So, In The Light Of The 13 Year Anniversary Of Steam Powered Giraffe, I Decided To Share A Picture That

Still Friday This Counts 

Saturday EGSNP during the day

My niece enjoys reading but she struggles with pronunciations of words that don't sound how they're spelt. It doesn't stop her from enjoying reading and wanting to do it, though. Her learning difficulties make it hard for her but she does it because she enjoys it.

We all struggle through life trying to do things we either enjoy or don't.

For neurotypical people, it's not a question of whether or not they can do they things they don't enjoy but a matter of just doing it because it has to be done.

That's not the case for neurodiverse people.

For adhd and autism, it's very dependent on how engaging the things are and how they relate to any interests an autistic or adhd person has.

For depression, it's very dependent on being necessary and treated like it's either the Most Important Thing Ever To Do, or something that is just another motion to perform. There may be no joy in it, but if it's performed then it's over and done with.

For learning difficulties and disabilities, it's very dependent on how things are described, how complex they are, and what the end result Has To Be.

In all these cases, there's always an issue with the question of Can. The issue is that it doesn't matter how much a neurodiverse person may Want or Need to do something, whether or not it's something they enjoy/find unpleasant, it's almost physically Impossible to do the thing because the Brain Refuses To Cooperate.

Imagine you're standing in front of an electric fence. You try to put your hand on it. Your brain will literally stop you from doing so. In almost every case, you cannot touch that electric fence. You might manage it if you psych yourself up and try real hard, but that still isn't a guarantee.

In most cases, you won't manage to touch that fence. Your hand will freeze close to it, maybe even close enough to feel the electricity humming in the fence. But that last distance won't be closed.

You simply cannot do it.

That's what it is like to have a neurodiverse mind sometimes. That's what it's like to be neurodiverse.

You want to touch the fence because it's something you Have To Do, but your brain is saying No, No Thanks, We're Not Doing That and you end up stuck.

And the people who can touch the fence look at you standing there, unable to touch it, and judge you because "look, I'm touching the fence because it's my job and I gotta do it, I don't enjoy it but it's what I need to do, why are you being so lazy".

Sometimes, sometimes my niece just Can't Do The Work she's assigned from school during this period of lockdown and more home schooling. She tries but her brain is physically refusing to let her.

So she gets upset. She gets frustrated. She cries. She tries to avoid answering. She'll say the wrong answer because all she cares about is just giving an answer at this point and Moving On.

It's easy to get frustrated back. It's easy to get mean. It's easy to not understand because I'm not her.

But she's trying and she might be failing at the work but she's trying and trying hard. It's hurting her to try so hard because she's fighting against her own brain with her mind. That's Hard.

Being neurodiverse is a constant battle with your own brain and body, neuroses and anxieties. It's so easy to be cruel and judging when you're not the one on the front line.

It's so easy to call others lazy because you don't see and don't understand the mountain they've had to climb without equipment just to reach the same starting line as you just strolled up to.

My niece is trying. She's always trying.

Her reading will improve with time and encouragement.

It will never improve with judgement and cruelty in the guise of motivation.

To be neurodiverse is to be in a war without end; there are only brief periods of rest spent around campfires with others in the same war and occasional civilians who judge the time spent around campfires just resting to be a "waste of time" and "lazy".

This is what it is to be neurodiverse. This is what it is to be autistic, adhd, depressed, learning disabled, and so on. This is what it is to be Abnormal. And that's okay.

The world and people may say and imply otherwise. But there's nothing wrong with trying to do something and finding your brain won't let you. Brains just be like that, sometimes.

Hey remember when both TNG and DS9 had multiple episodes about how even if you've been at war with people for decades they're never a monolith and should not be indiscriminately hated and killed

Just a thought

Considering making the predator birgs fellow sapients..

They live in smaller social units than birgs and are almost entirely carnivorous, subsisting mostly on their herds of semi-domesticated trunkhorses. They often bear pike-like tools for prodding and spearing animals.

Birgs maintain an uneasy coexistence with them, often striking trade deals or forming alliances against common foes. However, since the development of firearms, the Twowi have begun pushing the balance, slowly driving giant birgs from their ancestral ranges, and sparking increased conflict.

Many birg folklores designate them as cursed beings, transformed into ever-roaming ‘beastmen’ for consuming the flesh of trunkhorses (a taboo) or even another birg. To the giant birgs, their diminutive cousins are fearful, untrustworthy, and deceptively numerous.

I don't want to hear anything about solidarity with queer Palestinians from people who cheer on their principle oppressors. Queer Palestinians in the West Bank lost friends at the Nova concert massacres, but some people don't care. An Israeli Arab won Miss Trans Israel but none of them cared. Even in opposing Israeli policy towards queer Palestinians, none of them called for reforming the asylum process or to end policies of threatening to out Palestinians in order to turn them into informants. They prefer queer Palestinians to die than for their lives to improve through *Israeli* actions.

dana international 💕 israeli queer royalty 🇮🇱👸🏻

the first trans contestant and winner of eurovision !!!! 🇮🇱

@dostoyevsky-official

The only known copy of the Hussie “First Folio” of c. 1625 exists in fragments in the Bodelian Library (MS. Eng. misc. c. 413). No publishing details are available, provenance is unknown.  

Prologue:

The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, Limns a youth upon which no name did weigh These thirteen springs. That burden will be one He will take up this morn, and so in this This gentle youth becomes a gentleman, By taking on the name that’s rightfully his - A token that betokes a divine plan. Where others, who did Fate give name at birth Can have no say in what their fortune tells (Whether lives of misery or of mirth), This youth may choose his Heavens, or his Hells. He stands now at the door of childhood’s room, Now Let him learn his name, and learn his doom.  

Act 1, scene 1

   Voice: Enter name.

   Boy: Letters are appearing! As if drawn by Some fiery hand - and now I ken they spell The name “Zoosmell, Lord of Dung”? Fie on this, Fie! A shallow jest - better be the names Of rustics than nobility besmirched.

   Voice: Try again.

   Boy: More words appear, these pleasing to the eye - I’ll be “John Egbert”, a name for saints and Kings, I trow. Now to take up arms and go, But where among these cakes and bills for rude Entertainments could they be? In this drawer?

Looks in drawer

   Boy: No arms. Damn my addled mind: they rest Beneath the cake inside yon magic chest.

   Voice: Remove CAKE from MAGIC CHEST

Boy retrieves arms

   Boy: No antics or hilarity for now, I must needs store these in my Sylladex. What else lies here? Some Gyves that feign to lock, A Blade that cannot wound, a Hat, a Mask, Tricks to mimic smoke or blood, a Treatise On japes, a Volume on the life of a Man of wisdom who traffick’d in dark arts. All this I fain would take ‘gainst future need, For now mayhaps this smoke will show it’s meed.

Takes smoke pastilles

   Boy: Alas! my arms I now can’t bring to hand! This Sylladex is like unto the sack That peddlers use to cart about their wares – And all that they have pack’d must be unlade 'Ere that which they pack’d first will come to light. No matter now: anon I’ll set it right.

Examines bill

   Boy: No spirits be as facinerious As these. Though fell be their actions and their Passions run to black, these hell-kites’ exploits Enthrall me and I can’t abjure their charms. How now, a note? My father left this here, A birthday gift to mark my thirteenth year.

it's so annoying seeing posts about Jewish culture—cutesy posts about fighting with g-d that appeal to Christian atheists' religious trauma, posts with Jewish music, posts with pictures of beautiful Jews—getting tens or even hundreds of thousands of notes, but the moment someone makes a post about antisemitism—about how it's built in to Western society, about how it's insidious and creeping, about how you've probably internalized it, about the difficulties we face and the grief we feel—they fail to break jumblr containment. Don't get me wrong, I love that goyim are celebrating Jewish culture as something beautiful and wonderful, but that can't be all we are to you. We're real people with real problems that you can't just ignore in favor of reblogging posts about bagels or whatever

I know this is such a doomer kind of attitude but I genuinely cannot stand it when people go around talking about the ‘silent majority’ when it comes to Jew hatred. There’s two main problems I have with this statement

— Sure, these people might support Jews now, but it’s probably safe to say the majority of people in the world have deeply ingrained biases against Jews. Those biases are easily exploited, easily brought out, and easily radicalised into rabid hatred. See: large swaths of leftist spaces, who honestly seemed like sleeper agents with how fast they openly admitted raping Jews is a moral thing. There’s also the issue of a lot of these silent majority people not supporting Hamas or believing in the Aryan race or thinking that Jews have no culture and we’re just stealing it from everyone else, but still tolerating those ideas being held in other people— it shows that these people neither understand nor care about the gravity of these views, which then makes those precious biases much, much easier to show

and

— The entire point of the silent majority is that they are silent. Sure, they might chat with their Jewish friends about how bad things are, they might express sympathy in private, things like that. But when push comes to shove, when Jews are being actively murdered wide scale, they don’t show up. They leave us in the dirt. They watch quietly as the Gestappo drags their neighbours away. They look away politely as their Dhimmi shopkeeper is beaten in the street for walking on the wrong side of the pavement. They close their blinds when their friend is tied to the stake and burned alive

I know it’s comforting to think of this vague concept of the silent majority, but it’s not actually reality. I know it sucks feeling like you need to have your guard up all the time (and you don’t, just be careful), it’s going to suck a whole lot more if you put yourself into a false sense of security. The silent majority are not our friends. The silent majority are not there for us. The silent majority don’t care. We can’t just live in a nebulous idea of people who quietly tut to themselves whenever they see someone saying ‘glory to the resistance’ or ‘Jews are trying to taint the Aryan race’, we need to focus on the tangible reality, and the people who are actually present

I think this is also why I, and so many other Jews, absolutely love non-Jewish allies. There’s something so indescribably amazing to see people in this world that’s been so horrible to us standing up for us, listening to us, helping us. Allies go through a lot of shit from others because they care about us, I’ve seen it so much— they’ll get vicious hate for just associating with Jews. And they still do it. They still stick with us. Because they care, and it’s just so wonderful

Spread the love to non-Jewish allies, you are so amazing. And to the silent majority, I hope you can become the help that we desperately need