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so theres a lot of posts going round about the titanic wreck and the missing submarines; all of them that ive seen have made very good points about how shoddy the submersible seemed to be and how the company decided to wait eight hours before reporting it, and how this is a play stupid games, win stupid prizes for the ultra-wealthy who paid like 250grand a ticket for this thing.

but what i havent seen any posts about is how the titanic wreck is a gravesite and this tourism is disturbing the graves of over 1500 people.

sometimes its kinda hard to remember that those on the titanic were real people; it was over a century ago, the story has been romanticised in so many ways (like the movie), theres conspiracies theories galore that cloud everything with misinformation, but at the end of the day, those who died were real people.

do you want their names? heres a list of them; its a long read. and for fun, heres another site where you can see photos of the children and babies who died aboard.

their bodies are long gone and their lives long forgotten. all we have to remember them and honour them is the wreck itself. its all we have of them and it is their gravesite. its their tombstone.

caitlin doughty/ask a morticians video on the great lakes discusses the topic well, and why we should leave these shipwrecks alone because again, they are the gravesites of all the souls who died aboard those ships. we rarely have bodies to recover so we really are left just with the wreck.

and what really upsets me about titanic tourism is how the majority of those who died that night were not the ultra-wealthy rich folks you might picture when you think of ocean liners.

the majority of those who died that night were regular folk; not to be cliche, but they were just like us. titanics wreck is not only a gravesite for over 1500 people, its also a majority working class gravesite.

and look at us now. look at what were doing. the ultra-wealthy can pay the equivalent of peanuts to them to disturb a mass gravesite of the exact kind of people they exploit today to hold onto all their wealth. 

its easy to point and laugh at these dumb idiots in their playstation controller submarine, seemingly held together with super glue and duct tape, but its also important to remember that what they were doing was simply disturbing a gravesite for fun. though the company does research, these guys werent down there to conduct research, they were there so they could brag about it to their friends. its like “climbing mount everest” while your sherpa does all the work.

if you cant tell, i have a lot of feelings about this. shipwrecks and ocean liners are one of my special interests and im currently building a (beginner’s) model of the titanic, for fucks sake. but i would never go down to see that wreck because its a fucking gravesite and we should not be disturbing their final resting place.

this🙌🏽

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People don’t understand this when I explain it to them.

Just a fraction of the reasons why “stRaIghT prIdE!1!!!1” infuriates me.

💯🙏💛🟨👍

Worst part about this is I've only ever used that yellow square emoji once and it was just to see how it looked. This isn't who I am. However, in retrospect, I suppose it is

inaccessibility cycle

yes . internet not physical space but still important . community places online have bias to people with less needs not OK actually . sometimes biggest reason why higher needs person not have internet is because abuse , because no one want teach how connect and give that choice that opportunity .

" but might spend all money , might believe catfish , " so on . dignity of risk . dignity of risk ! people is people is people . that means should get to learn how avoid these bad things , but not that anyone control unless that person ask for and want that .

no there is not near as much high support people online as low ones . that not mean OK just keep talk over , and keep say things that ask not say , and keep treat like rare spectacle even if " true " . should all work learn how life work and learn how can make things better and learn how treat like people . because some do find ways connect online , be in communities online , and more should get that chance .

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hlep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you ask for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hlep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hlep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it helps reinforce the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hleper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

i love how three-year-old converse like they forgot to study for a language test and they’re just bullshitting. Like, you ask them a question and you can see on their face that they know *some* of these words but they’re either not sure what you mean or can’t remember the words to answer you so they just say whatever. and you just have to go like yeah thats cool buddy

Parent: So what did you do at daycare today?

Three-year-old:

“Um, you know, I, uh, I like um pizza.”

‘your parents just want what’s best for you’ that is objectively not true for a lot of people, sometimes they want what’s best for them or what looks the best to other people, or what they think is best for you is based on outdated, backwards and messed up values & beliefs. even if their intentions aren’t bad doesn’t mean they even remotely know what’s good for you

the road to hell is paved with "What's best for you"

If you and your partner practice frequent, non-sexual consent, your relationship will be healthier and easier.

“Are you comfortable with me ranting about my day for a few minutes?”

“Oh, this is your poetry? Would it be okay if I read it?”

“Do you mind if I use your phone for a few minutes?”

“Wow, your meal looks awesome. Could I try some?”

It will save a lot of grief, especially in a developing relationship. Eventually, with consistent “yes’s” and “no’s” you can figure out more permanent boundaries and guidelines.

“I need to ask before ranting about my day or taking their food, but my partner is okay with me using their phone whenever. However, my partner does not like me reading their poetry unless they offer first.”

And this goes for friendships too! Even just stuff like “do you mind if I leave this door open?” 

…I never fully realized it before but this is a big part of why my relationship with my husband is so conflict-free. Both because him doing this all the time made it easy to trust him, back when we were a new item, and because it helped ME break out of the toxic idea that you should never ask about a partner’s preferences because if you Really Loved Them you should be able to intuit what they want, all the time, about anything. 

my one son is autistic so I ask ‘hug or no hug?’ I always knock and wait to be acknowledged before opening my sons’ bedroom doors (not just because I respect their privacy but because they’re teenagers and I don’t want to walk in on any personal activities) I don’t go into their rooms without asking I don’t touch their phones without asking (I’ll pick one up to take to them if I find it in another room but I won’t go through it) yesterday, my younger son walked into my room, stopped, said sorry and walked out to the hall and knocked on my door ‘because if I have to knock on his door, he has to knock on mine’ because their trust is important and I want them to know I respect their privacy

Consent is not just for sex. Consent is not just for sex. Consent is not just for sex.

Consent for non-sexual things forms the foundation of my relationship with my girlfriend and is HUGE.

remember: don't chase the pain. if you're lucky enough to have access to an adequate supply of painkillers, use them early. if your pain is episodic, not continuous, hit the pain as soon as you notice it and your chances of avoiding a bad episode improve.

if you wait around to see if it gets 'bad enough' for painkillers, you're more likely to end up in a lot of pain that's difficult to control.

the tricky part is, if you do it right, it feels like you did it wrong. because if you catch the pain early before it gets bad, it often feels like 'it never got that bad so maybe i didn't need the medication.'

but it didn't get that bad BECAUSE of the medication! you did it right. it's okay to use the tools at your disposal. fuck the stigma.