Jay 😘👣

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reading a paper on quality of life among 45-to-70-year-olds with Down syndrome:

I lived in a room and board that failed the burrito test. (”If you’re not allowed to get up in the middle of the night to microwave a burrito, you live in an institution.”) No one stopped me from going to bed, but they did tell me I had to have my lights out by 10, and that I had to be out of the house by 10 the next morning. When I complained to my outpatient program that I needed more help than I was getting, they threatened me with board and care, where my cell phone would be taken away and I would lose contact with the outside world. My case manager sounded so damn smug, like he had caught me out, when he said, “if you’re really as helpless as you say, then you need to be in a board and care.” Like my only options were struggling to do things I couldn’t do, or surrendering my life to an institution.

Here’s the paper:

I am turning 24 soon and I can't help but freak out. I know what I am about to say next is going to sound very trivial compared to what is happening around the world now but I can't stop thinking that there will come a time when I would be considered too old to be in a fandom. Like what would happen when I turn 35/45/55?? Won't it be awkward? Would it be creepy if I still read ao3 fics in my 60s? I don't want to go away from the fandom space. It helps me so much to cope in this world.

most of the best fanfic is produced by women who are over thirty. older women aren’t just ‘still’ on AO3, they’re producing the highest-rated content. older women are the backbone of fandom and always have been: they are archivists, skilled costumers and writers, professional artists and editors and videographers and organizers. they run the fests, they code the archive itself, they volunteer, they watch out for people. they invented zines and webrings and conventions and cosplay and so many things kids just take for granted as natural parts of fandom.