[ Visible Silence ]

Fast forward to six weeks ago—I receive an email from her husband, explaining he broke the mug (lol) and asking if I’d be willing to take on a commission to replace it. He reiterates how she has arthritis but also shares she used to make pottery, herself, but can only really paint, now. I say of course! Come to find out, he wants a WHOLE SET of mugs to replace the broken one. Even better! I end up making the whole set twice (I wasn’t satisfied with the first attempt), but finally get them packed up and sent off across the country.

I just received the kindest message from the husband, saying “It is not often in today's world that someone does 100% of what they have promised,” thanking me profusely, and sharing that his wife is already happily using the new mugs.

If I was a thinking woman, clearly I would've been more strategic in the picture I chose to include haha. But, of course! Happy to share more pics! I was simply too enamored by the glaze to not post that close-up...

This homeless person is making me uncomfortable. Should I call [a man with a gun]?

My neighbor is having a loud party. Should I get [a man with a gun] involved?

There are some teenagers skateboarding. Do you think [a man with a gun] would get rid of them for me?

here's the sexual content guidelines saying nudity is ok

here's the bit from the termination email telling you you can make a new account as long as it doesn't break the same rule

here's the guidelines for what counts as explicit (not mature, aka grounds for content deletion)

here's the section telling us that you will always be able to respond to content getting flagged as explicit (lie)

here's the section where it says you will be notified when your accunt gets terminated, and that the appeals are reviewed by humans (both lies)

and by the way, posting a single thing against ToS isn't supposed to be grounds for deletion, (this is what the termination email is warning you about)

sharing content without content labels isn't either

Cellulose nitrate was used to make dice from the late 1860s until the middle of the twentieth century, and the material remains stable for decades. Then, in a flash, they can dramatically decompose. Nitric acid is released in a process called outgassing. The dice cleave, crumble, and then implode.

The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.

Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.

I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so good drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.

Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.

"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."

"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."

"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"

my sense as somebody who watches and reads way too much old stuff is that a lot of stuff that reads to us as gay was not considered so at the time—like Wings, which was a hit at the time and (that I know of) caught no homophobic backlash, reads to modern eyes as being an extremely queer, and open about it, movie. Standards of intimacy, affection, relationships, etc. have shifted over time—you can see people in old books and movies interacting with their same-sex friends with huge amounts of physical and verbal affection, in ways that today read as romantic, and to my knowledge that was so normalized as a friend thing no one considered a queer reading into it. It’s a tragic slip of history that as queerness came more into the open, the heterosexual fear of being perceived as gay resulted in a lot of the “no homo” type behaviors and the expectations for what platonic relationships could look like shifted to the more distant version we have today.

WITH THAT SAID. There are gay characters in old movies who are clearly coded as gay! The “pansy craze” in the 30s, spotlighting gay drag culture from Greenwich Village, shows up bright as day in a Clara Bow picture. Here’s a clearly gay tailor measuring Jimmy Cagney in The Public Enemy. In Wings itself, there is a sequence showing various stages of a romantic relationship—and it includes a lesbian couple. The Hays Code in the 30s, and more broadly the great sweep of conservatism that hit the US in the 50s, killed a bunch of clear queer representation, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t showing up wherever it could, however it could.

Pilots and other transportation workers have absurd hours of service requirements that start your rest period as “the moment you shut the vehicle down” and can be as short as 9 hours in some cases.

Railroad workers have to be available on-call 6 days a week and be ready within two hours notice. They don’t get sick time.

Retail workers have to keep a veneer of politeness against any and all abuse or they can be fired.

Truck drivers get paid by mileage and rarely see pay for shipper or receiver delays.

I say this with so, so much care: Real queer shit written by real queers can and will sometimes make you uncomfortable. That's one of the defining features of weird, independent queer media. And weird independent media more broadly. Art that comes from true individual passion and authenticity has edges and bite to it that mass market corporate products intentionally do not. Has a rawness that can offend.

People have passed out on buses after being denied seats, because people thought they were faking it. People in excruciating pain have been turned away from hospitals, because people thought they were faking it. People have been publicly shamed both online and in person for their disabilities, because people thought they were faking it. People have lost their jobs after being denied accomodations, because people thought they were faking it. And I'm partially talking from my own personal experiences. I've been yelled at for having meltdowns at school after being told I wasn't allowed to wear ear plugs, because people thought I was faking it. These aren't hypothetical situations. Lots and lots of real disabled people have suffered for the entertainment of fakeclaimers.

The harm from fakeclaiming real disabled people is much, much worse than the harm from taking the few fakers there are seriously. I would rather help a hundred disabled people when one person among them is actually faking it than fakeclaim a hundred fakers when one person among them is actually disabled.

Yes, there are people who fake disabilities, and yes, that's awful and harmful. But accusing people of faking it has never done anything good for anyone, while it has harmed a lot of disabled people who needed support but were ridiculed instead. There is no net positive to fakeclaiming. All it does is serve to stigmatize, mock, and encourage the neglect of disabled people. It's sickening.

I mean this all the time. Even if they do something you assumed they shouldn't be able to do (part-time AAC users, ambulatory wheelchair users, and other people whose disabilities aren't constantly visible exist). Even if you think their accommodations are excessive or unnecessary. Even if you think they have "too many" conditions. Even if it's DID or schizophrenia or any other disability that you're uncomfy acknowledging. Even if they have dyed hair or neopronouns or anything else you've decided is "attention-seeking behavior."

This is 100% the gay supervillain music video I’ve been waiting for.