Trying My Best

what's going on people?

general depression

hate the military

So does general depression. Why do you think he's so morose

if he hated it he'd kill his commander-in-chief

Unfortunately the commander-in-chief, five-star General Paranoia, is always alert for any threat to his person

orbital strike is always unlikely but never impossible

He's got that exact quote as a wall poster with a kitten on it

well.... fuck....

gentrification is an endemic issue plaguing this wet cite

gentrification

is an endemic issue

plaguing this wet cite

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

motivational poster for general paranoia’s wall

I want the writer’s strike to last until they get everything they demand and more. I want the SAG strike to last until AI is entirely forbidden across the board in the entire industry. I want CGI artists to unionize and strike. I want animators to strike. I want composers and directors and designers and VAs and techies and producers and stage hands and game devs and programmers and recording artists to strike.

I want every aspect of the entertainment industry brought to a grinding halt for months or even years to take it from the corps and put it back in the hands of the artists.

spilling a drink is one of the deepest pains imaginable. the loss of delicious liquids. the knowledge your adult ass needs a little no-spill baby sippy cup. now you have to clean instead of enjoy your delicious beverage and pray that the ants dont discover youre a god damn fool

Nonverbal is permanent. If you lose speech it's called speech loss. You don't go nonverbal. You're not sometimes nonverbal.

Refusing to listen to high support needs autistics and actually nonverbal people on this is ableist.

The funny part about the "I'm not going to coddle my kids, the real world isn't going to be nice to them" kind of people is that once their kids are grown and out of the house, they spend years being continuously astonished to learn that people as cold and mean as their parents are actually extremely rare.

the Ableist Language Discourse on here is beyond frustrating. abled people will say oh we need to advocate for real change, not just changing vocabulary! ableism isn’t just someone calling you mean words and mocking you because you’re a stupid r word who has baby interests! and it’s like. you can care about multiple things. you can adress multiple forms of ableism without condoning leftists who fling slurs about id and dd people and ostracize them for their speech patterns and their interests that they find cringe. i hate that it’s implied or stated that when talk about things impacting higher support needs autistics and especially poc, the implication is that we’re like? shielded? from what a lot of you like to call real ableism. but i can promise you we’re not.

most of it is targeted at people with congenital or acquired brain damage that caused physical disabilities and developmental delays. black higher support needs autistics and other poc are already seen as more dangerous in public for Existing While Black. especially if we’re visibly deformed like I am. Our bodies look off. Our speech sounds off. Our movements are wrong. Our interests are wrong. Our clothes are wrong. Everything about us screams Wrong, Dangerous, Avoid!

People in our lives don’t care about us except for how they can make themselves look and feel good and seem like a saint for taking care of us. I’ll never be able to live alone and I’m trapped, surrounded by abusive carers and family who see me as a nuisance who’s better. off. dead. i don’t have friends except online. Online support is the only support I have. It might always be this way. My experience isn’t unique.

My caregiver gives me space to breathe outside sometimes. But it isn’t often and most people don’t see me as their equal anyway. They see me as a childish dangerous ugly freak.

and online it’s really hard to interact with abled and low support needs people on here. even if they’re also poc. go outside. chronically online shut in. socially inept freak. mental child. brain damage. brain worms. smooth brain. so much of the language used to criticize white people who act ignorant or entitled comes back to implicitly viewing developmental or intellectual disability as the Ultimate insult. It’s so, so damaging. It hurts. You think those things make people disposable and you hurt the poc in your spaces who struggle with the things you think of as hypothetical, throwaway insults.

you can care about what people like to insist are the actual issues. medical malpractice and caregiver abuse and familial abuse and forced institutionalization and homelessness and substance abuse and food insecurity and everything else that affects severely disabled people. But that doesn’t make changing language and abled people’s and lower support needs people’s attitudes around it any less important.

language and intention and the implications behind your words matter. I’ve dealt with all of that stuff firsthand. Plus added antiblackness and additional racist undesirability, being seen and treated as subhuman even more than my nonblack high support peers. I still have more community with them than most people on here because they don’t use my existence and interests as the Ultimate Insult. It’s not that surprising that I deal with all of this shit in my daily life and don’t want to log on and see, Oh go outside, you brain damaged socially stunted childish freak! As if that’s some trendy cool comeback.

Some of us are housebound due to abusive and neglectful caregivers. Some of us have okay caregivers and still can’t leave the house. Maybe there’s just a couple of reasons to critique and criticize correlating being a Socially Unfit Unkempt Childish Weirdo Who Needs To Go Outside with one’s thoughts, beliefs, and life experiences not being valued.

Someone talking about the importance of not discounting higher support needs disabled people who talk about ableist language and feeling ashamed and not treated like their age because of childish interests doesn’t mean they don’t address or aren’t exposed to the other things I talked about. We are. We are assumed to be sinister or stubborn or immature or rude or we are infantilized and babied and baby talked depending on if someone’s with us or the general attitudes of the public on a given day.

I’ve had comfort plushies and my favorite backpack and blankets stolen and trampled on. I’ve had my clothes ripped away and my mobility aids taken and played with. I’ve been called an iPad kid despite being an adult and had my AAC stolen and almost broken! I am not a child. No matter how I act or what I like or what I use to comfort myself while trapped by daily abuse and antiblackness from almost everyone around me. I am a visibly and multiply disabled black trans woman with very high support needs. I love certain Kids Media and find it safe. I will never be able to do most Adult Daily Living Tasks Independently. I don’t read very fast and it takes me a long time to process what I red. I was in Special Ed and go to special events for disabled adults sometimes. Still People have no right to infantilize me and see the worst in me and mock & harrass people who look and act & move like me.

we are people and we can care about and draw attention to multiple things. Even if changing our language to be more mindful doesn’t bring material change, it’s still worth it if it doesn’t alienate or trigger a fellow intellectually or developmentally disabled cripple. We are isolated and left to suffer with our pain and alienation enough as it is. Even more if we’re poc. It’s also just human decency to not use our circumstances and ways of being and interests as some Ultimate Comeback. Remember us, we aren’t going anywhere. Happy Disability Pride Month.

i also feel like people don't really understand the meaning of the word "developmental" in "developmental disability"

it means you did not develop as abled people typically do, physically or mentally

there are adults who do not have the skills you expect adults to have, who do not react or feel the way you expect adults to react or feel, who cannot live alone or be alone, who need supervision to not walk into the road, who cannot do things you can

and they are still adults

but they are also developmentally disabled

dd adults may have screaming, crying, self harming meltdowns over things you think are "little" or "immature". dd adults may have interests like stuffed animals and coloring books and toys. we may read children's books and watch children's shows, and i mean for like, young children, not like the owl house (because idk modern young kids shows besides paw patrol and is bubble guppies still on), and this is not like, caregivers infantilizing us or encouraging us to be kids forever, it's because that's what we like or are able to understand. and this does not have anything to do with "mental age". there are dd people who are like this and i will defend them claw and tooth.

we may have caregivers and may need constant supervision. we may be short, we may have baby faces, our voice may not have changed since we were a child, or we may use a more childish tone of voice and it is not because of osddid

we may have issues with motor skills and proprioception and incontinence, we may not be able to understand process comprehend absorb, we may not be able to learn certain things or may struggle to learn in general, we may have issues understanding boundaries consequences good and bad and theory of mind. we may do things impulsively (which crosses over with not understanding boundaries consequences good and bad and theory of mind i think). our brains may decide things around us- people, walls, pets, roads, curbs, cliffs, puddles, a spilled drink- don't exist, or may not be able to define what those things are and apply that knowledge, by which i mean, not understanding that a road is dangerous, or that if you spill a drink on your phone it's bad for it and you need to clean it up

our brains may start two processes at once and then cancel them both at the same time only after they have both been run, which is the only way i can explain the way my brain just u turns and it makes me look weird and i don't remember exactly what that means because i'm significantly fucking disoriented when it happens so i have no examples. we may "manipulate" people without understanding that's what we're doing and idk how to explain that either. we may lie, also, without knowing what we're doing. we may respond just to respond because our brains understand "when someone says something to you you need to respond to them" and then it doesn't prioritize making sense or having our response be actually related

we may not have empathy, or limited empathy, and may not be able to understand how to interact with people who are currently expressing a specific emotion. we may not be able to figure out what emotions other people are expressing, or intuit what people may want or expect from us. we also may not be able to or may not know how to express emotion ourselves, or not be able to figure out what we're feeling, or may feel one emotion and express another. we also just flat out may not fucking feel, or may feel things, like affection for a friend, shallowly- it's there, but we don't feel it strongly. we may also get bored of or annoyed with loved ones. and we may be easily angered and annoyed and frustrated and have no patience

we may be nonverbal or semiverbal. we may have trouble communicating and may repeat ourselves and may get impatient about it and may point or act frustrated when the other person doesn't understand. we may need things to be a certain way and then not be able to communicate this and have a meltdown about it. we may not be able to articulate the way we need to and therefore may be easier to misinterpret when you don't have the patience to not immediately assume malicious intent and try to work with us to figure out how to help us or what we're saying. we may only speak a few sentences at a time or only a few words or may only speak in quotes from a special interest. we may make noises like grunting or long drawn out moaning or groaning or droning noises. we may suddenly scream or yell or shout when talking and it's not because we're trying to. we may stim violently. we may suddenly be unable to talk. most people know that one, but. we also may issues with like... forgiving people

we're still adults, but we are also disabled and it does influence our behavior and body language and tone of voice and communication and how we socialize and interact with other people and think and feel and express those feelings and if we can and how we do it and if we feel or care at all and how we handle that too, what we're able to do and how we do it and how much help we need and what we need help with, what we like and don't like and how we handle liking and not liking, what we say and do, and how we move and how well we're able to move and how aware of our bodies and surroundings and other people we are, because all of these are things you pick up in development

and if you comment on this that any of these are symptoms of something else i'm going to really blow my top. yes i know i've listed symptoms of other things in here. lack of empathy is not solely a symptom of aspd and suddenly getting annoyed at people you love isn't solely a symptom of bpd. a lot of these are also symptoms of brain damage and schizophrenia and dissociation and neurological disabilities. and i want to argue that's because most of those things are also things that affect development, but not inherently. i'm tired i would like to do something else now

You can bend over backwards trying not to be one of “those” cringey queers who wears pride everywhere and goes by arson and has they/it/fluff/pixel/boo pronouns on a catgender pin they wear everywhere and suppress everything “extra” unlikable about your identity and pass as a “normal” cishet and mock everyone who dyes their hair for pride and wears rainbow nail polish and guess what? Conservatives will still want you dead. There is no appeasing them. Stand by your community. Maybe you’ll find that arson (they/it/fluff/pixel/boo) is going to be the best goddamn person to have in your corner when the republicans you’ve given up your life to placate inevitably turn on you and try to sentence you to death because any amount of queer is too damn queer. Maybe you’ll find that we are a community for a reason. We’re all equally degenerate in the eyes in conservatives and equally worthy of joy and life in the eyes of the “weird” queer community you shun.

I've only known arson for two minutes but if anything happened to fluff i would kill everyone in this website and then myself

I feel like a good shorthand for a lot of economics arguments is "if you want people to work minimum wage jobs in your city, you need to allow minimum wage apartments for them to live in."

"These jobs are just for teenagers on the weekends." Okay, so you'll use minimum wage services only on the weekends and after school. No McDonald's or Starbucks on your lunch break.

"They can get a roommate." For a one bedroom? A roommate for a one bedroom? Or a studio? Do you have a roommate to get a middle-wage apartment for your middle-wage job? No? Why should they?

"They can live farther from city center and just commute." Are there ways for them to commute that don't equate to that rent? Living in an outer borough might work in NYC, where public transport is a flat rate, but a city in Texas requires a car. Does the money saved in rent equal the money spent on the car loan, the insurance, the gas? Remember, if you want people to take the bus or a bike, the bus needs to be reliable and the bike lanes survivable.

If you want minimum wage workers to be around for you to rely on, then those minimum wage workers need a place to stay.

You either raise the minimum wage, or you drop the rent. There's only so long you can keep rents high and wages low before your workforce leaves for cheaper pastures.

"Nobody wants to work anymore" doesn't hold water if the reason nobody applies is because the commute is impossible at the wage you provide.

i hate nerves and anxiety. oh nooo i am scared of acting like a weird bitch to remedy this i will act like a weird bitch

one of the things that makes autism a disability (and why some of us choose to label it as such rather than an “alternate neurotype”) is the stress. 

part of autism is just being incredibly stressed. overstimulation? stress. holding a conversation? stress. something happening to our schedule? stress. people talk about how often autism is recognized and diagnosed via our stress responses (like meltdowns) because it is just so common to see autistic people stressed because of lack of accommodations to how our brains work.

and this matters because stress kills. stress causes a lot of health issues, or it can trigger pre-existing ones by making certain chronic conditions flare up. i once had a psychiatrist very unhelpfully tell me i “just need to manage my stress” when the stress i was describing was things i could not avoid in neurotypical society and can’t “just get over”. i can do “self care” all i like but i cannot at the very base level change the way my brain inputs information and reacts accordingly.

yes yes the answer is yes! we are a mid-high support needs disabled autistic polyfragmented DID system with alters with a wide range of vebralness. a lot of us use forms of AACs or TTS in out of inner world / headspace and in real life. if you think you need it, just use it. it's stressful at first, but nonverbal communication is communication and it's a valid way to communicate. 🧩 - The Dreamdrop System

[image ID: six images in rows of two. they have black text in all-caps over a lavender background. the first image has stylized pictures of AACs. the images read:

Can I use an AACs/TTS...

But also.. can if I..

You don't need permission to use AACs/TTS. If you feel the need to use it, do it. Give yourself permission.

If you have verbal issues it's totally OK. It's okay to use AACs/TTS. It's a valid form of communication. It's okay. It's okay..

end image ID]

Big news from Tartarus I'm just so proud of him

hot take but i think we need to start divesting from using representation and relatability as a synonym for quality, and maybe even as a metric. like are you able to watch a movie or tv show or read a book where the characters’ motivations are almost completely alien to you, and still enjoy it/appreciate it? can you see a representation of a demographic you belong to that doesn’t quite gel with your own personal experience, and not automatically discount the work? are you just consuming media like a parakeet looking in the mirror?

how’d you make a blank post?

please tell me

This is the most hilarious thing to see on mobile.

shout out to people who's family isnt entirely bad or entirely good, but something in between and you dont know how to feel about them. you feel angry but you also feel guilty, because you know they genuinely love and care about you, but sometimes they show it in a way you know its not okay. your feelings are valid, your anger and sadness and grief are valid, and you dont have to prove this to no one. bigger shout out to those with memory issues who know something isnt right but can't recall all of the bad events, only the feelings, which only increases the guilt.

Goddddddddddddd Cleavon Little was cute. Fuckin’ hell look at him. 

i love watching wilder’s eyes in this scene - he’s watching every fucking muscle twitch, every micro-expression. he isn’t gonna drop that “morons” until he KNOWS he’s got him.

my god, they were both so good.

“you know… morons” was not in the script. All the points to Gene Wilder for getting Cleavon Little to corpse that hard on camera. Also props to Mel Brooks for leaving that take in the movie.

Blazing Saddles is what happened when Mel Brooks (Jewish WW2 vet) and Richard Pryor (Black man who grew up in shittiest conditions possible) got in a room, decided to throw their collective fucks out a window and see how many groups they could piss off in two hours.

This.

All true, but there’s something else worth talking about:

Brooks and Pryor knew EXACTLY how far to go, and where to stop. Brooks has talked about this–he would happily show a Black man escaping the noose, but not one being lynched.

There are important limits to this sort of comedy, a delicate balancing act of how to strike for maximum effect but not to punch down. And a lot of people who are saying “you couldn’t make Blazing Saddles today” don’t get that.

extremely good video on this exact subject

shame that a lot of tumblr didn't learn their lesson about treating moderate progress as worse than regression from the russian op scandal.

if someone is writing about politics in a way that makes you angry about progress in the right direction because it didn't go far enough? do not fucking trust that person.

why do they want you angry about progress? why aren't they sharing ways to help us progress further, but instead just bemoaning how far we haven't gotten? do not fucking trust people who want you emotionally raw and helping no one.

I'd just like to chip in on the issue of global warming in particular that what's at stake is the total number of megatonnes of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Small reductions in emissions that don't go anywhere near far enough are still better, in absolute terms, than no reductions at all, or than in an increase in emissions. It's not an all-or-nothing sort of crisis.