Harp, a very strange exception @[email protected]

thank you @noelle for this beautiful artwork showing exactly what i do to @InspectorCaracal on a regular basis

i mean just what i said - it's a conflicting accessibility issue for me.

between the anxiety, the chronic illness/lack of spoons, and the chronic pain often exacerbated by typing at times, writing captions for me is really stressful. i get into loops of stressing about it and then beating myself up about it and suddenly every post is a thirty minute long ordeal of me screaming about trying to be as accurate as possible before i collapse into a sobbing heap.

it's not a fun or good time!

if you use a screen reader and you can't follow me or even have to mute me because of this - it's like i said about the cw-ing situation. i completely understand! please do not let politeness towards me put you in danger or severe aggravation.

but also please don't yell at me for not doing captions. (and this goes double if you aren't using a screen reader, etc. i have consistently caught flak from people crusading on someone else's behalf, and people who are actually in the same disability foxhole totally understand, lol.)

it's not something i'm doing because i am lazy, or because i am too cool for it. it's not something i'm doing because i think it gets in the way of "getting clout". it's something i'm doing because i'm disabled. and sometimes being disabled means you're... dis... able... to do the thing.... yknow?

i'm not a perfect content machine. i mean i'm unable to work folks, the government even said "lmao shit's fucky, here's your official disabled status". and if you come in and yell at me for not being such, i am liable to come get snippy at you.

however, if you have the spoons to do what i cannot - and if you're willing to treat me with basic decency instead of, say, stealing my posts and saying i don't deserve "the clout" while being so lazy - i happily welcome people who are willing to do me the generous kindness of helping caption what i can't.

i mean just that. i think they're valuable and i don't want to say anyone is wrong for using them! (though we could talk about how, like any other tool, there is a possibility for this system to be misused, and the meta discussions therein, but that's another thread.) just that because i'm disabled, i can't offer anyone a completely perfect experience where i ALWAYS tag things and mark things perfectly.

if you need to not follow or even mute me because of this, i completely understand and in fact i encourage it! please don't put yourself in danger for the sake of being polite to me!

if you see something i've not cw'd appropriately, please also feel totally free to gently nudge me about it. odds are extremely, extremely good that i am, in fact, just dealing with spaghetti brain and genuinely forgot lol.

i have a spinal cord stimulator to help with some neuropathic pain! it does a fantastic job of dealing with it. the pain is because i had shingles, which is when the chicken pox comes around for round two. it particularly likes chewing on your nerves, and can leave lasting damage.

so the spinal cord stimulator is a little thing that runs an electric current 'upstream' of the damaged nerve. instead of feeling pain, i just feel the white noise kind of tingle of... well, the electricity. this pretty well covers up all of the pain, and works great!

in other words:

my body: NOOOO YOU CAN'T JUST COVER UP THESE PAIN SIGNALS WITH ELECTRICITY THAT'S NOT HOW IT WOOORRRKSSS NOOOOO

me: he he cyborg bits go bzzz

i am indeed a cyborg, complete with battery pack implanted under my skin just above my butt and remote control. it's pretty fuckin great! i may still be dealing with other health issues, but if you are wondering more details, feel free to poke me and i'll tell you more as best i can!

YES I KNOW THERE'S RAIN BUT ALL THE RAIN IS AT LEAST 2 STATES AWAY. IT'S FAR AWAY FROM US. I AM AWARE THAT CONCEPTUALLY RAIN EXISTS IN LOCATIONS DIFFERENT FROM OUR OWN. YOU CAN STOP FUCKING YELLING ABOUT IT, SHOULDER!!!! YOU CAN SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT!!!