if someone is not physically disabled but can't care for themselves due to a mental disability they aren't crippled? interesting. tell me how else you think high care needs people differ in the eyes of the abled public.

did NOT get in trouble at PT today. like, At All. arguably i got in the opposite of trouble fjsjdj my physical therapist was like "wow i Wish all of my patients reported progress like this, my mental health would be so much better." then he told me the reason we've been starting off slow is because autoimmune disease and exercise can be such a dangerous combo, but said it seems like i know my body and limitations really well (true) and can sense when to stop if i'm in danger of flaring (true). so he set up a plan to add sets + resistance bands + a new exercise, & was like i want you to add these incrementally n stop Immediately if it feels bad. but based on your progress so far this seems like a possible upper goal to reach.

also i had a moment of being like "oh man, i can walk for miles now, i'm able-bodied again and taking up PT space that real disabled people could use??"

......up until he did a couple strength + walking + balance tests n was like. ok. you are leaps and bounds ahead of where i expected. you are also So Crippled,

Last night my wife and I attended her highschool athletic association hall of fame banquet where she was being inducted as an honoree. A very big deal as she had a very serious career as a high school athlete which continued through college and after up even until today (she is actually out playing flag football this morning!) I am so proud of her and I know how much this means to her so I'm happy she is getting recognition.

But I am trying to process my own emotions surrounding this event and sporting culture in general, as a person who used to be athletic and active and now is disabled due to chronic physical and mental illness. It's a tough spot to be in but it's made much harder by the fact that our culture elevates sporting and being active and outdoorsy activities while either ignoring people with disabilities or outright blaming them for their mobility issues. My wife has always been very supportive of me but I don't think she always gets why I feel so vulnerable and out of place in "sports culture" events and groups. I think she thinks I can just come along for fun but it's wrapped up in so much garbage for me that even just spectating is really difficult.

Last night was tough enough because I don't particularly enjoy fancy affairs where you schmooze with strangers and especially was not looking forward to being likely the only queer people there but the sports thing just made things extra hard. That's all everyone talked about. And I get that it's so important! I remember those days too. It's just hard because I feel it was taken away from me. It makes me feel jealous, resentful, frustrated, and bored and all of those are ugly feelings and I don't like it.

I have met some of my wife's sportier friends in the past and they will shake my hand and look at me and my body and say things like "wow you should play hockey/football/basketball/handball." Should I play sports? Should I move my body for fun? Should I wake up every day and use my body in the way it was designed and not be crippled by pain? One time someone said to me "if I had your size I would dominate on the rugby pitch." If you had MY SIZE???? Let me tell you that as a person about 20 years into recovering from bulimia this is absolutely not the kind of shit I want to hear.

Last night someone saw my cane and asked (jokingly, I think?) if it was a sports injury. Nope, I'm disabled. Oh. Another person asked if I had attended this highschool, I said that no I had attended another highschool in the area; they asked if I did sports there, I said I did synchronized swimming until college. "Oh why didn't you continue?" Well jesus not that it's any of your business but that's when I became disabled, actually.

I have not figured out a way to gracefully navigate these situations while still respecting my own boundaries and privacy. They shouldn't be asking these questions but it wasn't too out of place considering the situation either. I just wish I knew what to say. It's hard because I'm still processing how I feel about my body and my limitations and I don't even really like talking about it with my doctors or my therapist, all of whom are awesome, or my friends, who are also awesome, so why would I want to talk about it with this random person? And I'm so mad that all of this got ripped open last night and I felt so vulnerable and upset and it's still getting to me today.

Omg ICBMTHY is so so good! I binged it this morning and i am already obsessed!! 😍😍

Also can we talk about how awful all of the IC is in this? Like not one of them has tried to talk to her, to try to understand her? Do you people not care?! She’s clearly suffering in silence, just because her pain is not as obvious a her sister’s it doesn’t mean it’s not there!!! Ugh, they make me so mad.

Also Eris. I love his character so so much but i have to admit he was a bit o a d*ck to our dear Reader with tho whole swan thing. I hope he sees that and apologizes or something and they actually become really good friends. Like he could teach her about how things works in Prythian and how to have some self-worth and dignity.

And Azriel omg just this bat needs a good slap. I honestly would rather the Reader end up with Eris or Helion. This Azriel is so mean and toxic. Like babe, if you want to end up with her you have a WHOLE lot to make up for.

And i really hope the Reader leave the Night Court. Just like flees in the night and makes them al regret being such d*cks to her. Like she could go to the exiles with Lucien, to Autumn with Eris or Day with Helion. I mean i would even be happy if she went to Spring tbh.

Anyway sorry for the rambling but i needed to get it all out. Your writing is amazing and I cannot wait to see what happens now and to read everything else you have!!

Lots of love 💕

Warnings below: mentions of ableism + human experimentation

This sort of stuff (regarding how obvious someone’s problems are) really interests me in a fantasy setting? I mean, the whole idea of mental disorders is a pretty recent realisation? I’m fairly certain that doctors/surgeons would sometimes operate on disabled people because they thought they couldn’t feel pain and were sub-human which is pretty horrific to think about :/

What I’m saying is I wonder how advanced their medical knowledge is? If technical terms exist??? Is the concept of mental health well-known???? Fun stuff 🥳

I mean, Feyre’s trauma manifested both physically and mentally; Nesta’s seemed much more internal though as a consequence it did have an impact on her physical health also, while reader so far has managed to keep to herself and aside from that one burst with Feyre, she hasn’t really shown many obvious signs to pick up on?

The Eris scene makes me laugh 🤩

He definitely should apologise, but… well, he’s Eris. Outlook not too good 🤔

WOW

You know it’s getting bad when you want reader to run away to the Spring Court 😭

Jokes aside, there is a fun little trip coming up (I would guess maybe two chapters away but I’m not sure? I want to keep the story entertaining but I also don’t want to rush any of the developments :/)

And please don’t apologise for rambling, I absolutely love reading your thoughts! It’s so fun to interact with these sorts of asks and seeing your reactions 🧡💛

Appendix A: An Imagined and Incomplete Conversation about “Consciousness” and “AI,” Across Time

Every so often, I think about the fact of one of the best things my advisor and committee members let me write and include in my actual doctoral dissertation, and I smile a bit, and since I keep wanting to share it out into the world, I figured I should put it somewhere more accessible.

So with all of that said, we now rejoin An Imagined and Incomplete Conversation about “Consciousness” and “AI,” Across Time, already (still, seemingly unendingly) in progress:

René Descartes (1637): The physical and the mental have nothing to do with each other. Mind/soul is the only real part of a person.

Norbert Wiener (1948): I don’t know about that “only real part” business, but the mind is absolutely the seat of the command and control architecture of information and the ability to reflexively reverse entropy based on context, and input/output feedback loops.

Alan Turing (1952): Huh. I wonder if what computing machines do can reasonably be considered thinking?

Wiener: I dunno about “thinking,” but if you mean “pockets of decreasing entropy in a framework in which the larger mass of entropy tends to increase,” then oh for sure, dude.

John Von Neumann (1958): Wow things sure are changing fast in science and technology; we should maybe slow down and think about this before that change hits a point beyond our ability to meaningfully direct and shape it— a singularity, if you will.

Clynes & Klines (1960): You know, it’s funny you should mention how fast things are changing because one day we’re gonna be able to have automatic tech in our bodies that lets us pump ourselves full of chemicals to deal with the rigors of space; btw, have we told you about this new thing we’re working on called “antidepressants?”

Gordon Moore (1965): Right now an integrated circuit has 64 transistors, and they keep getting smaller, so if things keep going the way they’re going, in ten years they’ll have 65 THOUSAND. :-O

Donna Haraway (1991): We’re all already cyborgs bound up in assemblages of the social, biological, and techonological, in relational reinforcing systems with each other. Also do you like dogs?

Ray Kurzweil (1999): Holy Shit, did you hear that?! Because of the pace of technological change, we’re going to have a singularity where digital electronics will be indistinguishable from the very fabric of reality! They’ll be part of our bodies! Our minds will be digitally uploaded immortal cyborg AI Gods!

Tech Bros: Wow, so true, dude; that makes a lot of sense when you think about it; I mean maybe not “Gods” so much as “artificial super intelligences,” but yeah.

90’s TechnoPagans: I mean… Yeah? It’s all just a recapitulation of The Art in multiple technoscientific forms across time. I mean (*takes another hit of salvia*) if you think about the timeless nature of multidimensional spiritual architectures, we’re already—

DARPA: Wait, did that guy just say something about “Uploading” and “Cyborg/AI Gods?” We got anybody working on that?? Well GET TO IT!

Disabled People, Trans Folx, BIPOC Populations, Women: Wait, so our prosthetics, medications, and relational reciprocal entanglements with technosocial systems of this world in order to survive makes us cyborgs?! :-O

[Simultaneously:]

Kurzweil/90’s TechnoPagans/Tech Bros/DARPA: Not like that. Wiener/Clynes & Kline: Yes, exactly.

Haraway: I mean it’s really interesting to consider, right?

Tech Bros: Actually, if you think about the bidirectional nature of time, and the likelihood of simulationism, it’s almost certain that there’s already an Artificial Super Intelligence, and it HATES YOU; you should probably try to build it/never think about it, just in case.

90’s TechnoPagans: …That’s what we JUST SAID.

Philosophers of Religion (To Each Other): …Did they just Pascal’s Wager Anselm’s Ontological Argument, but computers?

Timnit Gebru and other “AI” Ethicists: Hey, y’all? There’s a LOT of really messed up stuff in these models you started building.

Disabled People, Trans Folx, BIPOC Populations, Women: Right?

Anthony Levandowski: I’m gonna make an AI god right now! And a CHURCH!

The General Public: Wait, do you people actually believe this?

Microsoft/Google/IBM/Facebook: …Which answer will make you give us more money?

Timnit Gebru and other “AI” Ethicists: …We’re pretty sure there might be some problems with the design architectures, too…

Some STS Theorists: Honestly this is all a little eugenics-y— like, both the technoscientific and the religious bits; have you all sought out any marginalized people who work on any of this stuff? Like, at all??

Disabled People, Trans Folx, BIPOC Populations, Women: Hahahahah! …Oh you’re serious?

Anthony Levandowski: Wait, no, nevermind about the church.

Some “AI” Engineers: I think the things we’re working on might be conscious, or even have souls.

“AI” Ethicists/Some STS Theorists: Anybody? These prejudices???

Wiener/Tech Bros/DARPA/Microsoft/Google/IBM/Facebook: “Souls?” Pfffft. Look at these whackjobs, over here. “Souls.” We’re talking about the technological singularity, mind uploading into an eternal digital universal superstructure, and the inevitability of timeless artificial super intelligences; who said anything about “Souls?”

René Descartes/90’s TechnoPagans/Philosophers of Religion/Some STS Theorists/Some “AI” Engineers: …

[Scene]

----------- ----------- ----------- -----------

Read Appendix A: An Imagined and Incomplete Conversation about “Consciousness” and “AI,” Across Time at A Future Worth Thinking About

and read more of this kind of thing at: Williams, Damien Patrick. Belief, Values, Bias, and Agency: Development of and Entanglement with "Artificial Intelligence." PhD diss., Virginia Tech, 2022. https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/111528.

https://mobile.twitter.com/lovemazejikook/status/1617506559621496832

Doesn't than mean he sleeps alone everytime? If he is in a relationship won't they even sleep together? Or couple doesn't need to sleep together atleast few days to be a couple ?

JK: "I used to have a cuddle pillow when I was little. Now I don't and I toss and turn alot in my sleep"

You: "so this means he is single and sleeps alone right?"

Please explain to me how you twisted his words so throughly? Lmfao

Is it me? Am I the problem? Is it the fact that I read so much that I am expecting too much of people to be able to comprehend a sentence as it is said without difficulty? I suggest practice anon! You didnt give me a lot trope wise to work with here, but I recommend Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo if you haven't read it yet. The romance isn't the main focus, the heist is. But wow, you can read about how much intimacy can come in various forms and still be insanely beautiful expressions of love. And that found family trope is perfection

Description: Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone. . . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Kaz and Inej are everything to me, that slow burn. Ugh 😍

“I would come for you. And if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we’d fight our way out together—knives drawn, pistol blazing. Because that’s what we do. We never stop fighting.”

And guess what anon? They never sleep in the same bed and they even only touch sometimes and with careful consent because of their traumas, their boundaries look different than what you'd typically see in a couple, fictional or not. And yet, that intimacy, that love 😍

Content warnings: Ableism and ableist language, persecution for witchcraft (central theme), indentured servitude and slavery, Forced underaged sex work recounted, Child abuse recounted, abandonment and disownment, Substance and gambling addiction, panic attack (implied) and nightmares, Coerced suicide (implied), Alcohol consumption, recreational drug use, drugging without consent, forced and coerced drug dependency, Blood and gore depiction, graphic physical injuries, eyeball trauma, emesis, medical experimentation, dead bodies, plague, body modifications (with consent), Grief depiction and death of a father, brother, family and friend, Murder, attempted murder, physical assault, knife and gun violence, torture, strangulation, explosions, Kidnapping, captivity, incarceration, loss of autonomy, drowning, Animal death, animal attack, death by an animal attack and animal fighting rings, Bullying

Representation: Some POC main characters, 2 Bisexual and a gay main character, an mlm relationship, disability own voices, ptsd and other mental health rep too.

This IS a TV show on Netflix too which is great. But does differ from the book in ways and the book is spectacular, so I highly recommend reading it! And watching the show if you want!

The other relationships? Also total perfection. They are right up there as favorites for me too.

So my dad and stepmom have been watching "Love On The Spectrum", and I ended up watching a couple episodes with them.

The show is fine, idk, I don't really have thoughts on it right now. What I DO have thoughts on is how my father responds to it.

He always spoke about the people on the show as such an Other! Now, let me be clear. No one in my family is diagnosed with autism. However, I strongly suspect most, if not all, of us have it, and my dad's the person who I have the least doubts about. (with myself being second) Also to be clear, I have not voiced this suspicion to my father.

He KNOWS he resembles an autistic person, and has been told so by more than one third party! But he seems to think people who are "successful" don't count, or whatever. (Which, I suppose if we're going by the very strict medical definition of "a disorder", could be seen as true.)

But when I pointed out that one of the autistic people on the show doesn't seem to have enough information on a topic, and say, "someone should have explained this to him!" my dad says, "they do explain it to them, but they don't seem to be able to conceptualize romance and relationships the way we do." Like, excuse me, who's "we"?? You KNOW I'm 28 and have NEVER been on a date; the same age OR OLDER as some of the people on the show whose lack of romantic experience is being portrayed as remarkable.

An autistic man goes on a date with a woman who tells him she's a pre-K teacher, and my dad goes, "oh! so she's not also autistic." (I worked as a teacher at daycare/preschool for four years.) And then expresses that he'd been wondering if it's even moral or appropriate for someone without autism to be in a relationship with someone autistic. I remind him that one of my friends, whose years-long relationship my father is aware of, has autism, and their partner doesn't. (I don't remind my father that he, himself, appears to be an autistic man in a relationship with a nuerotypical woman.)

My father tries to correct himself, without having the specific vocabulary to, that he means people like in the show, who live with their parents at the age of thirty. "Physically they're capable of taking care of themselves, so, y'know, there must be some kind of mental problem." I don't point out that I, myself, will turn 29 in a couple months, and, though I do live alone in my apartment, I receive a pretty significant amount of support, financially and otherwise, from both my parents. He maybe doesn't understand just how bad I am at "taking care of myself" l am, even aside from the money.

Perhaps he doesn't know that I can't even walk through my space normally because there's so much stuff everywhere, that I only shower every other day and I'm doing well to brush my teeth twice a week, that I can barely keep myself fed and never cook, or that I'm currently struggling not to get fired over being late because I struggle to process the linear passage of time. Not to mention that I need an entire armada of medications every day just to function at THIS level!!

Honestly I've lately been considering the possibility that I might never free myself from my parents' support, what that would mean and what it would look like. Because sometimes I'm like, "Wow I really AM disabled", and even doing my current job, (which is easy, and full of autistic people) seems like a huge challenge.

So, anyway, idk. I related more to the people on the show than my dad seems willing to recognize, and that doesn't feel great. Plus, like, even if I'm wrong, and we AREN'T autistic, what benefit is there to distancing ourselves from autistic people??? From being like, "they're NOTHING like ME."?

u don't have to asnwer this if u don't want cause i don't want to invite this discourse but u are the only one who will understand my pain. i really like a ship where half of the ship is commonly headcanoned as being aro/ace which is fine but then unforuntately so so so many people writing for the ship i like are being like yeah no he's still aro/ace but he's in a relationship and im like hows that work? theyre just friends? and theyre like no theyre dating and they fuck and im like ??????? u keep using words wrong and i'm yelling anyway youre great

As I've posted many times over the years and will not reiterate in full here, asexual and aromantic, two terms which I think DO have value and could be helpful to many, many people, mean nothing at this point.

Asexual can mean completely repulsed by sex, could mean just doesn't desire sex, can mean does desire sex but just... isn't attracted (even if they find said person physically, emotionally, and mentally stimulating, so fuck if I know what attraction means). Same thing for aromantic with romance.

So, technically anyone can be aromantic and/or asexual. Someone happily married who has sex they want on the reg with their partner is actually the best aroace representation in the world.

If we applied this to any other identity we'd all realize it sounds dumb as shit, like "this gay man wants to know his wife carnally and does so on the reg" sounds fucking ridiculous but who knows.

Not even getting into how 90% of characters ~regularly headcanoned but not explictily stated to be~ aro and/or ace are often just autistic, people of color, women people don't want to interfere with the gay ship, disabled, gay but not out about it yet (or hasnt come to terms with it yet), emotionally stunted/afraid of intimacy, sexual assault survivors, and/or some/all of hte above. Or children. I don't consume media centered on kids much these days but like... the number of literal children I have seen headcanoned as aro/ace because they went "Ewww kissing" or like... haven't dated someone yet at 14 is fucking WILD.

And wow I said I wasn't gonna get into it but look at what you made me type up.

No one else send me asks on this topic for 2-4 weeks. If you want ot talk me about this, even if it's just to agree with me, buy me something first. Or if youc an send me another good wishlist website that doesn't reveal my info but can add items from anywhere... that would also be nice. You could get an ire-free ask out of that

hey! this is chance & here’s week 2's prompt. when you write or create an oc, do you like to reference elements from your life? if yes, name a few. if no, why not?

Howdy! Thanks for the ask! Sorry for the delay in answering, life tried to eat me again rude.

Short answer:

Oh boy do I! I typically pull inspiration from my personal struggles such as my mental/physical health/disabilities (been chronically ill, am deaf without hearing aids), and other elements.

Long answer (most of which is under a cut):

Oh boy do I!

As I said, I typically pull inspiration from my personal struggles, the biggest ones being my physical/mental health and my disability.

This is a huge change from when I first started writing. I would either go full on self insert mode (which I view as cringe now, but I was learning the ropes and it was helpful to my growth as a writer), or I would be like "omz it's so tacky when authors pull inspiration from themselves, that's so cocky!". I was rather extreme when I was a kid XD

I used to avoid writing about my disability simply because I had:

Never seen it done

Thought that it was what I was "supposed" to write, and that my disability had to be written about in a certain way or no one would read it or allow it to be published

And I wasn't interested in stories that people wanted or expected me to write about deaf/hoh people; we aren't tragedies. Give me a deaf person running around a magical world making friends!

And then I realized I could write it*. It wasn't egotistical to pull inspiration from my life. That's what all creators do, intentionally or not. I'm one of those creators that purposefully pulls inspiration/traits from my life and puts them into my characters.

But, with some caveats:

Does it add to the character? For example, Mark originally was such a pain in the butt that when I went back and read my very first draft of the story (back in high school), I had to stop because Mark was just that hateable.** He was angry, self centered which stemmed from his anger, and I just couldn't relate to this guy. The problem is, House of Moons without Mark as the main character, isn't House of Moons at all. So for years, I put the story on hold, and just kind of hoped that one day it would come to me.

When I found out that I could write about my disability my way, I realized Mark needed my hearing loss.

When I was Mark's age, I was furious with the world for a number of reasons. And one of them was because of how horribly the world treated me as a disabled person. Sometimes I was mocked or excluded because I wasn't able to hear. Sometimes it was because the world treated me as special, just because I couldn't hear.

Anything good I did was "Oh wow! You're hearing impaired and you did that? That's so brave!". While in hindsight I know those comments probably came from a good place, it still hurt, and it still hurts to feel as if my accomplishments are intrinsically tied to my ability to hear.

Getting that from everywhere but your family is exhausting. Over time, infuriating. Once I gave Mark his hearing loss (which is the exact same kind of hearing loss I have), his anger made sense. It also gave me a starting point to explore more reasons why he was so angry. So Mark is now angry at his parents for never being around. The magical community for simultaneously fawning over and ostracizing him and his family for something he can't help. His neighborhood and (at first) school for treating him as something breakable because of his hearing loss.

Mark isn't angry at himself for being born with a hearing loss which gradually (for whatever reason) got worse over time. He's angered by how he's treated due to that hearing loss, and a lot of other things too.

Mark sharing my hearing loss adds to his character. Now I love writing him, he's relatable and even though he's angry and can be a jerk, there's a reason behind it and the possibility for growth.

Can I make this trait the character's own?

While I make sure the trait I'm giving the character makes sense, if it doesn't actually help make the character the character, then I nix the idea.

For example (moving the spotlight from Mark for a moment here), Harris and his siblings have PTSD. I have PTSD. Harris and his family have PTSD for very different reasons than I do. If I were to take away the PTSD from any of those characters their story would literally make no sense. They all lived through an unspeakable trauma. For them to not have some sort of physical or psychological scarring makes no sense and is a disservice to the reader.

But how Harris deals with his trauma is different than how his sister and older brother deal with it. They all have PTSD, they all have a shared trauma, but they all cope differently.

And because their PTSD comes from a different place than mine, their coping strategies are different too***. And because in real life, people with shared traumas will still have different coping styles. So how Harris deals with his PTSD (physically hiding often times), is different than how Acida, his sister does (building a blanket fort or stress baking). And of course, their older brother Fanggore copes by making sure his siblings are accounted for and then reads a book.

So typically, I use some part of myself to give myself a starting point in helping flesh out the characters. But I make sure that it's relevant to the character and actually makes sense for them to have that positive or negative trait.

While I focused on my struggles, I do like slipping in positive traits too! I have one character that's very into music and writes lyrics (which I do), another who has my zany sense of humor (I work hard to make sure each character has a unique sense of humor, rather than just everyone being snarky).

Overall, I'm one of those people that really draws inspiration from my personal experiences. I use it more as a starting point and then let my imagination make something new from it.

Thanks for the ask! :D

~ ~

*Cannot tell you how mind-blowing it was to realize that not only was I completely capable of writing about my disability in stories that I would want to read, but also that people would be interested in reading it. Still blows my mind some days.

**I will note here that autocorrect was overly enthusiastic and corrected "hateable" to "hittable" and I'm quite sure everyone felt that way. I also had to stop reading what I wrote cause I was good enough of a writer to know when writing was bad (and at the time it was) but I was also not strong enough of a writer at the time to fix what needed fixing.

***If I were to give Harris and his siblings my exact kind of PTSD (the cause and how I react) that would also make no sense...it really, really wouldn't. That would be silly! /derogatory

1, 6, 7 and 15 for the disability pride asks? ^^

x

1. what disability/ies do you have? (and are they mental, physical, or both?)

i'm autistic and i have EDS! those are the Main Things but they are both very like. umbrella sort of terms that come with a lot of other shit so i'm sure other words would apply too jfkdsf

6. what's something good that's come out of being disabled?

i love being autistic bc it's Me. like at its core, in a vacuum, i don't see it as this super debilitating thing (for me personally, i know other people feel differently and VALID) bc if the world was more accessible and i was just allowed to exist as myself i'd be like. pretty okay. but even along with all the fuckshit i have to deal with, the fact that i'm autistic means i feel good feelings very strongly and i'm very passionate about things and life is just so full. so while the bad things are Very Bad the good things are also Very Good. you know

also just in general being disabled has pushed me to learn about disabilities i don't have, and has made me a lot more aware & accepting of other people i think.

7. what's a struggle you wish more people talked about?

it's hard to narrow it down but just. my god the fact that existing in society as it is as an autistic persona is fucking ROUGH like everything is overwhelming and exhausting and i'm tired always. just because someone "isn't visibly autistic" (see: is high masking) doesn't mean they're not struggling.

also other invisible disabilities, i wish people were just. more aware and accepting of them. like people were SO NICE TO ME the one time i used a wheelchair, which i guess makes sense but also like.........this is a time i am in less pain because i'm not walking, and it would also benefit me a lot if people were aware that i needed accommodations even more when i'm not using a visible mobility aid. i am in pain and people need to believe me instead of giving me the stink eye bc i'm "too young" to take the last seat on the bus.

15. what does disability pride mean to you?

self love and self acceptance (and acceptance of other people)! i'm not like "wow joint pain is great" in the same way i'm like "i love being autistic," but i've been able to accept my physical limits and work with them. i can find other people like me and we can relate on some level, even if we're just complaining about ableist bs

Just out of curiosity, are you in the mood for talking about stuff? Liek you know when it's like "damn I want to Rant" but like about anything. I know this is random but in case that's you rn idk dude

i simultaneously do want to talk abt things and am also wracked with brain-no-worky symptom tomfoolery BUT i will do my best

i am thinking about disability aids!! because that is 90% of what i have been thinking about for the past week!! because i want a mobility aid but that's beside the point!! mainly i am thinking about the fact that so so so so so many abled NT people seem to think that disability aids, like. start and end w/these

[ID 1: a hospital wheelchair. /end ID.] [ID 2: a curved wood cane. /end ID.]

when that is not true at all!!! like for starters. there are obviously way more types of disability aids, which serve a variety of functions, for a variety of disabilities both physical and mental.

but also, people seem to think they have to be... boring? but they don't!! Like, I have a lot of really colourful stim toys, and my ear defenders are also headphones and imo they look pretty cool. I've seen people put spikes on their canes, put stickers on their crutches, re-paint their wheelchairs, dye their service dog's fur, etc.

there are obviously people who use just kinda the expected look with their aids and that's totally ok, the goal is for it to help not for it to look cool, but like. do u know how cool i find this??

[ID: a curved bronze-coloured cane with a wrist strap. /end ID.]

[ID: galaxy-patterned ear defenders. /end ID.]

[ID: a teal wheelchair with a low, cushioned back. /end ID.]

and i think it's IMPORTANT bc like. again, while cool and amazing because they give comfort and have some level of freedom, very medical-looking disability aids are... well, they make people Sad sometimes

my friend who needs a cane doesn't want one bc the ones she's seen are so "old-people-ish. people would stare." she doesn't know (tho i want to tell her the next time i see her bc i didn't know either) that you can get ones that glow in the dark and ones that are all sorts of colours and ones with cool handles and sparkly ones and you can put stickers on them and and and there are so many possibilities. like... it makes a difference!! it does!!

disabled teens (and also disabled adults ofc) deserve to have fun as best as we can when dealing with a disability. like... for me? yeah autism can be shit sometimes, but at least i can listen to MCR with my ear defenders. and yeah, i'm in pain and fatigued a lot from whoknowswhat-itis, but i think having a green cane w/my aromantic dragon sticker on it would make me feel better. on some level.

i want popular kids to be able to show off their cool new stim toys and i want shy kids to be able to start conversations because wow, your wrist brace looks cool and i want friends to be able to bond over helping pick out a member of the group's new crutches. i want it to be able to be FUN at least a little bc frankly being disabled kinda sucks!!! it's scary and it's tiring and it SUCKS!!! but getting to have just a bit of fun and personality around disability makes it feel slightly less like hell and i want everyone to have that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow i did not think i had this strong of an opinion abt this. but i do. the more u know

Good afternoon.

First of all, thanks for your blog! There are not many resources for gifted adults, and pages like this help me feel a sense of belonging.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to muster up the courage to ask for your opinion on the matter, so, If you have a spare minute to answer I would really appreciate it!

The thing is, I feel a strong connection to the label but at the same time I have a lot of doubt and insecurity about my right to this identity.

I scored 145 on IQ test, I was in something resembling a gifted program in linguistics in 7-9 grade, I have a lot of different interests, a strong innate curiosity and I feel most comfortable around people who are involved in academia in some way. I enjoy art, writing essays, philosophy, acting, gymnastics, reading, math and my ultimate goal is to go to med school. Actually, I had a near-death experience once due to a medical condition and all I could think about was that it would be so miserable to die while not being a doctor.

But on the other hand, I graduated from high school with great difficulty, had a terrible academic performance throughout the whole time and have no "real" achievements. Since I finished school I didn't do much. I'm severely depressed to the point where I had urinary tract infections because I couldn't get out of bed just to go to the bathroom for hours.

I'm also diagnosed with autism, ADHD, a personality disorder and cptsd.

I think this is typical 2e experience, but while I have no doubts about being disabled I have an impostor syndrome towards the second "e".

Based on this description, do you think I am gifted?

Best wishes!

— A. R.

PS; sorry for possible grammatical errors, I am not a native speaker.

You're gifted.

No question about it. Pretty much the only (semi-) objective way we have to evaluate whether somebody is gifted is an IQ test: if you score over 129, you are gifted. Your IQ was scored at 145, so you are definitely gifted!

You have also been diagnosed with a number of mental health conditions, so yes, you are definitely also twice-exceptional!

Here's the thing: giftedness is not about what you achieve. People are always trying to tie giftedness to academic and career achievement, but the truth is, gifted is something you are, not something you do. Some gifted people have really obvious achievements that our culture values. Some gifted people don't. It doesn't make them any less gifted!

People think that being gifted makes life easy, but the truth is that life can be extra hard for gifted people. We tend to be naturally extremely sensitive, both physically and emotionally, which can make daily tasks that other people find easy much harder for us. Add to that all the other things you've listed that you are struggling with, and WOW. Honey, you are achieving amazing things every day just by surviving. I have c-ptsd myself, and it's a bitch. I know what I'm saying here: Forget what other people might call achievements. You should be proud of yourself that you're still hanging in there.

If life is a race, then the starting line is at different places for different people. Some people have it easy: their starting line is really close to the end of the track. Your starting line is waaaaay back because you're dealing with so much. So don't beat yourself up for not reaching the end of the track as quickly as other people!

I also want to send you a little encouragement. Things may be really tough right now, but that doesn't mean they always will be. I also say this from personal experience. Sometimes we go through really difficult stages in our lives where everything seems nearly impossible. I went through one myself. I'm coming out of it now, and things are looking more hopeful. Keep going: there may be better things waiting for you than you have any idea of now.

(Also, if you're not already getting mental health help for the stuff you're going through right now, I want to encourage you to try to do that. In particular, if you have cptsd, a therapist who is specifically formally trained in treating trauma is probably your best bet!)

right so that moment has passed and now it turns out i do want to discuss my thoughts in some more detail lmao

like ok to be fair i'm an outsider to all this; i am not and never have been active in cpunk or -adjacent spaces. and i definitely feel like i have not seen the epicenter of this whole drama, since like. in browsing random disability blogs i have in the last week encountered multiple people whose posts for months have been 90% complaining about This Shit, and yet i have not encountered very much of the Shit in question at all?

like. i've seen a whole bunch of posts that go something like, "i can't believe abled NDs* have the gall to call us ableist bullies just for saying that chronic illness and autism are different experiences!", or like, "no matter how clear i make it that i'm talking about physical disability, all my posts end up with a billion notes tagged 'adhd' or 'depression' or whatever. why they gotta make everything about them! let us keep something to ourselves for once!", &/or c. usually in that order. but like... without the obvious middle stage where they argue on their blogs with actual objectors to this "let this be just for us" plea. so like maybe they've deleted most of those posts, or maybe the central example is on some cpunk bnf's blog which i just haven't happened to click on yet. idk. but my point is

that from my outsider's perspective it feels like a huge and sudden escalation? to have gone from "ugh not every post has to be about you; read the actual words i wrote, don't just pretend they said something else that you like better!" to, like, "in case you needed more proof that all abled NDs are ableist scum" rallying-the-troops type posts

and wow! i hate it! i cannot actually imagine a level of vitriol from The Other Side that would justify this bullshit.

i want, like?--i sorta hope that somewhere i've missed there's like, a long manifesto from the aforementioned (hypothetical) cpunk bnf about why they and their friends have suddenly decided that neurodivergent people don't count as disabled. even if i probably wouldn't agree with it, i'm still like. that should exist. you can't just start Asserting stuff like that, at people you know will take offense, without explaining anywhere why you've adopted these different discourse norms.

(or i mean--you can, but if you're not trying to escalate conflict then you really shouldn't.)

but.......... also it makes sense. not morally! but. logically. it seems to be a common problem with any echo-chambery discursive space? i remember when i was ~18-21 and much more Online, i would drink some shiny new kind of SJ koolaid and then forget within weeks that people who hadn't drunk that koolaid didn't know what it tasted like.

e.g. after that post that's like (i'm paraphrasing) "the expression 'boys will be boys' should be replaced with 'bad parenting leads to assholes'" got super popular, for years whenever i heard someone say "boys will be boys" i assumed they were either endorsing or deliberately mocking the sexist baggage with which i associate that phrase. when... no, pal; it's a common phrase. you have zero information about what it signifies in random strangers' minds

so like, i'm guessing that's what's gone on here? like like like, backing up a bit: i sympathize with and frequently feel for myself these people's rancor about mental illness (and, though to a much lesser extent, autism and adhd) being the public face of disability. and particularly the thing where like--

ten or fifteen years ago, when i first encountered awareness-raising activism about mental illness, a lot of it took the form of "you wouldn't download a car"-type comparisons with injury, illness, and/or central examples of physical disability. as in, like, rebuffing "your [mental illness accommodation] is just a crutch!" with "imagine telling someone on actual crutches that they shouldn't rely on a crutch" &c.

when what their intuition told them was about physical vs. mental or visible vs. invisible illness was really more about acute vs. chronic illness.**

and like a. this mistake is very annoying, since it leads to a lot of mentally ill/invisibly ill people assuming incorrectly that physically disabled/visibly ill people don't get doubted and belittled the same way they do, when uhhhh guess again.

but also b. it means that while from my perspective it seems super mega obvious that mental illness is the public face of disability in 2023, many people who care a whole lot about activist efforts on behalf of mental illness but who don't know much about other kinds of disability activism still, erroneously, inexplicably think that the reason they don't see as many campaigns like this for other kinds of disability is because physically disabled people are seen/accepted already and don't need to fight for that the way mentally ill people did/still do.

when like.

...this is such a tiny example but i'm bitter about it so: the other day on my university campus i saw a fundraising booth about support for mental illness. you can't log in to our canvas page without seeing a mental health hotline pop up in the corner. nearly every professor i've had here has at some point gone on a tangent about how important it is to support mental health. many times we've had little impromptu class discussions about the unique struggles faced by people with (always this phrase) "invisible illnesses like depression." my school is really really loud about how much it cares about student mental health.*** and i don't think any of these people know that when i encounter these pronouncements i feel like my own experience has been overlooked

so yes, ok? it pisses me off also when mentally ill/neurodivergent awareness-raisers, activists, and people generally think it's like. an underdog move. punching up, if you will. to reblog posts about chronic pain/other phsyical disability and add "this can apply to mental illness, too!" as if that's a mindblowing revelation to us stuckup, old-guard invalids when like. y-yeah, we know that mental illness also sucks. many of us (raises hand) experience it ourselves, and even if we haven't? we too have seen the internet. the mental illness experience is way more legible to the general public than ours is, so it's really fuckin annoying when people co-opt descriptions of our experience to be about theirs.

but like. the fact you (a physically disabled blogger) have now had this conversation with your (also physically disabled and blogging) friends doesn't mean you get to treat people who weren't in on that conversation like hopeless reactionaries??? this is like me in 2012 seeing the term "friend zone" as a red flag no matter who flew it, even though 2011 me had used that term nonjudgmentally and had no inkling of its entitled/sexist undertones.

like i can remember the exhaustion of communicating with waves of internet strangers who can't be bothered to backread your blog a few pages before commenting on some viral post but. th-that is the thing that's occurring here?? multiple waves of people who, each, individually, see something that without context looks inflammatory. not one wave of pigheads who refuse to listen.

*their term, not mine. don't like this at all myself. see previous post

**though to be fair, i don't doubt that plenty of otherwise-healthy people have been accused of "attention seeking" even for, like, a sprained ankle. or for still audibly sniffling when they come back to work after having had the flu. some people are just....? dicks? just dicks. if you can imagine a bad behavior, it's probably common somewhere.

****does this decrease the rate of mental illness in our student body? hahahaha no, probably not

Let's have a conversation about witchcraft, spirituality and ableism.

First up, let's be super clear that I am going to be very blunt and forward with this, it's blunt honesty not brutal, if you feel strongly against something I'm about to say, go do some shadow work sit with that feeling and start unpacking the beliefs behind it because what I'm calling out is something that does genuine harm to a lot of people and needs to be called out.

There was a post going around of 'if you need to know who around you is negative and doesn't have your best interests at heart, look for who drops things around you.' and my instant reaction was 'Wow, that's really fucking ableist'

Because I have a neurological condition that impacts my hands. I drop a lot of things. I'm also incredibly short sighted and have awful depth perception without my glasses but because I spent so long without glasses struggle to understand the depth perception with them and thus struggle to grab things within relative space. Anxiety can make both of these experiences worse for me, but also I'm less stressed about hiding my disability with people I'm comfortable around, so sometimes I drop things more around my favourite and most loved people not because they're bad for me but because I'm not afraid of them judging me for a tremor or the extreme pain in my hands my condition can cause me.

I also don't often do candle magic anymore.

I have seizures and pass out randomly, if I feel weak and like my body is unpredictable, I will not light a candle and risk a house fire.

I create bio-degradable packet spells sometimes or spell satchets and jars.

Despite the controversy occasionally surrounding both of these in the witchcraft community; they are both safer options environmentally than a house fire in a suburb where houses are close to each other and the property in question has spent a long time growing and building a garden in which many native species on animals regularly find shelter and food.

I also do a lot of alters for my spell work and don't often give offerings or maintenance in a traditional way because it's unsustainable to my health.

I don't meditate traditionally because as someone who's neurodivergent, has C-PTSD and is physically disabled, hyper awareness of my body and breathing is actually counterproductive to my mental health and I find movement necessary to prevent pain and anxiety.

The outdoors isn't always safe for me because my conditions impact my heart rate and blood pressure and I can't afford to be in the heat too long because I will pass out and cold severely impacts my joints.

I also don't use a lot of oils, fragrances or incense due to my family's allergies and because I have a budgie and I care about the health of her lungs.

I often find myself ostracised from the community through ableism, the need to memorise everything, the need to worship in specific ways, the need to be entirely love and light, the need to 'heal' everything.

Not everything different is broken.

Not everything can or should be one way.

There are many different cultures, communities and customs than just yours and they need to be acknowledged and accepted and appreciated, especially when appreciation and acceptance means you don't interact with them with being welcomed in first.

And every member of every community is collectively responsible for one another, and we must acknowledge and accept when things are a problem and hold individuals and the collective accountable for the harm and the change.

So we as a community need to stop shaming and demanding things of others and we need to look at who the advice and teachings we give will harm.

The things we learn in this life will not be free of biases and prejudices we didn't see at first. But it's our responsibility to unpack that and call it out.

Had the sporadic idea this morning to create a Discord for disabled FFxiv players (I don't know if one exists already but I haven't seen it promoted). Some ideas and thoughts below the cut:

Overall I would want it to be a community that removes the stigma that you can't play these games if you have a limiting physical disability, or that you can't be accepted in a social group if you have certain mental health conditions. I knew an Ele Shaman in WoW who raided with mild palsy, and some of our raid group was bitter she was holding us back. I don't want anyone to feel like they can't do endgame content because they might not be able to do end game content because they have a much different skill cap. I knew a Nelf Hunter who was blind (could see, but very, very poorly) who had a friend as his "seeing eye Gnome" in voice comms helping lead him places. I don't want anyone to feel like they're alone and can't enjoy something because their limitations provide a significant block. This can include people who suffer from fatigue, ADHD, or brain fog for any reason and can't focus or have the energy to utilize their full Job skillset or boss mechanics. This can include people with severe anxiety that makes them worry about doing group content. If it routinely hinders your ability to play and fully enjoy the game as an abled person would, the server would be for you.

Content: The usual chat, entertainment, and art channels, but also channels for disability aids, guides, and advice (both game and real life) like how to use that Xbox modular controller thing on PC and Playstation. A category of channels for people to advertise FCs, Linkshells, and Statics either by and for disabled players, or those that have leadership who are properly educated and accepting. Basically anywhere disabled players can go to enjoy the game without feeling judged or ostracized. A category for content runs with other disabled players from across datacenters, like maps, deep dungeons, etc. If people want to create their own disability-friendly statics they can use the other channel, because statics can become their own individual thing and I don't want any bad things that may happen to become the server's responsibility. A venting channel in order to keep the space from becoming Depression Central. A lot of disability communities I've been in seem to sway towards venting about treatment from doctors or the general public, or how the conditions impact your life and relationships. I don't want this server to become just that, but these frustrations are valid and shouldn't be shut out, so instead they'll have a containment space. Likewise, a channel for people to share positive experiences. Maybe you finally got that diagnosis you were looking for, maybe someone in a random dungeon was super cool even when you were struggling. Category for other MMOs so people can find guilds and groups in those as well, I just don't want the server to be a broad disabled MMO server since that means potentially thousands of members, and from entirely different social communities. Moderation: Obviously all the usual "no bigotry" rules will apply. There is significant overlap of disability and queer community, for example, as well as mental health disabilities from other marginalized ethnic or religious groups put through political or generational trauma. I'd like to build a relaxed moderation team- no one with a history of any recent public or game drama. I'd like to build a team that spreads across the entire spectrum of representation not just in disabilities themselves, but culture. This isn't purely about representation, but also having someone to turn to for knowledge on any issues of an ethnic, religious, or queer culture as they pertain to disability. Absolutely no gatekeeping, no negative or "ableist" speech putting down any disabilities or purporting someone "isn't disabled enough" or "such and such isn't a disability". The next stuff will largely revolve around moderation for mental health conditions but- This will include vilified conditions and those that can cause unintended social conflict, like ASDs, cluster B's, bipolar. All moderators need to be on the same page with not assuming the worst from someone who might slip up. Helping lead a large FC has taught me how to give people chances and work with them over social abrasions due to disabilities and mental health, but that there is a hard limit. In case of any crisis or severe meltdowns, server mutes will be utilized via a special role which will hide or lock all channels except one with the moderation team to allow the person place to speak and cool off, and for the team to determine if the person is unfit for the server or just needed some time (repeat occurrences of this may necessitate a ban). People who continue to cause problems after being spoken to and excuse it with their disability will need to be removed. Have a plan in place if this leads to public lambasting on Twitter or otherwise. We absolutely will not engage with counter callouts, simply ignore most cases and maintain our overall MO of creating and maintaining a health and safe space for disabled players, which inevitably may not be for everyone.

We will allow ban appeals, to give people who pursue treatment and improvement the chance to come back after a minimum of 6 months to a year depending on severity.

Ok wow new pinned post time cause I made that like day 2 of knowing I was an alter

So hello!

I'm Anton, I'm an Enjolras introject in an osdd system, tho like please do not assume I am like fanon I am my own person

I'm 22/23, body is roughly the same

I use he/him pronouns, and I am a fucking transexual faggot (or like to put it in "polite" terms I'm trans masc and into masc aligned people. I like my phrasing better. :) )

I'm dating an R introject in my system who I love very very much <3

Body is disabled both obviously mentally but also physically, we have a lot of chronic health issues

Also I have my own mental health cocktail that I retain the right to secrecy on (except whatever I post on here I guess)

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Interested/working to get involved in queer socialist anarchism; im a trans punk anarchist with very strong beliefs, I will liberally use the block button (one of the few ways I am a liberal lmao)

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I'm super super into queer history and queer/feminist/leftist theory, trying to make it a goal to read as much of that as possible.

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Currently reading: Queering Anarchism: addressing and undressing power and desire

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In terms of history stonewall-present is a special interest, especially in resistance in the AIDS epidemic, and the ways we can learn from our elders. With my boyfriend this extends into a lot of the art activism of this era, Keith Haring and ACT UP my beloveds

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Anyway, don't know who's actually gonna follow this blog other than close friends?? But I like having a place for my stuff and talking to myself so hi