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Enigmatic & Eccentric

@momijizukamori / momijizukamori.tumblr.com

Cocoa. Knitter. Coder. Cosplayer. RPer. Fake Canadian. Introverted socialist hippie. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

What if abilities changed the appearance of a Pokemon?

A master post of all the ability forms drawings I've done! It's been such a fun series to work on and it makes me so happy that it's brought you all so much joy!

I regret not starting the little additional descriptions earlier and I thought of fixing that but I desperately need a nap so nope.

I did fix the one that ruffled the most feathers though - quite literally! The Skarmory saga is finally complete!

why be radically exclusionary abt queerness when you could be radically inclusionary instead. let's inflate the numbers. let's become the majority. the sky's the limit

"we can't let just ANYONE call themselves queer!!" what are you talking about. I'm steepling my fingers and gleefully cackling every time we Get Another One and you should be too. lock in.

If you see this post you’re legally required to tell me at least one trans woman headcanons you have for a canonically male character, I never get to see transfem headcanons like that, give me them, and for equality of my own please know estrogen could have saved Insector Haga and Dinosaur Ryuzaki I will not elaborate, also Yuya.

Every person need to be taught disability history

Not the “oh Einstein was probably autistic” or the sanitized Helen Keller story. but this history disabled people have made and has been made for us.

Teach them about Carrie Buck, who was sterilized against her will, sued in 1927, and lost because “Three generations of imbeciles [were] enough.”

Teach them about Judith Heumann and her associates, who in 1977, held the longest sit in a government building for the enactment of 504 protection passed three years earlier.

Teach them about all the Baby Does, newborns in 1980s who were born disabled and who doctors left to die without treatment, who’s deaths lead to the passing of The Baby Doe amendment to the child abuse law in 1984.

Teach them about the deaf students at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts school for the deaf, who in 1988, protested the appointment of yet another hearing president and successfully elected I. King Jordan as their first deaf president.

Teach them about Jim Sinclair, who at the 1993 international Autism Conference stood and said “don’t mourn for us. We are alive. We are real. And we’re here waiting for you.”

Teach about the disability activists who laid down in front of buses for accessible transit in 1978, crawled up the steps of congress in 1990 for the ADA, and fight against police brutality, poverty, restricted access to medical care, and abuse today.

Teach about us.

Oh! Oh! I got one! Meet Edward V. Roberts-

Ed Roberts was one of the founding minds behind the Independent Living movement. Roberts was born in 1939, and contracted polio at age 14, two years before the vaccine that ended the polio epidemic came out (vaccinate your kids). Polio left Roberts almost completely paralyzed, with only the use of two fingers and a few toes. At night, he had to sleep in an iron lung, and he would often rest there during the day as well. Other times of the day, he breathed by using his face and neck muscles to force air in and out of his lungs.

Despite this being the fifties, Roberts' mother insisted that her son continue schooling. Her support helped him face his fear of being stared at and ridiculed at school, going from thinking of himself as a "hopeless cripple" to seeing himself as a "star." When his high school tried to deny him his diploma because he had never completed driver's ed, Roberts and his mother fought the school and won.

This marked the beginning of his career as an activist.

Roberts had to fight the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation for support to attend college, because his counselor thought he was too severely disabled to ever work or live independently. Roberts did go to school, however, first attending the College of San Marino. He was then accepted to UC Berkeley, but when the school learned that he was disabled, they tried to backtrack. "We've tried cripples before, and it didn't work," one dean famously said. The school tried to argue the dorms couldn't accommodate his iron lung, so Roberts was instead housed in an empty wing of the school's Cowell Hospital.

Roberts' admittance paved the way for other disabled students who were also housed in the new Cowell Dorm. The group called themselves "The Rolling Quads," and together they fought and advocated for better disability support, more ramps and accessible architecture like curb cut outs, founded the first formally recognized student-led disability services program in the country, and even managed to successfully oust a rehabilitation counselor who had threatened two of the Quads with expulsion for their protests.

After graduation from his master's, he served a number of other roles- he taught political science at a number of different colleges over the years, served on the board for the Center for Independent Living, confounded the World Institute on Disability with Judith E. Heumann and Joan Leon, and continued to advocate for better disability services and infrastructure at his alma mater of UC Berkeley.

Roberts also took part in and helped organize sit ins to force the federal government to enforce section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which stated that people with disabilities should not be excluded from activities, denied the right to receive benefits, or be discriminated against, from any program that uses federal financial assistance, solely because of their disability. The sit-in occupied the offices of the Carter Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare building in San Francisco and lasted 28 days. The protestors were supported by local gay rights organizations and the Black Panthers. Roberts and other activists spoke, and their arguments were so compelling that members of the department of health joined the sit in. Reagan was forced to acknowledge and implement the policies and rules that section 504 required. This national recognition helped to pave the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

Roberts died of cardiac arrest in 1995 at the age of 54, leaving behind a proud legacy of advocacy and activism. Not bad for a "hopeless cripple" whose rehab counselor thought he was too disabled to ever work.

“Black Panthers saved the 504 sit-in.” – Corbett O’Toole, participant in the 1977 504 protest in San Francisco

”Along with all fair and good-thinking people, The Black Panther Party gives its full support to Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act and calls for President Carter and HEW Secretary Califano to sign guidelines for its implementation as negotiated and agreed to on January 21 of this year. The issue here is human rights – rights of meaningful employment, of education, of basic human survival – of an oppressed minority, the disabled and handicapped. Further, we deplore the treatment accorded to the occupants of the fourth floor and join with them in full solidarity.” – Black Panther Party media release on the protest, from website Disability Social History (click thru to see pictures of BPP news about the success of the protest!)
According to disability rights activist Corbett O’Toole, these advocates “showed us what being an ally could be. We would never have succeeded without them. They are a critical part of disability history and yet their story is almost never told.⁠”
They were running a soup kitchen for their black community in East Oakland and they showed up every single night and brought us dinner. The FBI [guarding the building entrance] was like, “What the hell are you doing?” They answered, “Listen, we’re the Panthers. You want to starve these people out, fine, we’ll go tell the media that that’s what you’re doing, and we’ll show up with our guns to match your guns and we’ll talk about who’s going to talk to who about the food. Otherwise, just let us feed these people and we won’t give you any trouble” – and that’s basically what they did.

Please read up on the Black Panthers' involvement in the 504 movement, they were integral to the occupation lasting as long as it did and were INCREDIBLY ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS! They are more than a footnote in that part of disability history, and I want more people to know this part of their legacy!

Read about Bradley Lomax (and his aid and fellow organizer Chuck Johnson, who I've struggled finding sources on outside of articles on Mr. Lomax :( ) here and here! Together the two were integral in bringing Black Panther Party organizing and activism to the disability rights movement!

I wish there were more information on Mr. Johnson, as his work is dear to my heart as someone who also requires caregiving. ;3; <3 Considering how little information there even was available online for Mr. Lomax just ten years ago I am hoping we get more coverage of Mr. Johnson's contributions to this important part of disability history sooner rather than later. I do not want his activism ignored!

Do not let the full richness of our history be whitewashed! The Black Panthers kept the protestors fed, they HEAVILY publicized the protests in their paper The Black Panther and agitated on the protest and protestors behalf, and paid organizers' way to Washington to pressure the HEW secretary to actually sign the damn act. In turn, the Panthers did this because the Oakland ILC did outreach to them, and helped Mr. Lomax with transportation. This is solidarity buried under focus on the white organizers. Please please please cherish it. Keep it close to your heart, read about it, celebrate it, share it!

Obviously there were more Panthers who helped but I have already lost the first draft of this and I'm starting to fade -- here's two more detailed sources to read for more, and I highly recommend you do!

Just a short video of my card weaving in progress

What kind of sorcery is this?! I can never turn more than 10 cards in sequence because they just refuse to cooperate and you have like, what, 35? 40?! HOW?!?!

40 in the tree strap above! The most I ever tried was 44 for this ramshorn strap below - that was tough, but also ok because the groups turned separately? I think my hands would murder me if I tried to go any higher on my backstrap setup though ;) I think the trick is maintaining appropriate tension!

Yeah, that one looks real nice. What did you use it for?

@diamondot speaking for myself, i just decided to learn it one day a few years ago (i had a viking phase ok) and simply started with it. It's surprisingly easy since all the info is available on the net. Honestly, i don't remember where i started since it has been so long ago and now i just browse pinterest for patterns alone. Google tablet weaving or card weaving (same thing, different names) patterns and some basic explanations and yt vids for how to turn and weave the stuff. Things like

S and Z threading are there for a reason, so mind your card orientation. Start with some easy pattern like simple wave or diamonds above, 6 - 10 cards are good for your first project. Don't lose hope in initial stage. Streching and threading all that yarn can take anything between 20 minutes and 3 hours depending on how big is the pattern and how skilled you are. Since you need some lenghts to secure ends and to turn cards, use about 40 cm more than wished lenght of your final product. Secure lose ends after threading through cards so you won't end with a bundled mess. Streching/knotting them to something is one way. Taping each card threads together or using weights (check pictures below) is another way (good only for shorter stuff though). Cards could be made out of anything as long as they have smooth edges and rounded corners. Cardboard, thicker plastic sheet, literal cards cut into squares with holes punched through them, whatever. These are mine 2 decks, minus cards i am using atm.

When you start weaving and pattern looks like a total mess, try turning cards in opposite directions. It usualy solves the problem (all that forward/backward can be a bit tricky and mirroring motions/patterns/card orientation can be confusing at first seemingly messing all your work even though you are doing everything right technicaly, just in opposite order/direction). Don't lose your hope. I still manage to mess up like first 5cm of every other work i start. It's not an issue as that start usualy gets cut off anyway (the tension is not right for at least first 4 rows, aka 1 full card rotation, until all threads go up and down at least once no matter what you do. Don't sweat it). You don't need any fancy startup either. Historicaly, people used to weave like this and this and this:

I just strech the thing between 2 chairs myself. Door knobs work as well and so does staircase railing. Wherever you have some space. Long hair clips are your friend, especialy when you are done with weaving for the day and you don't want stuff to tangle

And that's about it. Have fun 😊

I love when people post things like this, then say, “ah ha ha, it’s not that complicated! 🤗”

It is complicated. You’re just really good at it!

Hi. I may be late to reply but i'm in a weaving mood so here we are.

The thing is that the technique looks complicated due to the fact that there is 100 something and that number alone is scary. But. Actually several buts.

But number 1 - the technique is OLD. Meaning - while being somewhat tedious just like any other textile craft, it has been used and learned for a long long time and there's plenty of resources (check out links above or any youtube video explaining the process) of varying difficulty from complicated af to easy peasy lemon squeezy with closed eyes

But number 2 - there is only one core principle/step you need to understand and that is when some threads go from up to down or from down to up (aka when they cross), you need another thread going in between so they won't simply snap back again. That's it. That's the basic principle behind every weaving ever. What card weaving does compared to standard weave is that instead of a single thread going up and down in the single row, you get 2 or 3 or 4 or 6 or whatever number of threads your pattern calls for in the same row

But number 3 - the number of rows = number of cards. Simple as that. Cards turn around to make a cord like when you are twisting 2 or 4 or whatever numbers of threads to make a rope. If some of those threads have different colours, you get a repeating pattern.

But number 4 - card orientation or S/Z orientation or whatever other fancy name for the twisting direction simply means that if you turn all your card in the same way at the same time, which one of them will make the twisted rope in this / angle and which one will do that in this \ angle. That's it. That's the whole mystery between S/Z threading.

But number 5 - you can start with as little as 4 cards to make a custom set of shoe laces or a key strap or whatever and call yourself a weaver. Because you did that. And it was nice. And it was easy. You just turn and thread and turn and thread and then you keep repeating this while watching a movie or something. There's no need for the math finals level of concentration here.

But number 5 - no one, literally NO ONE starts with a pattern like this

No. Everybody starts with something like this

Keep it simple, keep it easy, make 10cm and be done if you want to. It's perfectly fine.

But number 6 - you don't need any fancy items for starting. No hooks, no needles, no loom, no anything. If you have 2 balls of yarn in different color or some remains of your old cross stitch project or whatever and some card-like stuff you won't be sad for making holes in it, you are all set. Back side of the sketch pad is good. Poker cards cut to squares are good. A sturdy enough sheet of plastic is also good. You remember that old pexeso pairs stack you didn't touch since you were 9? Guess what!

My point is that if this looks like something you may be interested in, then you can absolutely try doing it for literally zero cost other than your time.

This reminds me that I have my Thor’s Hammer tablet weaving project still sitting in the closet untouched for the last few (almost 3?) years...  I need to get back to that eventually.

@cryptid-extremist found it for ya! Go wild!

@hauntedbyyarn you've talked about this for ages!

I need to show you guys my mum's card weaving.... She writes with it. She does incredibly incritate patterns. It's stunning and beautiful and I am in awe

A small selection of my mum's work! She got excited and says she has more to show you guys, and some of her best stuff has already been sold! But stay tuned for more. The blue/pink/black band is my favourite: loads of different knot-like patterns going all the way down!

I want to try this!

On the issue of the ‘q slur’...

So, yesterday, I got into a rather stupid internet argument with someone who was peddling what seemed to me to be a rather insidious narrative about slur-reclamation. Someone in the ensuing notes raised a point which I thought was interesting, and worrying, and probably needed to be addressed in it’s own post. So here we go:

The word ‘queer’ itself seems to be especially touchy for many, so let me begin to address this by way of analogy.

Instead of talking about “queer”, let’s start by talking about “Jew” - a word which I believe is very similar in its usage in some significant ways.

Now, the word “Jew” has been used as a derogatory term for literally hundreds of years. It is used both as a noun (eg. “That guy ripped me off - what a dirty Jew”) and as a verb (eg. “That guy really Jew-ed me”). These usages are deeply, fundamentally, horrifically offensive, and should be used under no circumstances, ever. And yet, I myself have heard both, even as recently as this past year, even in an urban location with plenty of Jews, in a social situation where people should have known better. In short – the word “Jew”, as it is used by certain antisemites, is – quite unambiguously – a slur. Not a dead slur, not a former slur – and active, living slur that most Jews will at some point in their life encounter in a context where the term is being used to denigrate them and their religion. 

Now here’s the thing, though: I’m a Jew. I call myself a Jew. I prefer that all non-Jews call me a Jew – so do most Jews I know. “Jew” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Judaism, the same way that “Muslim” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Islam, and “Christian” is the correct term for someone who is part of the religion of Christianity. 

In fact, almost all of the terms that non-Jews use to avoid saying “Jew” (eg. “a member of the Jewish persuasion”, “a follower of the Jewish faith”, “coming from a Jewish family”, “identifying as part of the Jewish religion”, etc) are deeply offensive, because these terms imply to us that the speaker sees the term “Jew” (and by extension, what that term stands for) as a dirty word.

“BUT WAIT” – I hear you say – “didn’t you just say that Jew is used as a slur?!?”

Yes. Yes, I did. And also, it is fundamentally offensive not to call us that, because it is our name and our identity.

Let me back up a little bit, and bring you into the world of one of those 2000s PSAs about not using “that’s so gay”. Think of some word that is your identity – something which you consider to be a fundamental and intrinsic part of yourself. It could be “female” or “male”, or “Black” or “white”, “tall” or “short”, “Atheist” or “Mormon” or “Evangelical” – you name it.

Now imagine that people started using that term as a slur.

“What a female thing to do!” they might say. “That teacher doesn’t know anything, he’s so female!”

Or maybe, “Yikes, look at that idiot who’s driving like an atheist. It’s so embarrassing!”

Or perhaps, “Oh gross, that music is so Black, turn it off!”

Now, what would you say if the same groups of people who had been saying those things for years turned around and avoided using those words to describe anything other than an insult?

“Oh, so I see you’re a member of the female persuasion!”

“Is he… a follower of the atheist beliefs? Like does he identify as part of the community of atheist-aligned individuals?”

“So, as a Black-ish identified person yourself – excuse me, as a person who comes from a Black-ish family…”

Here’s the fundamental problem with treating all words that are used as slurs the same, without any regard for how they are used and how they developed – not all slurs are the same.

No one, and I mean no one (except maybe for a small handful of angsty teens who are deliberately making a point of being edgy) self-identifies as a kike. In contrast, essentially all Jews self-identify as Jews. And when non-Jews get weird about that identity on the grounds that “Jew is used as a slur”, despite the fact that it is the name that the Jewish community as a whole resoundingly identifies with, what they are basically saying is that they think that the slur usage is more important than the Jewish community self-identification usage. They are saying, in essence, “we think that your name should be a slur.” 

Now, at the top I said that the word “Jew” and the word “queer” had some significant similarities in terms of their usage, and I think that’s pretty apparent if you look at what people in those communities are saying about those terms. When American Jews were being actively threatened by neo-Nazis in the 70s, the slogan of choice was “For every Jew a .22!″. When the American Queer community was marching in the 90s in protest of systemic anti-queer violence, the slogan of choice was “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” Clearly, these are terms that are used by the communities themselves, in reference to themselves. Clearly, these terms are more than simply slurs.

But while there are useful similarities between how the terms “Jew” and “Queer” are used by bigots and by their own communities, I’d also like to point out that there is pretty substantial and important difference:

Unlike for “queer”, there is no organized group of Jewish antisemites who are using the catchphrase “Jew is a slur!” in order to selectively silence and disenfranchise Jews who are part of minority groups within Judaism. 

This is the real rub with the term queer – no one was campaigning about it being a slur until less than a decade ago. No one was saying that you needed to warn for the word queer when queer people were establishing the academic discipline of queer studies. No one was ‘think of the children”-ing the umbrella term when queer activists were literally marching for their lives. Go back to even 2010 and the term “q slur” would have been basically unparseable – if I saw someone tag something “q slur”, like most queer people I would have wracked my brains trying to figure out what slur even started with q, and if I learned that it was supposed to be “queer”, my default assumption would be that the post was made by a well-meaning but extremely clueless straight person.

I literally remember this shift – and I remember who started it. Exclusionists didn’t like the fact that queer was an umbrella term. Terfs (or radfems as they like to be called now) didn’t like that queer history included trans history; biphobes and aphobes didn’t like that the queer community was also a community to bisexuals and asexuals. And so what could they possibly say, to drive people away from the term that was protecting the sorts of queer people that they wanted to exclude?

Well, naturally, they turned to “queer is a slur.”

And here’s the thing – queer is a slur, just like Jew is a slur, and no one is denying that. And that fact makes “queer is a slur so don’t use it” a very convincing argument on the surface: 1) queer is still often used as a slur, and 2) you shouldn’t ever use slurs without carefully tagging and warning people about them (and better yet, you should never use them at all), and so therefore 3) you need to tag for “the q slur” and you need to warn people not to call the community “the queer community” or it’s members “queer people” or its study “queer studies” – because it’s a slur!

But the crucial step that’s missing here is exactly the same one above, for the word “Jew” – and that step is that not all slurs are the same. When a term is both used as a slur and used as a self-identity term, then favoring the slur meaning instead of the identity meaning is picking the side of the slur-users over the disadvantaged group! 

If you say or tag “q slur” you are sending the message, whether you realize it or not, that people who use “queer” as a slur are more right about its meaning than those who use it as their identity. Tagging for “queer” is one thing. People can filter for “queer” if it triggers them, just like people can filter for anything else. Not everyone has to personally use the term queer, or like the term queer. But there is no circumstance where the term “q slur” does not indicate that you think queer is more of a slur than of an accurate description of a community.

If I, as a Jew, ever came across a post where someone had warned for innocent, positive, non-antisemitic content relating to Judaism with the tag “J slur”, I would be incensed. So would any Jew. The act of tagging a post “J slur” is in and of itself antisemitic and offensive.

Queer people are allowed to feel the same about “q slur”. It is not a neutral warning term – it is an attack on our identity.

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a-lot-of-ace

This is one of the most well written posts about the evolution of “queer” I have ever seen. Please take the time to read this. Yes it is long but it is more than worth the 5 minutes!

it’s monday i’m in the labyrinth

it’s tuesday i’m in the evil lab

it’s wednesday i’m in the time loop

it’s thursday i’m in the medieval torture apparatus

🌸it’s friday i’m in love🌸

My deepest darkest fantasy is that I collapse on the street and I am rushed to the hospital. They perform a bunch of tests and find out I am severely deficient in some kind of vitamin. Then I start taking the vitamin and I become the happiest cleverest person alive because all my problems were caused by this one deficiency

Moreover, everyone gathers around to be tremulously compassionate and discreetly admiring: all this time, you lacked the Vitamin? And yet you persevered?

Happy 1st anniversary to the Vitamin! I appreciate that - though conceptualized as unattainable - the Vitamin is many things to many people:

  • folic acid + iron
  • antidepressants
  • estrogen
  • testosterone
  • testosterone (party edition)
  • vitamin D
  • moving out of your parents' house (lead poisoning)
  • moving out of your parents' house (parents)
  • vitamin B12 and I think some other B ones
  • sleep
  • Gender
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