I'm Absolutely Loving The Discussionsection On This SCP. The Original Article Was A Too Dense For Me

"it's okay, i can peel back the layers of you until i find the soft and gentle core of you you've had to work so hard to hide"? no. no, it's okay, i know you're hollow; i'm here anyway. you don't have to pretend it isn't masks the whole way down. whatever face you want to wear, i still love you. i don't need you to be good or unflinching or the antonym of violence. if i did, i wouldn't be here. i wouldn't ask that of you.

---

Is this the same show where I guy almost lost is finger?

OK. OKAY. YOU GUYS.

I am LOVING the fucking chocolate guy’s netflix show! It’s FANTASTIC! Anf hold on to your fucking boots y’all cause it’s actually not what I was expecting at all!

Do you miss the gentleness of the Great British Bake-Off? THIS SHOW IS SO KIND AND GENTLE! For fuck’s sake, NO ONE GETS KICKED OFF! No. No, Listen to this! When they lose the first challenge (a pastry one), the punishment is… They get private lessons with Amaury to help improve what brought their scores down instead of competing in the second chocolate challenge. 

When the one black lady contestant messed up the first challenge I was super bummed and like, OF COURSE. But NO. She got lessons! She struggled! she worked hard! and she won a later challenge! GROWTH MY DUDES! They are there TO LEARN and GROW and Maybe Win a Big Prize!

They ALL get to stay and keep doing their best! and at the end the one who did the best overall is the one who gets the money prize!

Look at this lovely line up! they make COOL LOOKING FANCY THINGS! Amaury tells us how he does some of the fancy things he does! They OFFER TO HELP EACH OTHER WHEN THEY FINISH EARLY AND GET PROPS FOR THAT! (not taunted for not using their own time better). The set up even kinda makes the one who is like, I’m in it to win it, is the villain and doing bad. The rest who are like, I’m here to learn and grow and maybe make friends! AUGH YOU GUYS!

Amaury is soft spoken and kind, and has a pretty voice and a pretty smile and that’s nice to watch too. The chefs are talented and artistic and they actually give the THE TIME to make nice things! It’s not “Wham out some half-assed garbage in 2 hours so we can shotgun the production and laugh at your garbage” like most cooking shows nowadays. NO! 14 hour challenges! They’re still hard, but they get to actually make cool stuff! fancy stuff! Stuff I want to look at and cheer for them!

The episodes average 38 min and aren’t a huge time commitment, the first episode being the longest one, and there are only 8 total so it’s not like you have to really get in for the long haul. \

WATCH IT! Pump it! we need more cooking shows like this and less that are sad and mean!

I do like the scorn the opening sentence has for the concept of being "perfectly normal." That's a strong opening for both a children's book and a book about magic.

(Tragically the series doesn't live up to the expectations this sets.)

It also implies The Dursley's go around calling themselves "perfectly normal". Which. It's just not something I can imagine one neighbor saying or another, or Mrs. Dursley mentioning during book club over tea, or the topic coming up in casual conversation. Ever.

The phrasing doesn't come off as non-literal. I get tripped up in the specificity of the action. To whom do they say they are, "perfectly normal, thank you very much."

Does anyone doubt this? We are not actually shown how Harry's magic effects to Dursley's reputation growing up.

It does have a whiff of "tho doth protest too much" since they can't simply be "proud to be perfectly normal". Instead they have to assert (but to whom???) that they are "perfectly normal". They know and are infuriated that they are not.

It's a good set up for the conflict between the Dursley's and Harry, and the idea of an opening that immediately characterizes these antagonists as loving normality and "fitting in" is one I do very much like. But it's not quite there yet.

It needs a few more passes to hit just right.

B-, maybe C+

Anyway,

If anyone does have a recommendation for an urban fantasy book where the protagonist is in someone magically different and surrounded by family which is hostile to their very existence because of that difference I've been itching to read one.

Of, and of course, the protagonist should be explicitly queer because *gestures at previous paragraph*, obviously.

Oh fuck off

---

Ooohhhh this explains why I can cook when I have a caregiver with me but wont when I'm alone.

I'm showing thee caregiver how to prepare the things I like to eat for the days when I can't get out of bed

1. a couple months ago a publicist invited me to a concert and i accepted her invite and she said she’d add my name to the guest list. the night of the concert i was feeling a little tired and not entirely up for walking all the way to the venue and standing around listening to a band i’d never heard of. but then, as i was making dinner, i thought, “why don’t you pretend this is a date night with bill hader?” i realize this is an insane person thing to think. i do often go to concerts with friends; i am not in the habit of pretending bill hader is accompanying me to concerts. but that night i did put on the band’s album and pretend that bill hader was dancing around the kitchen with me while i cooked. and then i pretended that bill hader threw his arm around me on the walk to the venue and walked slower than usual because he’s taller and his paces are longer than mine. then i got to the venue. and i told the lady in the ticket booth that i was on the guest list. and i gave her my name. and she handed me two tickets, and she said, “here, for you and your plus one.” i was all alone in front of the box office. there was no one else around. at no point leading up to this had the publicist mentioned giving me a plus one. i laughed a little to myself at the idea of Imaginary Bill Hader being given his own ticket and then i went inside.

2. on the way home from acting class tonight, a long walk in the cold, i came upon a diner lit in warm golden hues, and i hadn’t eaten all day, and it looked irresistible, so i went inside. “for one,” i said, and the hostess said, “do you want to eat at the bar?” and i said, “no thanks, could i sit at a table?” and i was ushered to a table for two. it was a pretty busy night and i was kind of self-conscious about being the only person eating alone so i was like, “well okay i’ll just imagine i’m on a date with bill hader again haha.” and so i sat there and enjoyed some very good sweet potato ravioli with chestnut-cream sauce, and what was perhaps the best cheesecake i’d ever eaten in my life, all the while imagining bill hader seated in the empty chair across from me. and then at the end of the meal, my waitress came and cleared away my dessert plate, and she looked at me, and then she looked at the empty chair, and then she looked back at me, and then she said, “are you paying separate or together?” again, the other seat was empty. i had been sitting at this table fully by myself for the entire duration of the meal. the waitress had come by the table perhaps five or six times over the course of the hour, seeing me completely alone. and i said, “sorry?” and she said, “separate or together?” and i said, “…together?” and she said, “cool, do you need the machine?” and i said, “yes” and she brought the machine over and i paid, because my dinner companion, despite apparently being visible to my waitress, was imaginary bill hader. 

EMT: Do you know what causes your seizures

Me: *Struggling to find a way to explain psychogenic non epileptic seizures while my brain is fried and the world is spinning*

Me:

Me: Bullshit.

---

Follow My Leader by James B Garfield is a book from my childhood I am very fond of. It's for ages 8 - 12. I haven't reread it as an adult so I don't know how it stands up.

It is about a boy who goes blind when he is playing with fire crackers with his friends. It follows him from his injury, to going through life skills camp, to getting a guide dog, and eventually dealing with a bully.

It was first published in 1957, 33 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed into law. "The Braille Technology Timeline" doesn't start until 1971.

Despite this, I find myself thinking that if every child had read this book growing up there would be a lot (edit: LESS, forgot LESS) of internet bullshit along the lines of, “buT hOw Do yOU uSe a cEll pHonE iF yOu’Re bLinD”.

There have always been allies who care about people with disabilities, and, alongside them, have worked to improve access and accommodations as society presses forward. Blind people do not live cruel and unfulfilling lives trapped at home and deprived of the world and technology. The attitude that they do comes from a failure to see the support systems, including friends and family, which have been present from the beginning.

And that's my justification for continuing to deeply love and strongly recommend this book from 66 years ago.

The Disability Library

I love books, I love literature, and I love this blog, but it's only been recently that I've really been given the option to explore disabled literature, and I hate that. When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be able to read about characters like me, and now as an adult, all I want is to be able to read a book that takes us seriously.

And so, friends, Romans, countrymen, I present, a special disability and chronic illness booklist, compiled by myself and through the contributions of wonderful members from this site!

As always, if there are any at all that you want me to add, please just say. I'm always looking for more!

Updated: 12/08/2023

Articles

The Drifting Language of Architectural Accessibility in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, Essaka Joshua, 2012

Early Modern Literature and Disability Studies, Allison P. Hobgood, David Houston Wood, 2017

Making Do with What You Don't Have: Disabled Black Motherhood in Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Anna Hinton, 2018

Necropolitics, Achille Mbeme, 2003 OR Necropolitics, Achille Mbeme, 2019

Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts, Zygmunt Bauman, 2004

Witchcraft and deformity in early modern English Literature, Scott Eaton, 2020

Books

Fiction:

10 Things I Can See From Here, Carrie Mac

Akata Witch, (Series), Nnedi Okorafor

A Mango-Shaped Hole, Wendy Mass

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

A Shot in the Dark, Victoria Lee

A Snicker of Magic, Natalie Lloyd

A Song of Ice and Fire, (series), George R. R. Martin

A Time to Dance, Padma Venkatraman

Bath Haus, P. J. Vernon

Beasts of Prey, (Series), Ayana Gray

Black Bird, Blue Road, Sofiya Pasternack

Cafe con Lychee, Emery Lee

Cinder, (Series), Marissa Meyer

Clean, Amy Reed

Connection Error, (Series), Annabeth Albert

Crazy, Benjamin Lebert

Crooked Kingdom, (Series), Leigh Bardugo

Dear Fang, With Love, Rufi Thorpe

The Degenerates, J. Albert Mann

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, Emily R. Austin

The Extraordinaries, (Series), T. J. Klune

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, (Series), Trenton Lee Stewart

The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix

Forever Is Now, Mariama J. Lockington

Fortune Favours the Dead, (Series), Stephen Spotswood

Fresh, Margot Wood

Harmony, London Price

Highly Illogical Behaviour, John Corey Whaley

Honey Girl, Morgan Rogers

How to Become a Planet, Nicole Melleby

I Am Not Alone, Francisco X. Stork

The Immeasurable Depth of You, Maria Ingrande Mora

In the Ring, Sierra Isley

Iron Widow, (Series), Xiran Jay Zhao

Izzy at the End of the World, K. A. Reynolds

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, (short story) (anthology), Seiko Tanabe

Just by Looking at Him, Ryan O'Connell

Lakelore, Anna-Marie McLemore

Learning Curves, (Series), Ceillie Simkiss

Let's Call It a Doomsday, Katie Henry

The Library of the Dead, (Series), TL Huchu

Long Macchiatos and Monsters, Alison Evans

Love from A to Z, (Series), S.K. Ali

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

The No-Girlfriend Rule, Christen Randall

Noor, Nnedi Okorafor

One For All, Lillie Lainoff

On the Edge of Gone, Corinne Duyvis

Out of My Mind, Sharon M. Draper

Parable of the Sower, (Series), Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents, (Series), Octavia E. Butler

Percy Jackson & the Olympians, (series), Rick Riordan

Pomegranate, Helen Elaine Lee

The Pursuit Of..., (Series), Courtney Milan

The Quiet and the Loud, Helena Fox

Roll with It, (Series), Jamie Sumner

Russian Doll, (Series), Cristelle Comby

Scar of the Bamboo Leaf, Sieni A.M

Six of Crows, (Series) Leigh Bardugo

Sizzle Reel, Carlyn Greenwald

The Spare Man, Mary Robinette Kowal

The Stagsblood Prince, (Series), Gideon E. Wood

Stars in Your Eyes, Kacen Callender [Expected release: Oct 2023]

The Storm Runner, (Series), J. C. Cervantes

The Theft of Sunlight, (Series), Intisar Khanani

Throwaway Girls, Andrea Contos

Top Ten, Katie Cotugno

Torch, Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Treasure, Rebekah Weatherspoon

Verona Comics, Jennifer Dugan

We Are the Ants, (Series), Shaun David Hutchinson

The Weight of Our Sky, Hanna Alkaf

The Whispering Dark, Kelly Andrew

Wicked Sweet, Chelsea M. Cameron

Wonder, (Series), R. J. Palacio

Wrong to Need You, (Series), Alisha Rai

Ziggy, Stardust and Me, James Brandon

Graphic Novels:

Constellations, Kate Glasheen

The Golden Hour, Niki Smith

Magazines: Anthologies and Articles:

Beneath Ceaseless Skies #175: Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds, (Article), R. B. Lemburg

Uncanny #24: Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, (Anthology), edited by: Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Dominik Parisien et al.

Uncanny #30: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy, (Anthology), edited by: Nicolette Barischoff, Lisa M. Bradley, Katharine Duckett

Manga:

Perfect World, (Series), Rie Aruga

Non-Fiction:

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education, Jay Timothy Dolmage

A Disability History of the United States, Kim E, Nielsen

The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, Elsa Sjunneson

Black Disability Politics, Sami Schalk

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure, Eli Clare

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability, Barker, Clare and Stuart Murray, editors.

The Capacity Contract: Intellectual Disability and the Question of Citizenship, Stacy Clifford Simplican

Capitalism and Disability, Martha Russel

Care work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Catatonia, Shutdown and Breakdown in Autism: A Psycho-Ecological Approach, Dr Amitta Shah

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays, Esme Weijun Wang

Crip Kinship, Shayda Kafai

Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook, Jules Sherred

Culture – Theory – Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, Anne Waldschmidt, Hanjo Berressem, Moritz Ingwersen

Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition, Liat Ben-Moshe

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally, Emily Ladau

Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World, Ben Mattlin

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From the Twenty-First Century, Alice Wong

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space, Amanda Leduc

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation, Eli Clare

Feminist Queer Crip, Alison Kafer

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

It's Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability, Kelly Davio

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

Language Deprivation & Deaf Mental Health, Neil S. Glickman, Wyatte C. Hall

The Minority body: A Theory of Disability, Elizabeth Barnes

My Body and Other Crumbling Empires: Lessons for Healing in a World That Is Sick, Lyndsey Medford

No Right to Be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s-1930s, Sarah F. Rose

Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment, James I. Charlton

The Pedagogy of Pathologization Dis/abled Girls of Color in the School-prison Nexus, Subini Ancy Annamma

Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature, Essaka Joshua

QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, Raymond Luczak, Editor.

The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, Jasbir K. Puar

Sitting Pretty, (memoir), Rebecca Taussig

Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black & Deaf in the South, Mary Herring Wright

Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness: How to Stay Sane and Live One Step Ahead of Your Symptoms, Ilana Jacqueline

The Things We Don't Say: An Anthology of Chronic Illness Truths, Julie Morgenlender

Unmasking Autism, Devon Price

The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe, Ellen Clifford

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life, (memoir) (essays) Alice Wong

Picture Books:

Small Knight and the Anxiety Monster, Manka Kasha

---

With an extra special thank you to @parafoxicalk @craftybookworms @lunod @galaxyaroace @shub-s @trans-axolotl @suspicious-whumping-egg @ya-world-challenge @fictionalgirlsworld @rubyjewelqueen @some-weird-queer-writer @jacensolodjo @cherry-sys @dralthon for your absolutely fantastic contributions!

---

Heeyyyyy!

I use that when flame working glass

(while going through some casual photos:)

How You Pull Ivy Off The Wall

(I was outside in front of the house one morning, trying to pull this effing tenacious crap off, and breaking my nails... and then I thought: "Why am I doing this? I'm a nurse. We have a tool for this kind of bullshit.")

...And lo and behold, we do. :)

ETA per @maybeasunflower's questions:

(a) What makes the gynecological clamps better? They were sort of spoon-shaped at the ends, with little grabby teeth on the insides of the "spoons". You could grab much more of an ivy stem with them. My regrets that I can't summon up their proper name from the depths of time. ...Must make a run up to the surgical supply place in Dublin and see if they've got any.

(b) Which rotation in your nurse training gave you the skills to remove ivy with Foley clamps? Med-surg. Debridement: i.e. debriding someone who's fallen off a motorcycle at speed onto gravel while not wearing leathers or other protective garments. Getting the deeply-embedded gravel out of the damaged tissue requires a very similar skillset. Fortunately, when working with ivy one needs to have far less concern about handling the process in such a way as to cause minimum pain to the substrate you're removing it from. The wall doesn't care. :)

I recently realized that my ideal gender presentation, which thanks to FINALLY going on T I will eventually achieve, is what transphobes think transwomen look like.

I will likely be indistinguishable from a non-passing transwoman. I will be asked why I don’t shave if I want to be seen as a woman. Womanhood will become a gift strangers think they can bestow upon me (no thanks, don’t want, return to sender).

And this is actually a scary thought. Because, you know, with all this bathroom nonsense I’ve come to internalize the idea that despite being trans it is undisputed that I have a right to exist in the women’s bathroom and that the women’s bathroom is a safe place for me which I only avoided to sooth socially enforced gender dysphoria.

When I grow a beard that shits about to be disputed as fuck.

---

I believe the water mark on this photo reads “Shand and Her Dogs”. Reverse googling the image does not come up with the instagram account that I believe this photo was originally posted on. This is a new challenge in sourcing stolen and unaccredited art work that I have not come across before.

More photographs from this artist can be found here. Beautiful work.

Edit: Confirm, this is in fact the artist! And here are more photos from the shoot! X X

---

Please tell me more about the teacups. They pretty

I've become a vendor at an antique fair and needless to say I'm experiencing levels of autism previously unknown to man. I'm using my Encyclopedic knowledge of teacups beam on you