Notices by Mayana (mayana@dragonscave.space)

Help me! Heeelp! We are watching a documentary on Elon Musk in English class!

He's a visionary. He's a genious. Lectures are optional anyway, how about I just walk out?

@Konaburd No accessibility feature should ever be used to make life less accessible for others. Nor should anything that helps disabled people be restricted, policed.

No abled rando on the internet (and they are basically always abled) has any fucking right to decide who is disabled enough for their liking. That's not called being supportive -- indeed, it is the very opposite. It is what keeps disabled people from asking from help, from using disability aids, even when it keeps them from doing things or risks harm, all because they feel they will be judged.

To whoever reported Konaburd for using a tag specifically thought up for people like them: you are an ableist bigot, and a despicable internet cop to boot. Don't bloody hide under the cover of supporting blind people, either, because you are no different from the assholes who shout "You don't look blind!" at my friends on the street, or family members keeping visually impaired people from using canes because "they should be only for those that really need them". It is not your business to decide who "really" needs help, or why.

And if you think they're faking it? 1. You're almost certainly wrong and 2. It doesn't matter. I'd much rather some perfectly abled people "abuse" the #Alt4Me hashtag and get assistance, than have a disabled person not get it because they cannot prove their disability to your satisfaction. We do not need to prove anything to you, be we physically disabled, neurodivergent, or both. We exist; get used to it.

Signed: a blind person

We often thank people for writing image descriptions here. And we should; they're awesome! So please consider this post as only applying to those awesome folks who describe their images, and those who only do not because of their own disabilities, especially if they use imagecaptionspls@a.gup.pe or the Alt4You hashtag instead:
Thank you, too, to those of you who properly tag your posts. If you use any of the below hashtags (and I hope you can forgive me for pinging them this once), thanks! Or, of course, any other image-related hashtags that I just haven't encountered yet!
They give your post more reach, of course, and that's very useful to artists. But they also make your post easily filterable. This means that sometimes, when there is a little too much of everything, I can temporarily lessen the amount of images on my timeline.
Please do not take this as proof that image descriptions are useless. They're not! I for one still very much enjoy them. There's a reason why #Caturday, #CatsOfMastodon, #DogsOfMastodon, etc. are not in the below list, though tagging those is still great! It's because I cannot imagine a day when I'd feel overwhelmed by cute animal pic descriptions.
But ... while I often want to be a part of your world, there are days when I don't feel like it. When I'd rather enjoy the text that is common to all of us, the reason I came here. Or perhaps all the cool audio stuff my friends are posting (which should also be described and hashtagged for deaf and hard of hearing folks!) Filtering allows me to do that on a platform that doesn't support blocking media, while still recieving some images that I *am* interested in, and not having to mute any of you wonderful people.
I know "thank you for letting me filter and ignore your stuff" is not the kindest statement, but ... yeah, still.
#art, #BelieveInFilm, #Blendsday, #Bloomscrolling, #EyeContact, #drawing, #FernFriday, #florespondence, #illustration, #image, #lichenSubscribe, #MacroPhotography, #MastoArt, #NaturePhotography, #painting, #PhonePhotography, #photo, #photography, #picture, #selfie, #SilentSunday, #StreetPhotography, #VirtualPhotography.

The nice feeling when you boost some obscure post, and see a mutual boosting it soon after.
They may have found it on their own, of course. But most likely, they saw it because of me. And now others will see it because of me and them. Isn't that neat?

@KarenWyld It is worth clarifying though, that this should *not* stop anyone from *reporting* things. Nobody should ever go "shit, I shouldn't report that, it'll make admins feel like shit."
We do wish people didn't post hateful bullshit, of course we do. But we'd never want to just hide under a blanket and deny it exists. In the end, this is what we signed up for; to keep our users safe. So please, help us help you!

Hey, I just wanted to also publicly (federatedly?) announce that the registrations on DragonsCave.space have recently reopened! So if you'd like to be on a cool #Mastodon instance full of disabled folks, with a cool name, and which calls posts "roars", here's your chance!
We've been invite-only for a while now. The last influx of Twitter users overwhelmed us eventually. But since we've now had a third admin for a bit (she's absolutely awesome! We love you, @Estrella !), we'll hopefully be able to handle the extra activity this change might bring.
Edit: But anyone signing up is still expected to read the rules first! If you don't prove you have, there is a very high chance we'll reject you!

Regular reminder that you should take a look at other people's profiles before following them. Some of us, especially those with locked accounts, have requirements listed there for whose requests we'll accept. And all of us are people, beautiful and complex, defined by much more than just that one cool post or one Trunk category you found us in. Reading the bio and a few more posts won't give you the full picture either, sure, but it sure is a lot more helpful.
Leave mass auto-following to (bad) bots, yeah?
And of course, if you haven't written a bio yourself yet, this is a good time to do so!
#FediTips #MastoTips

@talon Holy shit, that meow! Legit made me wimper that I couldn't give the poor kitty pets, or food, or assistance with world domination, or anything she needed.
Cats really have the art of manipulating humans down, don't they? They are weaponised cuteness, and there is nothing we can/want to do.