#support disabled writers

[brandyschillace]

RIGHT TO READ and UNITED AGAINST BOOK BANS

Censorship threatens our right to read—and that threatens us all. Books lift us, connect us, inspire us; they make us question, research, and make our own choices. We can’t let that be taken away. I’m a historian who writes about the Nazi book burning—about how censorship was used to take away the rights of #transgender #lgbtq and minorities, resulting in attacks on #immigrants, Jews, homosexuals, #women, trans, Romani, and #disabled people. It’s not many steps from banning books to burning them—so: Make you voice heard! Today, I’m participating in #RightToReadDay with other authors, readers, and community members across the country. Safeguarding our freedom to read requires all of us - learn how you can take action:

Learn more from Unite Against Book Bans and join the campaign!

[cpunkwitch]

disabled, trans and studying

[disabled, trans and studying]

once again reaching out for help.

more store and commissions are open.

i need a new laptop, phone with a plan, im starting school again(hopefully), and im still struggling to pay for medication and medical visits. insurance only covers so much.

i work a part time job, i want to be able to do /something/ to finally start transitioning or at the very least save up enough on the side to eventually get myself out of here where its safer to do that.

i do digital art, i make bracelets, i write research books as ive talked about on clusterrune and more.

my comissions are here(link), my kofi is here(link), any help is greatly appreciated.

recently had to cancel a wisdom teeth removal apointment because we couldnt pay the 2k for it. even with renewed insurance.

parents are even starting to charge me for rent and taking off what they already owe me from what ive sent them to help pay for stuff.

im more than willing to create things, its actually better than accepting donations as its not exactly legal for me to be taking donations in canada.

please reblog to help me gain some reach /gen

[1-ker0sene-1]

Hey there, coming out of my unfortunate hiatus for a moment. Because what the fuck?

To say it's ableist to not back an AI, data scraping, writing stealing, app- is absolutely fucking ridiculous. And the statement itself, is ableist.

This app isn't some original godsend, you literally just steal from unwilling writers. Could have done the opposite, could have been reaching out to authors about moving/merging their work onto the app- but no. Instead you expect writers to figure out to message you, and ask NOT to get stolen from. And that's if you even believe that they're the author, or if you even decide to read the damn email.

There are and have been very good tools for disabled people to read and enjoy content, from app overlays and extensions. Because let's be real, the purpose of this app was not for disabled people, you just ran out of excuses. The entire point is the AI and data.

Do not use disabled people to condone your AI bullshit, do not use disabled people to steal the hard work of writers. Do not use disabled people as an excuse for your bullshit.

Writers, authors, poets. You are not ableist for protecting your hard work.

-sincerely a disabled bitch.

[thatonebirdwrites]

I still plan to finish my TLOK: Shared Moments series -- especially Book 3.5 and 4 at least, but I simply cannot do the pace I did last year. I can't. My health is too poor and my heart too broken. So let's talk about it.

For this post in particular, I want to discuss how parts of the Korrasami fandom broke my heart.

I also will talk about how Supercorp fandom is helping me heal. I want to be clear here. This post is not about pitting these fandoms against each other. Both have their flaws, their beauty, their awesome people, and their mean people. I love them both. This is simply my tale of how one broke my heart and how the other helps me heal that.

I also preface that there are wonderfully beautiful people I've met in the Korrasami fandom, some who have become friends over the span of the last year and a half. The kindness and care from @snazzy-korra and the Korrasami friend I talk to on Discord has been life-saving in different ways. I'm forever grateful and highly appreciative of these people's kindness and support and for the kind readers who left kind comments.

I also wish to be clear that I have always been honest in my end-notes about the fact that I have a disability, that my health might slow me down, or I may share an anecdote about my life (my disability impacts my life heavily, but it also is not all I am) to explain why I wrote a scene the way I did. Folks seemed to appreciate learning about the inner workings of the writer's mind and the research I've done. So it's why I tend to have detailed end-notes.

So when readers, who acknowledged these end-notes and commented about my bravery at being a disabled writer, turn around and viciously attack me and pull out every single ableist argument about how the character, who became disabled in my story, is now less than?

That is fucking personal.

That is them directly telling me that they don't see disabled people like myself as their equal in dignity or respect. They don't even respect me as a person worthy of being treated with kindness. Instead, they remind me yet again of how they view disabled people as less than.

Where they wanted the disability written out of the story. They wanted erasure, and thus it felt like a stab in my heart.

Because in the end, such arguments are rooted in a fear of this simple truth:

Anyone can become disabled at any time.

Some people fear that truth. Likely because they would have to face the fact that the horrid ways they treat us disabled people could be how they end up treated if they become disabled.

So instead of fixing society and the systems harming us disabled folks, and creating instead accessible and equitable and kinder systems that help all people thrive -- they instead demand erasure. Demand that people like me cease to exist in their space. That our stories not be visible.

It went beyond a fight in comments to direct messages/asks and at least one tumblr blog directly harassing me (referencing my writing as the reason). It felt like my few places where I felt somewhat safe to share my writing had been broken into and trashed.

It's sad and heartbreaking in so many ways, because these people are refusing to see the absolutely beauty and wonder that is disabled people and our creativity.

[Yes, I know the tools that can help protect me like comment moderation, but again, the point of this post isn't about fixing my behaviors.

Because my behaviors weren't the problem. It's about a very real problem in fandoms, where AUs that involve a beloved character becoming disabled turn into an avenue to cause harm to that author. (Instead, of just not commenting and not reading it.)

If this isn't pointed out or ever talked about, then how do we learn and grow and find ways to repair the fandom to be kinder? To call out hurtful behaviors and support those harmed by it? Why should we let folks suffer in silence, when we can talk about it and better support one another? To build better habits and encourage others to build those kinder habits with us?]

Becoming disabled is not a bad thing. It doesn't have to be. We are still beautiful, wonderfully creative, and awesome people who deserve the same love, respect, care, and dignity as any non-disabled person.

Ignoring or running from the pain doesn't make it go away, as I did that and instead it ended up tainting what had been a deep love.

Acknowledging the pain and/or grief and choosing to heal is what alleviates it. The Korrasami fandom introduced me to fanfiction. I'd never written fanfiction in my life before I decided to write How Was Those Three Years to dig into how those years were like for Asami.

I'd never read so much fanfiction before either. I didn't realize the wealth of creativity and wonder that is hidden in the corridors of AO3. It was a beautiful sight to behold. I discovered this truth through Korrasami.

Writing Korrasami helped me rekindle my writing again. Even with my poor health, even when I struggle to get out of bed, even as I lost my ability to do things I used to love to do, fandom helped me re-establish my writing habits. I was writing again. The one thing I love to do the most.

At least my health hadn't taken away my writing and art. Isn't that a beautiful thing to discover? I found a way to grieve what I lost but still rejoice in what I can still do. But at the same time, I've never been more hurt and shattered by a fandom than I have daring to write an alternate universe story, where I learned that the limit of people's care ends at the moment they perceive your disability.

Where you cease to be a person in their eyes.

Where you become less than.

Thus, I truly struggled on how to move forward for months, where writing became harder and harder to do.

I didn't want to lose the joy I had found, but I didn't know how to safely heal either. And I like sharing my stories. The act of sharing them was part of how I redicovered my joy of writing again.

It was here on tumblr, where I found a niche that helped me heal.

It all started with a continuation to one of @fazedlight's ficlets, which randomly appeared on my 'for you' page.

I hadn't even finished Supergirl yet at that point, but the AU in that ficlet, where Kara decides to trust Lena and reveals she's an alien due to the alien detector? How utterly fascinating way to rewrite that scene.

I'm not even sure why I felt the need to write that continuation, but it's like my fingers had a mind of their own. I felt so inspired, and after a few months of being trapped in that well of feeling utterly broken, it was like glimpsing sunlight for the first time in months.

And I found I couldn't stop. I started to write other little ficlets based on GIFs about Supercorp. I started reading fanfiction about Supercorp. I realized Lena Luthor is really just a morally grey Asami Sato, and Kara Zor-El Danvers is basically Avatar Korra. So of course it was easy to write them. I already had practice with Korrasami.

I then went and watched the last three seasons to finally finish Supergirl, and was horrified by just how bad the writing was in 5 and 6, that now I wanted to write my own fix-it fic.

But I was scared to do it. I'd already had my heart broken by Korrasami. I already had a big project there I need to finish for my own sake, because it's so, so important to my own heart.

But at the same time, should I dare to share my stories again? Put myself out there in a different fandom?

Because I can't stress enough how I had seriously considered deleting my AO3 account due to how hurt I was over Korrasami (my two Korrasami buddies kept me from doing that, and they might not ever realize their influence there. I'd downloaded all the fics I'd written and gave myself a due date to decide.)

I was scared to share my stories, and I needed support to decide if I could do it again. If I dared to do it.

Then I discovered thanks to @luthordamnvers and @snowydragonscave a server for Supercorp shippers, and Holy shit.

It was okay to be disabled there.

People from all sorts of walks of life were there. They were supportive (and such enablers, my heavens).

I wasn't seen as less than.

People treated me like a human being.

It gave me courage to start posting the stories I'd written about Supercorp to AO3, and then holy crap.

The comments from Supercorp readers welcomed me as a new writer. They were encouraging. (Sure, there was mean comments here and there, but they weren't so horrifically personal in their attacks like the few hurtful Korrasami readers.)

I wept over those comments. Those people may never know how healing it was to read kind and encouraging comments. These people welcomed me, a stray writer into their shelter, and gently and tenderly offered support, advice, and constructive criticism in ways that uplifted the author.

Sure, it's possible I'll get viciously attacked for who I am again in the Supercorp fandom, but right now, most folks I talk with in the Supercorp fandom have been kind. Mean comments haven't been so acutely personal in their attacks, and it's a reprieve that allows space to heal.

My first love - Korrasami - will always be my first love in terms of ships. This is a truth. Supercorp is second in line, but I feel, right now, it's a little safer for my heart to write Supercorp.

I do promise to finish Shared Moments, but it will take longer simply because I'm still healing.

Parts of the Korrasami fandom broke my heart, but a good portion of the Supercorp fandom is mending it back together.

That's a beautiful thing too.

The stories I write are imperfect. I know I mess up a lot. But I do hope that people walk away from my stories having learned something. Or at the very least walk away with some semblance of hope.

Because in the end, in a world that seems hellbent on reminding marginalized people of how our lives are disposable, choosing hope becomes a radical act in liberation.

Our stories deserve to be told. Deserve to be cherished.

So in conclusion, never underestimate your kindness toward others. You may touch them in ways you may never fully know.

Thank you for all my readers, who have been supportive and kind. You're helping a broken writer heal. I will forever appreciate and treasure all of you.

Thanks for reading.

[smoking-witch]

I follow accts that 1) post original content, or 2) interact w my original content. // I quietly love on accts that reblog content like mine, bc they'll prolly reblog me at some point. // I block accts that post AI art/plagiarize in general, bc eschew bootlickers

[yourlegacysnotyourstosee]

Anyways in honor of the Newsie strike anniversary, reminder that the strike was led by the disabled son of Italian immigrants. Reminder that girls were newsies as well. Reminder that MOST newsies were the children of Irish, Italian, or Russian immigrants. Quite a few were not born in America, and english was not their first language. Reminder that they were mostly catholic and jewish at a time when antisemitism and anti-catholicism was the norm. Reminder that many were disabled and homeless and sold papers in order to support their families. These kids were minorities that fought for their rights! Don’t forget that!

[danny-chase]

HEY IF ANYONE'S INTERESTED THERE'S AN INTERVIEW WITH MORGAN HAMPTON, THE WRITER OF CYBORG RIGHT HERE

[remy-the-rat-official]

Not to sound like a one man corporation on pride month, but as I'm being oh so generous and trying to get this book published during pride month, could I ask some lgbtq people to maybee consider purchasing a very gay poetry book, because I am gay, broke and bad at advertising-

All can be found on the Lulu bookstore, under the titles

-Loving in Grey

- The Space In-Between

And shortly

-Directional

[nocinovae]

I have many feelings on the situation around abuse and power dynamics and assault that are coming to light at the moment. For the most part I feel that other peoples rage and statements are worded better. Though I had some thoughts and as someone who enjoyed psychoanalyzing fictional characters I have some realizations about c!Wilbur that I think some people will appreciate. Other than that Support and Listen to Victim. Don’t Put Streamers on Pedestals.

I hate how much I and so many people loved c!Wilbur for being a morally flawed traumatized mentally ill character.

The type of villain to enjoy in media but in a “I like them as a bad person. They fill the role they were written for very well.”

We took them as a “this is a bad person to enjoy through media” character. He showed the experience of how trauma and mental illness can effect relationship and morals.

I felt like I could take him as a caricature, an exaggerated form of many of my own insecurities and dark parts of myself.

BUT NO All c!Wilbur was was a self insert character of the writer’s desire for control and power over the people around him. Same with any of his other “characters” that we all thought were meant to be satire dark comedy of disgusting men in the world.

And he let us all believe this. It’s ironic the way he literally had his self insert pity oc kill himself after not having his apology accepted for all the harm he caused. How he was so distraught with having to actually work for redeeming himself more than just his words that his actions that he thought would resolved that was killing himself for a second time.

All the nuance and grey area I loved saw in c!Wilbur has been destroyed with the truth we all now see in William Gold. And that goes for so all of his artwork.

At least with this new lense on the artist we can take another view of his art and see deeper into the truth of What a Disgusting Piece of Shit this man is.

[profoundbondfanfic]

Prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia by misseditallagain (@misseditallagain) Rating: Teen Word Count: 32k

“I could turn around right now and I wouldn’t be able to spot you out of a lineup. There is nothing remarkable about you I could identify and say: there, that is Dean.” “So you mean I’m not just another pretty face?”

Prosopagnosia is a cognitive disorder that affects a person’s ability to recognize human faces. As many as one in fifty people may be prosopagnosic along a wide scale, some more severe than others

In this fic, Cas’s case is pretty severe. As he describes it, “This close, Cas can see the color of the man’s eyes, a strange shadowed green that isn't quite the color of grass. Cas blinks, and it's like he sees a whole new person before his eyes. Green again.”

Years of not being able to tell students, strangers, and family members apart have taken their toll on Cas, and he has a hard time trusting anyone or retaining any sort of self-esteem.

In a truly poignant meet-cute, Dean stumbles on Cas in the middle of a panic attack on Cas’s first day of work at the Gas ‘n Sip. Dean, a firefighter is used to calming scared, anxious people, talks him through it and offers Cas a kind of comfort he hasn’t gotten in years.

Cas lives with Anna, his sister, and Gabriel, her son, and Cas and Gabriel’s relationship is just as lovely as Cas and Dean’s. There’s a wonderful secondary plot that weaves in with Dean and Cas’s story – Gabriel’s transformation from a sweets-loving kindergartner prone to outbursts of anger, to a brave, self-possessed kid who owns his own prosopagnosia.

If you’re looking for well-developed characters, a beautiful love story, and a journey to self-acceptance, look no further!

[cryptidwriterdotcom]

I've opened up writing coms because the world fucking sucks right now and we need to make ends meet. If you could share that would be great

[miroymon]

The Art of Fins Above

It is finally here! I've done so much work over these past months, trying to make sure that I am showing the most of each part of the world that I can, and making sure that I enjoy the result. Thank you for supporting me.

If you haven't already, please send me a ko-fi, and maybe get a commission from my Fiverr!

[mrsblackruby]

Ugh I’m such a slow writer how am I ever gonna accomplish anything if I can’t keep up.

[ailendolin]

Do you prefer comments left only on AO3 to improve the stats and keep everything neat in one place, or are you good with comments still on tumblr?

That's a good question! Thank you for asking!

I think my opinion on this has changed over the years. When I used to post a fic on AO3, I only shared the link here on Tumblr to promote it. I wanted people to go to AO3 to read my stories because:

the number of hits, kudos and comments matters. Some people filter/sort fics by those stats, so the higher these numbers, the more likely it is people will find the fic and give it a chance

it's easier for people to find my other fics if they end up wanting to read more of my works

I love rereading old comments, especially when I don't feel motivated to write, and AO3 has it all neatly in one place, just like you said.

All these points still stand today but I eventually started posting my fics on Tumblr as well because I got the feeling that some people prefer to read them on here - which is fine by me because in the end, it doesn't really matter where people comment, only that they do.

The thing with Tumblr is, though, that a fic only reaches potential new readers if people also reblog it. If it isn't circled around, it'll get lost in the tags within the day and that's it. So the best readers on here can do to help an author is to reblog a fic and either add their comment below it or in the tags. And if they want to go a step further, they can then head over to AO3 and leave kudos and a comment there as well.

Now, I'm obviously not asking anyone to do that and I certainly don't expect anyone to comment twice. But I wish readers would just take a moment after reading a fic to think about how much time the author put into it, because we're talking hours, days, sometimes even weeks, months and years here. Most authors have regular day jobs and spend what little free time they have creating these stories only for people to read them in a matter of minutes and then click the like / kudos button and move on. It is, quite frankly, disappointing to only get likes and kudos on something you've poured your heart into, and also highly demotivating. Fandom is about interaction and gushing about your favourite characters together and getting inspired by each other. Kudos and likes don't offer that, and as long as readers prefer them over comments and reblogs, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone when writers (and artists too) lose the motivation to create or share their works and fandoms slowly grow quiet.

[highly-coffinated]

It’s my first post so I might as well introduce myself. Hi, my name will be anonymous but you can call me by my username, my pronouns are he/him and I’m a young adult with a bunch of mental and physical issues. My goal with this account is to share my story and info dump about it in a safe space, and hopefully connect with some people. I’ll talk about my life, my experiences, share some advice, and try to create an open dialogue about mental and physical health issues and how I plan to heal. I’m a long way from healing, but I’ve got all the time in the world, starting now.

[kiilonova]

asking for money help never gets easier esp knowing all my friends n mutuals are just as broke as me if not worse off