As someone not involved in the development of pillowfort but am a web developer, I think you should lower your expectations, but not for the reason you think.
Pillowfort is a baby. A newborn. A smol bab. If you were here during the early days of Tumblr, think of that.
Pillowfort simply cannot be the immediate solution to your woes. It needs to be nurtured and cared for to become a mature and happy adult.
If you want Pillowfort to work, they’ll need feedback, advice, bug reports, etc. This is a chance to make Pillowfort the Ao3 of Fanfiction.net. It’s not gonna happen overnight, you need to give it time and love and it’ll get there.
If you don’t want to pay money to get into the beta, that’s ok. It will be open to the public soon enough and you won’t have to pay a dime. Their financial model moving forward sounds good (a subscription fee for super extra features), but even an Ao3 model would work swell for them probably.
We’re living in an interesting time on the internet. Governments across the world are cracking down on content and yet community run websites are starting to thrive more and more.
Tumblr once upon a time was what Pillowfort is today, but this time, let’s make sure Pillowfort can stay independent from mega corporations.
yes this
most of the criticism i’ve seen of pf so far ultimately come back to this
is it an alright platform with a good community? yes. does it have a lot of potential? yes. does it have a lot of problems still being worked out? yes. are the staff open and responsive? absolutely. do i recommend it? yes, if you’re willing to live in a house while it’s being built.
but it’s not a ready-made replacement for tumblr. set your expectations accordingly.
4 days, 40 pages, and several hours in the making…. its my pleasure to finally put out the first fully fledged webcomic of my life. never have i reached this length of dedication with anything! so this is a big step forward for me, to get into webcomics more often 🙂
prepare yourselves for feels, fun and family…. ENJOY 🙂
*valid does not mean healthy, or good, or to be privileged above common sense and kindness
A distinction for anyone who is young and hasn’t figured this out yet:
You are allowed to have whatever emotions you want. No one can control your emotions. Emotions are healthy responses to things.
You are not allowed to have behaviors that are harmful just because you have certain emotions. Your behaviors are what you can control, and they are far easier to control than your emotions.
You can be jealous about someone or their talents until you turn green, but it is harmful to yourself and to that person if you try to sabotage them because of it. You can be so angry you can literally feel your temperature rise, but this does not give you permission to rage at others.
Your emotions are valid. They are always valid. You are a person of value. However, you behaviors are not always justified just because of those emotions. You may not be able to control you emotions, but you can certainly control your behaviors.
My friend’s therapist told her something really important that she passed along to me:
Feelings are not good or bad, right or wrong, and they don’t have to make sense. Your behavior does.
Disclaimer: I was hesitant to post this, but I really want people to see what these birds are capable of. So, I’ll just start off by explaining that I am an undergraduate researcher in an Animal Behaviour and Welfare lab at a fairly reputable agricultural/veterinary university. The work that I and my colleagues do seeks to improve the lives of poultry in commercial farms across the world, first and foremost. I am a vegetarian, and while I don’t support any animal meat industry financially, I recognize that it does help feed millions of people worldwide who do not know better or have the choice to go vegan/vegetarian, and until that is able to completely change, there is a need for solid science that supports animal welfare and argues for better quality of life for them in the meantime. That said, the turkey poults in this video are research animals who belong to my university’s poultry research station, and are kept in conditions designed to mimic a commercial farm setting. They still have a much better quality of life than that of a “real” commercial turkey (i.e. more space, and positive human interaction from me), but I would still personally be happiest seeing these girls roaming free in the grass and sun like my chickens and ducks at home. Sadly, though, I’m no longer in a position to adopt any more of my lab’s birds…
Last week, I posted about the “ABCs” of animal behaviour and training, along with a video of one of my hens doing some short flights to my arm. Training them to step up or fly onto a perch/arm is one of the first things I do with any bird, be it a chicken, raptor, or parrot. The next behaviour most bird owners will train is targeting. Targeting is when an animal learns to touch a specific body part to a certain location/object. The most common example of targeting is actually teaching a dog to sit – the dog is targeting its rear end to the floor. With birds, people typically train them to touch their beak to a “target” stick. I’ve done this in the past with the falcons I work with, and the hens at home picked it up quickly as well. But, I wanted to see if the turkey poults at the lab could learn it as well. I’d been hearing a lot of people making comments about how “dumb” turkeys are, and naturally, I wanted to give the birds more respect and prove the skeptics wrong. In addition, the actual research project I’m doing with these turkeys is quite demanding of them, to say the least, so I figured I owed it to them to give them something enriching and fun to do during our breaks.
As always, I started by training the babies to respond to a bridge – the clicking sound I make with my mouth. You’ve probably seen people buy/use handheld clickers for training cats and dogs, but this is another one of those things that really isn’t necessary. Most bird trainers will not use these, as it takes away the use of one of your hands, and if you have a bird perched on one hand you really need the other one to be free. Your bridge doesn’t have to come from a fancy clicker, nor does it have to be a click at all. It just has to be any stimulus that is clearly perceived by the animal, that you can produce quickly and consistently – a whistle, verbal praise, etc. will do just fine. The turkeys were slow to pick this up over the first week within hatching or so (but let’s face it, all babies are dumb), but they were able to associate it (and my presence) with yummy canned corn eventually.
Next, I had to shape the targeting behaviour using successive approximations. This is animal trainer gobbledygook for: start simple, then work your way up. The poults were naturally curious enough to peck at the target stick when I first introduced it, so I would reinforce any attempt to peck any part of the stick at first. Then, I would only reinforce pecks that were aimed at the duct tape. Once that was down, the turkeys were eager to follow the stick/me around their cage, and peck it for some corn. The stick was not scented/baited in any way – they really did learn to target to it for a reward. Many zoos will do this with their animals as an enriching activity, or to make both the zookeepers and animals’ lives a bit easier – for example, instead of having to stressfully chase and then shove an animal into a crate/holding area when their enclosure needs to be cleaned, keepers can simply target the animal into the crate, and clean away while it enjoys a reward. I’ll repeat from my last post: giving animals in captivity some control over their environment by giving them a choice to actively engage in activities like this is so important for their emotional and psychological health.
Here are some videos of professional target training done in various zoos with rhinos, hornbills, and monitor lizards! You can look up tons of other examples like these online yourself:
Please don’t suddenly push someone’s wheelchair without their permission. It’s extremely rude and most of us hate it.
Someone in a wheelchair pushing themselves up a slope? Want to be of assistance? Ask if they would like help. Don’t just run up and start pushing. It’s the equivalent of you seeing someone limping up a hill and deciding to suddenly carry them to get them to the top.
Someone in a wheelchair blocking your path? Need to get by? Ask them to move. Do not reach out and push the chair aside. It’s the equivalent of you shoving someone out of the way instead of just saying “excuse me”.
We understand that you have good intentions and just want to help. But having a wheelchair suddenly moved, pushed, grabbed, or touched can feel violating, very uncomfortable, and even frightening. It can also feel like you’re ripping our control away, as there is very little we can do to stop you from pushing us. Unless we pull the hand brakes, which may potentially send us flying out of the chair.
Even for those few who are okay with being randomly moved, you pushing the chair without warning while they’re wheeling themselves can cause their fingers to get caught or crushed in the wheels. It can be pretty painful, trust me.
Unless it is a life or death situation, or you have prior consent to always push that person, please ask for permission before touching or pushing someone’s wheelchair. You wouldn’t like being grabbed or picked up without permission by a total stranger, either.
Oh my god people actually do this?
All the time. If I had $1 for every time I’ve had it happen within a single year or using a wheelchair? I wouldn’t be struggling to afford meds and always stressed over money. Like at least one person does this every time I’m out on my own. Gasp a disabled person living a fairly normal life using a wheelchair- how can this be?! One even claimed I must be faking my disability because my rescue meds worked… briefly. They got off the bus before they saw me take two more doses then give up and go to ER. I actually went to police first because how abusive the people were to me while I was convulsing on the floor of the bus, but they were like no let’s get you treated before we file this report. You are clearly not ok and need emergency care (I was convulsing and extremely tachy) so they wouldn’t take my report til I was treated in ER… but yeah totally faking right? What’s worse is they identified themselves as working in health care. I had a heart rate of 189 because of convulsions and they tried to get past a friend who was with me to grab me and “help” by raising my arms over my head to help open my air way. I was just going omg no but I can’t speak during attacks often. Thankfully my friend spoke for me and told them to back off and helped her rescue meds out and stop them touching me or trying to. I had a heart rate of 189 which was causing tachyapnea (stopping breathing due in part to extreme tachycardia and most commonly seen with EDS- also EDS dystonia causes my throat muscles to tighten and lock which restricts air flow and I have had code blue called for me in hospital. Anyways arms over head is what you do to raise heart rate. You put the person on their side in the recovery position if they are convulsing. So the combo of “medical advice” that could have killed me if anyone listened and my friend didn’t block them physically from touching me and the absolutely vile comments (calling my friend my care taker, calling me entitled, implying I was mentally disabled coming just short of actually calling me retarded and blaming my friend for the wheelchair lock randomly releasing, asking “is the cripple better? Can we go now?”, etc) caused police when I said what happened and played the audio I managed to record that wasn’t even the worst of it has police wide eyed horrified. Like for a “health care worker” the terms she used would have been out of use before she finished high school and been considered inappropriate 20+ years ago… so no excuses. I got a pic of one of the two that when I have time/energy I’m sending to the registration board with the audio. See how long they keep their jobs hearing how they treat a disabled stranger.
Sometimes people ask, you say no thanks, and they STILL grab you. I have PTSD as well as physical disabilities, one symptom of which is excessive adrenaline production. Guess how well it goes if I am startled or hurt because they grab the chair and move me. I’ve had fingers crushed, skin ripped off my palms (fragile EDS skin), nails ripped off, groceries damaged because I had them between the wheels and the person pushing moved them to the side so the bag was on the wheel and shredded, and I have serious concerns one day a kid who’s mom thinks it’s funny to let them run up a ramp I am actively coming down or let’s their kid grab me from behind and push the chair will end up hurt. I can’t see behind me and being grabbed from behind is triggering. Had to try explain this (and gave up due to poor English on the part of the manager) to the manager that the fact the employee who tried to grab me is a “nice man”. You know that, I don’t. I know nothing about him. To me it is a 300lb male stranger trying to grab me a tiny disabled girl and push me the opposite way I wanted to go. Also PTSD reflexes don’t go away because someone tells me a person is nice. A bigger concern is if a kid does it and I don’t see the kid come up behind me, there is a good chance my reflex will be to punch whoever grabbed me to knock them out so I can escape. By the time I realize it’s a kid they are already hurt. Kids who’s parents think them playing on the ramp I am trying to use is cute when I’m terrified screaming move kid MOVE don’t grasp I can not stop like a car… A rapid stop if I can do it at all (it’s impossible on tile) causes me at a minimum subluxations of the knee and possibly arm and/or hand joints and can set off a life threatening attack. If I don’t try stop guess who gets blamed when the kid is hurt or even dies falling backwards on cement? Like I’m gonna be yelled at minimum by the parents… even though it’s like yelling at a driver if you let your 2-6 year old play outside unsupervised and they get hit by a car. I think the next time parents think their kid blocking the ramp so I can’t access the bathroom which can cause attacks triggered by pain I will be getting their info so I can tell paramedics who to send the ambulance bill to if letting their kid use the ramp as a toy causes an attack that sends me to hospital. Maybe then they will not think it’s so cute and keep their kids away from me. It’s at least a $300 bill if their kid causes a severe attack that needs a hospital and an ambulance. More if it’s rural. Rural ambulance is like at least $1000. Might make them realize they should not let kids get in the way of wheelchairs. If I end up needing to go to hospital because of their actions? They can pay for it. Since I’m legally disabled in Canada the government covers ambulance bills for me… but I’m sure they would be extremely happy to have the person who caused the ambulance to be needed to pay for that.
So please if you are able bodied and stuff like this or parents who let their kids try pet working service dogs, or even grown ass adults who are like “cute puppy I wanna pet it”- call that shit out and back us up when we tell them off for it. Many times people act like I’m the crazy one in the wrong for snapping at them because they harmed me or almost did and fast reflexes on my part was all that saved me from injuries. If you see someone looking like they are going to grab a wheelchair from behind and the occupant doesn’t seem to be aware of the person? Like even just loudly say so people are looking “hey did you actually want help with that ramp or did they not even ask?” Which both alerts me so I’m less likely to have an adrenaline surge from being startled that causes convulsions, dystonia, multiple subluxations and dislocations caused by convulsions, extreme tachycardia (over 200bpm)… and it makes everyone stare at the person and judge them so they have to walk of shame away, and if it’s a rare case they did ask I can simply say “yeah it’s good I asked for help- thanks for checking” so it’s a win win. Same goes for people trying to pet service dogs or yelling at a handler how mean we are not letting them or their kid pet the cute puppy. If you see somebody making a move to pet a working service dog and the handler hasn’t noticed yet, with the exception of a hearing dog for someone who is Deaf (they may or may not hear you saying something depending on the type of deafness and severity of it), saying “hey that’s a working service dog- don’t distract it! It’s illegal and can cause the handler to be hurt or even die if the dog is distracted and doesn’t alert in time!”. Again speaking loudly but not yelling. Just loud enough people around hear what’s being said and firm but polite, like you assume they didn’t notice it was a working service dog. If they get aggressive about it, while they are yelling at the person about how mean they are not letting them or a child pat the dog, alerting security to remove them is greatly appreciated.
Now they have tried the treatment (which if I respond to treatment or not is the only way to confirm diagnosis) and confirmed it is very successful with identical time line for severity and speed of improvement and low dose compared to other disorders for a rare complication of ehlers danlos in medical case studies, they will be confirming me as the only known case in the province of EDS dystonia with acute hyper mobility crisises caused by adrenaline surges and dumps. There are only about 14,000 cases in the world if I remember right. If medication fails to get it 100% controlled, even if it’s better most of the time, I’ve been thinking about applying for a dysautonomia service dog to help me down if I start convulsing, use deep pressure therapy, fetch rescue meds, pulling the chair to a safe space for me to take meds since it’s hard to impossible to control movement during an attack which makes wheeling myself also hard to impossible, pulling emergency info card out and holding it in its mouth if I’m down and unable to speak which gives first responders all the info they need to ensure I’m treated correctly and not given a treatment that may worsen things. If they assume seizures and treat it as a seizure, many epileptic drugs lower dopamine… lack of dopamine is what causes my movement issues. I would ideally like it to be trained for at least blocking for PTSD, but if it’s not trained for that I can train that as a task. Possibly other tasks too but those are the major ones I would benefit from.
Tl;dr this isn’t even uncommon. Many of us wheelchair users face this every single time we go out almost that at least one person will do this.
It is truly amazing how shitty diabled people are treated, especially those in wheelchairs.
Hey so @staff it’s really really shitty to flag as explicit a post about my gay uncle who died due to AIDS.
@staff this is unacceptable
Thank you. I didn’t even see a notification – I just came across it while I was scrolling through my blog to see if anything was flagged.
I’m honestly pretty upset about this. It’s also wild considering the history of the AIDS epidemic and how the US government censored PSAs about the epidemic to not mention gay men because it might be seen as endorsing “deviant” behavior. I’m not saying that’s why this was flagged, I’m just saying there’s relevant history here.
This is also an indication that random LGBTQ posts being blocked isn’t a fluke. This post doesn’t contain any word that could possibly be construed as sexual, like sex/sexual/sexuality. “Gay,” “orientation,” “HIV” or “AIDS” is probably flagged.
A Glitch Named Anti 