I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS 9TH GRADE. THAT’S NEARLY 10 YEARS AGO. MY CHEST IS SCREAMING

Vaspider, I'm scared.

Honey, we’re all scared. Courage is turning your fear into a weapon. I’m afraid, and I use my fear to fight. Use your fear as a weapon. Turn your anger into a blade. The forging of that weapon may take time, but work on it every day. Every day, sharpen your fear. Turn it into a blade. Use it for attack or defense, but make a blade of your fear.

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Kids strawberry tooth paste is saving my teeth.

My parents also helped me find an electric tooth brush that is the quietest possible, and I really like that it self times teeth brushing so I can just zone the hell out until it’s done.

I also watch vet videos about really old small dogs having all their teeth pulled and sometimes part of their jaw removed because their owners never brushed their teeth and eventually the roots rotted into the bone. Gross. So gross. Also educational. Also motivating.

Having an evening routine is important. I don’t right now, life got incredibly hectic and overwhelming.

In half an hour I should set up my automatic lavander air freshener so I’ll have the smell reminded that it’s time to get ready to go the fuck to sleep.

Gosh, I still haven’t figured out how to make myself eat, brush my teeth, wash my face, take my meds, &c. regularly without large hiatuses, and not for lack of trying.

How do other people with ADHD and or depression and or maybe autism manage to not have their teeth fall out? What’s the secret?

Is this the same show where I guy almost lost is finger?

OK. OKAY. YOU GUYS.

I am LOVING the fucking chocolate guy’s netflix show! It’s FANTASTIC! Anf hold on to your fucking boots y’all cause it’s actually not what I was expecting at all!

Do you miss the gentleness of the Great British Bake-Off? THIS SHOW IS SO KIND AND GENTLE! For fuck’s sake, NO ONE GETS KICKED OFF! No. No, Listen to this! When they lose the first challenge (a pastry one), the punishment is… They get private lessons with Amaury to help improve what brought their scores down instead of competing in the second chocolate challenge. 

When the one black lady contestant messed up the first challenge I was super bummed and like, OF COURSE. But NO. She got lessons! She struggled! she worked hard! and she won a later challenge! GROWTH MY DUDES! They are there TO LEARN and GROW and Maybe Win a Big Prize!

They ALL get to stay and keep doing their best! and at the end the one who did the best overall is the one who gets the money prize!

Look at this lovely line up! they make COOL LOOKING FANCY THINGS! Amaury tells us how he does some of the fancy things he does! They OFFER TO HELP EACH OTHER WHEN THEY FINISH EARLY AND GET PROPS FOR THAT! (not taunted for not using their own time better). The set up even kinda makes the one who is like, I’m in it to win it, is the villain and doing bad. The rest who are like, I’m here to learn and grow and maybe make friends! AUGH YOU GUYS!

Amaury is soft spoken and kind, and has a pretty voice and a pretty smile and that’s nice to watch too. The chefs are talented and artistic and they actually give the THE TIME to make nice things! It’s not “Wham out some half-assed garbage in 2 hours so we can shotgun the production and laugh at your garbage” like most cooking shows nowadays. NO! 14 hour challenges! They’re still hard, but they get to actually make cool stuff! fancy stuff! Stuff I want to look at and cheer for them!

The episodes average 38 min and aren’t a huge time commitment, the first episode being the longest one, and there are only 8 total so it’s not like you have to really get in for the long haul. \

WATCH IT! Pump it! we need more cooking shows like this and less that are sad and mean!

I absolutely can not stress how horrific this was and also how extremely bizarre for this type of show.

The medic: Like on a scale of one to ten?

Thiago: It probably hit the bone.

The medic: Ah.

He seriously looks like he’s about to cry when the EMT says he can’t stop the bleeding.

Someone in a black chef’s uniform is sitting next to him, holding his glass of water, saying, “Don’t worry about your team, this is the priority. You gotta keep your finger, okay?”

Then he does start crying and we get some really intense close ups.

He tells his teammates what’s going on, he walks up (crying) and just says, “bad”. And a teammate says, “Like, you have to go, bad?” and that’s when we get, “It’s like... dangling”. I just really feel like the show runners could have had someone else let his teammates know what’s going on.

Chocolate guy walks him out saying, “Someone is going to take you to the hospital, okay?” Like set aside the fact that they could have absolutely paused the challenge or restarted it later, but if they’re not going to do that I think there’s something more kind and supportive he could have said.

One of his other team members is real choked up, but they only show her describing that the chocolate sculpture was Thiago’s idea. It cuts away and then cuts back to them and they say, “My heart just sank”. I’m fairly certain the original context didn’t have to do with not knowing how to continue the sculpture without Thiago.

Chocolate guy informs the rest of Thiago’s team that they don’t know how long he will be gone and that the two of them can choose between two other people to help them continue.

The music suddenly switches to something upbeat and the other team member has a voice over that goes, “And I’m like, ‘thank god!’“ and she laughs. I did not like that moment.

The music continues to be so inappropriate as the substitute jumps in.

The show returns to usual.

Oh no! Another team’s chocolate has set! The person in charge of said pot of chocolate reacts way less calmly to this predicament than Thiago did to cutting his finger.

Thiago comes back at the start of the next episode once the competition is over. Chocolate guy asks him, “You still have motion? You still have nerves?” And Thiago goes, “yup, yup” and then Chocolate guy says, “You’re lucky, you have to be a little crazy to be a chef right?”

I’m a huge fan of blown away and I can not imagine anything similar happening on that show. Glass blowing is so very dangerous and the people on the show have so much experience that I think they would call out nonsense like this.

I also wonder how much Corning Glass, who provides a first place prize, would get a say in the cut of an episode. I don’t think they would want to be associated with a show where the show runner, an expert in the field, would brush off a serious injury with something like, “you have to be a little crazy to be a glass blower, right?”

every time I see the tiktok chocolate guy I remember watching his cooking competition, which had absolutely life changing career opportunities for the winners, where one contestant almost cut his finger off during a timed round and was literally forced to choose between keeping his finger by going to the emergency room and losing points, or losing his finger to try and finish the round while covered in blood for a chance at the grand prize. he lost points for going to the emergency room. after he bled everywhere and left to go get his finger reattached, the show runners refused to stop the timed round even though all the contestants were clearly horrified

a VERY funny take on book 1 would be that up until Holly’s capture, Butler saw Artemis’ desire to kidnap a fairy and ransom them for gold as like, the 12-year-old equivalent to how Angeline had sunk into a fantasy world to avoid confronting the fact that her husband was most likely dead. The eventual failure of Artemis’ mission (in Butler’s eyes) would bring catharsis and usher in the healthy realization that it was time to move on, and although this was on track… BOOM they get mind-boggling lucky and run into holly, suddenly its_all_frighteningly_real.png, and Butler is embroiled in an inter-civilizational conflict that leads to him having to melee fight a troll at 2 am

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Follow My Leader by James B Garfield is a book from my childhood I am very fond of. It's for ages 8 - 12. I haven't reread it as an adult so I don't know how it stands up.

It is about a boy who goes blind when he is playing with fire crackers with his friends. It follows him from his injury, to going through life skills camp, to getting a guide dog, and eventually dealing with a bully.

It was first published in 1957, 33 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed into law. "The Braille Technology Timeline" doesn't start until 1971.

Despite this, I find myself thinking that if every child had read this book growing up there would be a lot (edit: LESS, forgot LESS) of internet bullshit along the lines of, “buT hOw Do yOU uSe a cEll pHonE iF yOu’Re bLinD”.

There have always been allies who care about people with disabilities, and, alongside them, have worked to improve access and accommodations as society presses forward. Blind people do not live cruel and unfulfilling lives trapped at home and deprived of the world and technology. The attitude that they do comes from a failure to see the support systems, including friends and family, which have been present from the beginning.

And that's my justification for continuing to deeply love and strongly recommend this book from 66 years ago.

The Disability Library

I love books, I love literature, and I love this blog, but it's only been recently that I've really been given the option to explore disabled literature, and I hate that. When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be able to read about characters like me, and now as an adult, all I want is to be able to read a book that takes us seriously.

And so, friends, Romans, countrymen, I present, a special disability and chronic illness booklist, compiled by myself and through the contributions of wonderful members from this site!

As always, if there are any at all that you want me to add, please just say. I'm always looking for more!

Updated: 12/08/2023

Articles

The Drifting Language of Architectural Accessibility in Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris, Essaka Joshua, 2012

Early Modern Literature and Disability Studies, Allison P. Hobgood, David Houston Wood, 2017

Making Do with What You Don't Have: Disabled Black Motherhood in Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents, Anna Hinton, 2018

Necropolitics, Achille Mbeme, 2003 OR Necropolitics, Achille Mbeme, 2019

Wasted Lives: Modernity and Its Outcasts, Zygmunt Bauman, 2004

Witchcraft and deformity in early modern English Literature, Scott Eaton, 2020

Books

Fiction:

10 Things I Can See From Here, Carrie Mac

Akata Witch, (Series), Nnedi Okorafor

A Mango-Shaped Hole, Wendy Mass

An Unkindness of Ghosts, Rivers Solomon

A Shot in the Dark, Victoria Lee

A Snicker of Magic, Natalie Lloyd

A Song of Ice and Fire, (series), George R. R. Martin

A Time to Dance, Padma Venkatraman

Bath Haus, P. J. Vernon

Beasts of Prey, (Series), Ayana Gray

Black Bird, Blue Road, Sofiya Pasternack

Cafe con Lychee, Emery Lee

Cinder, (Series), Marissa Meyer

Clean, Amy Reed

Connection Error, (Series), Annabeth Albert

Crazy, Benjamin Lebert

Crooked Kingdom, (Series), Leigh Bardugo

Dear Fang, With Love, Rufi Thorpe

The Degenerates, J. Albert Mann

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, Emily R. Austin

The Extraordinaries, (Series), T. J. Klune

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, (Series), Trenton Lee Stewart

The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix

Forever Is Now, Mariama J. Lockington

Fortune Favours the Dead, (Series), Stephen Spotswood

Fresh, Margot Wood

Harmony, London Price

Highly Illogical Behaviour, John Corey Whaley

Honey Girl, Morgan Rogers

How to Become a Planet, Nicole Melleby

I Am Not Alone, Francisco X. Stork

The Immeasurable Depth of You, Maria Ingrande Mora

In the Ring, Sierra Isley

Iron Widow, (Series), Xiran Jay Zhao

Izzy at the End of the World, K. A. Reynolds

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish, (short story) (anthology), Seiko Tanabe

Just by Looking at Him, Ryan O'Connell

Lakelore, Anna-Marie McLemore

Learning Curves, (Series), Ceillie Simkiss

Let's Call It a Doomsday, Katie Henry

The Library of the Dead, (Series), TL Huchu

Long Macchiatos and Monsters, Alison Evans

Love from A to Z, (Series), S.K. Ali

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

The No-Girlfriend Rule, Christen Randall

Noor, Nnedi Okorafor

One For All, Lillie Lainoff

On the Edge of Gone, Corinne Duyvis

Out of My Mind, Sharon M. Draper

Parable of the Sower, (Series), Octavia E. Butler

Parable of the Talents, (Series), Octavia E. Butler

Percy Jackson & the Olympians, (series), Rick Riordan

Pomegranate, Helen Elaine Lee

The Pursuit Of..., (Series), Courtney Milan

The Quiet and the Loud, Helena Fox

Roll with It, (Series), Jamie Sumner

Russian Doll, (Series), Cristelle Comby

Scar of the Bamboo Leaf, Sieni A.M

Six of Crows, (Series) Leigh Bardugo

Sizzle Reel, Carlyn Greenwald

The Spare Man, Mary Robinette Kowal

The Stagsblood Prince, (Series), Gideon E. Wood

Stars in Your Eyes, Kacen Callender [Expected release: Oct 2023]

The Storm Runner, (Series), J. C. Cervantes

The Theft of Sunlight, (Series), Intisar Khanani

Throwaway Girls, Andrea Contos

Top Ten, Katie Cotugno

Torch, Lyn Miller-Lachmann

Treasure, Rebekah Weatherspoon

Verona Comics, Jennifer Dugan

We Are the Ants, (Series), Shaun David Hutchinson

The Weight of Our Sky, Hanna Alkaf

The Whispering Dark, Kelly Andrew

Wicked Sweet, Chelsea M. Cameron

Wonder, (Series), R. J. Palacio

Wrong to Need You, (Series), Alisha Rai

Ziggy, Stardust and Me, James Brandon

Graphic Novels:

Constellations, Kate Glasheen

The Golden Hour, Niki Smith

Magazines: Anthologies and Articles:

Beneath Ceaseless Skies #175: Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds, (Article), R. B. Lemburg

Uncanny #24: Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction, (Anthology), edited by: Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Dominik Parisien et al.

Uncanny #30: Disabled People Destroy Fantasy, (Anthology), edited by: Nicolette Barischoff, Lisa M. Bradley, Katharine Duckett

Manga:

Perfect World, (Series), Rie Aruga

Non-Fiction:

Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education, Jay Timothy Dolmage

A Disability History of the United States, Kim E, Nielsen

The Architecture of Disability: Buildings, Cities, and Landscapes beyond Access, David Gissen

Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman's Fight to End Ableism, Elsa Sjunneson

Black Disability Politics, Sami Schalk

Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure, Eli Clare

The Cambridge Companion to Literature and Disability, Barker, Clare and Stuart Murray, editors.

The Capacity Contract: Intellectual Disability and the Question of Citizenship, Stacy Clifford Simplican

Capitalism and Disability, Martha Russel

Care work: Dreaming Disability Justice, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Catatonia, Shutdown and Breakdown in Autism: A Psycho-Ecological Approach, Dr Amitta Shah

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays, Esme Weijun Wang

Crip Kinship, Shayda Kafai

Crip Up the Kitchen: Tools, Tips and Recipes for the Disabled Cook, Jules Sherred

Culture – Theory – Disability: Encounters between Disability Studies and Cultural Studies, Anne Waldschmidt, Hanjo Berressem, Moritz Ingwersen

Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition, Liat Ben-Moshe

Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to Be an Ally, Emily Ladau

Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Disability Pride: Dispatches from a Post-ADA World, Ben Mattlin

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories From the Twenty-First Century, Alice Wong

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space, Amanda Leduc

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness and Liberation, Eli Clare

Feminist Queer Crip, Alison Kafer

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes, and Mourning Songs, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

It's Just Nerves: Notes on a Disability, Kelly Davio

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

Language Deprivation & Deaf Mental Health, Neil S. Glickman, Wyatte C. Hall

The Minority body: A Theory of Disability, Elizabeth Barnes

My Body and Other Crumbling Empires: Lessons for Healing in a World That Is Sick, Lyndsey Medford

No Right to Be Idle: The Invention of Disability, 1840s-1930s, Sarah F. Rose

Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment, James I. Charlton

The Pedagogy of Pathologization Dis/abled Girls of Color in the School-prison Nexus, Subini Ancy Annamma

Physical Disability in British Romantic Literature, Essaka Joshua

QDA: A Queer Disability Anthology, Raymond Luczak, Editor.

The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability, Jasbir K. Puar

Sitting Pretty, (memoir), Rebecca Taussig

Sounds Like Home: Growing Up Black & Deaf in the South, Mary Herring Wright

Surviving and Thriving with an Invisible Chronic Illness: How to Stay Sane and Live One Step Ahead of Your Symptoms, Ilana Jacqueline

The Things We Don't Say: An Anthology of Chronic Illness Truths, Julie Morgenlender

Unmasking Autism, Devon Price

The War on Disabled People: Capitalism, Welfare and the Making of a Human Catastrophe, Ellen Clifford

Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life, (memoir) (essays) Alice Wong

Picture Books:

Small Knight and the Anxiety Monster, Manka Kasha

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With an extra special thank you to @parafoxicalk @craftybookworms @lunod @galaxyaroace @shub-s @trans-axolotl @suspicious-whumping-egg @ya-world-challenge @fictionalgirlsworld @rubyjewelqueen @some-weird-queer-writer @jacensolodjo @cherry-sys @dralthon for your absolutely fantastic contributions!

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Why did we ever standardise spelling..... what would it be like to just,,, slap any old letturs doun,, just feel the spelling in yor soul... wunt tu add an ekstra e sumwere? go fore it, yor not rong, nuthing is wronge,, imbrace inkonsistensies... Shaykespeer's nayme was spelled mor than 27 diffrint weys during his lifetyme, & this was a kommon and aksepted fenomenon,, Imajin all of us, gleeful childrin, and the letters of the alfabette, finger paynts at our dissposal,, we ar free to yooze them however we wish.... unfetterd

Me when it's an hour past when I should go to bed

My house is never cleaner than when I have a deadline I don't want to deal with.

Like what's that? You want me to do this moderately easy but low-dopamine task? Guess I'll deep clean the back of the kitchen cupboards real quick...

The best order to watch Half Life 2 speed runs is this Dev Commentary fallowed by the AGDQ run with it's beautiful, beautiful commentary.

I’m with you Dev’s how is this guy getting shot in the face but not taking any damage? How does he just walk into walls?

Comment section: “Well clearly he's a boat and also a zombie and also doesn't exist,"

Hmm, no, that’s not helpful. But I am intrigued.

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