i know hearing people on this website love to pass around those posts with links to free sign language lessons but you know you need to actually put effort into learning about Deaf culture, too, right?

if you are currently learning ASL, you need to read Introduction to American Deaf Culture by Thomas K. Holcomb

resources for other Deaf cultures include, but are not limited to:

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

You’ll never convince me that this wasn’t a carefully calculated plan.

Things People Don’t Mention About Top Surgery or Mastectomies

I am sure there are more but I thought some of you might benefit from the things I have learned so far from going through surgery.

REPOST THIS ANYWHERE YOU LIKE AS OFTEN AS YOU LIKE.

Able bodied parents I'm begging you to teach your kids about disabled people. Not just because they could become disabled themselves one day but also because even if they don't, they have a very real chance of being rude to us if you don't teach them.

Yes, kids just say shit. They have no filter. That doesn't make it any less humiliating when your child sits near me on the bus and incessantly grills me on why I have a stick when I'm not old. Or laughs at us for things our disability causes. It doesn't take away the hurt when they bully a disabled classmate. For a large part these things could be avoided if you just taught your kids to respect us. It's really not that hard.

Things about top surgery that I wasn’t aware of going in:

Part two, recovery edition:

IT’S ALWAYS TEA TIME!

Cure to all known illnesses

soup… 2!!

When I was younger and more abled, I was so fucking on board with the fantasy genre’s subversion of traditional femininity. We weren’t just fainting maidens locked up in towers; we could do anything men could do, be as strong or as physical or as violent. I got into western martial arts and learned to fight with a rapier, fell in love with the longsword.

But since I’ve gotten too disabled to fight anymore, I… find myself coming back to that maiden in a tower. It’s that funny thing, where subverting femininity is powerful for the people who have always been forced into it… but for the people who have always been excluded, the powerful thing can be embracing it.

As I’m disabled, as I say to groups of friends, “I can’t walk that far,” as I’m in too much pain to keep partying, I find myself worrying: I’m boring, too quiet, too stationary, irrelevant. The message sent to the disabled is: You’re out of the narrative, you’re secondary, you’re a burden.

The remarkable thing about the maiden in her tower is not her immobility; it’s common for disabled people to be abandoned, set adrift, waiting at bus stops or watching out the windows, forgotten in institutions or stranded in our houses. The remarkable thing is that she’s like a beacon, turning her tower into a lighthouse; people want to come to her, she’s important, she inspires through her appearance and words and craftwork.  In medieval romances she gives gifts, write letters, sends messengers, and summons lovers; she plays chess, commissions ballads, composes music, commands knights. She is her household’s moral centre in a castle under siege. She is a castle unto herself, and the integrity of her body matters.

That can be so revolutionary to those of us stuck in our towers who fall prey to thinking: Nobody would want to visit; nobody would want to listen; nobody would want to stay.

#it’s so so important to remember that representation is not one-size-fits-all#what is empowering to one person might be exhausting and oppressive to someone else#some people need stories about having the strength to save themselves#some people need stories about being considered worthy of being saved#some people need inspiration for their independence while others need validation that they don’t have to be able to do everything themselves#before you lash out against something PLEASE stop to consider:#is this inadequate and/or damaging representation?#or is it just something I don’t personally relate to? [X]

It’s been half a decade and I still haven’t found an articulation of the complexity of “representation” as concisely and precisely mindblowing as @hungrylikethewolfie’s here.

i just saw someone describe a disabled person as "someone with beautiful abilities" i cannot do this anymore

god can we stop softening the term "disabled". disabled isn't a dirty word. it's not "special abilities" or "differently abled" or whatever the fuck you want to call it. people have disabilities that cause life to be hard and there's nothing wrong with acknowledging that?? it feels so invalidating when people are like "ohh you're not disabled!!! you have special abilities!!" like. omg a) it feels so infantilizing. b) by saying that you're basically saying our struggles aren't real...? some conditions are disabling. it's not hard to understand?? like there is NOTHING wrong with being disabled & using the word disabled. it's not offensive it's not a dirty word can we take the shame out of it pls oh my god. this goes for physical & non physical disabilities btw

you’re hearing it more and more

Spotify Premium ad: “Imagine playing music without interruptions! Infinite skipping! Replay the song you want! And even do it offline? No ads! Whatever songs you want! For a small monthly payme-” Me: *nods, turns off Spotify and turns on my MP3 player and does all the things they offer, but for free and with songs they don’t even have*

For those of you who might not know how to do any of this:

You don’t need to be tethered to an online streaming service for your music. Be free.

You can also rip audio files from youtube and find files all over the internet. It is far easier to come across great and lesser known music if you dont limit yourself to spotify.

Here’s a tutorial on how to get the music and playlists you like with unlimited listening/downloads. This is a free way to do it that I believe is a balance between cost, time, and pros & cons:

1. Find the song on Youtube. YT has pretty much every song at this point, usually in comparable quality to what you would get on a streaming service.

2. Download the audio from YT. There are many ways to download YT videos completely for free. It’s probably against the YT terms of service, but you’re not going to get sued.

3. Upload to your music player/manager of choice. The file will currently be lacking metadata (Artist, Album, track number, etc) and will be added to the library as a song with its title set as the file name minus its .mp3 extension. Various music players/managers have different ways to add metadata (usually accessed by right-clicking the song) with varying ease.

4. Now you can use the player of your choice to listen endlessly, form playlists, etc. Some free music managers also have music discovery/recommendation features for expanding your collection.

There are many music managers/players, including cross-platform ones with streaming, though they usually have fees for that feature. Because you aren’t streaming the music and rather storing it, you’ll need space on each device you want to play the music on, but memory is cheap these days.

I do encourage people to pay for art, especially from small, independent artists. You have to pay for art if you want to keep it alive, but there is debate over if streaming services are really “paying the artist”. Alternatives include buying and ripping CDs, purchasing merch or tour tickets (where artists make a lot of their money), etc to support them with something other than streaming views.

ID. a tweet from Don Hughes @/getfiscal dated Feb 18 21. it reads, “Started imagining paying for Spotify for the next thirty or so years and got a bit dizzy, cancelled a bunch of subscriptions, installed Linux on my computer and then pulled out my old CDs to rip. Going caveman.” End ID.

Seconding MusicBee! Also, you can use a library subscription to access Freegal, which allows (depending on your library system) up to five free downloads a week. Completely free, actually legal, yours to keep, no DRM or any crap like that.

For indie producers, always check if they have something like Bandcamp! Bandcamp lets you download as well, and has significantly higher royalties going to the actual artists (Spotify pays them… very little).

Jsyk, winamp rips cds natively.  You can set whatever bitrate you like.  Been doing *that* since last century. 

It’s that time again:

Okay will admit I wasn’t expecting this turn in the discourse

You guys speaking like every country in the world has easy access libraries smh

Great point — if only there was a way to access books for free if you don’t have access to a library. But what could that be? It’s surely not linked in the comment directly above you

actually re joking about being ‘the piracy friend’. do yourself a favour and stop relying on tumblr masterlists that are full of broken links and dodgy websites and just bookmark r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH’s piracy wiki (backup).

it’s the most comprehensive resource i’ve ever encountered my life and it’s also got so much extra stuff like decent free vpns/antivirus/adblock, a massive list of free software for almost every purpose you can think of, AND a list of custom search engines that mean you can search every site at once or you’re looking for something more obscure (this is how i seem to always have a link to literally anything)

there’s also this rentry, which i can vouch for less because i don’t use it so much but does have info on installing cracked versions of the more popular antivirus programs if you don’t want to pay but also don’t want to trust the free options lol

be gay do crimes

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO CEREAL!!!

Listen in the past the poor have had to improvise cheap food the rich never wanted as a means to survive. And over the many years of innovation made the food taste good until eventually the rich where like: “Oh hay you actually like that garbage? Why on earth would you like it?” Then they try it, love it, start buying it, and then drive the price up so much it becomes a luxury good.

They do this and its devastating, the food typically never becomes affordable again. It don’t matter how cheap the foo dis to produce, it doesn’t matter if there is almost no meat on the bone or its super difficult to eat and messy. Once the poor discover how to make some bit of cheap food taste good, the rich take it away via driving the price of it up.

THEY DID THIS TO RIBS.

Ribs were garage meat. Just look at them, there is hardly any meat on the bone, you have to eat them by hand usually, and they are messy. They where an undesirable cheap source of junk meat. But the poor being the poor made them taste good. (Because they don’t have much to choose from.) The rich discovered the meals the poor made with them and decided they liked ribs too. People discovered they could sell a few ribs to rich people and make way more money then selling lots of ribs to poor people and the price was driven up.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO CEREAL!!!

They did the same to brisket.  You used to be able to get brisket for less than a dollar a pound, which meant you could get a twenty pound brisket fairly cheaply.  And then you smoked it, sliced it, and had meat for weeks if not a full month.  And it was tasty.  I grew up eating brisket at least once a month because my family could afford it.

It was a cheap meat because no rich person looks at the dangly part of the neck of a cow and goes ‘ooh, that looks tasty!’.

But then Food Network started showcasing things like barbecued brisket.  Rich people started showing up at places that weren’t just Rib Crib to get their barbeque.  And the price of brisket went up.  A lot.

I regularly see it for over five dollars a pound in stores now.  And while yeah, that might not seem like a lot when you’re talking only a pound or two of meat, brisket is normally sold in ten to twenty pound sizes.  It’s become completely unaffordable to the people that made it delicious.

Sushi used to be really cheap, too, until it became ‘trendy’.  Guess why you’re now paying twelve dollars for your order of California rolls?  Because rich people discovered something that poor people had been eating for ages.

Noticed the prices of fajita meat, chicken thighs, or ham hocks has gone up recently?  You guessed it.  Rich people are taking our food and now we’re scrambling to afford the things that we grew up eating.

Lobster is a perfect example of this phenomenon.  For hundreds of years, lobster was regarded as a sort of insect larvae from the depth of the sea. It had zero appeal as a “luxury food” until people living in NY and Boston developed a taste for it. Before the 19th century, it was considered a “poverty food” or used as fertilizer and bait - some household servants specified in employment agreements that they would not eat lobster more than twice a week. It was also commonly served at prisons, which tells you something about prison food.

Only by cleverly marketing lobster as an indulgence for the privileged made it cost so much. It became a vehicle for enormous profit spawning a multi-billion dollar global industry in the process. This mythical affection for lobster flesh - not its practical value in terms of taste, nutrition, or any other reasonable consideration - drives its value.

LMAO. Wait.

Anyone else’s eye twitchin?

Food gentrification is a long standing practice and it’s some of the most evil shit I can think of. It’s why I refuse for example as someone living in the US to buy things with Quinoa in them. It is specifically pricing an indigenous population out of their prime staple food. It’s a horrific invasion of one of the final requirements of staying alive.

Same thing happened to oxtails and is currently happening to chopped cheese

This graphic is fabulous. It represents a tiny crash course in rhetoric. Learn these things. Put them on your wall. Whisper them into the breeze. These are THINGS TO KNOW.

Yeesssssssssss.

Interesting

Bookmark this shit and the next time someone begins gobbling nonsense at you on a social network, instead of engaging, point them to this handy chart. Also useful: Thought Catalog’s “How To Have A Rational Conversation“ flowchart.

This.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL

“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”

My mom learned it because she figured she’ll go deaf when she gets old

My family went holiday SCUBA diving once, and a couple of Deaf guys were in the group. I was really little and I spent most of the briefing overcome with the realization that while the rest of us were going to have regulators in our mouths and be underwater fairly soon, they were going to be able to do all the same stuff and keep talking.

The only reason some form of sign language is not a standard skill is ableism, as far as I can tell.

For anyone interested in learning, Bill Vicars has full lessons of ASL on youtube that were used in my college level classes. 

https://www.youtube.com/user/billvicars

and here’s the link to the website he puts in his videos:

https://www.lifeprint.com/

Update: you guys this is an amazing resource for learning asl. Bill Vicars is an incredible teacher. His videos are of him teaching a student in a classroom, using the learned vocabulary to have conversations.

Not only is the conversation format immersive and helpful for learning the grammar, but the students make common mistakes which he corrects, mistakes I wouldn’t have otherwise know I was making.

He also emphasizes learning ASL in the way it’s actually used by the Deaf community and not the rigid structure that some ASL teachers impose in their classrooms

His lesson plans include learning about the Deaf community, which is an important aspect of learning ASL. Knowing how to communicate in ASL without the knowledge of the culture behind it leaves out a lot of nuances and explanations for the way ASL is.

Lastly, his lessons are just a lot of fun to watch. He is patient, entertaining, and funny. This good natured enthusiasm is contagious and learning feels like a privilege and not a chore

And it’s all FREE. Seriously. If you’ve ever wanted to learn ASL

I need help!

so I just paid rent, and now i’m REALLY low on money, we are struggling to pay for groceries and utilities.

My roommate and i are both disabled queer autistic people and we cannot get jobs, so we rely entirely on centrelink.

I have commissions open on @dragofelid​ but any bit of money helps.

Paypal.me/Dragofelid

or

Dragofelid@gmail.com

hi so our cat Miaow has something wrong.

she’s had three seizures in two weeks, we went to the vet and we need $880 JUST to get an ultra sound for her heart.

that is over half of a months rent, which we do not have

our girl is 15 years old and has been struggling to walk and eat and it’s making us super worried for her.

COOL SO IT JUST GOT WORSE

Our landlord is kicking us out and we are struggling with rent as is, now we need to find a place before September 1st, we are still looking for houses.

we need money to not only pay for rent/bond for place [when we find one] but also movers which will probably cost around 1k each

so we need at least $3000 just for movers, rent and bond, we still haven’t paid for Miaow’s vet because we have been struggling with food

if you want to commission me, here:

https://dragofelidscoms.carrd.co/

otherwise please help me by donating

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/dragofelid

Finally, some good news.

👉🏿 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/health/abortion-pills-fda.html

This is so great because if anyone is caught impeding or messing with these deliveries, it’s MAIL, that makes it a FEDERAL crime, whoever fucks with these packages gets charged FEDERALLY, they face up to five years in prison.

[ID: A tweet by @ nytimes that reads, "Breaking News: Women can get abortion pills by mail for pregnancies up to 10 weeks without seeing a doctor in person, the FDA ruled. The decision comes as the Supreme Court considers whether to roll back abortion rights or even overturn Roe v. Wade." Attached is a link to the article and a screenshot of the title and subtitle of the article. The article was published Dec 16, 2021. The title reads, "F.D.A. Will Permanently Allow Abortion Pills by Mail" and the subtitle reads, "The decision will broaden access to medication abortion, an increasingly common method, but many conservative states are already mobilizing against it." /end ID]

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/15/1064598531/the-fda-could-permanently-lift-some-restrictions-on-abortion-pills

Adding a link that isn’t blocked by a paywall

Resources for anyone that ends up in a restricted state:

Aid Access - they can send you the abortion pill even if you live in a restricted state.

PLUS, you do not have to be pregnant to order them. You can order to have on hand, in case of an emergency.

Repro Legal Helpline (reprolegalhelpline.org) -

Some of the things they can help with above.

Miscarriage + Abortion Hotline (mahotline.org) -

They have a ton of information, and resources in one place.

Also, if you find yourself in a restricted state, you need to be careful of how and with whom you are talking about it. You need to use safe, encrypted messaging and calling.

I also recommend removing any biometric information for unlocking your phone. Use a PIN or password instead of a fingerprint or facial recognition.