#and don’t forget that the disabled community is the only marginalized group that ANYone can become part of at ANY point in their life

[overwhelmedfrog]

while we’re at it, if you don’t change your behavior and take the necessary steps to prevent the spread of covid-19, you will lose your disabled friends and family one way or the other. if they don’t die, they’ll become too disabled to go out or see loved ones anymore, including you. and if they manage to stay safe, they’ll see you, not doing anything to help them maintain that safety. they’ll see you unwilling to protect them because it’s inconvenient. they’ll see you treating other people like them as disposable, as unimportant, as unworthy of safety, community, joy, and life; as though they are cannon fodder for your “new normal”. and they will realize you see them as disposable too. they will realize you aren’t a safe person for them, that you can’t be trusted, that they are not as important to you as your personal convenience. they will realize that their life matters less to you than going to that concert or eating out in a restaurant or going to a party. they will look at you, ignoring the suffering around you, unwilling to put a piece of cloth over your face for the sake of normalcy, and they will know that they don’t matter to you, regardless of how much you claim to care, because your actions speak louder than your words. and it will ruin your relationship with them. they will grieve who they once thought you to be, and even if they stay, they will never look at you the same. your relationship will forever be tarnished or you will lose them altogether all because you couldn’t be bothered to be uncomfortable for even a second. because you would rather stick your head in the sand and pretend everything is back to normal while they drown in front of you because it is easier for you.

your disabled loved ones see your lack of action and care, and it tells them they don’t matter. please show them they do. if you want the chronically ill and disabled people in your life to stick around, to see you as someone they can rely on, someone who sees them as valuable, wear that fucking mask.

[thetevinterspy]

Lessons from Years in the Dragon Age Fandom: How I Learned to Be Less of an Asshole.

I graduated high school in 1999. It wasn’t until my junior or senior year that we had a computer at home, and I still vividly remember skipping class to sneak into the school library and log into Yahoo! Chat rooms. Since then, I’ve been a part of countless online communities and fandoms, each shaping my experience in some way.

One community that’s had a lasting impact is the Dragon Age fandom. I’ve been involved, in one way or another, since 2010. I especially remember the lead-up to Inquisition. I was active on the BSN boards, arguing with anyone who dared to disagree with me. I participated in the drama, spoke my mind with little restraint, and fought hard to have the “winning” opinion. Looking back, I realize I was part of the problem.

Now, with years of life experience and the added perspective of parenting, my desire to argue with strangers on the internet has waned. My approach to fandom has changed—hopefully for the better. Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way:

1. Just because I believe it, doesn’t make it true.

Passionate opinions are fine, but they don’t equal fact. Fandoms thrive on different interpretations, and that’s okay.

2. EA, BioWare, and the Dragon Age team don’t owe me anything.

Not closure, not specific storylines—nothing. They’re making their game, not mine.

3. Developers are real people who deserve respect.

Behind every game is a team of people working hard. It’s easy to forget that in the heat of an online debate.

4. The developers want us to love Veilguard just as much as we do.

Nobody sets out to make a bad game. The team is putting their all into it, and they don’t want to disappoint us.

5. The block button is your friend.

It took me way too long to embrace this. If someone’s being toxic, just block them. There’s no need to engage. Block. Rinse. Repeat.

6. Nobody, except for you, cares about your Warden.

Your personal Dragon Age experience is just that—personal. You don’t need to argue with others about how their playthroughs should go.

7. Follow creators from diverse backgrounds.

Seek out voices from people of color, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQIA+ community. You’ll learn more, and the fandom will be richer for it.

8. Sending threats makes you part of the problem.

If you’re sending threats to developers, content creators, or anyone else because of a storyline or character you didn’t like, you’re hurting the very thing you claim to love.

9. Harassing marginalized groups is never okay.

This should go without saying, but if you’re harassing anyone—whether they’re a person of color, LGBTQIA+, or anyone else—you’re not just part of the problem, you are the problem.

10. Self-awareness is key.

Over the years, I’ve learned that sometimes I am the problem. Taking a step back and reflecting on my own behavior in fandom spaces has helped me grow, and it’s something I think everyone could benefit from. Recognizing when to listen and when to step back is a crucial part of being a positive member of any community.

Over the years, I’ve come to understand that fandom is about celebrating what we love—not tearing each other, or the creators, down. These lessons didn’t come overnight, but they’ve made me a better community member. And one day, I hope they’ll make me an even better community manager. I’ve long had a goal of working as a community manager for a fandom that I’m passionate about, helping to foster positive, inclusive spaces where people can share their love for the stories and worlds that bring us together.

Until then, I’ll keep learning, keep engaging, and most importantly—keep blocking, and stay positive! Only 21 days left!!

xoxox,

Jess

[writingwithcolor]

Gingerbread man as golem

@yaronata asked:

I would like to write a character who is Jewish and uses a Golem. She's based on the D&D class of the artificer which looks magic but isn't, because they produce all their effects with inventions, like the "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" quote. Her story is that her very Jewish town was under attack from a terrible monster when she was little. Her Rabbis made a Golem to protect the town, and it succeeded but was torn to pieces in the process. She was fascinated by the Golem and as a kid didn't see a big difference between it's sentience and person's so was really thankful for its sacrifice like you would a person's sacrificing their life for you. They thought all the pieces had been devoured by the monster before it died, but she went looking and found the piece used to animate the Golem, which she, kinda misunderstanding called its "heart". She kept the piece and grew up to be an incredibly skilled cook, specialising as a baker in the town. I imagine she would make a lot of really good food for the Jewish holidays, or to break fasts on ones like Yom Kippur or Tish'abav. But she also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice and the town still being alive, because I feel "we are not dead woo" is a big theme for Jewish holidays from my research, so it could fit, for which she invented ginger bread men to be the golem, and gave them little "hearts" of fruit or honey, and you're meant to eat them limb by limb like the beast did before eating the heart. This would be the inspiration for using the "heart" piece later to make her own giant gingerbread Golem to help her save the world.

These are my questions 1) would it be considered bad or disrespectful for someone who isn't a Rabbi to make a Golem, or is this method of taking an animating piece someone else made disrespectful? 2) Her journey will take her far from her town and her Jewish family and friends and she will likely travel with gentiles. Would it be disrespectful for a Golem to be used to protect a lot of gentiles and one Jew in the course of saving the world? I don't want to fall into the stereotype of someone putting all their effort into valuing and protecting very specifically the group that in real life is oppressive to them. 3) While she is not using magic and is actually mimicking its effects with technology she invents, is this drawing too close to the line of "magical Jew"? 4) I like to "play test" my characters in ttrpgs to really get a feel for them before I write. Would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character when I am a gentile, and would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character in a setting where there are demonstrably real gods other than the one of Judaism?

I really like this character idea and I think it's cute and fun and rooted in Jewish culture but I really want to make sure it's respectful and as good as I, a gentile researching on the internet, thinks it is. Thanks so much! Have a nice day!

My answer to this is very complicated because there are things I both like and do not like about this premise. First of all, I love the idea of a cookie golem, and I'm even imagining the magic word that brings him to life (EMET/truth) would be written in icing. And I'm okay with the part about how she found a piece of the old golem and used it to build a new golem, because that makes sense for a golem made from a baked good when you think about how people use sourdough starter to make a new batch of sourdough.

However, here are the thing that make me cock my head to the side like my little sister's German shepherd:

1. re: "magical Jew" - that's not a trope I've ever heard of. Remember, marginalized groups don't receive identical disrespect across the board. It is indeed a trope to use Black people or disabled people as supernatural plot devices who exist only to further the stories of white main characters or able-bodied main characters. But I can't say as I've ever seen anyone using Jewishness that way. Usually if we are someone's one-dimensional plot device it's as someone's lawyer, fixer, "money guy", etc, not a supernatural force. So this isn't something you have to worry about.

2. I have a certain level of discomfort with you playing as a Jewish character just because playacting as a marginalized culture you're not part of strikes me as off, but I understand that that's how you gain insight into a character you're about to write so it's more of a writing exercise than anything else. (I wonder if D&D regulars from marginalized groups have written about this -- I've only played a few times casually with family so if I did run into this type of discussion in my social justice reading I wouldn't have absorbed it. If anyone is curious I played first as Captain Werewolf, and then switched to playing as Cinnamon Blade because lawful good was too hard. :P )

3. I would prefer you omit the detail about eating the cookies piece by piece symbolically, for two reasons: a. it unintentionally evokes Communion by having appreciative people consume a baked good symbolic of an entity who sacrificed his life for theirs, and b. focusing on the details of flesh consumption reminds me too much of Blood Libel (yes, a gingerbread man is in the shape of a person but how many of us actually think about it literally, the way this act would cause?)

As to your first question: I'm fine with her making a golem even though she's just a rando. Second question: I see what you're saying and maybe it could be more okay if it's really clear how well these gentile folks are treating her? And questions three and four are answered above.

I really do love the idea of a giant gingerbread man golem. Cookie golem T_T <3

--Shira

I would like to second Shira’s point about not ripping apart the gingerbread cookies. I honestly would prefer they were used as decoration, and other cookies eaten instead, since that part just feels so not-Jewish to me, but I don’t have golem-specific issues other than that. It seems like you have already been doing a lot of research, which is appreciated.

As far as the ttrpg/DnD aspect… I bounce back and forth on the topic of playing characters that are so very different from our experiences, other than in fantasy-related ways. However, I am aware that a lot of people will play with, and experiment with gender in game, and learn something about themselves in the process (the number of trans players of ttrpgs who tried out their gender in game before they were out is high). It’s different with Judaism, and even more significantly different when it comes to things you can’t convert into, like various actual, real-world races. But because people do sometimes experience growth from experiences like this, I’m hesitant to dissuade players completely. I do urge you to, at a minimum, bring the same care, research, and willingness to learn, that you brought to this question.

--Dierdra

This sounds like a creative storyline that you could have lots of fun with 😊

At first I was confused by this part:

She also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice

But then you really got me thinking about different types of Jewish holidays and how they come about, so thank you for that!

Because it’s often the little details that either make a story super powerful or kind of nonsensical, I think it would be a good idea to decide what type of holiday is being created here:

A full-blown chag with restrictions on labour and halachic obligations? These are commanded in Torah and new ones can’t be added.

A minor yom tov with halachic obligations but no restrictions? These were instituted by the rabbis prior to the destruction of the Temple, so again new ones can’t be added.

A public holiday or equivalent? This would usually be declared by the Knesset in Israel, and filter to the rest of the Jewish world from there.

A community-based yom tov with specific customs only for people in the know, such as certain Chasidic groups celebrating the birthdays of their deceased leaders? I asked around, but no one can really tell me how these holidays get started, which is probably a good indication that they arise quite organically from a group of people who all just feel that it should be celebrated. Probably not created by a single person, as such.

Something she runs from her bakery, not religion-based, but more like a day of doing special products and deals the way many small businesses do on their anniversary?

Now, if the people of a modern-day town were actually saved by a real live Golem, that would arguably be the most overt miracle for many generations, so there would be a decent chance of options 3 and/or 4 happening. It’s entirely plausible that there could be special foods for this day that become a tradition, including Golem cookies. People who directly benefited might also return to the site where the Golem fought the monster and recite the prayer, ‘Blessed is Hashem, Master of the Universe, Who performed a miracle for me in this place.’

Alternatively, if it’s important that your MC created the holiday, something like option 5 might be the best. Hopefully this will still fulfil what you need: you describe her as incredibly skilled, so I can imagine the day when she goes all out on the Golem cookies being one of the most exciting events of the year for the townspeople, just because her baking is that good. Plus, they already have a personal stake in the Golem’s sacrifice, so I definitely think it could be a thing without being an official holiday. Also, if she is outside of an all-Jewish environment, don’t forget that she would have to decide whether to commemorate the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar or the local one.

Coming back to the cookies, sorry if we’re getting a little repetitive on this point! But I don’t see the cookies being torn limb from limb as part of a celebration. First of all, this doesn’t sound like a very celebratory thing to do, to say the least. Can you imagine explaining that to a three-year-old on their first Yom HaGolem? They would be terrified! (I don’t read this suggestion as accidental anti-Semitism so much as getting carried away with a metaphor, which I’m sure as writers we have all done!)

But also, it’s worth pointing out that our commemorative foods aren’t usually that literal. If you think about hamantaschen, maror, or apple in honey, they’re all symbols. That’s not to say that having Golem-shaped cookies is a problem, as this sounds like just a bit of fun that the MC is having and not something that is directly at odds with Judaism or Jewish culture. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the more literal you go from there in terms of tying the cookies to the event they commemorate, the less culturally aligned your holiday food becomes.

Finally, about the Golem protecting non-Jewish people: I like this idea! There’s a stereotype that we only use whatever is at our disposal to help ourselves and other Jewish people, so a Golem being created by Jews but helping others as well is a big plus for me. Of course, as has already been pointed out, this would be an odd choice if her Saving The World team were anti-Semitic or otherwise disrespectful to her/her community, but I don’t think you were headed that way!

-Shoshi

I have to come back in here just to squee over the phrase “Yom HaGolem.” Well done :D

--Shira

[autisticchicc]

Unstructured Autism Rant

A/N: For COVID reasons, mask is purely metaphorical in this piece, not an actual face mask, the work scenario was something that happened pre-COVID.

Trigger Warnings: In-depth descriptions of autism-related struggles and meltdowns.

Disclaimer: This is my personal experience with autism, that is not to say that this is the experience of every person with ASD.

“Have I solved your issue today?” I ask the customer on the other end of the phone. I have; I don’t know why I’m asking this. The customer confirms I have, and I wish them goodbye, a good day, and thank you for calling the business. I don’t care if they have a good day, and I why on earth would I thank them for calling us? The entire interaction went on for far too long for my liking thanks to small talk and the customer pushing pointless information about themselves onto me. He told me he was sketching by the riverside, but why do I need to know about that? How do I respond to a piece of information that does nothing to or for me? Upon hanging up, I breathe a sigh of relief. The mask slips off my face slightly as I rub my temples.  

The relief is short-lived, as one of my co-workers comes over to my desk to talk about something. I take a deep breath and pull the mask back on properly before forcing myself to engage enthusiastically in this conversation. I don’t know this co-worker that well, I know nothing about how she talks, her personality, or her humour, only that I have a huge margin for error in this conversation. I concentrate intensely, trying desperately to make sense of her rapidly changing facial expressions and knowing when it’s my turn to talk. After interjecting at the wrong time on several occasions, I give up and just respond meekly when there’s an obvious gap. I feel embarrassed and awkward, and when she walks away, I kick myself. Why is it so hard to have a simple conversation? I’ve yet to make any friends at this job, and I don’t think I ever will at this rate.

I swivel back to face my two screens and lament the lack of a blue light filter on this software. My eyes ache, and the dog (yeah, don’t ask) on the upper level of the open plan office keeps barking. The occasional trilling of a phone irritates me more than usual as the late afternoon sun glares through the floor to ceiling windows at my photosensitive eyes. I can’t close the blinds because my co-workers love the sun, but I’m rapidly approaching a meltdown thanks to overstimulation, exhaustion, and following vague instructions all day. It feels as though every piece of sensory stimuli is stabbing at my eyes and ears. At the end of my shift I clock out and leave without saying goodbye to anyone. I don’t know them well enough to feel comfortable going out of my way to say anything in the first place.

Upon exiting the building, I cover my ears with my big headphones, the relief that washes over me is immense. All those invasive sounds are gone now, and I can listen to whatever I want. I still feel on edge, still teetering close to a meltdown, so I choose not to worsen it by listening to something that would fuel my anger. Sometimes it’s necessary, sometimes I desperately need to hear the pained screams of Pete Steele, the aggressive guitars and lyrics of Body Count. But today, I need something that isn’t going to give me the encouragement to punch the first person that triggers my rage.

For me, music is transformative and transportive. When I listen to particular songs with noise-cancelling headphones, it’s allows me to go somewhere in my imagination while my body moves to my real destination on autopilot. I decide on an uplifting song by The Knocks and Big Boi, Big Bills. It’s a song that makes me feel like a character in a movie that has just moved to a new city and is pursuing an exciting new life. To an extent that’s sort of true for me, minus the excitement and plot armour. Either way, it’s an uplifting song for me. So much so in fact, that I listen to it on repeat all the way home. If something interrupts the song, like an announcement on the tube or having to pause it, I have to restart it or it’s not the same.

When I eventually arrive home, the transformation happens. The moment my bedroom door closes, and I turn my headphones off, it begins. The outcome of this transformation can be vastly different depending on how my day went. It might be that it was a successful day socially, so I leave my phone out of sight and silently bury myself in a hobby for hours in order to recharge. It might be that the mask comes off and I begin to scream and sob, breaking anything I can to stop myself from self-injuring, burying the heels of my hands into my eyes to block any light. The transformation varies, but it is always the result of the same thing: suppressing who I am.

Much of being autistic and being forced to operate in a society catered to neurotypical people, for me, is suppressing my natural instincts and behaviour. Even when I have a positive day socially, it’s often contingent on how well I assimilated with other neurotypical people in that particular interaction. This is frustrating because not only am I exhausted because hardly anyone accommodates for me, I am also measuring the success of my day on other peoples’ standards. Many of my interpersonal relationships also operated that way until fairly recently, I was forced to behave and communicate the way that other people expected me to rather than what felt natural to me. There is only so many places and so much time I can maintain this act for, and so I was forced to simply cut those friendships off. I am no longer willing to negotiate my needs with people that clearly don’t like me enough to respect my disorder.

The friends I keep are mindful, lovers of the eccentric, embracing that which is different and persecuted for it. Often times I find that the people closest to me also have parts of their identity that mean they must also wear a mask of sorts when moving through society, be it racist society, patriarchal society, or queerphobic society. Our arms interlink on the fringes of an abstract hierarchy, turning away from the status quo and pursuing a life in truth and diversity. One day I’d love for everyone to be able to live authentically, for discrimination, isms and phobias to fade away into the past. I don’t see it happening in my lifetime, or perhaps ever, but I hope it does eventually.

In an ideal world, I would only interact with those aforementioned friends and no one else, but as we’ve established, that is not the world we live in. The reality is, I almost never get to interact with people who accommodate for me. I deal with people touching me without permission which makes my skin crawl, forcing me to take my headphones off when I’m fending off a meltdown, managers who don’t give me the specific step-by-step instructions I need, classmates who don’t understand that I don’t talk because I’m too shy, not because I’m unfriendly, lecturers that forget I can’t operate well in group work and can’t be in classrooms with harsh, fluorescent lights… The list is endless. Even going to the shop is a struggle, because the employees have no way to know. Although Tesco’s have been considerate and ‘progressive’* enough to introduce sunflower lanyards (https://www.tesco.com/help/invisibledisability/), most stores have absolutely no assistance in place for customers with hidden disabilities. I just have to hope that they don’t speak to me and that I don’t end up getting overwhelmed and having to ask anyone for help.

In a lot of ways, this pandemic has meant that I can avoid quite a lot of the scenarios that would usually cause me stress. I no longer work (admittedly, this causes more stress than it relieves), I don’t have to attend class in person, there is little to no in-person socialising, family events are cancelled, seasonal holidays are cancelled, queuing and crowding is no longer allowed (without distancing), etc. That has all been excellent and a relief. But on the flip side, it has given rise to a whole host of new problems. I hate being on camera or speaking in online lessons, there is no way for me to remind the teacher subtly I can’t do group work, masks trigger heat-related meltdowns for me, the financial instability of being unemployed has been a huge stressor, and the lack of government support is utterly enraging. 

Overall, it’s been a huge adjustment. The job that I talked about my experience with at the beginning of this rant is long gone now, so many things have changed. I have never dealt well with change, but this year has forced me to. In some ways I suppose you could say this is a positive development, exposure therapy is best at times. I just wish it had been more on my terms and not at the hands of a viral pandemic. 

[streamworthytv]

“Ableism as Plot Device” in Netflix’s “Locke & Key”

So...as noted, I have a beef with Locke & Key, and the way certain characters were handled in the show (remember, this has nothing to do with the comic, which I haven’t seen...I have no idea if it’s fraught with the same problems).

I first watched the show as part of my Streamworthy TV venture (currently set up & being fleshed out on FB/IG/Twitter/Tumblr & Snapchat, with YouTube in progress...give me a follow, if you care to help someone AWESOME, that can’t work a traditional job...even part time). I myself am on the spectrum, and have mobility issues that require a chair often, due to EDS. So just putting it out there that people without these issues may not immediately have noticed the problems that I’ll be mentioning...but if you’ve seen the show, you’ll know what I’m talking about (you can also see my other, previous post on general crappiness, as well as LGBTQ issues, that are present in the show).

But this post will focus on ableism, and misrepresentation of neurodiversity and disability. (Please know that this is a PURPOSEFUL separation, as I don’t see my OWN Aspieness as a “disability,” but rather, an advantage. **I know that not all people may feel that way;** however, those of us that benefit from/appreciate the autistic aspects of ourselves ALSO have the right to not see autism as a “disability.” Autism is different for everyone, and thus it shouldn’t be forced into the box of “disability.” (Example: my hyperlexia from a young age served me VERY well with reading, writing papers, and test taking, for many, many years. But back to Locke & Key.)

The reason I brought up the above point was because, through the first season, L&K uses the “autism as disability only” angle, which many of us in the ASD community are used to seeing (and being annoyed by). And despite ZERO character development over the course of the series, I’ve seen “AUTISM AS PLOT DEVICE” employed THREE times, at LEAST. I was dragging through the show, annoyed at the portrayal and usage of the character, as well as a different character, who is wheelchair-using, and nonverbal. But suddenly the “realization of ableism” bolt hit me about the larger problems with the portrayals and usage of ASD here - and I got PISSED.

Maybe we have interests that may SEEM to others to “not be age appropriate” (...when, give me a break, how many NT adults/older teens love stories or movies from comics, or collect Funkos, or went hunting for Pokémon...? It’s NOT just us, y’all). Also, older kids CAN INDEED hang out with younger kids in a mentor-type way, without it being a situation of “welp, ASD = emotionally stunted, so character only hangs out with young child.” But those tropes aren’t enough.

We DON’T innocently extrapolate situations outside our head (in front of others!), ESPECIALLY if it breaks a safety rule we were told, i.e., “well, my mom said I’m not supposed to say if I’m home alone...but you’re a friend, so...no, she’s not here.” Before you tell me otherwise, keep this point in mind - if we have the ability to be home alone, SAFELY taking care of ourselves...then we wouldn’t slip like that. NOPE. If we DID, it wouldn’t BE safe for us to be home by ourselves.

As well, if we REALLY care about an item, we don’t let it go missing (the ASD character doesn’t, but someone else uses said character’s autism to blame for “needing to go looking for the toys he left behind, then got ‘upset’ about,” - also inferring a “meltdown” - every time she needs to go to someone’s else’s house). **If something is related to one of our SpIns (special interests), we DON’T MISPLACE THOSE ITEMS HAPHAZARDLY!!** I’ve been that way since I was a kid. Ugh!!! You also see someone destroy one of his treasured items, just to be cruel. This shows us how important the items are to the character...so he WOULDN’T be forgetting them.

So, we see a mother using tropes of her son’s autism, to manipulate herself into certain important areas/situations, more than once. That, and the fact that the character with ASD is able to let someone know they were home alone when a crime occurred (thus making the person that lives with them a suspect), because of their completely unrealistic, verbalized musing of “the ASD thought process”...mix it all in with the total lack of character development, and you come to the final conclusion:

“This character is only here as a plot device. They’ve been given zero character development, and have been shown JUST enough to ESTABLISH THAT THEY ARE NEURODIVERSE, and then are thereafter ONLY in ways that FURTHER THE PLOT...in ways that would only occur BECAUSE the character is neurodiverse.”

So yeah. This is lazy writing of the worst degree, and I’m more than a little annoyed. I’m sick and tired of “DISABILITY AS PROP OR PLOT DEVICE” (whether that disability is a assumed or not), as well as disabled or neurodiverse characters ONLY being shown as tropes. This does a disservice to not only the ASD community, but to society as a whole; people will expect us to act a certain way, and not be understanding of those that are “higher functioning” - for lack of a better term - than those that are portrayed on television. As well, it’s part of the reason why females with autism are still VASTLY under-diagnosed (as they can have VASTLY different presentation). Not only do people get used to seeing a particular suite of “symptoms,” which they equate to ALL people on the spectrum...but those shown in media are almost NEVER female.

I’m not sure if the comic is set up this way as well, and it’s just poorly executed on TV...but I’m peeved AF😡 There is also the poor acting/treatment of the wheelchair-using, institutionalized character, & how her being non-verbal is ALSO used to further the plot (yikes, my hands are shot...but I’ll get out what I can, here).

I’ve worked with MANY non-verbal children (it was actually my specialty, before physical & mental health issues of my own)...and I’ve also had my OWN bouts of being non-verbal, due to trauma/illness. On BOTH sides, I have always found a way to communicate. Even when my Dad was on a ventilator and life support (mostly for breathing/kidney function, due to sepsis...we sadly lost him a few weeks later), I was able to communicate with him...because, with my background, I saw that he was able to respond with the wiggling of a toe, or squeezing of a hand.

So the use of a non-verbal character that “can’t tell her important secrets,” as another necessary part of the plot, is just MORE lazy, insulting, ableist scriptwriting. The character is NOT catatonic, and is aware of what’s going on all around them; so, by what you see in all interactions with her, it makes you wonder what’s happening to her when she doesn’t have visitors. Is she just rolled into a back room, or off to the side, where no one gives her ANY adaptive equipment?

Any research would show that one with speech issues can build sentences with an eye-gaze machine, or even eye-gaze itself, with symbols. I’d like to think that in real life, a CENTER for those that are disabled, of all places(!!!), would have at least ONE of those machines, or some other means of communication, available.

This is another point that is sad for society at large to view, as it makes people think that they “shouldn’t bother with” people that are non-verbal, as there’s “no way” to let them be part of communication, besides the method used in the show (which I have used as well, but you would think this poor character would be getting SOME type help/services/etc!) It was just CRINGEWORTHY AF...I’m SO sick of shows/movies where someone needs to address someone thrown in the back of an institution alone, to rot (off the top of my head, I remember this from “Dark” on Netflix, as well as on “Orphan Black,” amongst others).

So...yea. I just wanted to post this, for if anyone asks for a link, or anyone stumbles across this, and themselves saw these issues, and got upset. Trust me - it wasn’t just you. This is a comic that was supposedly quite successful...the television adaptation of this could’ve been MUCH better. If there were tropes of other marginalized groups in the comic, you can be SURE that those would be righted for TV. But the ableist train keeping chugging right along, as more people than EVER claim to be “woke”🙄 YIKES.

[thewanderingwench]

My Lovely Interview with UhOhBurns

I’ve never given much thought to the matter, but it’s recently occurred to me that people nowadays don’t use the word “lovely” enough. There’s a whimsical property to it that I didn’t know I was missing until I spoke to Piper, known to her fans as UhOhBurns. 

The 24-year-old LARPer and cosplayer has a knack for using the underappreciated adjective, and her way with words doesn’t end there. I was fortunate enough to have Piper agree to provide a look into her life as an influential presence on the LARP and cosplay scene, and her answers were nothing short of insightful. 

Piper has been cosplaying since “before she knew what cosplay was”. She became familiar with the term around 2010 or 2011, but said she has been dressing up as characters her whole life. LARP found her later in life when she attended college, in the form of a campus group called Humans vs. Zombies. Though it was never properly dubbed a LARP, the game that included both students and teachers fit all the criteria for live action roleplaying. 

Much like her experience with cosplay, Piper didn’t know the activity she’d come to love had a proper name until she found YouTube videos and Tumblr posts about LARP. Rather than turning up her nose at a hobby with such nerdy repute, she dove into it with enthusiasm. 

“The reason I began to get so interested (in LARP) is because theatrical experiences are one of my passions,” she said. “I majored in theatre, so a chance to act and be active called to me.”

Needless to say, her love of LARP persisted after college. Her pursuits of her passion have led her to a wealth of  worlds, each with unique plots. What makes LARP an amazing hobby, in Piper’s eyes, is the theatrical elements, which she described as “hypnotic”.

“You can be the hero, the villain, the village person... and still have your moment. It isn’t like live plays where you may be limited in your performance due to a script, roles and lines. Your experience is your own. You make it what it is.” 

I was interested to know what Piper’s own experiences were. As a plus-size member of the LARP and cosplay communities and LARPer and cosplayer of color, I was intrigued by what she had to share. 

“My experience has been mostly positive,” she said, “However, like most of the world, sometimes games forget the intersectionality of human existence. I want to say to all marginalized bodies, continue to go to cons, larp and cosplay. Continue to take up space. We are needed.

We have opinions and ideas that must be treasured because they are great and bring change: necessary change. I have seen discrimmination, and gatekeeping in the community, but it is merely a reflection of the world, and the world is changing. 

I want everyone to realize that with any ugly that comes to the surface in these communities, a light shines through. Bringing darkness to the light helps us to protect ourselves and each other. It’s not that the entirety of these communities are toxic. No. It’s that we can now see clearly what is wrong, what is hurtful and what must change. Seeing the ugly may deter you, but know that seeing it simply means it’s being chased out! Keep chasing it out and stand strong together. 

You are welcome regardless of gender, disability, color, or religion. We need you. We need everyone who is good and true to continue to do what they love or to jump in, only then can we keep changing.” 

I was touched by the humanity with which she looked at such a fantastical pastime. Even through all the costumes, makeup, and improvisational acting, she exhibited the ability to reach past that and find the human heart of it. She showed an affinity for seeing the people inside the armor and the faces behind masks; people with insecurities and doubts that she, herself, is not without. 

“I think about my size and how it may affect how people see me before every game. Every. Game.” she said. 

“But, for the most part it has never been an issue besides some online bullying. I would like to let other plus size nerds know that they have a right to fun and adventure. Adventurers and players come in all shapes and sizes and anyone who has a problem with your size, small or big, does not have a claim to our community. I want the community to practice body positivity and love. Think about accessibility options more for our plus size and disabled friends. Think about others. Be kind.”

Piper has attended several large-scale events, but to date, her favorite LARPs have been boffer-style LARPs she’s done with her friends or attended at university. As far as her favorite character, “She hasn’t been created yet,” Piper said, “but I hope she’s coming.” 

Piper does, however, have a cosplay she’s most proud of. Her cosplay of Ursula from The Little Mermaid was a test of her skill and taught her a lot about crafting. She created a body of armor from EVA foam that, while imperfect, is something she takes pride in.   

She also takes pride in her friends, as she said one of her most unforgettable LARP moments was “being blasted out of the sky with magic during one game and as I died, I watched one single friend defeat all of my other pals in combat single handed. Epic.” 

Epic, indeed, and according to Piper, that level of badassery doesn’t have an age limit. 

“Being creative isn’t a competition,” she said in her parting words to me.  “Having fun doesn’t have to stop because your hair greys and your back hurts. You can make worlds in the comfort of your own home. Make those worlds, play the game and live. Be free.” 

How lovely.

[oldselfshiplady]

Someone in the notes was going OFF about how “yeah, I guess it was hard for women, but let’s not forget what REAL gay men suffered, they’re the true heroes, etc.”

Your condescending tone doesn’t convince anyone you’re grateful, but it does make clear you’re participating in misogyny with an attempt at the veneer of respectability. Do you think no gay/bi women existed during this time who may have had no other outlet to express that other than slash fic? Do you think none of them were in marriages themselves, and maybe didn’t understand or couldn’t admit why they loved these stories so much? How about those who may not have been cis (or had the language to realize it), at a time when that was also a disastrous admission? Do you think there were no married gay men whose only way for their wives to support them might have been to write some of this fic? There probably weren’t many in that last category, I’ll grant you. But it probably wasn’t none, either.

As for heroes of the AIDS epidemic, learn our history. The people caring for those gay men were often queer Black and Latinx women, whose oppression today continues at astronomical rates, including the same social and legal ramifications you already mentioned. Gay men are not the only queer group who have historically been oppressed in America. Heroes come in all shapes, sizes, colors, sexualities, genders, and gender expressions.

I have no time or respect for oppression olympics. The taking away of children, and forced psychological evaluation, and loss of income/opportunity, those are all still happening today for marginalized groups other than gay men, and I don’t see you acknowledging that. Some in those marginalized groups are still having fic pointed at as the basis for infantilizing them in an effort to take away their rights, particularly in the case of autistic and disabled people. Where’s your outrage for those groups?

Furthermore, gay and bi women write m/m slash, too, and in greater numbers than you clearly think. So this is coming from the community. The majority may be cis straight white girls, and I’m absolutely in agreement that fetishization is a substantial problem within that group, but there are a lot of complex, nuanced reasons a person, any person, might write slash.

Most importantly, though, you’re missing the entire point. Do not belittle the struggles of our allies. One of the most powerful forces of media is normalization. Do not believe for one second that there is no connection between those Kirk/Spock fics and Queer as Folk and The L-Word and Obergefell v. Hodges. AO3 isn’t important solely as a place to host fan fiction. It is a place to plant the seeds of huge cultural shifts, and yes, our community needs cisgender, straight, white allies because whether we like it or not, they are afforded the loudest voices. It has to start somewhere, and as someone who remembers the dark days before this shift took place, I personally believe that starting somewhere imperfect is far better than trying to wait for everyone to be perfect and accomplishing nothing. Change never comes fast enough for those who need it the most, but it never comes at all if we don’t have allies to bridge the gap.

Do you not see how the the treatment of these women was of a piece with how we treated homosexuality back then? It wasn’t just that they were writing fan fiction, it was that they were writing gay fan fiction. They were considered perverse not because they were fans, but because it focused on gay men. They did endure very real suffering, and the end result is that our community can openly exist as human beings. Did they do it for the right reasons? Debatable, but I’m not sure the “right” reasons always matter when we’re talking about defending human beings’ right to exist openly, without fear, in purusuit of happiness.

However problematic the slash community sometimes is, it is not monolith. There are people who wrote and write slash for any number of reasons, and while its problematic aspects need to be addressed, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t also an important piece of helping to ensure that our community has a future to look upon.

where would we be without those 60s housewives and their gay little kirk/spock fanzines. where would we fucking be

[allopropaganda]

In regards to these posts 1  2

As we, hopefully, reach a new era in our history, one where we may talk freely among ourselves and explore new and old ideas. We are at a cusp of growth.

We have dealt with foaming aphobes, we’ve been dealing with them for so long, maybe we forget that there are other levels of violence.

Let me be clear, I have been fighting for a long time. Reactions that spring up in me come from years of “training”, I have a very intuitive grasp of social justice issues and I’ve come to realize/reason that just because something seems obvious to me, can’t make it so for others. I think we need a bit of breakdown to see where the community is becoming ableist, aphobic, and victim blaming, and areas that are going to hurt us in the long run.

So this post is in two parts, because when I said I felt “ganged up on” I meant it in more than one way.

The Personal Attacks.

You make what you believe to be an innocent comment, maybe you make hasty judgements, and in many many ways even I - the CPSTD sonofabitch - must admit, that there would be no way for you to truly know where you’ve misstepped, before you’ve stepped.

Nobody thinks they’re saying something harm/that harmful, and that’s essentially why it’s not up to them to decide they didn’t! (not without real evidence).

*dramatically opens curtains* Come see through my eyes *tinkling music plays*

Firstly, claiming I had reacted aggressively - was majorly aphobic and ableist. For the aphobic part, that may be a little easier to see. My response did not shame someone, believe me I can shame I’m sure you’ve seen it. I did not look to attack them personally, I actually did not attack at all! My response was about the heartache a-specs had to go through, it was about experiences that happened to me. To assert that I was harming them, that mentioning the attacks on me where harming them, the words “that’s messed up” come to mind.

The left hook on this is the implication that showing any emotion and not seeking to soothe the aggravator is aggressive. At no point does an oppressed person have to placate the oppressor - nor does the oppressed person have to coddle and soften words to soothe their feelings. If you spread oppression, even if you didn’t mean to, that is your rightful title! And the world is inundated with people making these  mistakes, the best thing for you to do is own up to them, take responsibility, and seek to rectify! THAT makes you an ally! THAT truly changes the world! And yes, you can definitely spread oppression even if you are in that group, that is exactly how oppressive systems work! They rely on many hands.

Boop down to the abelism which I don’t think you could have possibly recognized even if you DID take a special interest in me, or in C-ptsd, or remember those two things at a time - but this is what happened to me all the same.

C-PTSD Is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Many of you may be familiar with PTSD, that’s what war veterans get diagnosed with all the time. I think we can all remember instances where it’s been depicted of war veterans suddenly going in to “fight mode” when they get triggered. All of the bad instances where they had to survive comes up, boiling hot like a geyser, and the truth is that it’s not always wrong.   That’s me. I don’t know what you may be thinking what fight mode may be like, but fight mode is filled with fear, panic, and anger. I am ready to attack and disable my attacker at all costs. For me, enemies are everywhere, everyone’s motive is suspect, each new thought is a breakdown in my spatial cognition. This is a survival mechanism that is made to protect me.

So what I’m saying is, with all of this running through my veins, clouding my mind, how my brain screamed attack and justified any means of survival, and was actively telling me that not to attack was wrong, I still did not attack. I did a really great job of restraining myself, in the interest of bettering my community, and you…trashed that.

And in regards to claiming my tags were “aggressive”, well like I mentioned above about hostility and all - my tags where about asking if this ask was legit or not. So with CPTSD it is hard to tell when someone is being sincere, or reading any other emotion other than hostility. Let me tell you, I have literally read really nice messages sent to me and couldn’t understand them because I read them in an hostile slant. So that’s why I ASKED, to make up for my disability.

Oh man, which brings up another thing. Gaslighting me. Gaslighting is further explained down the post but in regards to me - My thoughts scatter, and I may read things that just aren’t there. To make up for that I read, reread, think - over think, reduct my think, over think a little more, write out the thinking. There’s a hell of a lot of thinking just to be absolutely sure that I’ve had this down correctly. No offense, but I’m a really smart person, and I am highly intuitive. When I come up with a stance, I have written a book in my head to back me up (see ENTIRE POST). It is so inappropriate to jump in and say “nuh uh”, just because you like the person who said the thing, or is entirely reactionary. I see that as highly disrespectful of my intelligence and trying to take advantage of my cognitive disabilities. Hey, that could be my CPTSD talking, but also you could just not do that, ever. For the record, if I doubt something I ASK, or put it in non-definitive terms. No argument of “nuh uh” is an acceptable retort to what I put into my words.

And to put an extra fine point on it, don’t even try using my disabilities against me to attempt gas lighting me. I specifically take precautions to protect myself from that.

And for icing on the abelism cake - using anger as a reason to dismiss marginalized peoples. No.

I was able to save myself, because I’m pretty kick ass at that. You take this entire post and everything it means, and crunch it into one burst, and shove it in my soul - all of this at once and ongoing. Could you possibly imagine that I would be able to make a coherent argument? I think not. It would have gone on - everyone justifying their actions because “I can’t act right”, but this in turn sparking even more hostility. But I stopped myself, even when I KNEW I was right and you DESERVED to be gotten and I was wrong and dangerous to leave, I knew this in my soul, but I still left because I could take hold of something tiny and believe in it against all odds. To say that this is fair and just to expect other people to do, other victims to do - I could never suggest such a thing. I am just lucky. Respect people’s right to be hurt.

Part Two

In regards to our community, in the new times there will be new prejudices rearing it’s ugly head, it will be subtle, it will be blatant, it will come from our own side.

And you’ve been exposed to blatantly violent aphobes for so long, I know a certain feeling arises in you that you associate with “bad people.” To be sure, assigning labels such as “good” and “bad” person wise is a mistake made time and time again, stretching time and place.

“Nice Guy”*

*The “nice guy” is a phenomenon ever occurring in our society and is not meant as a way to gender anyone - phenomenons have no gender.

What you are teaching yourselves is that no one “nice” should be corrected or called to attention. They should have words minced, you feel like a traitor and mean for suggesting that they might have some aphobic biases. Newsflash, everyone has aphobic biases, we live in an aphobic society!

And to be honest, the “nice guy” rhetoric has been used on just about every abuse victim and should never deign to cross the lips of someone interested in justice. In my mind this is the shock, anger, and call to fight that fills my heart.

But let’s go back. For one, the defense of the “Nice Guy” is often that they didn’t know better, they misspoke, and/or they didn’t really mean that. In all of that - it doesn’t change a thing of what was done. Aphobia doesn’t just stop “because it was a mistake”, it keeps going, it gets picked up. You can’t undo what you’ve done by saying, “not me”! You can only work to erase your actions by having a reaction, you must put forth an effort to rectify your mistake. In fact, raising your hands and declaring no responsibility is dangerously disrespectful.

Next, you cannot say, “they didn’t mean that”, just because you like the person. This is a form of gas lighting. You are taking reality and shouting that it never happened. Gaslighting is abuse.

Here’s the scenario, either A) They typoed something and they said the exact opposite of what they meant. That means they still said it, that means it was still spread. That means it definitely exists and has caused harm. To say it didn’t exist doesn’t help a-specs, to recognize the mistake and take steps to fix it does. Just own up to your mistake and don’t get angry that it upset people and they reacted. Of course they reacted they just got blindsided by aphobic rhetoric, just respect their feelings.

B) They didn’t realize how horrible they sounded, until it was pointed out. This is called “internalized aphobia”, or maybe micro aggressions for allo people. It happens to everyone. That means they still said it, that means it was still spread. That means it definitely exists and has caused harm. To say it didn’t exist doesn’t help a-specs, to recognize the mistake and take steps to fix it does. Just own up to your mistake and don’t get angry that it upset people and they reacted. Of course they reacted they just got blindsided by aphobic rhetoric, just respect their feelings.

C) They really did mean what they said, but are willing to shrink back due to backlash. This has no matter (and no way to determine through isolated incidents) because all you need to do is call out the behavior.

But they were Mean to the Nice Guy  It forever remains a mystery how you can demean someone with a smile on your face, but when the oppressed don’t smile back they are viewed as the hostile ones! I think we’ve covered this time and time again! It really should not be your priority to police the emotions of a harmed oppressed person. People can react hostilely to people because they are using a system of oppression that boosters them up while putting the oppressed down. People have feelings.

The Logical Conclusion to Nice Guy So your first instinct is to not make waves, to be as understanding as possible, you are friendly, you are nice. As long as you Smile you are Nice. You see something that makes you uncomfortable and you let it pass, because we’re all friends! So that something is passed around, it’s multiplied, other people, it becomes established. The implications of why it made you uncomfortable becomes clear as an aphobic notion takes root. What was now one misinformed statement is now a war. WOULD your nice guy, because they are so nice, really want that? Would they really want to harm the a-spec community? If they would, well then they’re not so nice, if they wouldn’t, then in the end you are helping them and yourself out.

[findbeggar84-blog]

The Halloween List: A Quiet Place, Emelie, and Hereditary

I'm kicking off The Halloween List this year with one of my favorite hidden gems, and two of the biggest Horror movies of 2018. 2018 has been so long that it's easy to forget A Quiet Place even came out back in April, right?

All three of these films attack the family in very different ways. A Quiet Place is about family surviving in a country that's destroyed; Emelie is about a family that thinks it's safe until they hire the wrong babysitter; and Hereditary is about a family haunting itself. Each is powerful, but which kind of conflict is the most effective on you?

A Quiet Place (2018)

I have been waiting a damned long time for A Quiet Place. Horror has a troubling history of relegating disabled characters to the roles of villains. I wrote about that phenomenon for Fireside Magazine last year. You can take solace in the well-meaning portrayals of Wait Until Dark and Silver Bullet, but those are moves with abled actors cripping it up, and screenplays that pander. They could never get beneath the surface.

Millicent Simmonds is a deaf actor, and she’s the emotional core of this movie. She plays Regan, the oldest child in one of the few families to survive an invasion of monsters. The monsters hunt on sound; they can hear a toy space ship from miles away, and be there in seconds. Regan has saved the family, because since they all know ASL, they know how to communicate and live without speaking. They walk into town to scavenge on paths of sand to quiet their footsteps. They have adapted.

What’s even more rewarding about this disability rep is that Regan isn’t defined by her disability. If a monster is coming, she can’t hear it behind her, but that’s a peril of a moment, not a constant agony. Regan is defined by her grief that she thinks she was responsible for the loss of a younger sibling, and she has some very creative ways of expressing that. It’s not grief about being disabled, or grief that makes her curse it. This is a relief in contrast to a hundred movies about disabled people who curse being trapped in wheelchairs, or wish they could see the sunrise. Disabled people are going to live lives, and regret openly, not narrowly. A Quiet Place gets this.

The movie is strongly constructed, naturally never giving us an exposition dump on where the monsters came from, or how life has been. We can tell what their lives are like by what they keep around the house, and what chores we see them do. It’s at its best when there’s minimal music, letting us sit in the same terrified silence as the family. They have a baby on the way that won’t be easy to deliver in this world, and the kids are restless to live bigger lives. We see them pushing against the boundaries forced on them with a healthy naturalism.

At under 90 minutes, the movie is tight and knows what it wants to do at all times. Its big set pieces, like the kids falling into a corn silo and the threat of drowning in it, all click. The moment you see a nail sticking out of a step in the stairs of their the basement, you know what’s coming. What comes is harrowing. It’s all worth it, too. It yields one of the most cathartic endings in modern Horror.

Emelie (2015)

   Emelie is a movie good enough to kill your career. It is so unsettling that it might have been more commercially successful if it had been worse. I can see some studios not wanting to work with the people involved because they were willing to make this thing.

Emelie is also a great response to John Carpenter’s Halloween. Halloween is a babysitter’s worst fear: that someone will come in the night when no one older is around to help and attack them and the children. But that isn’t the fear of children. Children’s deepest fear is that the babysitter will hurt them. Emelie is about that fear.

Following a disturbingly casual opening sequence in which a babysitter is kidnapped in broad daylight, we meet a small and intensely believable family. There are three kids, the youngest of which is so naturalistically sweet and excitable that he might just be a six year old that the director gave some sugar to and let roam through the set. Here we have a brooding pre-teen older brother who doesn’t want to spend time with his siblings, and a controlling middle-sister who constantly comes up with costume ideas and games for the youngest and most impressionable of the kids. Their parents are going out for a special dinner. They’ll be gone late. At the last minute their sitter has been replaced, but surely she’ll be fine. What could happen?

From there, Emelie would be a much more comfortable movie if the babysitter (guess her name) whipped out a steak knife and chased these kids. But it’s not a conventional Horror movie. She has the kids pose for photos that seem like a game to them, but are inappropriately morbid to the audience. There’s a scene where she invites the oldest boy into the bathroom with her that isn’t explicitly sexual or violent, but is palpably uncomfortable because even the boy knows this isn’t normal. Scene by scene, the movie pushes you to guess what she’s planning to do to them. The suspense is almost Hitchcockian, except she’s more of a black box than most of Hitchcock’s villains.

The older brother has to pull it together and find ways to call for help when the sitter hasn’t technically done anything explicable yet. It’s surprisingly effective character growth for the kid, who begins the movie as a pouting brat, and who wouldn’t be equipped to stand up to an adult no matter what his attitude was. He’s the only line of protection and he’s intensely vulnerable – perhaps the most vulnerable because Emelie reads him like a book from the minute she steps into the house.

I can’t recommend this to most parents. Many of my friends are having kids now, and for most of them, the natural fear for their children is going to make the tension of this movie too much. Again, it’s not a movie that has them eaten alive or smashed by a hammer. It’s the slow menace that will be too much. It’s easier and more escapist to fear that a werewolf, vampire, or even a serial killer will come in from outside your neighborhood and go after your family. Emelie is a movie about someone you think you can trust.

I spent so much of the ending of this movie yelling at the TV. No movie has sunk its teeth into me like this in years.

Hereditary (2018)

This is Ari Aster’s debut film. You know you’ve done well when critics argue whether the first movie you’ve ever made is a masterpiece. The guy has an entire career to turn in his masterpiece, but sure, let’s work ourselves into a froth now.

Anything Hereditary does well at all, it does masterfully. If it had a different ending, it’d probably be my favorite movie of the year because of how powerful the rest of it is. Instead it’s one of the best movies that I don’t feel like rewatching.

There are few pieces of art in any medium about an abusive family member dying before anyone gets catharsis from them. You probably have someone in your family who died before someone else got closure with them, and if you’re lucky enough not to, you definitely know somebody whose family has that kind of suffering. Hereditary wallows in the discomforting legacy of a grandmother who traumatized both her daughter and granddaughter. She’s dead, and her shadow is still longer than that of any living member of the family. She haunts them figuratively, and eventually we’ll wonder if she’s doing it literally.

Toni Collette deserves all the praise for her performance that she’s gotten. Nominate her for stuff, and write her fan mail. She lays bare this damaged mother who knows she can’t let go, who hates her mother for always interfering in her parenting, and demeaned her daughter for not being a boy. At the same time this life has made her so uptight and repressed that she can’t talk to her kids honestly without exploding. It took one scene to sell me on this movie, when Collette’s character went to a grief support group and her hatred of her own insecurities flowed out of her. This is not a stock Horror character with stock Horror angst. This is something real and festering, that makes you wish exorcisms worked on trauma.

And suspense? The clucking of a tongue here is scarier than the rev of a chainsaw in another movie.

It’s to Hereditary’s credit that act one pivoted the film somewhere entirely different than I’d expected. This isn’t a “and there are also ghosts!” pivot. This is a demolition of the family’s status quo mid-grieving process, which is the sort of curveball I could only expect A24 films to support. Suffice to say that this family goes through a Hell that, even without the eerie and horrific elements, you can’t expect any family to be equipped to deal with.

If this movie had come out in the 1980s, it would be a part of the canon right next to The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby.

It’s 2018 now, and I’m not surprised that mainstream audiences hated it.

It is an unpleasant movie with an unpleasant view of both family and the supernatural. The characters lack agency because the themes of powerlessness before death and grief are so important, and that builds to an ending that is both tricky to understand and, once you understand it, doesn’t feel worth sitting through an entire movie to get to. It has more to say about who we are as people than the average Horror movie, but the actual payoff of its climax is just another example of an overwhelming trend that I’m sick of. No matter how well executed the rest of your story is, the ending needs to satisfy. Hopelessness is not its own answer.

Come back Friday for Slice, Summer of '84, and the new hotness that is Nicholas Cage's Mandy!

Source: http://johnwiswell.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-halloween-list-quiet-place-emelie.html

[rebelwheelssoapbox]

What's The Tea with Anita Mya Rhites (#1) : Cuomo's Shade

So much, kittens for the “Justice Agenda”.

Don't get me wrong. It has done some good, but lately, it seems like we can't go a month without hearing about another attack on the disability community, from New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo.

[Illustration of a drag queen in an elaborate wig (pink, orange, and yellows) and outfit (yellow and orange). She is sitting at a table (seen from the chest up) that has a blue tea cup that reads “What’s The Tea?” on it. Next to and slightly underneath the cup is a white napkin with black print that reads “with Anita Mya Rhites . The text around her reads “I am living for this new wig. What I am not living for is Cuomo’s attacks on disabled people!”] And let us not forget, that an attack on the disability community, is also an attack on every single marginalized community. After all, kittens you can be disabled and black, disabled and Muslim, disabled and an immigrant, disabled and queer and so on. 

[image description: Three Black and disabled folx (a non-binary person holding a cane, a woman sitting in a power wheelchair, and a woman sitting in a chair) looking seriously at the camera while a rainbow pride flag drapes on the wall behind them. Photo credit: Disabled And Here] And while I do believe that it is vital that we leave no oppressed group behind, especially in these times, fun fact, kittens: besides being fabulous and fierce, this queen, yours truly Ms. Anita Mya Rhites, is also disabled. And so, yes kittens. That means Andy, is also going, after queens, like me.

[an illustration of a drag queen Ms. Anita, not only revealing her full outfit - which is a very elaborate, colorful and couture dress, but also showing that she uses a stylish black cane to help her mobility, and that she is also disabled. The graphic reads “Ta-daaa!!!” and “Disabled drag queens represent!”] Now, the attacks have been many, but in this issue, kittens we're going to focus on CDPA aka Consumer Directed Personal Assistance program. Horribly boring name, kittens – I know, but besides creating over 100,000 jobs, this medicaid program empowers disabled queens like me to choose and hire who comes into my home and helps me stay the independent queen that I am. (Well... with some help). With traditional services, I don't get a choice, they send whoever is available, regardless if they speak the same language as you (which is kind of helpful when you need to communicate with each other), and regardless if they have experience in assisting someone with your needs. After all kittens, disabled people's needs do vary. But another reason I adore the CDPA is that, I do the hiring, which means I can make sure the people I hire, won't be queer and drag-phobic (nor ableist). The last thing I need kittens, is some homophobic, drag queen hating, ableist, shade throwing ignoramus, giving me crap for being my fabulous self, let alone in my own home. Can you imagine having to then be reliant on a person like that? I've been there, kittens and the thought of going back to traditional services... I don't even want to think about it. So, what's the tea? Why would Mr. Justice Agenda attack a program that is clearly fabulous for New York? Good question, kittens.

[Image Description: Illustration of Ms Anita from the eyes up. She is showing us her snazzy yellow business card, which has her name in a punk styled pink font and the words  in black at the bottom in a more handwritten styled font. “Fierce Drag Queen. Hard Hitting Journalist.” ] I sat down with Ms. Kendra Scalia (Consumer and Policy Analyst and fellow disabled activist) to find out why Cuomo is throwing so much visceral shade at disabled people, and what can be done to stop him. ANITA: Girl, what is going on? Does Cuomo just hate disabled people? Why is he so hell bent on destroying our services? KENDRA: It certainly feels like Cuomo and his administration are purposefully targeting the disability community. ANITA: Ugh, I'm almost afraid to ask, but let's hear it: What is the latest on the attacks on the CDPA? KENDRA: Basically the Department of Health wants to radically change the way they fund and reimburse the FI's or Fiscal Intermediaries. ANITA: FI's, kittens are basically like Go Between Agencies. I do the hiring, but the Go Betweens handle the paperwork, payroll, and in many cases help my peoples make the most of what help is available in our areas - which is needed, because that be can pretty complicated. On top of that, these agencies also create jobs for the community, so really it's a win-win for all.

KENDRA: Exactly. So basically this new policy says that these Go Between Agencies, as you put it, will be paid for their services on a per member per month basis, where the rate they are reimbursed will be determined by how many hours each member is authorized to receive. ANITA: Well, alright, I mean... is that a bad thing?

KENDRA: Well, the problem is that the new reimbursement rates are not sufficient to cover all costs of running the business, which includes rent and health benefits and salaries and so on. As a result, the majority of these Go Between Agencies will be forced to shut down, which will not only destroy jobs for the community...

ANITA: Ugh, as if that's what our state needs right now – less jobs. KENDRA: But would also damage, if not destroy the CDPA program as we know it in New York, making it harder on disabled and senior people to get the proper help they need. ANITA: Ugh, as if the state doesn't make it hard enough as it is.... So, how much does it cost to run a Go Between? KENDRA: Well, I mean of course it varies on location, but here's the weird thing about it: We don't know. Cuomo doesn't know. The Department of Health doesn't know.

[Image Description: White graphic with the words “How is that even a thing?” in a black handwritten font] ANITA: Um... what?! KENDRA: Yeah, there are no real numbers publicly available regarding current costs of running a Go Between Agency. And this is why the community has been calling on the Department of Health, to delay the changes until they, at the very least, have all the information on the actual costs. ANITA: What?! Why... and what?!

KENDRA: Anita, your eye is twitching... ANITA: I just...okay wait, so if they don't even have all the information, then how are they deciding on cuts to the program? KENDRA: Exactly. ANITA: Well wait, so if they get their way, what's gonna happen to the over 70,000 people who rely on the program? Have they even thought about that? KENDRA: Well, if the majority of Go Between agencies are forced to shut down, due to lack of proper funding, people will technically have the right to transfer to another Go Between, but that's only if there is another Go Between in their area, and assuming there's one in their area, that can take on this extra workload, while still running on reduced funding. We may not know the exact costs of running a Go Between, but the math is obvious. Less funding, more workload. Most of the Go Between agencies will be forced to shut down. ANITA: That is going to be a hot... mess. KENDRA: Yes and unfortunately, a lot of people will be booted from the program, and forced onto traditional home care or... into nursing homes. ANITA: Why would Cuomo and the DOH do that? Traditional services is having a hard enough time covering hours as it is? How do they think these same agencies will be able to take on all these extra cases? KENDRA: Oh yeah. There's actually a nationwide home care workforce shortage crisis happening right now. In fact, traditional agencies, in some areas of the state, currently rely on consumer enrollment in CDPA to cover part of their weekly care hours. Because agencies are unable to fully staff and fill shifts, they push the responsibility onto the consumer. These cuts will negatively impact traditional home care agencies, as they will have no other program to support their client’s needs as it becomes more challenging to hire quality caregivers.

ANITA: So, the cuts will shut down the majority of Go Betweens... what happens if Traditional agencies can't cope? What? Is the state just going to just ship the majority of us off into nursing homes and institutions - against our will, I might add? Even if they tried, where will we all go? As it is, there is already a huge waiting list for open beds. KENDRA: There are more than 70,000 people using CDPA today. It is impossible for all of those people to find a nursing home bed because New York State does not have that many nursing home beds open. The math simply doesn’t add up. If people can't get traditional services in their area, some consumers will have to rely on support through family willing to work for free or, for those who are lucky enough, private pay for some level of care. ANITA: Please. We all know, that is not an option for most people. Even if you do have family or friends in the area, people need to work. People need to make money to eat and pay rent. And Private Care? People have CDPAP via Medicaid which is like taking a vow of poverty. Who has money for that? KENDRA: Exactly. I mean unfortunately, if these cuts go through, a lot of disabled and senior New Yorkers will be forced to leave New York, running to any other state with CDPA. ANITA: But a lot us just can't get up and move to another state... KENDRA: I know. It is a bonafide mess. Sadly, a lot of people as a result, will die in their homes without the necessary daily care that keeps them healthy. ANITA: OMG, kittens. What the living hell? Meanwhile, I heard Cuomo and the Department of Health were telling people, that the cuts won't impact the quality of service? Are they just lying to the people or do they just really not understand how this program works? KENDRA: Anyone who knows the facts, knows that these changes are going to impact the disability and senior populations, not to mention the workers. How can it not? Many Go Between agencies have even told Cuomo and the DOH their concerns, but still the Department of Health continues to say that it is “not the intent" of the cuts to impact consumers or the integrity of the CDPA program. But how can they have good intent, when they don't even have all the information needed to make an educated decision? Anita, your eye is twitching again... ANITA: This is so exhausting...and the attacks... they just feel so relentless sometimes... I gotta take off my wig. This is just too damn much. KENDRA: Well, that's why while activism and taking action is important, so is doing self care.

[Image Description: An illustration of Anita who is looking very sad and drained. There are tears coming her left eye and she just looks drained. She has also removed her wig seen in previous illustrations, revealing her bald head.] ANITA: Is there even time for that? Aren't the changes to the program kicking in September? KENDRA: Well, that's if we don't stop it, and we can. That said, yes. There is time for self care. We must make time. We can't neglect our emotional health. Plus, how will we be able to fight if we are so burnt out that we can't even take action? ANITA: True. Well, that said, what are some ways people (inside and beyond our community) can take action? KENDRA: We must mobilize the community to get loud, get proud and get public! We must take this fight to #SaveCDPA to the streets with some old-fashioned protesting, letter writing to your local news outlets, and community conversations to educate your neighbors on CDPA and the devastation these unnecessary cuts will cause to disabled and senior New Yorkers!

[Image Description: White background graphic with text in a black handwritten styled font that reads “How To Take Action!” in larger text with smaller text on the side “Solidarity is fierce!” and “Yaaas Queen!”]

1.) You can sign up to join a Rapid Response Team. When Cuomo is scheduled to be in your area, you will be notified. This helps to easily coordinate a group of individuals to show up at Cuomo’s location to protest the cuts to CDPA.

2.) Join a Facebook group, such as CDPAP Watch Discussion Group. 3,) Join the conversations and share social media messaging by using #SaveCDPA. 4.) Share this interview 5.) Write blog posts about this. 6.) Make videos and post them online. 7.) Call Cuomo @ 518-474-8390 8.) Send him a message on Twitter @NYGovCuomo and via his website I know there is a lot of injustice going on in the world right now, but we can't let them do this to 70,000 people plus the workers! In the end, the people of New York, deserve better. ___

Well, that's the tea, kittens. I'm gonna do some self care and then take action, and I hope you will do the same. Have a question about the attacks on CDPA? Email me : AskAnitaMyaRhites@gmail.com and I'll ask Kendra your questions for a future issue! Until next time, sending love and solidarity, XOXO Anita