#like it’s the future. there should be all kinds of options for people disabled in terrible radiation accidents?

[fluorescentbrains]

one issue with re-treading tos era trek that is perhaps minor but is very annoying to me personally is you get disconnects like having medical tech that can temporarily alter people at the genetic level to disguise them as aliens, but if you get fried by delta radiation there’s just no treatment that can mitigate any of the effects, and also hospice care is apparently still a horrifying nightmare even in this advanced utopian future. like pike’s prospects should not be this miserable. he should expecting a flying wheelchair at the bare minimum

[rjalker]

How many times do we have to go over this.

Lets put it this way:

Bob absolutely loathes peppers and cannot tolerate eating them, or even eating anything cooked in the same oven with them.

Sally likes peppers, but enjoys any kind of pizza, whether it has peppers on it or not.

The two of them, pooling their money together, only have enough money to buy one pizza. There's not enough to get two pizzas, even if they're two small ones.

They both have to agree on, and eat, the same pizza.

Sally insists that they have to get a pizza with peppers on it, because Sally likes peppers, even though she'd be just as happy to eat a pizza without any.

Sally knows that if they get a pizza with peppers on it, Bob won't be able to eat any of it, even if there's only peppers on half of it, because the taste will infuse the whole pizza while it's in the oven.

The only compromise here that benefits both of them, and harms neither of them, is if they buy a pizza without peppers on it. Sally will not be harmed by not eating a pizza without peppers, but Bob will be harmed if peppers are on the pizza.

Literally the only solution here is to buy a pizza that does not have peppers on it. Bob will get to eat, and so will Sally, and they will both be happy.

But Sally does not want the option that benefits them both. She does not want the option that lets them both have food they enjoy. Sally is an inconsiderate jackass, so she wants that option that will hurt Bob and leave him with nothing to eat.

So, out of spite, Sally calls the pizza place after they've both agreed to order a cheese pizza, telling the pizza place to ignore what their order instructions said, and to pile on as many peppers as they have instead.

If you use your status as part of a minority group speak over people who are harmed by bigotry you don't care either way about, you are a fucking bigoted jackass.

If you're autistic and assure allistic people that they can and should just ignore autistic and intellectually disabled people who tell them the R slur is a literal slur and shouldn't be used, because you think it's fun to use as an insult, you're an ableist jackass.

If you're Jewish and you assure someone who's being informed that making "lizard people secretly in charge of the government" jokes that they can just ignore all the Jewish people telling them how harmful this is, because you, personally, think these jokes are funny and harmless, you're an antisemetic jackass.

If you're trans or nonbinary and you assure someone who's misgendered someone online that they don't need to correct the misgendering by editing the posts, despite the trans and nonbinary people /literally begging/ the person to fix the posts, because you think it's harmless and a waste of time to correct misgendering, you are a fucking transmisic and exorsexist jackass.

And the list goes on, and on, and on.

If you are not fucking affected by something in any way, then you do not get to fucking speak over the people who are harmed by it, who are working to educate people so that they are not harmed again in the future.

[voidsentprinces]

Think more games should just start with straight, curly, wavy, and everything in between options from the get go especially if it supports PoC's representation in media and video gaming as a whole. Same goes with gender diversity and relationship diversity in media writing to allow for more LGBT+ representation in media. Ideally these things would be baked in from the get go. World might not be an ideal world but it shouldn't stop us as creatives from making it that way.

Its like that one post about if a kid smiles at you, you should smile back so we can make the world a kinder better place. Not so much that you would be getting anything grand out of it or life isn't cruel its that we should be working towards a place where life didn't always be cruel, it could be kind and pleasant, happy and mostly free of strife. Bad things would still happen, no one can predict or 100% deal with cancer, immune deficient diseases, or chronic pain to fully cure stuff. But, it doesn't mean we can't make the world gentler to those afflicted to such things and even those who aren't.

We live in a world resistant to change that the future requires and requests. I vaguely recall from the time period between when I went to Middle to High School. People being gay, lesbian, etc. was like you basically walked up to someone and killed their dog or something akin to the atrocity. There were entire fucking marches through my small town of no real note to keep gay marriage from happening. Even at the time I felt that was fucking ridiculous. The following ten years was making it okay for two women or men to hold hands or kiss in an animated television show. Cause lord won't you please think of the children.

Despite all the resistance this world provides us, at least in America, I dunno how Germany, the Netherlands, Chad, Angola, the Phillippines, or Taiwan feel about this subject or how they've been dealing with it, we should be making the world more welcoming and representative of all its people within the certain limits that we are not providing a platform for dictatorship and fascist ideals that will strip a person of all rights while glorifying the legacy and power of a singular man or group of men whose selfishness absorbs an entire country and causes its people to suffer intentionally through ignorance or apathy.

But, with the stresses of the today's world. We cannot all be made to charge the metaphorical beaches of Normandy for the cause. Some of us haven't the mental, emotional or even physical bandwidth to champion good causes in an active manner. But we still feel it strongly even if we do not have the words to describe it. And as social creatures, humans will be passionate and want to communicate it. If they cannot, we wish to at least be validated in causes we hold fast to even if we are not at liberty to fully express it for whatever reason.

So just like...break even with us and give people, particularly those of the LGBT+, People with Disabilities and PoC and their intersection representation in options of hairstyle, skin tone, romantic or lack thereof exploration/representation and the options to give people the option to like turn on a color blind mode or a certain control set up to allow stuff like...Dark Souls to be more welcoming to them.

I dunno exactly who I am talking to in making this post I just have THOUGHTS after the recent FFXIV Hairstyle Competition. And the thought was mostly, "Why did we have to hold a contest to get some of these hair styles? Why weren't they in the game to begin with?" probably resources. But like...still, ya know?

Sorry for the tangent. I think therefore I Void.

[mogai-sunflowers]

y'know, i've been visiting your account for awhile.. and this isn't limited to your most recent post: if you're struggling that much with your weight and it feeling like a "gut punch" in regards to your transition and how it likely won't be available, try exercising, doing runs, going to the gym and going on a diet? it's not easy at all, it's harder than it should be, especially with your present disorders, which will difficult your path all the way through: but it def will help, even if just a little bit. you've got to try, or atleast attempt yourself doing it. ik it's kinda repetitive knowning that somebody has (probably) already told you this, but believe me— it's worth it. this world also doesn't care for anyone who is genuinely fat, which doesn't necessarily mean you should lose weight for that- it just means that the world is unfair and even the biggest differences affect everything/nothing. promotion in positivity towards individuals of these sizes will be ever so slightly affective, especially towards those whose health is at risk (for their eating methods). i'm just worried abt you, sorry if this seems disrespectful. i genuinely hope you get better, sending my love to you. ❤

hey anon, i'm not particularly upset with you because i can tell how genuine this was and believe me, i do appreciate deeply how you care.

that being said, it's generally pretty disrespectful to tell someone to do those things to lose weight, for whatever reason, especially when they're in the middle of a mental health crisis. i'm not saying this to make you feel bad, just saying that i and many others don't particularly appreciate being told these kinds of things when we already feel bad about our bodies.

for me personally, all of the things you mentioned are not feasible for me for many different reasons. i can't do most, if any, diets, because I have really bad ARFID due to my autism, so most of my diet is literally the only foods i can eat without constantly throwing up. i can't eat most vegetables for that reason, and i also tend to get very anxious with diets because they feel restrictive, which is actually the number one trigger for my binging episodes.

i cannot drive most places because i get too overstimulated on the road that it's legitimately dangerous for me to be doing so, so i can't drive myself to a gym, because the nearest gym to me is only accessible via highway, and i have inner ear issues so i get carsick at highway speeds so wouldn't be able to drive myself there. additionally, my executive dysfunction is so debilitating that many days, it can feel like climbing Mt. Everest just to make myself a bowl of cereal- working out is about 100 times harder than that on my executive dysfunction- and that's not even getting into how workouts make you sweat a lot, and I have really bad sensory issues with getting sweaty (and can't really shower on my own, which would pretty much be required after every work out)

i also very likely have an undiagnosed physical disability, because i cannot stand or walk longer than 10-15 minutes without my entire body hurting like hell, so consistent runs and exercise would be quite difficult for me.

i know there's no way you could have known any of those personal details about me, so i'm not in any way faulting you for that. but they're my reality and i have to live with the reality that almost all conventional modes of weight loss are not an option for me. my best bet is to stick to my current personal eating disorder recovery plan which has actually been a blessing, and work harder than ever on accepting who i am without having to change myself to do so. i won't lie, it's a steep uphill battle. but i actually have many more good days with my body image than i do bad ones, so that keeps my hopes up most of the time.

so yeah, for future reference, it's a bit insensitive to give fat people unsolicited weight loss tips, especially if they're in times of crisis (believe me, i've heard enough of those tips from doctors who never even bothered to ask my opinion /lighthearted). but i do truly appreciate your caring and hope you have a great day /genuine

[vh4mp]

Hey this is Velyana on a different account, sorry for the disappearance.

I won’t be able to understand the situation with your job or your parents, but please, please, PLEASE, do not commit suicide and please don’t harm yourself in anyway.

I understand thinking or feeling that way, I have been for such a long time, especially recently, but please know that feeling is not forever. Life is so hard and it can be brutal and sometimes you can’t runaway or bottle up the things it makes you feel, but it is never worth it to harm yourself. It will make you feel worse and worse and it feels impossible to get out of that way of thinking.

It’s not just a way of thinking of course, thoughts about suicide will plague your life basically, and you can barely get your mind off them. But PLEASE, regardless of what you’re thinking, do not commit suicide.

Even if it doesn’t seem like it, it will hurt so many people and so many people will forever miss you and love you. Forever, and I mean that.

The world does not deserve to lose people like you, and I know I haven’t known you for a while, but you are creative and talented, and most importantly a kind person, and the horrible things in life should not make you any less of those things. Please. So many people here love you, value you, and most of all, care about you. Stay here even when it’s hard. It always so repeated and sometimes sounds corny, but please, stay here, it will get better.

hi velyana. i really missed you and i was worried to death about you. im glad you're okay.

i just feel as if suicide is my only option. life has done nothing but treat me horribly. ever since my ex left me in october, its been getting worse and worse. its as if life itself is telling me that its not worth it to stay alive.

my parents are the biggest reason why i want to die. they have been being abusive towards me and they're depriving me of things that i need to live. every time i tell them that im suicidal, they don't take it seriously and they blame me. im such a burden to them and if i was gone, i feel like things would be better. at some points, it really feels like they want me to die. they keep threatening to stop doing the bare minimum for me and kick me out. they refuse to get me the help i need.

i was so excited about my job. i loved it and i was happy to start doing something with my life. but of course they had to fire me. and for such a stupid reason too.

im just so tired of everything now. nothing ever gets better for me. i try to think of a good life for me in the future, but i just cant. i truly and honestly see my story ending by suicide. happiness is such a temporary thing for me. it never lasts. its so hard for me to do basic things because of my disabilities, and no one offers to help me with it.

i just think this is the best option for me. i want my parents to understand that im suffering and if i have to physically hurt myself to force them to understand and care, then so be it. i just feel like a burden every second that im alive. all i do is lay in my bed and sleep. i just don't want to suffer anymore.

but thank you for helping me. if my friends wouldnt have comforted me earlier i would have definitely done it. i still feel as if i should do it though.

none of this is your fault or anybody else's fault. its my family's fault, for not giving me the love and care i need to live a happy life.

[zephyrbayhq]

Good afternoon, everyone, and happy almost Friday! We have a bittersweet announcement to share with you all and we'd like to share our plan of how we proceed from here.

We say goodbye to Tay, one of our long time admin and friends, as she starts a new journey in her life. We wish Tay nothing but the best and hope that she can focus on important real life things in the coming months!

This means that we are down an admin. Operations may seem slower than usual for a while until we find a new admin. Ideally, we would like to find two admins to help us balance the task load but we are seeking a minimum of one. If you are interested in becoming an admin for the group, read on. There are some criteria we will be outlining for our future prospective admin as well as an application for interested parties.

Admin criteria

Must have the time to dedicate to admin duties as well as IC interactions. We do not have a particular requirement as far as what times you need to be available, but it would be helpful to have someone from MST, PST, GMT or another timezone outside of EST and CST.

Ideally, we are looking for someone who enjoys and is proficient at making graphics and handling theme updates. This is also not a requirement but would definitely help us out the most in terms of re-delegating our current task load to new admin(s).

You must be communicative with both other admin and members. We take communication very seriously and want someone who can communicate their personal needs, ideas, feedback, etc. to us. This means we require that you have Discord for all admin communication purposes.

You should feel confident with the general operation of both tumblr and Discord as roleplaying platforms. You will be responsible for helping with promo posts, follows/unfollows, application acceptances, monitoring the main and responding to asks/IMs, etc.

Previous admin experience is not required.

You do not need to be a current member of our group, but you will need to apply and be accepted if you are accepted as an admin. We do not allow museless admin.

Our only real solid requirement for our prospective admin is that you are non-judgmental, open-minded, caring, and compassionate. The safety of our members and our group as a whole has been our top priority since day one. We are seeking kind, empathetic, fair people to join us. We try our best to strike a balance between being fair and setting appropriate guidelines and rules into place. Be open to feedback from members (including what might feel like criticism) and growing in your approach to admin work.

If you feel like this description fits you, please apply by copying and pasting the following application and submitting it to our main via ask or submit! Please keep in mind we will be following the same rules as with member applications – your identity must be verifiable somehow and we will be vetting each applicant rigorously. All fields are required unless noted as optional.

Personal Information

Name/Alias:

Age:

Pronouns:

Timezone:

What celebrity will you be applying for, if you are not currently part of the group?

Who will be your mascot, if different from your main muse?

Do you need any special accommodations from our other admin? (We value diversity as a group and as an admin team – if you have a disability or challenge of any kind that may affect admin tasks, please let us know so we can make sure we are accommodating! This question is optional)

Admin Information

What skills do you think you can bring to the table as an admin for Zephyr Bay? (You can include hard and soft skills here!)

Why do you want to be an admin for Zephyr Bay?

Do you have any previous admin experience? If so, please detail whatever you are comfortable sharing below.

What are your strengths as an admin and what are your areas for growth?

Any additional information you would like to share with us about being an admin? (optional)

Again, if you are not currently a member and are accepted as an admin, you will need to apply for your celebrity/ies as well. You do not need to do this prior to being accepted unless you are interested in joining the group otherwise.

If you have questions, comments or concerns, feel free to message us via ask or IM. You can also message us on Discord if you are a current member who needs clarification or has questions. Thank you!

ALL ADMIN APPLICATIONS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY SEPTEMBER 30 AT MIDNIGHT EST. There is a possibility we will accept an admin before this time, but this will be the current deadline unless otherwise noted at a later date.

[coconutcows]

Hey Rebecca. I don't really know you and you don't know me. But please don't take your life. I don't know your situation. But I know what it feels like when everything seems pointless. But even if there really is no one around you right now who would miss you or it feels like there is no reason to keep going, that doesn't mean that can't change one day. Imagine the people you could meet in the future. The things you could see and experience. Don't take that possibility away from yourself. I can't tell you everything will work out. But I can tell you that doing it would take away the possibility of everything working out. You made it this far. You can keep going. I believe in you.

Hello!!! I’m sorry I’ve taken a bit to respond to this I’ve had a couple busy days and a few miserable days, but I really appreciate you sending this to me. I assume you saw my post, although idk how you did, but my issues just run really deep and I’m not sure what to do. I’m putting a bunch under the cut to not dash stretch.

I’ve been trying my best for years and nothing works out for me. That sounds like an exaggeration like people say when they just can’t see any positives but any time anything goes well for me something happens to screw everything up. I have some examples but if I listed those this would be a mile long. But basically my entire world has been swiftly destroyed in the past three months or so.

The thought of meeting new people and experiences is a nice one and I appreciate the positive attitude but the thought makes me feel sick. People tend not to like me much even if I do nothing to them, and experiences just seem to get more out of reach every day for multiple reasons. I don’t have many opportunities anyway, nor do I have the brainpower to plot a path of any kind.

I can’t hold a job because they all end up causing me immense mental distress and there’s no financial assistance that actually makes a difference here (just programs that give you what’s essentially pocket change towards bills and groceries while rushing you to find a job any job) and any job options are limited here to begin with. There’s very little hope for general financial improvement here anytime soon. I don’t think I have the talent or mental strength to try commissions.

Everything that made me look towards the future, that made me feel capable of anything is just gone now. I only have three friends and they get along just fine without me. They’d miss me if I was gone maybe but they’d get along just fine as well. I have my parents but they were a cause towards these issues back when I was a teen so i’ve already gotten over most of the guilt on that front. I know they’d be super upset but they wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore.

If I go through with it I won’t exactly be taking my own life. I plan on waiting until MAID gets expanded to include mental illness since the lovely Canadian Government also thinks disabled and mentally ill people should just be able to choose to die instead of scraping by on their meager assistance. That way I can arrange for anyone who wants to spend time with me before I go to do so.

All I hear is that I need to take care of myself, love myself etc etc etc, but I honestly can’t remember ever even liking myself so how am I supposed to get to that point? Besides I lost all the progress I’d made towards that goal over the past five years. I just really don’t know what to do at this point tbh, I just want to give up.

Anyways, if you or anybody else read all this thanks. Thanks if you care, and thanks for the chance to vent. I’ll make a post in the future if I get some stuff cleared up in case anyone genuinely wants to know what happened. Or people can ask, I’ll answer if I’m comfortable or able to.

[melodioustear]

January Research Progress

It's been a slow start to the year, but as term officially starts today I wanted to do an update on how things are going (I don't follow terms, I work 12mths a year, but sometimes it's nice to use them as milestones).

Currently I'm working on two main targets ahead of my next supervision in mid February, which are: 1. General reading - especially trying to get some disability studies in my brain right now. 2. Planning my survey on fanfiction & Madness habits of fans. I'll be honest - I don't feel like I've made enough progress with either. I've been reading very slowly, and only last week did I manage to get some planning done on the survey. So I think my plan is to start doing my best to buckle down and get the survey planned out.

Right now what I have is a list of topics that I want to get data on. These aren't fully planned out with formalised questions etc yet - nor even clear as to what format I want the responses in (e.g. multiple choice vs open text response etc). But I think it's a pretty good overview of the things I'm aiming to gather. Here's the list as it stands: General - Demographic data re: Madness (i.e. how many people identify as some sort of Mad) - Demographic data re: disability, and whether they view their Madness as disability if they have ticked both (this may need a 'kind of' response, as I know I'm on the fence with that) - General demographic data such as race, gender, sexuality - for comparison to general population and giving more options for using the data in the future. Fanfic Practices - Does it matter to you if fanfic about Madness is Mad-authored? - Do you think it makes a difference if fanfic about Madness is Mad-authored? - Have you ever written fanfiction about Madness? - If so, and you are Mad, did you write about your own Madness? - Do you read fanfiction about Madness? - If so, and you are Mad, do you read about your own Madness? - How do you find Madfic - likely multiple choice with options like tags, naturally/scrolling, recs, following authors etc. - How, if at all, has reading Madfic benefitted you? - How, if at all, has reading Madfic harmed you? - Previous two questions, but for writing! - What do you wish authors did differently in Madfic? - What's good about Madfic? - Do you feel the AO3 manages tags around Madness well? E.g. how do you feel about the existence of tags such as "<Character> is SO OCD". There are a few caveats here - firstly a reminder that whilst I use the term Mad(ness), I don't expect everyone to and you should use the terms that suit you! I will likely write the survey using the term mental illness purely to make it more accessible to a wider audience, but with the note that people should consider it to be whatever they prefer. Secondly, this is VERY much a draft, and as I say not representative of wording. The past couple of questions especially are ones I'm not 100% sure on. I kind of want to know, but it might also just be beyond the scope of this survey - which I want to focus on fanfic practices more than anything? But hopefully that gives some insight into what I'm interested in. Now that I've got my ideas down, I want to go through other fan surveys/studies and look at how they've done things, from question wording to the way they manage their data sets (I want mine to be open data, so that others can study it), or what they use form wise. Start to think about those sort of things. Which is a lot, but I just want to get as far as possible before my supervision. I'm very open to comments from people with experience in fan surveys, just bearing in mind this is as I say a very early draft. I know wording of questions is super important and I'm hoping to improve my questions a lot. Or recs of good surveys to look at for examples!

Either way, hope this has been interesting & offered insight into the study I'm going to do.

[thessalian]

Thess vs a Really Bad Flare

I told myself. I told myself I should have called in sick today. The pain flare I have been having has lasted the whole week and has gone nowhere but worse but I thought, “It’s one more day. I can do this���.

I came very close. But spoiler? I could not do this.

I have never had it this bad. Never. It was legitimately terrifying. We’re talking massive pain-induced spasms in everywhere (but specifically various spots on my back including both shoulder blades, right elbow, left ankle, right knee, and left side somewhere around the ribs) on top of the baseline OW. As in, I could barely walk, and generally had to use a wall for support as well as the cane and stop periodically because my leg locked up in agony. I had to take my foot off the transcription pedal way too often because putting my weight on it hurt.

And - and this is something I have to bring up with Scruffman at some point in the not too distant future - Temp is still cherry-picking the typing and leaving me the long ones. I struggle with the long ones. I have found some shortcuts on the new system we’re using (we get to make our own macros; it’s a great help for the really involved ones that have no real variation bar changing a few measurements and occasionally tweaking a sentence or two) but not all of them lend well to shortcuts, and also I still have to press the pedal to listen to the whole thing for variations and there are days when that really fucking hurts. I’ll do the long complicated ones when they come up on the list when I’m grabbing a whole chunk in chronological order. However, I resent looking at the list and seeing a couple of five-minute dictations from an hour before the next item on the list and knowing it’s because Temp just left them for me because there aren’t any other typists in.

I had this conversation with her before, in Scruffman’s earshot, and she got snippy at me. He said he’d have a word with her, and he probably did because it worked for awhile, but now I’m going to have to flag it up as a matter of disability accommodation, not just a matter of fairness. I will do them when they come up, and I will discuss with her if there are any particular individuals she has a hard time typing for, but she cannot keep leaving them for me because it leads to me taking on more than I can tolerate, particularly on bad days.

Anyway, then the commute was hell. Apparently, twenty minutes gets me on the bus as the same time as people bringing their kids home from shopping, and a whole lot of tourists. Oh, and the temperature went to somewhere in the high 20s, which is bad enough outside but when crammed into an overly full bus... Yeah, no.

And after I finally got home, I was not done, because I really needed to take out the garbage, and also I am a plant-mom and it was very hot today and I didn’t want my babies withering, so my plants got a drink before I did. (Side note: my courgettes are blooming like crazy and one of my alpine strawberries is really plumping out.)

After that I kind of collapsed for awhile. Now I’m at least feeling well enough to be upright briefly. Not much else, though. Not looking forward to bathtime either. Oh, sure, it’ll be fine once I’m in it. But it will hurt to get in it and it will hurt to get out of it. No, I don’t have another option. My kingdom for a working shower.

So, yeah, today’s basically been made of nope and bullshit - mostly nope. I really, really should have called in sick. That’ll teach me. The thing is, I never know how bad it’s going to get until I’ve got there. And I really dislike having to announce to the whole office that I’m struggling with my disability. Hell, the only reason I did so this time is because ... look, when I’m in the office, I really play down the situation if at all possible. You’d be amazed at what I can put up with and you wouldn’t know how bad I hurt. Today it was not possible because as I said, was really struggling to walk. Basically everyone told me to just go the hell home - not that I wasn’t going to anyway, but...

At the end of the day, though? I’m just unbelievably depressed about the whole thing. I can’t do anything without planning for a week of agony. I can’t even spend a weekend dehydrating fruit for snacks and running D&D without paying for it for a week afterwards. And sometimes I think, “maybe I could do a con if I was really careful” and “maybe I could travel” ... but I’d have no fun in either place if I did.

I am so fucking fed up with this.

Hopefully at least my mood improves soon. I don’t know if I’m going to be up for anything this weekend. Honestly, at this point I’d settle for not being horrifically depressed. I guess I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I’d like to say it’ll feel better after I’ve had some sleep, but I haven’t been sleeping well this week in general ... and it’s recursive. I hurt, the pain keeps me awake, the sleep deprivation aggravates the flare, thus more pain, thus less sleep ... and then the stress of the government imploding and Temp still taking advantage...

Yeah. This day has just sucked.

[daddywarbats]

Hey so I want to preface that I apologize if this is a rude/hurtful ask as I am fully physically abled and genuinely don't know what those who arent ablebodied life are like I am also presuming that you can answer this based on your tags/post so if that's not the case just ignore me completely With that I'm asking, this is hypothetical Would you ever want a child knowing they may be predisposed to at least physically disabled or if we were able to alter genes to change that potential. *Curious

Okay, a couple of things here, Anon. Yes, it is a rude question to ask. Yes, it is hurtful. And honestly, if your first instinct is to apologize because it may be so, that is a clear sign not to continue asking it anyway.

I have taken a deep breath, put aside the urge to cuss you out, something I am well within my right to do given what you asked, and chose to make this a teachable moment.

Your question betrays a deeply flawed understanding of these topics.

Having a child is a deeply personal decision for anyone seeking to have one. It is an all-in, lifetime commitment. When you are having a child, even if you adopt, you do not get to choose what disabilities they have or may develop later in life. You commit to the possibility that your child may be or become disabled or you should not have children.

Disability is not restricted to genetics - becoming disabled is something anyone can become at any point in their lives. You cannot simply eugenics it away with gene editing and be done with it forever.

"Where did I say anything about eugenics?" you might ask. "I was just asking if you had the option, would you not want your child to suffer if you could change it?"

Your intent in asking may not be inherently cruel and you simply want to understand, but what you are fundamentally asking about is actually eugenics and this particular line of eugenics thought treats disability as something inherently cruel to even allow to exist, disregarding entirely the fact that disability can occur at any stage in life and, in fact, is the one thing guaranteed as you age.

Having a disability is not in itself cruelty. That your child may potentially have a disability is not cruelty. It is how you are as a parent to that child that speaks to your cruelty or kindness as a parent.

Children grow and they suffer in many more nuanced ways that do not require being disabled in any way, shape or form. Anyone who wants to become a parent must make peace with the concept that there may be times in that child's life where they will suffer and there is absolutely piss all they can do to prevent it.

If you have a child who is disabled from birth, do you love them any less than a child who becomes disabled later in life?

Ask yourself when you ask about magicking away their disability if it's really about their suffering or if it's about the fear of loss of potential "normalcy", of having to deal with that disability and all that comes with it in a way you cannot escape confronting, of having to deal with grieving one kind future you imagined and the reality.

Your kid could get in an accident. Your kid could catch a virus. Your kid could develop cancer. Your kid could have an invisible disability that goes undiagnosed for years. Some chronic illnesses only manifest in adulthood and those tests will read normal normal normal all day every day until they don't. You don't know what that child will experience as they grow, but your commitment must be 100%. You are all in or all out. You can't just freak out and quit if it turns out your kid needs glasses.

Parenthood is a deeply personal and private matter for many people, one that not everyone is in a position to commit themselves to for any number of reasons, and asking this kind of hypothetical, in this fashion, about a personal and private matter is deeply disrespectful, rude and hurtful.

And this is all I'm gonna say on the matter.

[natandacat]

re: your school + covid post, i am currently in what seems like a very similar situation and i've felt really alone in it - i have to give up on my education for the forseeable future b/c my school, despite claiming to commit to ""accessible classrooms"", refuses to offer online options or even set a mask/vaccine mandate

so i just wanted to say that you're so fucking right and justified in what you're doing, and thank you for standing up for us. it's so hard being part of the people still caring/shouting about this, and it's harder when everyone is acting like it's fine. thank you so so much, and take care of yourself in this fight. solidarity forever ❤️

I am beyond happy that you sent this ask. We are far from being alone, in the past few weeks alone I have met countless people like us. The most conservative estimate I have seen is that about 5% of people who survive covid become severely disabled with long covid. This number is not accounting for people like my friend who didn't get long covid but has lost part of their taste. They will never get to enjoy food in the same way, and while it's not a disabling condition I don't believe that this kind of loss should be acceptable when it can be avoided.

How do I know of this conservative estimate? I got randomly selected to be part of a series of surveys commissioned by my country's government to help them make decisions regarding covid measures. The answers to those surveys heavily inform federal policies and directives. Lately, a new question in the survey has popped up:

Since that last survey, my governement has dropped all measures. Which means that most people answered a 3 or below to that question. This is extremely sobering to me but I have studied enough about past pandemics that I am not surprised by this. I knew what the results would be as I was filling the survey myself.

I have little to lose on my side of things, which is giving me the ability to want to fight. Hopefully, my new medication will give me enough energy to make noise in the upcoming month. If you want to dm me, please do so. I don't know if I have the means, but the only way out of this that I can see is activism. I am more than willing to help people negociate with their own university/workplace, and if we can't get anything from them, then I want to at least make our voices heard.

[Image ID: a screenshot from an official survey that reads: "Post-COVID condition - also known as long COVID - occurs when someone continues to experience physical or psychological symptoms more than 12 weeks after getting COVID-19. If you knew that 5 per cent of people infected with COVID-19 go on to experience long COVID, would you be more or less supportive of stricter public health measures?" The answers are ranked from 1. "Much less supportive" to 5. "Much more supportive", with 3. "Neither more nor less supportive" being the middle. There is also a "Don't know/No response" answer.)

[stone-below-the-water]

biiiiig vent under the cut

once again feeling suffocated by the corner i have been getting backed into for some time. i need money but don’t know how to get it, seems like any option i have is a huge risk in some way. none of the jobs in walking distance will hire me, and i could only work a shitty min wage job for so long until it’s unbearable. i could attempt to afford & go to community college for a year or two but that is putting a lot of faith in my brain that isn’t functioning well (& is getting worse bc of the med i take to manage pain), and even then if i could handle it & graduate i may not even get more money out of a job that requires schooling, or i may hate whatever field i go into. i don’t even know anyone who can point me in the right direction, i have no “ins” to any field. i can’t get on disability because i don’t even have a ‘solid documented diagnosis’ that would qualify. shit even things like giving plasma might not be an option bc of my blood work or might make me feel like shit for days. all i want is to be with those i love yet that seems far-fetched, a concept perpetually out of reach- as does any decent future i wish i could pursue. am i just being dramatic? am i wasting potential & missing opportunities without realizing it? am i orchestrating this fate of mine, still, as i have been for so long- or am i just another product of this country’s shit economy? just another speck of dirt the corporate elite walk over. isn’t it depressing that that is how the majority’s lives are treated?

you know, i admire people who can experience the worst kind of treatment humans have to offer, & the worst hand they could be dealt- who still believe in humanity, in any way. because from my perspective, humans are inherently greedy and selfish and have no bounds to their cruelty. destroy this society and it would just spit out the same horrific outcome over and over again. people are easily brainwashed, people are stupid and will do anything to tear you down from what little sanity you’ve held onto.

i am so angry all of the time. i am filled as full as i can be of bitterness and resentment- knowing things could be better for me and those i love if a select few put an end to their own greed. & knowing they won’t. how does anyone function like this? how does anyone function at all? how do you stop the misery from consuming you? there seems to be no bottom- you just keep falling until you die. & somehow even then your matter won’t be allowed to rest.

i am just broke, and aching. i want one painfully simple thing and yet it’s perpetually out of reach. i don’t know what to do, i don’t know which direction to turn to, i don’t know if i should even bother. i am tired.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I keep forgetting or not having the energy to do the next one of these. It's going to be two in one again, this time for Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between and Vengeful Heart, which are the two "wokest" games I've played in a while (in a good way).

Glitchhikers is the only thing that's ever given me a dialogue option to declare the concept of the hero's journey to be an act of colonialism (we make fun of Campbell on this blog, and also Jung while we're at it), and Vengeful Heart is probably the most openly revolutionary thing I've played since A Bewitching Revolution (which is also great and you should give it a try).

I played the original Glitchhikers over a decade ago when it first came out. It was only like 15 minutes to go through it once, but it was the exact right thing I needed to see at that exact point in my life, and it's still one of my most memorable experiences with a game ever thanks to that. The new remade and hugely expanded version didn't quite do it for me in the same way, but it was still interesting and had some stuff going for it.

It's very much an experimental art game experience and not something big on gameplay, and it can be a little clunky or frustrating to interact with sometimes as a result. The park section in particular was mostly just annoying for me rather than me getting much out of it.

It can also be kind of on the nose with some of the dialogue and the messages in it, and some of it left me feeling like yeah I've seen multiple posts about this on Tumblr except they expanded on the idea with a thousand more words and it led to a bunch of discussion that added a lot more to it.

When it gets stuff right I really like it though. The train segment of the game avoids those problems entirely for the most part, both because it's a fixed path that makes navigating it a lot easier and because you run into each character multiple times. That latter thing is particularly important because it lets them flesh out the conversations a bit more and spend more time with each idea or theme, which it really benefits a lot from.

I think the final airport section was probably my second favorite. It's a bit tedious wandering around the empty space, and it's kinda blunt with its message, but it did a good enough job presenting the idea that how things are framed and structured matters for how we perceive and think about them, whether it's architecture or stories or ideas. It's a very "I see what you did there" way to wrap things up, but it works.

And then Vengeful Heart is just good. It's a postapocalyptic cyberpunk dystopian VN that manages to be appreciably worse than the way things are in the real world but not by so much that it's not immediately able to be related back to real life. And while the setting and situation are pretty dire, the story itself is about disempowered people joining together to work to do something to change it. Not without struggles and loss along the way, and not with a universally happy ending where everything is magically fixed, but with hope for their actions and sacrifices leading to continued change and improvement in the future.

They absolutely nailed the PC-98 aesthetic better than I've seen anyone do it in a while, and it feels like someone could've made the artwork 30 years ago. A lot of the music is pretty good too and sets the tone well.

Its biggest strength is its characters though, which is always a good thing in a medium and genre that relies so much on them. There are strong women and PoC and queer people and disabled people and student activists and working class union members and more all working together, both learning from each other but also having conflicting ideas and motivations at times, and of course the evil billionaires and militarized cops and private security you'd expect from the genre too. I really liked how a lot of them were handled, and I kept thinking about some of them for days after I finished the story, completely unprompted.

I could see myself going back through the train section of Glitchhikers now and then to meet different characters and see what they have to say, but Vengeful Heart is the one I expect to end up fairly high on my list at the end of the year, and I'm really looking forward to whenever they finish the next thing they've been working on.

[terrifickid]

I was miserable and hopeless immediately

Worst possible life I can imagine and only in some bargained fantasy was I anything. Of course, everyone just told me I was a just a stupid kid and to get a job.

So, I dunno. With these new tools perhaps I can maintain enough capacity for volition to try to stop bothering people as much. And keep my irreverent and meaningless rambling to my own wall.

I think I'll try to focus on other people's problems which are possible to solve and I think that is the best suicide option in the footsteps of my father's line. I already saved 1 Siargao dog 🐕

Well my own personal best fuck you.

Since, the problem is not my condition, but my agency within it. I remember realizing in high school having a disability didn't make you a hero. And it very well may be that I am to blame in the end.

Perhaps I will be miraculously saved. Or that in the end, I was just a fart soul - wafting immortally through the ages, an odd but necessary externality of some whole grain.

But, pareto is real. And that essentially explains and directed my optionality through my life. I'll do what anyone would and must do irrespective of the interpretational it would seem.

Nobody thinks twice about pigeons but considers them pests. I don't want to live in a dog heart. Firstly I can't reject my innate nature. That won't work. Since I can't conform or perform as a human I'll have to consider myself some kind of cat soul war Jedi. Because the tarot, who wanted to talk to me about it - told me this would happen before I bought the house keyword, alienation. But this is only alienation to the social mileue of the time which is clearly demiurgic.

So I must stop living among men, and being like them. This now puts me as an endangered species during the Holocene event. Humans are worse than a wasp hive, so I definitely must not disturb them.

But I'm also mentally deranged. It is very strange I succeeded for so long. Well I think it was serving to separate facts from fictions here and we see that whatever actual future space I would have involve living away from people, outside political narrative and within the confines of nature.

Perhaps schizoaffective will be a terminal illness, a slow and terrible death... Things have gone exactly as I thought they would throughout my life - I didn't know I was crazy tho. Perhaps things have escalated with age and my time has come.

Statistically I have 8 years to live.

I think if we synthesize our collective experience it's clear there is a spiritual world, that nobody has any idea how to solve this problem, that the future is unknown and I don't have to consent to anything.

I myself don't like this. I seemed to be trapped in a box by a psychopath filling with water.

I think I should drown myself. When SSI fails and dignitas denies my euthanization and nobody wants to talk to me anymore and I'm out of money I'll start to starve. I suppose at that point the police will try to pull me into some kind of facility where I'll be in immense danger. So I would guess that would be when I'd have the choice to risk rape in jail or just drown myself and I can see myself making the choice to die then. Which would seem like my only escape.

I don't care. I don't think there was any other options. If I had traveled I think I would have been preyed on by a narcissist and I'd be married to Babylon which is so much worse.

It was a grotesque and horrifying gauntlet of compromise just to figure out I was birthed by two broken monsters in a line of evil shit. I'm confident in the diagnosis, that it was congenital, that my issues are much more broad, that I did what I needed to do through it all and having exhausted all other options I'll be happy to go.

I think it's the responsible choice. I mean I wish I had never been born really. I do resent my parents for creating me, I resent the abandonment of my father, the violent and abusive degradation of my mother, their irresponsible conception and their evasion of culpability and minimization of their behaviors effect on me, leaving me permanently mentally disabled with no choice but to 'figure it out' on my own.

I wanted to overcome and make a life for myself and exist and I believed I could do it- and that's what I tried to do, but that just doesn't seem at all viable any longer as my body degrades with age.

I don't care about existing. Learning was the only thing that seemed remotely worth doing as suicide seems overly dramatic.

I do fully understand that even at my most sound I am vastly ignorant and now more than ever I exist within my own illusory day-dream. So I do not dare question anyone else or nature.

It's been weird, it seems to me obvious that I will drown myself after police attempt to jail me. The best I can do is go somewhere warm with natural water as I hate the cold and being filthy and it will not be constructive to break any laws.

This is always what I thought my life would amount to and what I was, I just didn't know exactly. I never dreamed I would be able to own my own home, travel the world, have relationships, have a career, learn jujutsu or have people like my graphics and music or that I would inspire anyone to have courage or be respected for my craft and I'm grateful for that.

More outrageously did I never dream I could come to understand the nature of reality and the premise and functioning of this plane.

There is no way I could sell the dojo, I'm sure it will go on without me.

I am losing life support and require rescue. This is an SOS from the Kobayashi Maru.

[investoptionwin]

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[christmasintheloonybin]

the thing with physical fitness or anything with children is that if they do this from day one it will just be normal life but if you try to impose it at some point obvious it will feel like the worst thing ever, and when they are not mentally developed enough to understand "this is unpleasant now but will benefit me in the future" its just a no win situation.

the way to destroy obesity and general weakness in future generations would be a return to emphasis on outdoor activities (for fun) and a return to small scale agriculture which would generate significantly less food and would require significantly more physical work (even for children). if we must stick with the system we have today, an emphasis should be placed on physical fitness in fucking kindergarten. they should have the kids doing jumping jacks at least. ideally, in a perfect world, alongside education the children would work in some kind of collective garden where the young children would do very easy tasks which don't require much precision or physical strain (weeding, planting seeds) and the older children would do more difficult tasks (hauling water, slaughtering animals and processing the meat etc). but again, in the real world, gym should not be a class you know, it should be like half the day, and this should be from day one. its insane to have a program to benefit the mind and no program at all to benefit the body. you need to have both. at one point this would be not optional, you would go to school and then come home and work on the farm. and I think this was a good balance. but in today's world, force them to do push ups, run around. of course some people naturally are more or less athletic, but there's really something for everyone except those who are like disabled lol. I'm not a huge muscular guy but i was damn good at track and pretty much anyone can haul water or do these tasks which should be daily activities in every person's life.