Look. Look At This Beautiful Sword Meme. I’m Going To Cry

if you didn’t realize, ableism is actually bigotry and systemic ableism and inaccessibility are really oppression and it’s not something disabled people brought on ourselves by having bodies&minds that you think are inferior and therefore not worth fighting for. disabled people’s lives and wellbeing matter. we don’t have to earn our worthiness by doing “enough” to deserve a good life. nobody does.

Nothing is quite as tragically funny to me as how finds are treated on site vs in a museum setting.

In a trench on a dig site: oh look another undecorated pottery sherd. The hundredth from this trench today! *holds with bare hands, covered in mud* nice, where’s the cassetto? YEET! I’ll clean that with a worn out plastic toothbrush in a bucket of water later. Another sherd? Oh damn, it’s from the wrong SO layer - into the spoils heap you go :(

The same pottery sherd, in a museum: so we need to sign this sherd out to examine it in a temperature controlled room. I’m going to wear powder free gloves and hold it with two hands no more than an inch above the padded surface of this table because I’d rather die than have any harm befall this sherd.

Or, in other words:

No hate to either museum-based archaeologists or field archaeologists. I have done both.

Also this is not to say I condone this. This is just a representation of the absolute whiplash my mostly-museum based arse got upon seeing how things were done on my first dig.

have a meme from grad school that i don't remember making

gentle reminder that it's not too late to get into the habit of wearing masks again 😷

i cannot emphasise enough how much you need to create something. anything. it doesn't matter if you suck. you don't need to monetise it, or make it your career. you can restart an old hobby; you can start from scratch. it doesn't matter. you just need to hold something and be able to say "i did that". baking, drawing, painting, writing, coding, crafts, whatever. make something ! you cannot have all your hobbies be a form of consumption. it's fun, it's great in its own right. but the single best action to make yourself feel better, to calm your mind, to gain self esteem, is to Create

I’m sick of just trying to get through things.

I want to enjoy things. I want to look forward to things instead of just dreading being tired and in pain.

Plot twist for all the "I'd kill myself if I was as disabled as you" crowd:

If you were in my position, you wouldn't BE spending all day in bed. You'd be abusing your body by forcing yourself to work a job and just "tough it out" when you make yourself sicker. If you had to put up with the level of medical abuse that I do, you'd just swear off the medical field entirely and claim "big pharma" is good for nothing and only wants your money and to keep people sick.

No one actually tells you to stay in bed and rest when you're disabled. Overcoming internalized ableism comes in many phases, one of which is making the radical decision to stay in bed and rest if you're disabled.

You wouldn't kill yourself if you were me, because with your attitude, you could never BE me, and that's really fucking pathetic.

Beatrix Potter

Writer, illustrator, conservationist, natural scientist

For the inaugural Arcade Feature, I'm excited to tell you about Beatrix Potter. Most people (including me) know her best for her picture books-

-which have sold over 250 million copies since they were published in the early 1900s.

Fun fact: In 1903, Peter Rabbit was the first fictional character to be made into a patented stuffed toy, making him the oldest licensed character.

But what really caught my attention is the work she was doing before Peter Rabbit came along.

Beatrix Potter had a scientific eye for detail, and was able to faithfully depict the world around her. In particular, she was interested in mycology.

In 1897, she put forward a paper to the Linnean Society in London... but as a woman was not allowed to be a member of the society nor attend the meeting when her paper was read. When the society's members did not pay much attention to her work, and fearing her samples to be contaminated, Potter withdrew her paper, which became lost. Only after Potter left hundreds of mycological artworks to a museum in the Lake District, UK, on her death in 1943, were her scientific talents recognized... Potter's precise and beautiful paintings and drawings of fungi are now helping modern mycologists in their efforts to identify species.*

Potter eventually moved away from books in favor of land management and farming. She was a prize-winning sheep breeder and a prosperous farmer, and bought several farms surrounding her own to preserve the unique hill country landscape. Much of that land now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

Keep an eye out for more Beatrix Potter throughout the month of February.

All Arcade Feature Posts

* Fry, C., & Wayland, E. (2024). Introduction. In The Botanists’ Library, The Most Important Botanical Books in History (1st ed., pp. 9–10). introduction, Ivy Press.

Saw this on Facebook and if I see one more post like this that weaponizes the Paralympics I am going to punch my own face :)

The Paralympic athletes are INCREDIBLE, there is absolutely no doubt about that.

AND- do you know how many disabled people grieve and cry over all of the things that are no longer possible because of their disability? It’s not a matter of positive thinking or making excuses. Leave disabled people alone and stop pretending anything is possible if you just have ✨the indomitable human spirit✨

And PLEASE for the love of gods, stop putting pressure on disabled people to be your inspiration porn. ESPECIALLY when the pressure is in order to make our suffering more palatable for you.

I promise if I could positive think my legs into working I would not be struggling so much :)

[ID: black and White Photo of a left shoulder & left knee amputee biking with sports suit and helmet on a stadium track. It's captioned "if it's important to you, you'll find a way!! if not, you'll find an excuse!! ... See more /END ID]