R. Parsons

R. Parsons

69p

7 comments posted · 0 followers · following 0

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Thud!': Pa... · 0 replies · +14 points

It's especially evocative for me of the tensions between socially hypervisible identities and socially invisible ones.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'The Book o... · 1 reply · +10 points

Worth noting-
sa'Rrahh is named as a manifestation of the Lone Power, but is also both distinct from and (IIRC) an enemy to the-Lone-as-Apep- she's the feline Power of death, but also of the Tenth Life. I don't think we've ever seen this kind of duality before- neither bright Hesper nor Fairest and Fallen but something more complicated and ambivalent. (And it may not be a coincidence either, that we get it in the context of Egyptian mythology- wasn't Set also depicted as both a destroyer/usurper and serpent-slayer?)

I originally had more to say, but I made the mistake of reading the comments first and derailed my own train of thought, so I'll just leave this here in hopes that it might spark interesting discussion.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'The Book o... · 1 reply · +11 points

I'm not in a headspace to engage with most of the rest of this, but can we, as a community, please make a commitment to not generalize entire groups of people as 'contributing to entropy' via their mere existence? (Or as having their innate characteristics be evidence of entropy, for that matter.)

That kind of phrasing has an added punch in the context of these books, and that sort of language used regarding autism was one of the (many) factors why the pre-NME version of A Wizard Alone hurt me as deeply as it did. IMO, that alone would have been grounds enough for a defensive reaction to both the book and Lady Oolong's comment, even ignoring anything else.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Monstrous ... · 0 replies · +3 points

(Side post, because I didn't want to clutter up that other one with this)

One note to anyone else who's thinking of picking the book or webthing up after this, though- Allie has a lot of relatable stuff, but she also throws around (rot-13'd for slur) ergneqrq and related ableism quite a bit, especially in the parts about her dogs.

I know I'm not the only one who posts here who's got sore spots around that stuff in general and/or that word in particular, so I thought I should let you all know so it doesn't just hit you by surprise.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Monstrous ... · 0 replies · +4 points

Have you read any Allie Brosh? She's the person who does the online blog/comic/thing Hyperbole and a Half and she's written some of the most (~can't find the word(s) for what I'm trying to say~) stuff about depression that I've ever seen, and I think you'd find it, if not helpful, than at least very relatable.

Anyway, there's a part in her book (Also titled Hyperbole and a Half) where she's describing how when she first got depression meds the earliest emotions to break through the numbness were hatred and crying-for-no-reason. She describes how frustrating, smothering, and almost offensive other people's optimism felt.

And then she talks about finding a tiny, shrivelled piece of corn lying on the floor under the fridge, and for reasons that even she can't explain that that was suddenly just the most intensely hilarious thing ever. The first positive emotion to emerge for her and it's for a lost corn.

She ends that chapter with this:
"Anyway, I wanted to end this on a hopeful, positive note, but seeing as how my sense of hope and positivity is still shrouded in a thick layer of feeling like hope and positivity are bullshit, I'll just say this. Nobody can guarantee that it's going to be okay, but- and I don't know if this will be comforting to anyone else- the possibility exists that there's a piece of corn on the floor somewhere that will make you just as confused about why you are laughing as you have ever been about why you are depressed. And even if everything still seems like hopeless bullshit, maybe it's just /pointless/ bullshit or /weird/ bullshit or possibly not even bullshit.
I don't know.
But when you're concerned that the miserable, boring wasteland in front of you might stretch all the way into forever, not knowing feels strangely hope-like."

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Mark Reads 'Monstrous ... · 0 replies · +7 points

As a fellow autistic person, I get that feeling, I really do- it's like an itch in your brain, like someone not only cutting you off mid-sentence but the point they're assuming you were going to make is completely different than what you were actually trying to say, it's like your words are a car in motion and abruptly not continuing them is like slamming on the brakes too abruptly. It's more than just frustration, it's a kind of cognitive momentum.

The thing is- and I'm struggling to find a way to express this in a way that won't feel like either an insult or a cludgeon for depression to use against you- is that that momentum, combined with some of the ways you're communicating, is making you come off like you're insulting the other people in the thread for no reason. The reason why it feels like people are being angry/hostile toward you is because (even if it wasn't your intent) they're feeling like you're being angry/hostile toward them. The whole thing basically turned into a vicious cycle on all sides.

I'm going to second Mark's suggestion that you take a step back until the emotions aren't quite so overwhelming, but if you'd like some help recognizing when conversations are starting to go off the rails like this- and/or help developing some scripts to help escape from them- I'd be willing to talk to you more later. Communication glitches are suck, but you don't have to muddle through alone.

5 years ago @ Mark Reads - Hello, Discworld reade... · 0 replies · +14 points

"Ableism activism itself is struggling to reconcile both viewpoints, so your attempts to find the easy "correct" answer without a lot of discussion and nuance are inevitably going to fail. The issue is messy."

I feel like this really strikes to the heart of a lot of the issues surrounding disability representation- more than most marginalizations, perhaps, disability and ableism are multifaced and multi-(sub?)-axial. While there are definitely ways to do the trope Mark raised in ways that are more broadly wrong and hurtful (ie, implied eugenics/involuntary-euthanasia; using disability as a metaphor, etc), I think the biggest problem with both the trope in general and the way it was 'called out' in particular is that exact lack of nuance.

Neither viewpoint is an invalid way to experience one's disability(s), but neither is complete and all-encompassing by itself, either. Disability is varied and faceted and complicated and messy. Trying to clean up that mess and set up a single viewpoint or depiction as The True Story will always entail sweeping a lot of people out. We need all of those stories, not just one or two reified narratives repeated over and over again.