No media representation, of any group, will ever be perfect. No group is a monolith. No group has homogeneous experiences. There will always be someone in your demographic who disagrees with you about what "good representation" really is, there will always be someone who fits the stereotypical representation, there will always be growth and change in what is considered appropriate vs. offensive.

The quest for truly perfect representation is doomed to failure, and your energy is better put into uplifting the media you connect with and love, instead of trying to police the media you hate.

Just a warning for tonight’s Game Changer: if you have any kind of auditory processing issues, you may need the subtitles for the back half of the episode.

Edit: actually, earlier too, depending on what specific issues you have. If your issues are about following disjointed utterances, probably earlier. If they’re more about audio distortion and levels then probably later.

I'll add on that if you have issues with glitch effects or unreality, you may want to be careful. the latter isn't as bad as something like an arg or something because they do acknowledge it not being real, but the former i definitely struggled with. i think it's worth it though!

Just a warning for tonight’s Game Changer: if you have any kind of auditory processing issues, you may need the subtitles for the back half of the episode.

Edit: actually, earlier too, depending on what specific issues you have. If your issues are about following disjointed utterances, probably earlier. If they’re more about audio distortion and levels then probably later.

There’s no such thing as work-life balance for neurodivergent & chronically ill people.

This is because everything in my life requires work:

All requires some aspect of work for me.

And when everything in your life requires work, your balance goes out the window.

If you're neurodivergent and overwhelmed — I see you.

If you're chronically ill and overwhelmed — I see you.

You're not dysfunctional.

You're not incapable.

You're doing your best.

i think about this comic at least once a week

yeah, people do lie on the internet, however i am so passionate about things that if i lie it will feel like i committed an autistic sin

if i just accidentally say something wrong i panic tbh catch me putting "to my knowledge" and "from what i remember" disclaimers on everything to account for human error

From what I remember, 1 + 1 = 2. I think. Not an expert though, feel free to fact check me! This is just an educated guess.

"You see Perry the platypus"

-you're not going to like the short answer

-you're not going to understand the short answer

-you didn't ask the right question

-there is no short answer

-there's a dozen short answers and i think that's neat

-there's a much more interesting question you could have asked, buckle up

-this is going to be really funny in five minutes, hold on

-last time i said no you got mad but the answer is still no

-last time i said no you got sad and i can't take that again

-i've been thinking about neolithic bedbugs all day and you cracked the seal

-this reminds me of something more important than whatever you just said

-i just remembered what i meant to tell you last time you asked something sort of like this

-i don't like you so we're gonna talk about my thing instead of your thing

-i love you so here's the coolest thing i learned lately

-im not hungry so i forgot to do the part of the conversation where i tell you i dont want dinner when you asked what i wanted for dinner because i don't want anything so the question is returning a null integer. did you know bed bugs might have originated in neolithic caves and switched from infesting bat fur to infesting human furs when humans started inhabiting caves and driving all the bats out, and they've lived in our beds for a hundred thousand years. did you know that cellar spiders are almost always the descendants of cave spiders, carried from quarry to foundation and left to flourish for decades, centuries. did you know that a possible origin for the american house cockroach was probably a bark-dwelling species that kept getting transferred into the walls and roofs of new houses and then found an endless wealth of crumbs in their new big square tree. can you feel some kind of love and reverence for these strange neighbors of ours that we built into our homes over and over and two whom humans are an endless and eternal blessing. isn't it nice to think that to a few precious, annoying little critters, we're home.

-yeah i think you should get bangs. life is short and you'd look cute.

-i would like this amount of explanation listening to your information so im giving you this as a favour

-i know there are social conventions that will influence how you perceive my response / what that response should be but i dont know what they are so im going to be as explicitly clear as i can be but it takes longer to explain

-i didnt understand the question or hear it properly and am sort of hoping youll take the hint because ive asked you to repeat it three times already and its embarrassing

-you dont understand the jargon that would make this explanation shorter and so will be without necessary information so now i must explain it more [this information may or may not be actually necessary]

[image: the Distracted Boyfriend meme. he's labeled "ADHD/Autistic People"; the woman he's with is labeled "Directly answering a question"; the woman he's looking at is labeled "Giving a full backstory first".]

Local PSA: invisible disability does NOT mean you can live your life like a "normal person" invisible disability meant that if a stranger looks at you in public they wouldn't know what's going on.

Like if a wheelchair user were to decide to run into a corner store to grab a candy bar because they know that their legs can last that long without, the cashier wouldn't know.

Or someone with "mild" scoliosis walking upright through their shoulder leans slightly to the left. Maybe they just have bad posture. The lady in the next isle thinks to herself.

The person with EDS or POTS or whatever sort of condition wearing compression gloves out and about. Perhaps it's a fashion statement?

Or what about the people with intestinal issues? They can look like "normal people" too.

You never know what someone is going through.

You never know what they might need to survive or if they're on the edge of a flare up or even if they are currently going through one just by one look.

I think both disabled and non disabled need to realize this. You're not "no longer disabled" because you can "live without" disability aids. They're there to help you. To make your life easier. If living without a cane is going to make it more likely you'll fall over and hurt yourself, use the cane.

If you need to sit down to do dishes or cut vegetables because you need to save your legs for taking out the trash, sit down.

If you need a shower chair because you don't know if you'll pass out, use the shower chair.

People are going to judge you regardless for multiple reasons out of your control.

I'd rather they judge you while you're being safe.

You don't need to struggle to be "normal."

You can just be you.

However that looks for you.

Use your disability aids.

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism

if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it

“You shouldn’t self-ID as ADHD/autistic, you’re turning a very real mental condition into a trend” Ok then stop saying delulu. Stop speculating on which cluster C personality disorder the criminals you hear about on the news have. Stop saying “schizoposting” and “acoustic” and “is it restarted?” Stop using “psycopath” and “sociopath” as catch-all ways of calling someone a bad person. Stop saying “the intrusive thoughts won” when you bleach your hair and then turn your nose up at people who suffer from very real, very scary urges of physical/sexual violence. Stop saying “I’m so OCD” as a way of calling yourself neat. Stop treating BPD/ASPD/Bipolar as inherently abusive. Stop saying “OP I am living in your walls” without tagging for unreality. Stop diagnosing complete strangers you’ve never met on r/AITA with NPD.

You first. If you don’t want our disabilities to be treated like trends then stop belittling and minimising them. I’ll NEVER judge a person for trying find labels for their symptoms when an apathetic, racist, sexist, ableist healthcare system refuses to. But I will absolutely judge a hypocrite. Which a lot of you are

I talk to many people who say things like "oh I have trauma but I don't have PTSD", but then when I talk to them a little more I realize that they most likely do, they just can't recognize it as such due to how lacking PTSD awareness is, even beyond the whole "it's not just a veteran's disorder" thing.

The main reason they think they don't have PTSD usually has to do with flashbacks and nightmares, either they have one but not the other or have neither. But here's the thing, those are only two symptoms out of the 23-odd recognized symptoms. Flashbacks and nightmares are two of the five symptoms under Criterion B (Intrusion), which you only need one of for a diagnosis. The other three symptoms are unwanted upsetting memories, emotional distress after being reminded of trauma and physical reactivity after being reminded of trauma (i.e. shaking, sweating, heart racing, feeling sick, nauseous or faint, etc). Therefore you can have both flashbacks and nightmares, one but not the other, or neither and still have PTSD.

In fact, a lot of the reasons people give me for why they don't think they have PTSD are literally a part of the diagnostic criteria.

"Oh, I can barely remember most parts of my trauma anyway." Criterion D (Negative Alterations in Cognition and Mood) includes inability to recall key features of the trauma.

"Oh but I don't get upset about my trauma that often because I avoid thinking of it or being around things that remind me of it most of the time." Criterion C (Avoidance) includes avoiding trauma-related thoughts or feelings and avoiding trauma-related external reminders, and you literally cannot get diagnosed if you don't have at least one of those two symptoms.

"Oh I just have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, but I don't have nightmares." Criterion E (Alterations in Arousal and Reactivity) includes difficulting sleeping outside of nightmares.

"But I didn't have many/any trauma symptoms until a long time after the trauma happened." There's literally an entire specification for that.

Really it just shows how despite being one of the most well-known mental illnesses, people really don't know much about PTSD. If you have trauma, I ask you to at least look at the criteria before you decide you don't have PTSD. Hell, even if you don't have trauma, look at the criteria anyway because there are so many symptoms in there that just are not talked about.

PTSD awareness is not just about flashbacks and nightmares.

There's a script that adds a "comment kudos" button next to the kudos button on Ao3, and it adds a random nice comment to a fic from a short list that you can add to or edit.

It's perfect for people that aren't good at commenting or don't know what they want to say.

*poke* @feedthefandomfest

Ooh, helpful for beginner commenters, uncertain commenters, OR commenters who are so fried from staying up all night reading a fic that the words won't come (not that I'm speaking from experience or anything).

Curious to test this one out... I especially like that you can take the provided base comment and modify it. Like sentence starters I give students who need a little lift to get off the ground.

Strongly encourage those who need it to use this as a learning tool! Edit and personalize the generated comment as a way to practice constructing comments independently 💛

I always hate whenever I start a new hobby and all of the instruction spends so much time assuring you that you don't really need to do any maths

While I'm like, I hate to be a walking stereotype, but I specifically chose this hobby for the maths

Why won't anybody let me have fun with maths now that I don't have to take exams about it???

Tabletop RPG mood vis a vis the low-maths games

Yeah, like, TTRPGs are a hobby with a lot of accessibility hurdles, but maths isn't treated as an accessibility problem, just a blanket bad

Like, you'll get people in one breath failing the "criticise D&D Beyond without slipping into ableism" challenge and then in the next being like "Daggerheart is bad because it has too much maths"

Meanwhile Daggerheart is actually bad because it’s a hodgepodge of ideas that just don’t work together very well.

Yeah, I think Daggerheart does suit the intended purpose of giving CR (and possibly other similar actual play series) a way to disengage from D&D (and by extension, Wizards and Hasbro), by building a game that's suited to exactly how they play

But if you're not playing with a larger group of players who are all good friends and/or are going to be on their best behaviour because they're literally on camera and who all want to lean heavily into the role-play side of the game, with an experienced GM with both good improv and table-wrangling skills?

Then yeah, it might not work

Hey btw, here's a piece of life advice:

If you know what you'd have to do to solve a problem, but you just don't want to do it, your main problem isn't the problem itself. Your problem is figuring out how to get yourself to do the solution.

If your problem is not eating enough vegetables, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make vegetables stop being yucky". If your problem is not getting enough exercise, the problem you should be solving is "how do I make exercise stop sucking ass". You're not supposed to just be doing things that are awful and suck all the time forever, you're supposed to figure out how to make it stop being so awful all the time.

I used to hate wearing sunscreen because it's sticky and slimy and disgusting and it feels bad and it smells bad, so I neglected to wear it even if I needed to. Then I found one that isn't like that, and doesn't smell and feel gross. Problem solved.

There is no correct way to live that's just supposed to suck and feel bad all the time. You're allowed to figure out how to make it not suck so bad.