of these things make creating the kind of art I want to create difficult if not occasionally impossible.

So what do you think would solve my problems better? Giving me money so that I can have a drawing tablet and desk chair that won't hurt my neck or back, another tablet + pen and a lap table and comfortable body pillows for drawing in bed, easier transportation to my doctors appointments, effective treatment for my chronic pain and migraines, the ability hire someone to help me keep my house clean, a spelling/grammar checker that isn't complete ass, and a therapist and psychatrist who can help me manage my ADHD better?

Or an AI program that takes my input and spits out a drawing or story made of stolen content glued together that, in the case of the art, I cannot meaningfully edit without starting over, which also destroys the environment in the process?

Seems pretty obvious to me. I don't need AI, I need help to manage the things that are actually stopping me from being able to write and draw.

Or take my mom. She's had severe rhumatoid arthritis since she was a small child, her hands are deformed and she relies on her wheelchair to get around. She doesn't need AI to help her paint, she needs special paint brushes she can actually hold, a table her wheelchair will fit at, and someone to help her with personal hygiene/keep her house clean/take her to doctors appointments so she actually has free time to paint.

Does that poor kid growing up in public housing with parents who are too poor to afford art classes or supplies or to send them to college really need a computer program to draw for them, or do they need support to help them take those classes, buy drawing supplies, and money so they can go to college.

Blind people can paint, deaf musicians exist, people with missing limbs find all sorts of ways to make art, people with parkinson's paint with typewriters, my mother can't hold a normal paintbrush and she makes some of the most beautiful watercolor paintings I've ever seen, Van Gogh had bipolar disorder and only sold like one painting when he was alive, I mean for real how many different artists have you heard of who's biographies start with them being born into poverty?

This is not meant to be inspiration porn, these people are just ones who were able to find ways to make art despite their struggles. They shouldn't have had to struggle at all, but god imagine how many more artisrs and writers we could have had if none of them had to overcome those struggles. It breaks my heart to think of all the wonderful art that never got to exist because no one helped the people who could have made it actually have the time, money, support, and safety they needed to make it. AI would not have saved them because making art isn't the problem, being disadvantaged is the problem. Living in a world that refuses to make room for you is the problem. Being fucking poor is the problem. Humans have always found ways to make art despite huge barriers, the solution isn't a computer that makes art for them, it's SUPPORT AND MONEY SO THEY CAN OVERCOME THOSE BARRIERS AND MAKE THEIR OWN ART.

As a last example: I love watching dancing and I would love to be able to dance, but I'm terrible at it(I got kicked off a dance team for not being able to learn the dance at all despite spending weeks on it, idk my brain wasn't made for dancing) and my disabled body makes it more pain than pleasure if not actively dangerous, anyway. Having a robot dressed to look like me dance next to me while I get to watch would not make me feel like I'm getting to dance. It would actually be extremely fucking demoralizing and frustrating. I would hate that!!

Having an AI spit out a painting or book would not make me feel like I got to paint or write a book. It's a fucking anamatronic doll running on stolen ideas and it will never be the same as getting to actually expirience the joy of creating art first hand. AI is not the solution. Helping people who need it is the solution. And I am CONSTANTLY pissed to think about all the time and money that goes into these fucking AI programs that would be better spent helping disabled and poor people get the help they need so they can make art themselves, all while the people running the nightmare plagiarism pollution machines pretend that their horrible inventions exist to help people like me.

[heyftinally]

Taylor only has one thing when it comes to the opressed olympic. It's the fact she is a woman. And swifties use that for any criticism against her.

" Oh you just hate succesful women."

She isn't black, She isn't gay trans etc.., She isn't disabled, She isn't poor, she isn't jewish, she isn't muslim, etc... etc...

Swifties also need to learn that a black man is not more privileged than a white woman. They seem to think that she is always more oppressed against any other man.

They could literally think that a homeless black man has more privilege than the billionaire white woman. All because he is a man.

🔔🔔🔔 Ding ding ding, we have a winner, folks! You hit the nail on the head.

Taylor Swift has weaponized her white woman tears and "oppression" to her own benefit, and this is exactly how.

None of her fans seems to ACTUALLY understand how oppression works, they just take the pretty little buzzwords that they think are synonymous with "I'm a good person who's right" and parrot them like a $2 children's toy (half the time while sending death threats and racist/homophobic slurs, which makes it even more ironic)

Taylor Swift is not oppressed. She's just not. Honestly, yes, even though she's a woman - and before any feral Swifties come at me, I AM a woman - she's not oppressed, and I'll tell you why.

"Billionare" overrides most (not all) other categories. As soon as you're a billionaire, nothing else matters, because you can buy your way into and out of anything. Combine that with the facade that the entire world worships her, and guess what? Nobody gives a shit that she's a woman. She's not oppressed because a few people she's never heard of make jokes about how much she sucks - she DOES suck, but those comments have zero impact on her life. She doesn't even know they exist. In Taylorland, everyone loves her no matter what she does - even if she's best friends with/dating bigots.

In order for someone to be oppressed, systematic situations have to negatively impact their life on a day to day basis. Disabled people can't get married without losing their disability income. LGBTQ+ people are still getting murdered in the street for just existing and having their right to healthcare taken away. People of a variety of ethnic minorities still get denied things like loans at a higher rate than white people. Women get denied promotions because they're not men.

None of these things will ever happen to Taylor Swift. She can quite literally pay to access a "perfect" world, because she gets to pay her way out of normal life.

If someone makes a sexist joke? She can have that person fired and hire someone else.

She can pay for as much private security as she wants, so being safe is literally never a concern.

She can pay for private travel (and kill the planet every ten minutes), she can pay for private staff to handle her every whim and worry.

Taylor Swift has effectively paid her way out of oppression, because she can simply use her power, her money, and her legion of feral fans to get whatever she wants.

Someone makes a joke she doesn't like? Clearly it's "oppression" and now that person is "canceled" at best, or getting doxxed and sent death threats at worst.

Taylor Swift isn't oppressed because she can pay to fix nearly any problem in her life, so her biggest "problem" is people not unquestioningly worshipping her 24/7, which is what she weaponizes.

And fans will still claim that she's more oppressed than a black disabled homeless man, because they don't understand oppression OR intersectionality - all the know is worship Taylor and harass.

[3liza]

part of the elsagate videos issue that is never ever addressed in any article or video I've seen about it is why do parents let their kids watch YouTube unsupervised. my parents divorced when I was six. my father is a 100% disabled veteran and my mom worked full time and basically single parented two children. NEITHER OF THEM allowed us to read, watch tv or use the computer with a lack of supervision sufficient to not notice what we were watching and immediately getting involved if something was weird, until we were probably 11 or 12 years old (which is a pretty typical time for kids to transition to spending a lot of time unsupervised and making their own decisions about their free time).

no one in any of the articles or videos I've seen on the disturbing YouTube kids content issue has ever straight up asked a parent: "why are you putting an internet-enabled tablet into the hands of a three year old and walking away?" none of the explanations for it (busy, tired, making dinner, poor, whatever) besides idk, severe disability to the point of child neglect, explain this level of lack of supervision. my parents were variously severely disabled and impoverished and working and making dinner and if tablets had been a thing, they just wouldn't have given them unsupervised to a very young child. you can entertain a 3 year old with conversation, drawing, picture books, or if they're on a tablet you can just turn off autoplay or make a playlist of videos you've already checked! you can make those playlists loop! my parents did not put us on the couch in front of unsupervised cable television either, which did exist at the time, even though a lot of my friends the same age did get ignored in front of a tv even if they had wealthier parents who had more free time. "people think YouTube Kids is safe" is another explanation I've heard. why? there's no reason for them to think that. no one has ever told anyone on earth that the internet is safe for kids, in fact we have all heard exactly the opposite. every pediatrician on the face of the earth has been begging parents to reduce screen time as much as possible for the past fifteen years. I don't respect that explanation, that "YouTube kids looks safe", any more than I would respect someone choosing to believe any other obviously-bullshit advertising from a major corporation.

I've also never seen any journalist try to interview the actual children who watch this stuff. are they okay? what are their daily lives like? how did this stuff first show up for them? we can make some assumptions about that, some of it is just autoplay etc but the specifics are important, including the specifics of their parents' behavior around giving them electronics access + no supervision.

the oldest elsagate kids are now old enough to post on their own and there is a thread on reddit asking them to talk about the effect the videos had on them. I'm sure a lot of them are completely fine, kids are resilient, but a lot of them self-report that they strongly feel they are not okay with it, feel they were permanently traumatized, desensitized, and that they have developed serious and intrusive paraphilias that do negatively affect their lives.

I sincerely do not get it. I just don't. it's the pathological lack of interest in your own child that really gets to me. it's weird, we let our children take any knife from the kitchen that they wanted to play with while we were making dinner and you will never guess what happened next!

[leebrontide]

This is not gonna win me a lot of friends on here but seriously a lot of y'all are irritating me lately with your gleeful piracy posts.

"Poor people deserve stories, to!" You're right. 100% Go on gumroad. There are a ton of authors, myself included, who are giving away free books there. Many of them are from the very marginalized backgrounds y'all claim to want to champion. Look for newsletter giveaways. there are literally so damn many ways to get books that come from creators who have consented to give them away. Oh, but you think anyone should be entitled to the exact book they want without paying for it? the popular book from the big publisher? That's a different thing. That's a different thing that continues to uphold ideas that the mega-corporations are the only source for good stories, that only stories vetted by the companies you claim to be rallying against have value.

"Piracy is archiving!" Archiving is archiving. I can't speak to how it works with indie videogames or what have you, but with books, this is absurd. Ok, say you illegally download a book. If it's from a huge publisher, this is nonsense cause a ton of those were printed. It is not in danger if vanishing. Say it's from a small publisher- you have now decreased that publishers chances of of continuing to print and distribute the book. You are making the book harder to locate in the future. You want to make sure a book doesn't vanish? Pay for it. If it vanishes utterly off the internet when the author dies or whatever, then yay, you have a copy and can maybe help get it back in circulation. Not paying for the book didn't help with that. You can help save an out of circulation book later just as well if you paid for it.

"Piracy is counter corporations!" See point 1. Also, a lot of the sites where you all are pirating fiction do just as much scraping of indie, self-pub, and small press books. Robin Hood wasn't stealing from the poor to give to the poor. I personally know an author whose publisher dropped them mid series because the book wasn't selling, who later found a piracy site with WAY more downloads of her book than there were legal sales. She gave up publishing after that.

This isn't sour grapes, folks. To my knowledge, my own books have never been pirated, and to be honest, over the years I've sold as many copies as a regular mid-list author with a pig publisher.

But I have watched so many authors- not wealthy people- have their work stolen from them. Many of them are disabled and really struggle with other kinds of jobs. They can do this work, but they can't make money, and this is honest to god a big part of why. I feel like people don't believe this. If you don't hang around authors maybe it's tempting to buy in to the hollywood idea of an author.

If you don't think you're entitled to demand free labor from a plumber, then why do you think you're entitled to demand free labor from an author or artist? Is it because you don't have to look them in the eye? Is it because you feel like you can get away with it? Is it because you've fallen for the fantasy that authors are wealthy people living glamorous lives, and their labor doesn't count because they're so lucky to be making a living with their art?

I don't know. And please don't defend this to me.

Just go read free books, if you can't afford to buy them and don't have library access. Or at least stop rubbing what you're doing in the faces of all the creators on this website who put a lot of hard work into the things they make.

Reblogs are nice, but reblogs accompanied by cheerful endorsements of stealing things which aren't freely given do not make for an ideal community.

[pathfinderswiftpen]

Re: Sharpe's Sword

Having read the book, I can see how the writers incorporated major aspects of it. But I have to say that Cornwell did it better.

Spoilers below

I enjoyed:

Simmerson's return from the villain vault and ambiguous end. Though making him an actual traitor felt too cliché. People can suck and still be loyal.

Weird death room and oddball who oversaw it inclusion from the book

How they adapted the Leroux to tv, even though it was very different. The subplot with Jack was So Good Ouch. And the way Sharpe handled the betrayal was so tactful. And the ACTING in that role! "El muchacho de los ojos tristes" goddamn. And his knowing Leroux and having to pretend ignorance for Honor's Sake? For his life's sake? Good Soup!

Harris. Harris. Spends all night reading. Looks surprised to see dawn. Small "oh shit oh well" face journey. Extinguishing candles. Big fucking same, Harris. I could make an entire post on how alike I feel (and look, fr fr) to Harris (Hey Harris I like your gender, wanna trade? I saw @chiropteracupola 's hc about transfem!Harris and now she lives rent free in my head. Riflewoman Harris can have 85% of my dresses and jewelry. And free access to all of my books of course) BUT ALSO Harris's handling of Simmerson and quoting Candide at him? *Chefs Kiss*

HAGMAN! "Permission to speak sir? Best paper and paraffin oil. For your wound, sir." Excellent callback to ep1. And his singing to all the little kids!

Harper <3 One of the best things in the book is how Harper made Sharpe a new sword, and while it was a bit different this way, he still put in Effort. Plus the priest's trick at the end was a bit funny. If cheap. Plus his face at "Good! You'll serve mass Sunday" (took me a hot second to figure it out but imagining Harper in one of those white robes was a bit amusing). Sharpe and Harper arguing about washing the tunics. LOL but also get over yourselves

Ramona standing up for herself! And Harper's caring about how she'd be treated in Ireland. I just love Ramona (Also one of the very few attractive people in the entire show. I said what I said.)

Unnamed Woman making Simmerson fear for his life and leading him by the literal nose! Goddamn! Weaponize the patronization and infantilization! Sharpe's respecting of her.

Artist dude drawing at dinner. Relate. also a red herring for El mirador, if downplayed

BAGPIPES BAGPIPES BAGPIPES but also dude you have a practice chanter for a fucking reason. The guy with earplugs 🤣

Leroux pulling a Stephen Maturin. His actor did well too, the Complete Switch in pretending to be a Poor Captain vs Defiant Colonel

DUELS!! It was fun watching Fr Whatshisface rip Simmerson to shreds. Also I want to (ohgod I'm aware how this can sound) handle his blade. Spanish fencing swords mwah. Also Sharpe and Leroux visibly getting less abled, Sharpe having to stop in the middle of the charge *hugs* as a disabled person who loves a good charge and fight but just Can't or if I do I nap and feel like shit for hours

Disliked:

Portrayal of women. I don't need to get into it. There's So Much.

Watching duels choreographed for a screen is really painful as a former fencer. "You are both WAY TOO FUCKING CLOSE!! Don't parry that, DISENGAGE!"

I'll be silly and mention the chartreuse jackets XD (I just don't like them)

SO MUCH of the book was ANGST about Sharpe's condition and it did exist here but not as viscerally. Give me Harper as a nursemaid. I'm begging you. I know we've had it but I want more. "There once was a lassie from Lisbon, from Lisbon..."

There was more but life's too short!

Overall I think this one is in the rewatch pile.

P.S. the Priest's singing. My poor ears. Though Sharpe's Tears (ha-ha) I did love that bit.

If you read this far, I am shaking you by the hand and offering to share my tea.

[icharchivist]

i do love that when Barret confronts President Shinra about how Shinra is exploiting the planet to generate electricity and stuff, the President just replies "oh sure you accuse us, but who benefits of it? if you weren't taking advantage of it, we wouldn't be doing it!" and Barret rightfully gets angry because "don't you dare pinning that on us!"

like. it's like Barret and the President recreated the "we should improve society somewhat" "and yet you live in society. curious."

like it's the classic way that the system continue to exist because people cannot live outside of this system, but instead of blaming the system we blame the people who have no other choice but to rely on the system.

And the game irrevocably take Barret's side, as it should

but i also find it even more interesting when you think about the implications of the plate, and actually it's making me forgive the way too long lamp section because it does push its point forward.

Midgar is built on two layers, they put a plate on top of the city, and the rich lives on top of the plate and the poor lives in the under city where they can't see the sky (i do think the remake made the undercity too bright but that's another point all together)

But at least the lamp section showed us that Shinra basically placed huge lamps under the plate so that they would "look like the sun" for the people living in the undercity, and since the whole quest is about disabling the lamps because they took too much power and you need power to access the elevator, it shows exactly that Shinra is creating a demand for something that shouldn't even exist to start with.

like yeah, they need Mako to light up the whole city, and those living in the undercity needs the light produced by Mako energy, because else they'll never see the light of the sun! obviously! As if the fact the undercity cannot see the sun isn't Shinra's fault to start with.

Like in the end with this exploration time, it really gives you an idea of how the energy that's being generated from the planet's abuse is used on things that wouldn't even exist if this exploitation wasn't going on t start with.

I'm forgiving the super long lamp section that made me mad actually i see what the point is and it's brilliant and it works very well at painting Shinra as bad guys in the most accurately capitalistic way while also really showing you how they're full of lies and that Barret is right.

[deviantartdramahub]

Goddamn does this loser think they're cool by repeatedly saying the R-slur to offend all people with mental disabilities/disorders?? Nah dumbass you're just proving me right lmao! https://web.archive.org/web/20240524072337/https://www.deviantart.com/liesoft/status-update/The-retard-tangent-continues-As-1055575468 Why must you make creepy comments when people stand up for each other and shit? You defended Evie in the past, so does that mean you simp for her?? XD

And because I stand up for Tri and Club, do I apparently simp for them by your standards?? Despite the fact I'm a minor?? Oops looks like the real predator's been exposed. And if you don't want me saying these things about you, maybe you shouldn't have made that stupid argument. :)

Anyways just one more, we can get through this friendos https://web.archive.org/web/20240524175756/https://www.deviantart.com/liesoft/status-update/More-retarded-shit-presented-by-1055638063 Anyways once again saying I'm not allowed to defend myself for being a minor, which def gives off groomer vibes.

And idk if you want me to call you out for something new, ig go commit horrific war crimes or smth.../j

But that little comment just proves you only do this for entertainment, and you think being a terrible person is fun, I suppose. Sooo...what makes you think anyone with functioning brain cells would trust and believe you? Not gonna happen dear. I would tell you to have fun building an army of morons, butttt no one ever likes or replies to your post except for Evie one time...likeee you two losers are the only ones who care about supporting your idiotic slander/libel anymore, just go do something productive with your lives...but I guess you ruined that chance when you chose to spam slurs on social media :P

Also I don't give two fucks if you're reported, you could have all internet access permanently removed and I wouldn't give a damn. In fact I'd laugh my ass off. What I DO care about is that saying those things is morally wrong, and also I'm making fun of you for proving my point right. >w<

And ohh, ig because many other people do it, it's okay? Nah honey that's not how it works, do you think murder is slightly more okay to do every time someone does it? I'm using an extreme here to hopefully make you realize how fucking dumb your point is. Ohh nooo saying ableist things and harassing disabled people for existing is ableist? Noooo :c

You poor little thing, you're just a victim, aren't you?/s

And this drama absolutely involves me, tf you talking about. I was first dragged in to this drama for defending my friend. And I have plenty of examples of you and your allies spewing shit about me. All Ninja did to me was DEFEND me! Why are you trying to manipulate me into not trusting them when all they did was stand up for me? So pathetic. Ninja's been nothing but helpful and supportive towards me whenever we interacted. And then you...? Straight up ableist to me, yeah I sureee wonderrr who I'm trusting in this situation! Oh dear, guess I'll have to use my critical thinking skills which you lack! -n-

We got through another one troopers, let's see what bullshit we'll deal with tomorrow evening! But anyways I'm gonna go spend my time on something that actually brings me joy until I'm once again forced to defend myself :>

One can only hope the answer to the first question isn't yes.

[medicinemane]

And maybe you'll be like "but if you don't trust businesses, how can you trust welfare?"

I fucking don't. My mom trying to get on food stamps fucked me up because a lady I never met without my permission got my SSN from my mom and started editing my files. My heart still races to this very second whenever I think about it, it kinda messed me up bad and I'll never ever ever see any kind of recourse

And I'm terrified that I'm gonna lose my medicaid just cause I inherited some money from my grandpa

And I've never even applied for disability cause it kinda doesn't matter finding out if I'd qualify or not cause of my depression, when the rules are so restrictive I don't know if I've even be allowed to keep my house

I do not fucking trust these things on a personal level. I feel like out of a lot of people I have the most to fear from them cause I'm on the edge of having things work, and that gets you punished

...but I need medicaid in order to have insurance (and when you strip out the finance side of medicaid, I love medicaid... they're honestly incredible insurance... I just... I just... dental is like 90% of why medicaid is so important to me, ever since I found out this state pays for it I've actually been able to do cleanings which is important to me cause I can't always get myself to brush)

And I think things like disability and food stamps are pretty damn important on a personal level, and honestly are also good for the economy cause they get people spending... it's practically a free cash infusion into the economy, cause these are people who need to buy stuff

There's just so much important stuff welfare does that it's worth dealing with government

No, what I want is more accountability so if someone gets my SSN from a 3rd party like my mom they're held to HIPPA styles standards where that's not ok to access my files without my permission (She changed my fucking address and tried to get medicaid to investigate me for fraud! Never even met me)

Like have some accountability there and in every situation

Secondly I want less punitive focused rules. I'd frankly prefer bezos get on disability than smack down some poor sod cause they got $2000 in the bank or cause their friend lets them live with them for free

If there's gonna be a cut off on these programs, it needs to be a solid step above the poverty line, cause... by definition I assume poverty line denotes kinda the minimum expected income people can reasonably live off of, and if you take away benefits people are gonna lose a chunk of money to covering that stuff themself, so you need a buffer before you kick people off

I don't fucking trust the government for a second, I've actively been fucked by them and on a personal level I avoid everything but medicaid and only that cause everything but the money is pleasant to deal with and I kinda need it (honestly if I was rich I'm not even kidding that I'd rather give medicaid like $400 a month than some insurance company, I sincerely like them as insurance)

But I'd trust them a lot more if they were less punitive, less out to hunt me down and gut me cause someone handed me a fiver or cause I started to get on my feet, and if government employees had concrete rules they had to follow that were actually transparent and enforced

Like 90% of my problems with welfare go away if they're held accountable and there's less "catch the welfare cheats" mentality going around

I don't trust the government in the slightest, but sadly there some jobs it kinda has to do, so I'd just rather force it to be an open book where the public can keep an eye on it and if they step out of line there's consequences (sort of like I don't trust most mega corps but happen to sometimes need stuff from them... did you know literally every cell service provider has been illegally selling shit like your location data to random people like bounty hunters, and the FCC just slapped them with a fine that's 0.02% of their yearly incomes and debated even doing that? I even can offer a source on that)

...I don't trust much of any authority cause they constantly fail me and kinda screw me. Don't trust doctors either, but I still gotta go to them, you know? ...they're just... they're real bad at listening... so many systems need systemic change

(You know who I really don't trust is the cops. I could point to so many examples. My uncle doesn't trust cops either, and he's an ex Fire and SWAT paramedic, he worked with them and we still got into a long conversation where he basically tore into them far better than I can)

(I don't trust authority that's not accountable)

[ashleywool]

if you’re down for another long ramble: tell us about your current fave book or a book you think everyone should read :)

Everybody says "don't judge a book by its cover," but I will freely admit, when The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson came up on my Scribd recommendations, the first thing that drew me in were the boots worn by the model on the cover.

I mean. Look at those sweet boots. Look at this Pinterest-perfect cottagecore ensemble. Look at that exquisitely weathered pair of books wrapped in sisal twine. You can almost smell those books. That "old book" smell. You know the smell I'm talking about.

Anyway, once I dug past my lizard brain's "o wao pretty picture" reaction, I saw that Dolly Parton named it as her favorite read of the year in 2021. I don't usually put much stock in celebrity endorsements in and of themselves, but I think we can all agree that, if any celebrity out there has generally and universally-applicable good taste, it's Dolly Parton. So, I started reading.

I loved it from the first few pages. The story centers on a young woman, Cussy May Carter, who lives with her coal-mining father in the Appalachian mountains of east Kentucky. In the wake of her mother's death, her father risking his job (and his life) to unionize his fellow miners, and her social unfitness for marriage due to her blue skin--more on that later--Cussy May takes a job with the Pack Horse Library Project. The project was part of the job-creating initiatives of the Works Progress Administration, a federal agency established by FDR as part of the Second New Deal to create jobs for unemployed Americans (particularly those with little or no formal education) working on public works projects.

For Cussy May, that job entails riding her mule into the most remote parts of the mountains to deliver books, newspapers, periodicals, and sometimes academic schooling materials to communities with limited access to these resources. Cussy May comes from a family carrying a rare recessive gene that causes the blood disorder methemoglobinemia, which gives her skin a distinctive blue tint. She faces considerable ostracism and discrimination because of this.

So basically, we have a poor, socially ostracized woman with a rare disease telling the story of how she finds community and a more profound sense of identity and meaning in her life by increasing accessibility of information and enrichment to other poor, sick, and/or disabled people scratching and crawling their way through life after the Great Depression trying to survive and maybe even thrive. For me, that alone checks an impressive amount of boxes of "stuff I find interesting." Add in the story of her father, a heroic UNIONIZER (y'all know how much I love unions) risking his life and health and basically everything he has for the cause of a better environment and better treatment for his colleagues? You sold me. SOLD. ME.

I've always gravitated towards woman-centered historical fiction (shout-out to my girl Samantha Parkington and the OG American Girls historical fiction series), but I was surprised at how much actual American history I became aware of for the first time because of this book. The Pack Horse Librarian Project was a REAL THING that people REALLY DID and I'm genuinely angry that I didn't learn about it in school--not even in AP US History, where my best friend and I did an in-depth project on the New Deal. Thinking back on it, though, our textbooks presented us with a very shallow (and frankly, classist and imperialist) understanding of the history of the American economy, and what it meant to have a healthy or progressive economy. Their metrics were based on the rich white people in the major cities--not the poor blue people in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

Oh yeah, and the blue people of Kentucky were also real--and I suppose technically they still are, since methemoglobinemia still exists, but we now have a better (and less prejudiced) understanding of the condition and how to treat it effectively. But again, these are not things that we covered in our bougie-adjacent northern Westchester education.

One thing that I particularly appreciated about this story was that it focused on a woman having and fulfilling an industrious purpose in her life that had nothing to do with pursuing or prioritizing a romantic or sexual relationship. There is an excellent love story interweaved, but it's not The Point Of The Thing, and the author also doesn't do that annoying virtue-signaling thing of hitting you over the head with the fact that the love story is not The Point Of The Thing.

Sidebar: It's honestly incredible (and annoying) how rare it is for adult-oriented literature to deprioritize (if not exclude) romantic/sexual story arcs for adult women. That may be one reason why, when people ask me about my favorite books, the ones that come to mind first are the iconic YA classics we read in middle school (e.g. The Giver) that traumatized the butterfly clips right out of our hair--but like, in a good way.

Anyway, I won't give any more of it away, but I honestly can't think of any reason why the majority of the types of people who follow me here wouldn't enjoy the heck outta this book. I mean, we all love stories that champion accessibility and education and community and overcoming systemic oppression and prejudice, right?

Or, if nothing else, we all love a sweet pair of boots.

[bigjimbopickens]

Hi! I wanna say I love your art first of all! I just read the message under your last post about Kevin’s art video and you said you’re mostly self taught - I’m curious about how you get into that? I’d love to learn to draw but have no idea where to start!

Sorry for getting back to this so late I am not as active on Tumblr. And yes, I am mostly self-taught because of my circumstances growing up. To those who don't know, I am SnowfallWarning/Big Jimbo and I am currently an animation student. I do 2D animation, concept art and character design and I graduate this year (hopefully). I am disabled both physically and mentally which is why I mostly do digital art. I have a coordination disorder (dyspraxia) and am blind in one eye but that doesn't stop me. For my entire childhood I was discouraged from drawing as I apparently wouldn't go anywhere with it or that I was terrible. Where I lived most of my life had no opportunities for someone like me so I had to leave to continue pursuing art. Because of the poor access, the only things I had was notebooks, school supplies and an old iPad mini to draw with growing up. I learned everything I currently know now from using those. I don't know what got me into drawing still, may have been Warrior Cats and dinosaurs. Like what Jose said in Kevin's video, art comes from the soul. It is human expression and we've always been doing it. Anyone can be an artist and we all start somewhere, trust me. Here's some stuff I usually tell people because I do get asked this often (I'm also not the best teacher): 1: Experiment. Find what works for you. Be messy with it, not every piece needs to be perfect. If you are a digital artist then also trying different programs can be helpful too. Maybe you're better at drawing landscapes, characters or abominations that defy God. 2: Use references if necessary. Not sure why for a while it was considered "cheating" to use references. Everyone in the industry uses references, I would know. If you also want, you can try tutorials but I found I learn more from references. 3: Take inspiration. I'm always adding things I see in other people's art to my own style if I like it. Though try not to copy them. 4: Tracing. I believe tracing is okay for learning purposes. It's how I learned to draw humans after doing exclusively furry art for years tbh. I tend to stick to real-life references for this, this is a great site for practice: https://line-of-action.com (if you're not okay with nudity then do remember to turn that off). "But where do I even start?" Grab a piece of paper and pencil (or open a blank canvas on a digital art program if you prefer that) and just start doodling whatever. If you have an idea then go for that as well. Every class I've had in college so far has started with drawing and rendering a bunch of shapes to see where everyone was at and to get a feel of our styles. So maybe try that too. Draw random shapes with different materials/brushes, colour them in and add details like shadows and highlights. I know it seems ridiculous but I do it every once in a while to experiment and try different methods. You probably won't improve overnight. Hell, it took me 7 years to get to where I currently am. A lot of people quit because they think they're not good enough when pretty much every artist is only proud of about 10% of their work. Definitely the case for me. Not every piece is going to be a masterpiece and the imperfections can be what makes it special, so please don't be so hard on yourself. Don't be discouraged because other artists may be better than you either, they've probably been doing it for longer. So please, if you are dedicated enough, keep trying. I'm sure you will get somewhere :) So basically, - Use whatever material you got and draw what comes to mind, even if it's terrible it is a great start. - Experiment with your style and/or materials. - Reference, take inspiration and trace for memory. - Don't give up but do take breaks to avoid burnout. - Try not to be intimidated by other artists, we also don't really know what we're doing tbh (and just as afraid of you as you are of us).

I hope that all made sense and was somewhat helpful :)

[hussyknee]

I'll never get over how much privilege the damn chicken shit shit shows and the fucking perspectives they give like. "It's just a chicken sandwich. If you can't live without it, you're not a true ally. It doesn't even taste that good!!! So you're just hurting people for a some basic chicken sandwitch!!!" I'm so glad you think everything has the ability to make decisions on what to eat like that, that there couldnt possible be any reason, that maybe thats all there is around some people. I'm disabled, I can not cook most of the time, and i can't pay for my own food most of the time and even when I can options are extremely limited because I'm dead broke and disabled. There is a demon chicken place near me and the salads are higher quality than the ones at McDonald's if they even carry salads anymore. So sorry for eating a dirty chicken sandwich when there are times I can't even buy an item I want when I AM paying because the abled person with me decided to be controlling. So sorry I buy the Demon chicken because it's what's on the way home that isn't the over priced local place with a thousand mile line. So sorry not everyone can fucking cook at home.

*hugs* I hate how many times that post came up on my dash. This is exactly the case with food franchise joints– it's a matter of access, especially for poor and disabled people. I'll never understand people who're like "yeah yeah no ethical consumption under capitalism EXCEPT for <cherry picked example of mass consumption>".

Ngl, "demon chicken" made me laugh. 😂

We don't have Chick-fil-A in my country, and fast food is an expensive treat for us, but I know that they're aimed at a lower earning, overworked class demographic in the West. I have a really difficult relationship with making food choices and feeding myself, especially when I'm in a flare or stressed out or really depressed and will live off literally anything that will deliver cheap enough or on my way home, which are not a lot of choices given that I live in Bumfuck, Suburbia.

But also like....why are these people singling Chick-fil-A and not Nestlé or Coca Cola or child slavery chocolate or Chiquita or or or. My country's main exports are tea, coffee, textiles and spices. Do y'all know how those workers are treated? Which multinationals send refuse back to dump in our country, so that our soil and water are poisoned and our people die from disease? Why is funding homophobic lobbies in the West worse than literally killing BIPOC (with death squads in Nestlé's case)? That's what I think about every single time I see those posts. That my people's deaths are unavoidable, but if everyone doesn't make an exception for this one brand or issue, then we're all --phobes and --ists who don't care. And what's special about that issue? It also impacts white people in the West. The minute white middle class folks are affected it becomes an international emergency.

And yeah, the BIPOC also affected can ride in on those coat tails, but they're not gonna benefit from white allyship. They'll be trotted out to buttress their talking points when it's convenient and then promptly forgotten about and left just as disenfranchised once the white middle class element get theirs. "But it affects me and I'm not white!" and yet they're the only reason you're able to choose guilting and shaming as your advocacy tactic. If guilting and shaming worked for Black, brown and working class people's issues we wouldn't have half our problems. The reason we don't choose that approach is because it has never in the history of activism worked. The reason it's specifically a white middle class tactic is that they're so used to the world bending down for them that they can't fathom that it won't once they're part of a marginalised group. That, and it does work– on people as or more vulnerable than they are. Shaming and guilting and ostracizing is about the illusion of power, not emancipation. Emancipation involves solidarity building, mutual aid, education and harm reduction. The current state of leftism in the West can be blamed directly on the fact that middle class whites found themselves sharing socio-economic oppressions with BIPOC (always overrepresented in the working class) and immediately pushed themselves to the forefront of every issue. And then Western BIPOC absorbed all that hyperindividualist neoliberalism and respectability politics.

Eat your fill of whatever food you can procure, friend. The demons aren't in the chicken. They're in the system that overworks and underpays people, guts disabled and social welfare, plan your cities so that all you can reach are chain stores, and prices out the rest of the competition. They're in the legislative system where it's legal to create and fund lobbies to take away human rights.

[ina-nis]

If AvPD were to be considered a disability, what kind of accomodations and considerations (both reasonable and unreasonable) would you like to see societally and interpersonally?

I don't know about others but for me, AvPD is a disability. It's a chronic, invisible disorder that impairs my ability to exist around others and interact with people, causing extreme distress as a result.

The short answer is: going beyond "awareness" and mental wellness campaigns, giving people resources (money, housing, etc), giving people spaces to be and encouraging them to socialize, treatment with focus on social wellness and not only for one to be fit for working, a complete change in the employment issue (utopian and unlikely but I don't really see another way out), safe and accessible mental health spaces in school/college/university/etc all year long, fighting systemic and socio-cultural ableism (people with personality disorders are not evil, many consider themselves ill and need help, not isolation or ostracism).

The long answer hopefully won't be too long, bear with me:

Looking at my own situation, I think it would be great if I didn't have to fight and stress myself out to get (and stay) on government benefits/welfare because I would like to not starve or be homeless - I know, depending on where you are, there's no such thing so I count myself as "lucky".

Most if not all school and/or employment programs are aimed towards neurotypical people (and it's even harder to get specific services if you're queer, immigrant, Black, etc). Employment is a special kind of torment for an avoidant to go through, the job seeking process, the anxiety of waiting for call backs, emails and interviews is unmatched and, at least to me, it's a trigger for suicidal ideation.

I don't really have or see a solution out of this specific issue. Employment is difficult for everyone, it is a competition and there will be a winner and a loser. You can guess who the "loser" will be between someone without X someone with AvPD.

I really wish the focus of treatment wouldn't be so much on "being fit to function in society" because that almost always mean getting a job - I have lost count of how many avoidants I've seen working dead end jobs and being trapped, extremely unhappy, on the top of dealing with a Personality Disorder, because they don't have any other option.

About schools... well, also talking from experience, they served more to try to fit people into boxes to be tame and good workers, and less to learn how to be humans and do things that don't involve... working 9-5, 40+ hours a week.

Depending on which school you're attending to, mental health services will be nonexistent or of really poor quality (that's almost a given considering how bullying is widespread). More than bringing awareness for mental health, depression, anxiety, burnout... there should be programs in place throughout the school year in which students would be able to access, and very importantly, giving them some sort of anonymity (if they so desire) and a safe space for them to come forward and speak without getting their family involved (again, if they so desire).

I guess the same applies for post secondary education too. It would be extremely valuable if students had access to resources and spaces that deal with mental health, with professionals at a low cost or for free.

Socially, I believe for as long as we're living in a world where Personality Disorders are demonized, where things such as "narcissistic abuse" is not only very common (even between mental health professionals) but also a acceptable concept, we won't have much progress regarding the treatment of AvPD and PDs in general.

So many characteristics of people with AvPD are considered social red flags, so much of that "self-fulfilling prophecy" is how about social isolation fosters more social exclusion, and social exclusion fosters more isolation - where one is left to fend for themselves and fix the problem that is social in nature, on their own. It doesn't make any sense.

Mental health treatments are not cheap nor accessible, so there's also that. Definitely something that would need change ASAP. They also focus too much on individual faults, behaviours and cognition, when, yes these can contribute to the problem, they're not the whole picture.

There's need for more specific research, and more professionals to be actually interested in investing time and money into this disorder, to see what lies beyond Social Anxiety, and so on.

There's need for resources, both financial and social, so that people can pick up and try to re-start or re-build (or start and build) their lives at any point. And spaces in which people can co-exist and be encouraged to socialize.

I've heard it so, so many times, and it's so exhausting... yes, getting new hobbies is a good way to cope, even more if they're social hobbies. But I don't think I have enough motivation to pick a social hobby when my solitary ones serve me just as well. I believe that's probably the case for a lot of other avoidants, too. So how can one make social hobbies, and social spaces more welcoming for people with AvPD? That's a very good question.

I cannot stress this enough: AvPD is a disorder of social issues, not only individual. Treating a person without looking what goes beyond the person is bound to be a failure. When you go past anxiety, when you go past the social skills issues, when you go past the self-imposed isolation, supposedly, lies success. But if anything, I'm the living proof that there's need to be more than... me, for things to work and to be maintained.

[duskaris]

This post has been circling around Twitter and I just want to share my thoughts on it in a longer form rant addressing each of their points with ideas for world building of how that could work in a high fantasy setting.

First off, their beginning statement is just wrong. There are lots of reasons to have a disabled person within a fantasy setting. To say otherwise is (1) ablest and (2) very poor world building. Then again, their definition of high fantasy seems to be limited to one where magic is easily accessible and basically limitless, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are just not creative rather than ablest.

In world building terms this boils down to a few different factors. First, can magic do the thing. Second, does the person have access to the magic. Third, do they want the magic to be used. Basically physical, economical, cultural. Every fantasy world will have limits on its magic or rules about how it works. For example, if you cut off a limb and use healing magic on the wound, does the limb grow back or just heal over? If its the latter, congrats you have a disabled fantasy character. See how easy that was? Time can also be a factor here, maybe magic can heal an injury that just happened but once the body heals on its own that's now the baseline for where magic can heal them to. The economic factor ties into this as well. Most the time in fantasy not everyone is able to do any type of magic. Sometimes its bloodlines, sometimes its taught, sometimes its random, but regardless there will likely be people rural enough that there is no healer nearby or if its rare enough then working class will simply be unable to afford it. The cultural aspect is if people can heal the injury and are available to do it, does the injured person want to be healed. Maybe they don't trust magic, antivaxx-esque, or come from a culture of warriors who believe in keeping their battle scars as sources of pride.

Broken bones are an injury that if properly treated will heal naturally. In my own world Blades of Treason this would be treated with minor healing potions to ease pain and accelerate the healing, but there will still be a period of healing. Basically injuries that will heal on their own may not need or be worth using the world's healing magic on. In the meantime, the person will still need some sort of mobility device, even if its not a permanent necessity.

Paralysis is a bit more complicated medically and how this comes into the effectiveness of magic will vary based on the source of the paralysis. Maybe if it was an acquired illness or injury that caused paralysis it can be healed, but a genetic cause cannot. Maybe like in point 1, if it can heal on its own magic will help, but if it will never heal on its own magic won't bypass that. There are also the economic and social aspects I already touched on above. And this is me just spit-balling here, there are so many reasons someone may still be disabled in a fantasy universe.

Controlling a flight spell and casting a fireball at your enemies may be difficult or even impossible depending on the magic system. If a spell requires concentration to be used than multitasking is just infeasible. I do really like the idea of a mage who can't walk using a flight spell to move themselves around in everyday scenarios while needing a wheelchair if too tired to spell cast or in combat situations to concentrate on other spells.

This is the only (partially) reasonable critique this person gives. Accessibility devices should probably look like they were made with the technology of the rest of the fantasy world. A dwarven tech based wheelchair can be possible in your setting and is sick as fuck. Historically, canes and crutches are relatively easy to craft from branches and wheels aren't exactly a new invention either. Having a cart pushed or carried by others or pulled by animals is also a very low tech solution. Mobility aids are not a modern invention and were certainly possible to make if they don't look quite the same as we are used to today. Animal with saddle attached is also an option, although it would require a specialized saddle (I believe Bran had something like this in Game of Thrones, but I've only seen clips of the show so don't come at me if I'm off). Still possible and setting appropriate though.

It is impossible to tell a story without conflict. The type of conflict can vary but there must be some level of stakes. They only way I can see the type of world they suggest working within a story is a more slice of life comedy style story where life or death stakes rarely, if ever, come into play. If you're going for a more serious story line, unlimited healing is a detriment rather than an asset. Magic does not have to be extremely rare or dangerous in order for disabled characters to exist. With a little bit of creativity (y'know, like what fantasy is based on) there are literally infinite ways you can explain having disabled characters while still having an extensive magic system. And all that I've written is about how non-magic disabilities interact with magic, I haven't even touched on how magic caused disabilities may interact with other magic.