what is life?

- Make sure the place where you’re going is accessible!  Your date might opt to use a wheelchair that day, and if they’re using a cane, best to make sure there aren’t a silly number of stairs involved in whatever date you’re considering.

- Call ahead to the place to see if wheelchairs are available to borrow if you’re going somewhere that involves a lot of walking and standing around, like a museum.

- If your date is using a cane, they likely only have one arm to hold things.  Consider bringing their food/drinks to the table along with yours– let them claim a booth while you get the food!

- Be prepared and willing to be someone’s physical support sometimes, especially if your date is having a rough leg day.

ask yourself, really ask yourself if you’re fine with plans being cancelled at the last second, cancelled mid-event, and for plans to often be “come over to my house and lump on the couch with me” - if you aren’t? don’t date somebody with chronic pain/fatigue. especially if you will take that sort of thing personally and/or hold it against the person. if you date me, you date my disabilities. i have to deal with them, so do you.

if you are grocery shopping with someone who uses a mobility aid like a cane or rollator, and that person is pushing the cart? DO. NOT. MOVE. THE CART. while they are using the cart, it is taking the place of their normal mobility aid and moving it is like moving their leg. DON’T DO IT. i have fallen in grocery stores more times than i want to think about due to an ex who couldn’t get it through his head that THIS IS MY CANE RIGHT NOW and would just grab the basket and drag it somewhere.

if your date says “no, it’s fine, i’ve got it” when you try to do something? let them. just let them. my disabilities takes so much away from me, the things i can actually do are things i am proud of. it makes me feel better to be able to do things for myself. i detest nothing more than an able-bodied person INSISTING on doing something that i can do myself, even though i’ve said multiple times that i’d prefer to do it myself. it says volumes on what that person really thinks of my abilities as a functional human, none of them positive. i get that you’re trying to help, but i promise, taking away what autonomy we do have? not helpful.

learn to tell your date beforehand what the date will entail. learn to look for the things your date would need to know. i had an ex that never factored in things like “walking half a mile” or “it’s a three story walkup with no elevator” because those things were no problem for him. i, on the other hand, would arrive at the destination crying from pain and unable to enjoy a damn thing - and exhausted in advance by knowing i’d have to repeat the journey just to get back home. don’t be afraid to ask your date what things they need to have taken into consideration. ask what accessibility options are necessary for them when it comes to cane/wheelchair access, how much access there is to regular seating, how much walking will happen, how many stairs there are. if you go to a movie and the only parking is way in the back, ask if they’d rather you drop them up front while you get a spot - because sometimes traversing a large parking lot is the difference between watching a movie and sleeping through it, or being too distracted by pain to follow it. by and large, we know our limitations and it means the world to have someone say “hey i want to take you to this exhibit, i think you’d really enjoy it! there’s several stairs to the entrance and the wheelchair ramp is kind of obnoxiously far away, so it’s either a bunch of walking or deal with stairs to get in there, but once you’re inside there’s a lot of comfortable benches and not a whole lot of walking.” because they thought about how you navigate the environment. 

if your date is using a rollator or wheelchair, make sure your car (or whatever form of transportation you are going to be using) has space to put it. don’t ask me out to the renaissance faire and then show up in a CRX and look confused when i say my rollator can’t go in that so i’ve gotta stay home.

I better not hear any complaints when donation period comes around. OR ELSE.

https://twitter.com/AO3_Status/status/1678468065070030856

The culprit (as with a few other DDOS attacks recently) is Anonymous Sudan, a group that is likely Russian, not Sudanese. The ‘reason’ they gave–that AO3 is “full of disgusting smuts and other LGBTQ+ and NSFW things,” is thin and probably not completely legit, though still legitimately concerning.

The AS claim: https://twitter.com/FalconFeedsio/status/1678397195039526912

Reporting on AS: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-28/anonymous-sudan-does-group-behind-microsoft-cyberattack-have-ties-to-russia (you can use archive.ph to get this one, 12ft doesn’t seem to work)

As noted here, https://twitter.com/honeyskeleton/status/1678449598703050769:

DDOS protection is expensive especially for a high traffic site like ao3. And it’s uniquely vulnerable as an independent site without ads or other corporate support. SPECIFICALLY targeted bc of its queer works and yet ppl will still complain every time they ask for donations lmao 

Everyone else: 😑😑😑

Chongyun: 🤨😒😑

oh jeepers, if i'd known she'd be travelling around this much, i'd've given her her leash

I feel weird that I’m been here long enough to remember the original context–OP is mocking this post:

the picture clearly looks like some sort of strawberry ice cream, so OP did a copypasta of the original text and replaced with picture with something even funnier.