delphiniumgrue

[delphiniumgrue]

Fondly remembering the time that a cat owner casually entered their calico Maine Coon in a cat fancier’s competition and the judges lost their minds because the cat was 1) male and 2) able to bear children

[delphiniumgrue]

•❅───────────✧❅✦❅✧───────────❅•

Petition to make a metal band but Halsin is the main voc

Because man. Holyshit that scream was everything.

•❅───────────✧❅✦❅✧───────────❅•

[delphiniumgrue]

“Penguins and Sparrows” live author reading announced!

(https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2616847751974720&id=100009485635289)

[delphiniumgrue]

The last Presidential impeachment, the unofficial characterization of it was "oral sex on the floor of the Senate".

This time, we've got "ass-backwards" and the media's new darling, "pre-buttal".

This is the AssButt Impeachment.

[delphiniumgrue]

Stop punching!

Look, the tendency of US men to reach for physical violence as a first-pass solution when they’re feeling or thinking things they have trouble articulating or expressing in any other way is a systemic cultural chasm between everyone -- but particularly everyone else -- and equal share in the safety afforded by the rule of law. That is at the very core, the crux, the absolute certerpoint, of talking about domestic violence as it affects women in the US. The fact that at the very moment he was trying to articulate this, and having trouble doing so, Biden chose to make and raise a fist, make punching gestures, and say (in reference to a need to “change the culture”) “We need... to keep punching at it and punching at it” just underscores that he is still unconsciously acculturated to the very attitudes he’s saying we need to change. This is all aside from the point that he was asked about sexual violence and harassment against women, fumbled about with vague phrases for about a full minute, and then only managed to bring his thoughts together when he meandered over to domestic/physical violence with “No man has a right to raise a hand to a woman in anger,” which in response to questions about sexual violence is about as sophisticated as the suggestion, from the other side of the physical violence issue, that if women want equality that makes it okay for men to hit us. Shameful. Absolutely shameful. I’ve seen pundits tonight saying his biggest gaffe onstage was erasing Senator Kamala Harris from the US Senate, but this should -- in a world that managed to retain a rational perspective on questions of violence against the vulnerable -- have been his Clayton Williams moment. Men won’t stop punching at people until they stop thinking of punching as a way to solve (or a metaphor for solving) problems they find uncomfortable to think clearly about.

[delphiniumgrue]

Live and Let Die? You Suck.

Me: What you're asking disabled people to put up with could literally kill them.

Randos: Well they already know that, so they'll just have to take extra steps to prevent it by providing their own straws every day. They're already used to taking extra steps to not die anyway.

Me: Those biodegradable straws you're so excited about are made of plant starches. It says so on the wrapper: "Made from plants." Which plants? You don't know. Could be corn. Could be wheat. Could be soy. Got any plant allergies? Abled people with food allergies could die from using them unless they take extra steps to avoid them and provide their own straws instead.

Randos: What? No, that's unacceptable! We can't just ask everyone with food allergies to provide their own straws or risk dying! That's horrible!

GUESS WHAT, PEOPLE? YOUR INCREDIBLY UGLY AND HATEFUL OPINIONS ABOUT THE WORTH OF DISABLED LIVES IS ON FULL TECHNICOLOR DISPLAY RIGHT NOW, AND I WANT YOU TO TAKE A REALLY CLOSE LOOK AT THAT.

[delphiniumgrue]

“like an old-stone savage armed”

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.' Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.' I could say ‘Elves’ to him, But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father’s saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.'

("Mending Wall", Robert Frost)

[delphiniumgrue]

If the Parkland teens are being funneled so much money by $big_bad_liberal_whoevers to front an astroturf political movement for gun control, why is it exactly that they can’t even crowdfund one single survivor’s medical expenses in nearly a month?

[delphiniumgrue]

repeatedly

[delphiniumgrue]

It's 2018

The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) was just reformed so that disabled people can’t sue public businesses for discrimination because it would be discrimination against that business.

50% of all US murder victims by police officers are disabled

Bathrooms, entryways, seating, parking, and other public spaces are segregated for disabled people

Disabled children are required to go to segregated schools

Disabled people can't…

Get married without losing their health insurance which is a death sentence

Have savings accounts

Have more than $2000 at any given time

Own or inherent property

Own jewelry worth more than $100 or other items worth more than $500 without reporting them to the government

It is legal for a parent to murder a disabled child if they consider that child an undue burden

This is an extremely short list of things you are leaving out of your social justice

NTABs okay to reblog

[delphiniumgrue]

Videogames: you can choose from twenty different eyelashes!!!! oh but you can’t be fat

[delphiniumgrue]

Dear Millenials and Gen Z,

Back when I was in College, I looked at the Demographic figures and realized that my Generation had next to no hope of accomplishing progressive goals in government alone against the combined weight of the Boomers, but I looked at that big beautiful Millennial swell on the Demographic chart and this gave me hope for the future, once enough Millenials passed voting age.

When I was teaching, adults at parties would ask my notoriously cranky ass questions about “kids today” that clearly expected me to agree with them about the overall crappiness of young people, but every damned time I’d tell them stories about my kids.  About boys standing up to homophobes, about girls protecting the kid being picked on for his disability, about how compassionate and kind they were, how brave in the face of bigotry and illogic.  I always ended by stating firmly that I had faith in my Millenial students and that I found that the idea that their votes would be protecting my basic rights as a human being incredibly comforting.

We have finally reached the tipping point where there are enough Millenial voters to win things, if you all come out and fight for it in elections and in protests, and when I look at all these amazing Gen Z kids organizing protests and fighting back with all their cleverness and the energy of young, I weep with joy and relief.  It feels like hope.  It feels like we still might have a future, even with all the deliberate damage and death Boomers and the wealthy have done to the rest of us and the planet.

I know I keep saying this, but I am terribly glad you are out there.  Please keep voting and protesting and calling the rich people in power out on their bullshit.  There are way more of you now, and if you get together, you really can change things.

Thank you,

Love,

Gen X

[delphiniumgrue]

“If a disabled kid is interested in acting, put them in acting classes.  For real.  With the accommodations and supports they need.  Not as stealth social skills therapy. “ Theater was my first major and very nearly my career. It’s also been the primary barrier to diagnosis. “You can’t be autistic. You have... like... facial expressions and stuff.” Well, yes. I need to use all the methods of communication at my disposal to clarify my meaning, or people don’t usually understand what I’m trying to say. And I happen to have fourteen years of training in having “facial expressions and stuff”. But let’s be clear: It’s a barrier to diagnosis because passing as completely neurotypical in presentation and mannerisms is so natural to me it’s easy to keep it up for several hours at a time. I could also pass as anything else I had sufficient examples to mimic; in the same 6-month period I passed as an elderly, arthritic Bostonian woman in frail health pretending to dementia as a cover for a clever plot and a plucky, irreverent 10-year-old street urchin from Victorian London. Those required actively seeking out examples to study in order to manage anything more than the shallowest mimicry, to flesh out and make breathing and believable. But it’s not like there’s a dearth of neurotypical people walking around to take notes on. I can (usually, but not always, literally) pass as neurotypical in my sleep. If you want your autistic kid to pass as neurotypical, don’t put them in abusive ABA “treatment” that uses aversives that can cause lifelong cPTSD and beliefs like “anything I love will just be taken away unless I am perfect”. Introduce them to the thrill of storytelling, take them to plays, let them watch interviews with the actors doing the voices of their favorite animated characters. Find out if it’s something they might like to try. Learning interactions through doing something I loved, as part of a team with other people, in a field where attention to detail is a mark of professionalism and a good job is rewarded before the masks even come off, gave me the ability to communicate what I want to communicate in a way that is easily understood, rather than just teaching me to algorithmically perform subroutines other people expect in hopes of avoiding punishment. It’s the difference between empowerment and brainwashing. Just get your (interested) kid (consensually) involved in school or community theater programs. 

And like, if you want to know one of the places where I’d start in making sure that there are disabled actors–and especially autistic ones–to fill disabled roles, and that they can get those roles?

It’s stop with the thing where non-disabled kids get acting and drama classes because acting is good and fun, and disabled kids get acting classes turned into therapy.

If a disabled kid is interested in acting, put them in acting classes.  For real.  With the accommodations and supports they need.  Not as stealth social skills therapy.

And if they’re not interested in acting, don’t.

Make sure they’re getting other non-therapy, real-world experiences, too.  In general, and not just in case they might want to be an actor, but all of that stuff is part of how actors build a broad knowledge base of experiences that they reference when developing characters.

Teach them that this is a thing they can do for real, and not just one more thing where everyone has the ulterior motive of convincing them to be more normal.

[delphiniumgrue]

Just queued a quote from Alisa Rowe about arguing, and it got me thinking about the line between intentionally abusive behavior, and behavior that was abusive because I am autistic.

Many of the verbal and physical fights with my abusers started because I asked a question. Maybe I needed to know if they were asking a question literally or figuratively. Maybe I needed to know specific details.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that this sort of literal thinking and need for explicit communication is a source of my mistrust of people in general.

Even knowing as much as I do now about how people and society works, even as much as I know about the differences between allistic and autistic communication styles and social reciprocity and all that, I still catch myself being uncertain when people are being literal or generalizing.

Home: “I need you to clean this,” while pointing at a pile of clothes might get me in trouble. Maybe for doing my laundry instead of cleaning my room. Or maybe for cleaning my room instead of doing the laundry. Maybe for cleaning up those clothes, but not doing the laundry. Or cleaning up the clothes but not the rest of the room.

Work: “I need you take care of this,” after a conversation about a errors in an excel report. Do you need me to fix the report? Do you need me to fix the worksheet? Do you need me to fix the entire workbook? Do you need me to find the person who fucked up and make them fix it? Do you need it now? Do you need it later?

And when I ask questions. “Just do it.” “I shouldn’t have to tell you how to do your job.” “You know what I am asking.” “Don’t be a smartass.” “Why do you always have to have everything explained to you?”

Because I’m not a mind reader, Karen.

But thank you for the cPTSD. You’re the reason I’m afraid to do everything wrong.

[delphiniumgrue]

Don’t leave out any hard of hearing children who come to your door this Halloween, take a minute out of your day to learn a few seasonal asl signs!  These are two different variations of “Happy Halloween” Click here for my source.

[delphiniumgrue]

the three stages of adhd internet browsing:

that looks interesting but my focus is shit rn so i’m keeping this tab open for later

*tab sits there for 2 months, untouched*

riiiiight, i never got around to that hmmm well doesn’t really matter anymore *closes tab*