#literally no one can do it for you

[scarlettgauthor]

I first posted this in a thread over on BlueSky, but I decided to port (a slightly edited version of) it over here, too.

Entirely aside from the absurd and deeply incorrect idea [NaNoWriMo has posited] that machine-generated text and images are somehow "leveling the playing field" for marginalized groups, I think we need to interrogate the base assumption that acknowledging how people have different abilities is ableist/discriminatory. Everyone SHOULD have access to an equal playing field when it comes to housing, healthcare, the ability to exist in public spaces, participating in general public life, employment, etc.

That doesn't mean every person gets to achieve every dream no matter what.

I am 39 years old and I have scoliosis and genetically tight hamstrings, both of which deeply impact my mobility. I will never be a professional contortionist. If I found a robot made out of tentacles and made it do contortion and then demanded everyone call me a contortionist, I would be rightly laughed out of any contortion community. Also, to make it equivalent, the tentacle robot would be provided for "free" by a huge corporation based on stolen unpaid routines from actual contortionists, and using it would boil drinking water in the Southwest into nothingness every time I asked it to do anything, and the whole point would be to avoid paying actual contortionists.

If you cannot - fully CAN NOT - do something, even with accommodations, that does not make you worth less as a person, and it doesn't mean the accommodations shouldn't exist, but it does mean that maybe that thing is not for you.

But who CAN NOT do things are not who uses "AI." It's people who WILL NOT do things.

"AI art means disabled people can be artists who wouldn't be able to otherwise!" There are armless artists drawing with their feet. There are paralyzed artists drawing with their mouths, or with special tracking software that translates their eye movements into lines. There are deeply dyslexic authors writing via text-to-speech. There are deaf musicians. If you actually want to do a thing and care about doing the thing, you can almost always find a way to do the thing.

Telling a machine to do it for you isn't equalizing access for the marginalized. It's cheating. It's anti-labor. It makes it easier for corporations not to pay creative workers, AND THAT'S IS WHY THEY'RE PUSHING IT EVERYWHERE.

I can't wait for the bubble to burst on machine-generated everything, just like it did for NFTs. When it does some people are going to discover they didn't actually learn anything or develop any transferable skills or make anything they can be proud of.

I hope a few of those people pick up a pencil.

It's never too late to start creating. It's never too late to actually learn something. It's never too late to realize that the work is the point.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[egophiliac]

IT WAS ERIC AFTER ALL!!!! I'm so glad we got to meet him (before Vil snaps him away with those Infinity Gauntlets) (can't wait to see what happens when we get the matching Infinity Tiara to go with them, there will be no survivors)

(sorry to be so slow/rough lately, just got a lot of stuff on the ol' brain at the moment! alas, if only I could spend all my time drawing incredibly stupid characters I mean I do but)

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

i vote that next year instead of reading Dracula we do a Jeeves & Wooster Book Club. those two never got the rabid tumblr shipping fandom they deserved (disqualified for the sheer technicality of being published a century too soon). we must correct this injustice

[mumblesplash]

in honor of last season’s poem being called “”end poem”” (all quotes mandatory) this season i made one out of pieces of the actual end poem

[merrigel]

I want it back = I drag its dead weight forward

[koobiie]

i love boys in a car simulator

the first pic is a redraw of an in-game selfie! here's the original:

[lazylittledragon]

i refuse to believe that boycotting is hard. my favourite thing in the world is ordering maccies after a late night at work/a concert/getting drunk. yes i do miss it sometimes. but the other night i ordered from a small place near my house instead and it was the most orgasmic burger i've ever had in my life. i very rarely say this but fucking suck it up people are DEAD

[evilesbiautism]

"ok but are you diagnosed" what are you a cop.

[puppyeared]

good morning sifloop nation

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[loves2spwge]

they just want to be one...

commissions @jolyonvane did for me where i asked if he could please please please make stan look as desperate and exhausted as he usually does but is being kept together by all his love for his sbf kyle

[talon-dragonbeast]

you can behave like other species even if you dont identify as them, you know.

you can howl even if youre not a wolf. you can climb trees even if youre not arboreal. you can wear a collar even if youre not domestic. you can do quads even if youre bipedal. you can nest and chirp even if youre not a bird. you can bark even if youre not a dog. you can purr and make biscuits even if youre not a cat. you can do vocals even if your species is silent. heck, you can even make yourself a yarn tail even if youre not a mammal.

there's no alterhuman police, no one is gonna come and tell you that you cant have fun with your identity. the best part of ah identities is that you literally cant do it wrong (except for being hateful to others). and maybe, youll even discover something about yourself you didnt know before!

now go. go be the local cryptid youve always wanted to be.

[egophiliac]

@enderfore replied to your post “What do you think of Rook's savanaclaw card? <333”:

Chenya pic where???? I can barely see anything in that room there so much going on, rooks such a lil freak (affectionatr)

​he's under the row of flags on Neige's side of the room, next to the big Neige poster with the yellow background (look just to the right of the hand holding the apple)! he's REAL little; once you know he's there you can kind of see him in-game, but I only noticed him in the first place because I took a screenshot and was having fun zooming in on all the details!

I think that's either Hop or Snick and Dominic on either side of Neige, but if the others are meant to be anyone in particular I don't recognize 'em. though I do love all the absolutely terrifying implications of Rook having this. was this some kind of officially-published merchandise (and if so, why) or did Rook like...go hunting through the RSA trash to find this random student lineup just because it included Neige, and has had it hanging proudly on the wall ever since. (I mean, he definitely did do this, I don't know why I'm asking. the real question is why he hasn't cut out little pictures of his own face and stuck them over everyone else's yet.)

there is seriously SO MUCH in this room. how did Rook manage to keep this hidden for three years. also, somebody give this background artist a raise immediately.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

weird hearing "were you a Theatre Kid" "were you a Sports Kid" "were you a Choir Kid" "were you a Dance Kid" bc no? i mean i did all of that and more but resented ever minute of it? actively avoided sticking with anything? i was a "In This Family After School Activities Are Mandatory Kid"

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️