There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a group of people trying their best to respectfully create a piece of inclusive media and watching the people it was supposed to be created for rip it to pieces.
We criticized that they only showed off white, thin, androgynous nbs. They responded by showing us PoC, and thick and thin body types.
Now people are pissed that the black nb is “beefy”.
We worried that they didn’t have a team broad enough to handle having PoC, trans, and nonbinary characters. They responded by making sure their team is diverse, containing all the demographics in game.
Now people are claiming the Devs are racist even though PoC are involved.
They literally can’t win. Every little thing is met with fire and brimstone…and the game isn’t even fucking out yet. We don’t even have the product to judge and people won’t stop for a fucking second with the grossly over-inflating the “racist intent” of the game devs, telling the Devs to never make games again, even going so far as to tell the Devs to kill themselves.
You cannot demand representation and then tear apart every project that might have something wrong with it. That kind of hostile environment will stop people from trying to make inclusive media.
No, you shouldn’t make inclusive media for Woke Points. But fuck if I can blame anyone for quitting and not even trying when the response a maybe-misstep is hundreds of abusive messages and suicide baiting.
This attitude creates an environment where people have to worry about being punished for making mistakes. And everyone makes mistakes. We have to give creators some breathing room. Cos this shit? It’s smothering. We’re never gunna get what we want, or what we need, if we can’t take a step back, let people fuck up, and guide them through how to improve. We can critique respectfully, we can be upset when things go wrong, we can be disappointed when people fuck up. We can’t hold them to an impossible standard where they aren’t allowed to fuck up or they’re automatically shit forever and always.
As a black, trans, queer, autistic content creator: Don’t fucking murder inclusive media before you can even fully consume it. Cos this makes me terrified to create my own content and put it out there. This says to me “fuck the stories you want to tell if they aren’t perfect in every way”. It tells me my voice doesn’t matter, and that my creativity and passion for inclusiveness is worthless.
This is not the environment we want to foster.
There is an old saying that I think applies very well here: Perfect is the enemy of good. If we demand perfection we will never get anything, because no media will ever be perfect. Office Types is not perfect, nor will it ever be perfect no matter how much reworking and fixing they do. And I would suggest that it is ultimately less beneficial to us to demand perfection even if it were achievable.
Here is why: Office types being perfect only matters, ultimately, if it is the only time we ever get NB inclusive media. Right now people are demanding that it be perfect representation for all these groups that normally get zero representation, and I really understand that. This happens every time inclusive media comes out: We all want our shot, so to speak, in case it is our only shot. And we all want our one shot to go off perfect, so we make very big demands.
The problem is this kind of demand focused one shot mentality kills any creative desire people have to experiment with art and diversity. Right now there are dozens, maybe hundreds of smaller and maybe even larger devs keeping an eye on office types and how all this goes. I know this because I am one of them. We are all watching, seeing how this plays out. We are not afraid of larger cultural backlash from conservative types, they were never going to be our target audience if we are considering including, say, a black nb character. What matters is how the more progressive audience takes it. And I can tell you right now the prospect is fucking grim.
Right now every dev considering being more inclusive in their design is taking a serious look if they can afford this type of backlash from within their target audience. Larger studios are thinking about the massive PR nightmare that they will have to navigate at the most important time in the advertisement of their game. Smaller studios are considering how one small mistake could tank their project and perhaps their entire company as a result. Super small, 1-3 person teams are looking at this, knowing that they will mess something up because they are not perfect and wondering if this just kills the prospect of even ever releasing their game and maybe kills their life long dream of being a content creator.
Making large steps towards inclusiveness is very difficult from a purely creative standpoint. It almost always involves stepping past your own point of view. Creators know their art is flawed. I have never met an actually decent content creator that thought their art was perfect. The first thing most artists will say when you ask to see their work is “It isn’t very good, but I hope you like it.” If you tell us we have to be held to perfection we will just never show you our work. Because we know it is not perfect. And with a project like a commercial video game that must be shown to the audience, well, we just wont make it. Because we know that failure is predetermined, and by definition professionals rely on their art for their lively hood.
So instead of what we want to do we will reach for something more attainable and achievable. Something where we can look back at what previous artists have done for guidance and for which there is a lot higher tolerance for mistakes.
This is, frankly, why we get so many white lesbians and gay dudes in progressive media. It is a manageable level of risk with precedence and enough saturation that you are not going to get the kind of destructive focus Office Types has. It’s maybe not what you wanted to do, but it is something.
Thank you. This is a fucking perfect expansion of what I’m trying to get across.
When a character doesn’t realize they’ve been, like, shot or whatever and they hand brushes against their side and comes away wet with blood, and they’re just staring at it like wtf is this and then their knees just totally give out on them and they sink down, maybe gasping a little as the reality finally hits them. That’s good stuff.
Yesterday, my friend Abigail Brewster went missing.
Abigail is 160cm tall, of Pacific Islander background, and has curly, black shoulder length hair. She was last seen riding her blue pushbike away from her house at Lurnea in South Western Sydney, NSW on Sunday the 25th of February, 2018.
As cliché as it sounds, Abi is one of the sweetest girls I know. I’ve known her since primary school and our families are close. Abigail always comes up to me on the playground to ask how I am and talk about school, even when I’m sour or downright awkward. She is so, so forgiving and it’s completely out of character for her to even consider running away. The Brewster family live in my area, which is known for a number of child predators and an otherwise relatively high crime rate, which is one of the many reasons I hope for her quick return home. Her family and friends miss her dearly and pray for her safety.
I know that many of you may not be able to help physically, but please reblog and repost this article anywhere possible, because chances are it will eventually reach someone who can.
Thanks for reading, and remember that every share counts.
who wants to hear the story about how a girl in my spanish 2 class fought back against the horrible spanish teacher and won
if this gets 2 notes i will tell it
one note is good enough for me.
so there’s this girl in my spanish 2 class. we’ll call her kayla.
kayla is a sophomore. she is funny and outspoken and a little crazy. the main thing to remember about kayla is that she will stand up for herself when needed. and that’s why something happened with her and my spanish teacher.
we’ll call my teacher miss irving. miss irving has been teaching spanish for 30 years. she’s a little forceful, hates technology, and hates when people don’t just listen to her without questioning it.
it began when kayla entered class late near the beginning of the school year. “sorry, ma’am,” she said to miss irving. “i was at the counselor’s.”
miss irving looked up at kayla and asked for a pass. kayla didn’t have one, but she said that miss irving would be able to call the counselor and the counselor would verify her visit. miss irving refused to do so and gave her detention on the spot. kayla started trying to justify her own actions, and she received yet another detention.
this marked the beginning of a long, long feud. every time kayla did something, miss irving would reprimand her for it. kayla put on chapstick or began to eat in class and miss irving began to yell. kayla read a paragraph slower than the rest of us and miss irving would snap at her. slowly, kayla began to get fed up.
the last straw for her was when she asked miss irving to go to the counselor during class, and it changed everything.
“miss irving? i have an appointment with the counselor down the hall. may i go?”
“obviously not,” my teacher snapped back. “you can’t leave in the middle of the class.”
“but i need to see her, i have an appointme-“
“i don’t care. you’re going to translate that paragraph-“
“ma’am, i already translated it-“
“well, then i’ll give you more work to do-“
“no.”
at that word, all of the heads in the clasroom turned. it’s an unspoken rule that you don’t say no to miss irving. but kayla had fire in her voice, and was now standing up and glaring at the teacher.
“excuse me?” miss irving responded, and kayla went off.
“no matter what i do, you get on to me about it. i have issues that i need to take care of that you refuse to understand. you’re a teacher. you’re supposed to care about us. it’s your job! listen to me carefully: i. have. mental. health. problems. and there are times i need to eat in class or i need to go to the counselor’s office because of it, so could you just get off of my ass about it and try to understand?”
miss irving turned beet red and sent her to the principal’s office.
what followed was a battle between the two. miss irving kept emailing kayla’s parents, but kayla’s parents took their daughter’s side. then my teacher emailed kayla’s other teachers and asked them to take her side, but the other teachers said they didn’t ever have problems with kayla.
kayla went to talk to the principal about the situation and told her what was going on. the principal talked to miss irving, and miss irving lost her teacher of the year award for that year. she also received a strike on her teaching record for refusing to respect a student’s mental health protocol. and kayla won.
miss irving still teaches our class and we still have kayla with us. now, miss irving doesn’t hide her hatred for kayla at all. she expresses it fully to her other classes. and most of those other classes hate her as well.
but my class and i love kayla. because kayla has a newfound power, and she doesn’t take it for granted. instead, she uses it to help us.
and this matters so much to me because, one day, she helped me.
i have generalized anxiety disorder. one of the methods i can use to calm myself down is by doodling, and doodling also helps me listen more closely to the teacher’s lesson. so i started doodling on the edges of my papers in spanish a lot, especially when we started having tests every class period and it became very anxiety-inducing for me.
miss irving started taking points off for every doodle i made. and i mean A LOT of points. i drew an eye in the corner of a worksheet once and i got an 80 instead of a 100. when i tried to explain that it was for my anxiety, she didn’t care. so now i had even more anxiety because i couldn’t reduce my anxiety.
one day, miss irving was lecturing and i was doodling, when she started to yell at me for it.
i can’t remember a lot about what happened because at that moment i went into a full blown panic attack. but what i do remember is kayla standing up and yelling at her.
“what are you doing? stop! she’s obviously having a panic attack!”
she came over to my desk and led me through breathing exercises. calmed me down. told me my doodle of half a face looked really good, asked me how long i’d been taking art and about my disorder. the entire class was silent, watching, and miss irving was fuming.
when i was calm enough to, i thanked kayla, and she squeezed my hand in a silent alliance.
then miss irving walked back to the whiteboard and never said anything about my doodles again.
the moral of the story? just because a teacher or principal or parent is older than you doesn’t mean they deserve to be obeyed no matter what. if what your “elders” say to you or do to you belittles you, tears you down, or keeps you from being able to get help or be a better person, they are not doing their job, and you can stand up for yourself and others.
don’t be afraid to question the authority just because they say they shouldn’t be questioned.
Hey, unpopular opinion, apparently. But people don’t just “have pain for no reason” doctors say this all the time (especially to women and chronically ill people) and the truth is, Thats literally not possible. Even if your pains are psychosomatic (a word I hesitate to even use because of the way its used so often) there is a reason you are having those pains whether its mental illness, abuse, etc. If your doctor consistently tells you that “well some people just have pain for no reason” get a new doctor. That’s a doctor who is not going to give a shit what your actual symptoms or experiences are.
I just wanna add to clarify the psychosomatic thing.
That word DOES NOT MEAN you’re making it up. It doesn’t mean you’re imagining the symptom. What it means is that the symptom ISN’T DIRECTLY CAUSED BY ANY OF THE THINGS THAT WOULD NORMALLY CAUSE IT.
I fought to get a PCOS diagnosis for 2 and a half years. For the ENTIRE time I was fighting, I was dealing with 3 cysts that were not going away by themselves and eventually required surgery to remove. At one point close to the end of the battle, I suddenly went blind. I was visiting my parents and was standing on the veranda looking out over the tree we had planted in memory of my dog and suddenly I got one of the shooting pains that I was quite frankly used to at that point and my vision started to go dark. It was like the sun was setting while being completely hidden behind storm clouds but it was 2pm in the middle of Summer on a clear day. Within about 30 seconds I couldn’t see ANYTHING. I was 27 years old and I was screaming for my mother.
My mum raced me to her doctor (he was a 15 minute drive away as opposed to 45 minutes to the nearest hospital) and he quickly worked out that there was nothing wrong with my eyes and what had happened was totally unrelated to them. Then he said it was psychosomatic and I freaked out, yelling that I was NOT making this up and I definitely wasn’t imagining it. Very quickly he calmed me down and said he believed me and I had misunderstood. He explained that whatever was going on with my abdominal pains (he suggested PCOS which I hadn’t even heard of at that point) had been ignored for so long that my body was starting to do things other than the normal pain response to try to draw my attention to the problem. My sight going was my body basically jumping around in front of me going “HEY ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME HELLLOOOOOOO??????”
He gave me some prescription strength painkillers and my sight started to come back as soon as they started to kick in. About 45 minutes after it started I could see well enough to walk around without help and within a day and a half I was back to normal. On top of that I finally had a scan booked to figure out what the hell was causing all the pain.
Psychosomatic symptoms are NOT imagined or fabricated or happening for “no reason”. Experiencing them DOES NOT make you a liar. It makes you someone who has been battling with something serious for so long that your own body has started to get impatient with you.
An aspect of gun control that other countries practice that doesn’t come up in America a lot is ammunition control. In Japan, if you’re one of the privileged few allowed to own a gun (and only shotguns and rifles are legal), you have to return all your spent cartridges if you want to buy any more. In Israel, after you’ve purchased the one gun you’re allowed to own, you’re given a box of 50 bullets, and that’s it. You can’t buy any ammunition anywhere, that’s your lifetime supply, although a shooting range will provide you with more, but only for use at that range. Even in countries with more relaxed gun control laws, like Switzerland and Serbia, buying ammunition requires all the same paperwork as buying a gun (mental health records, criminal records, etc) and you can only buy ammo for the gun you own. Gun control advocates in the US should consider placing an emphasis on ammunition control in addition to everything else.
don’t just leave the gen z kids to clean up this mess. i know we’re all tired, i know we’re all exhausted, but we cannot sit back on our nihilistic laurels and leave them to do this alone.
it’s time to stand back up. it’s time to get back in there. it’s time to fight that fight, and fight it harder.
it’s time to be the adults we wish had stood with us.
hussie is a stone-cold killer; todd howard insists on making his darlings Essential, therefore he may be similarly reluctant to go all-out when fighting you
because of todd howard’s clipping issues and poorly-balanced stealth mechanics, his attack patterns and movements are a lot less predictable; hussie will actively telegraph half his attacks, and will spend enough time celebrating each genuinely unexpected one that you can easily regain your footing
Hussie has nothing to lose, Todd has everything to lose
Just say the word ‘Obsidian’ to Todd Howard and you can distract him long enough to get the upper hand.
Just show Hussie a drawing of a horse and he’ll stop fighting
and first off, I’m 5'7, 5'11 in dance shoes, 170 pounds, broad shoulders and big hips and not small in any dimension. For a ballroom dancer, this means a lot of time spent learning the men’s parts. Especially in lifts.
I’ve had years now of guys kinda just going “lol heck naw” when told to lift me. I don’t admit this part much, but it makes me want to sink into the ground and die when every other girl can be lifted, but I’m just too big.
So this guy, smaller than me and really cute, shows up at auditions and I see this girl across the room getting tossed about like the beautiful pixie she is, and apparently I looked a little wistful because this boy asked me if I liked lifts.
“Oh. I… Uh… I’ve never really done the girls part. I’m a little big, haha…” (laugh it off, as usual.)
He looked me dead in the eye and then picked me up like a movie princess, bounced me in the air a few times, and set me down effortlessly while telling me whoever refused to lift me before was just being a lazy wimp.
I seriously doubt this boy will ever really get how much that meant to me. But, holy cow. Some faith in humanity just got restored.
Therapists aren’t people who you “pay to pretend to care about you”, therapists are people you pay to teach you how to care for yourself
Me: I am violently depressed.
Therapist: Oh! Sounds like you need to do YOGA! That will help!
Me: *signs up for yoga*
Me: *is violently depressed in Downward Dog*
Me: I hate myself and only see my flaws
Therapist: ok lets refocus on things you like about yourself. This week i want you to try and journal about good things you’ve for yourself and others.
Me: *does the homework* yeah but i still hate myself but feel bad cause i shouldn’t
Therapist: feeling like you shouldn’t hate yourself is a step in the right direction. Mental health is complex and isn’t something that will ~magically~ improve. We have a lot of hard work head of us but I’ll be here to help you.
TL;DR stop perpetuating the idea that therapy is unhelpful because the results are not instantaneous.
FUCKING THIS.
As a psychologist the amount of bullshit on this site, the amount of fucking dangerous bullshit on this site about how therapy is neurotypical bullshit and isn’t worth it and how exercise is pointless and good diet is pointless and that therapy homework is pointless DRIVES ME UP THE FUCKING WALL
Exercise is fucking important. good diet is fucking important therapy is fucking important. WHY???
because pills alone don’t help. they improve the hormonal imbalance (as does exercise and good diet which ALSO are a form of very real self care as your physical being is sorta connected to your mental one but go fucking figure right?), but guess what? the suicidal thoughts, the thoughts of harm, the thoughts of hating yourself, they’re still there. suicides actually increase when medicated. why? because suddenly you have the energy to fulfill thoughts of harming yourself. which is why you NEED therapy alongside pills.
it has taken you years, or decades to create your maladaptive thought processes and behaviours. that shit doesn’t disappear overnight. core beliefs don’t change overnight. these are the very fucking core of your personhood, your being and personality. THAT TAKES TIME TO CHANGE
STOP ACTING LIKE THERAPY IS SHIT IF IT DOESNT WORK IN TWO SESSIONS
Getting a new follower and finding out they’re a terf is kind of like getting a new follower only to realize it’s a porn bot, but a thousand times worse.
Porn bots don’t give a fuck about my content or who I am, but this terf actually scrolled through my blog and thought, “yes, this is a person whose opinions I’d like to see more of.” It makes me feel super fucking gross and that I’m probably not doing enough to support trans women.
So just for the record: trans women are women. The existence of trans women does not detract from my womanhood or the womanhood of anybody else. This is not a blog for people who believe otherwise. Take your transphobia elsewhere.
And, to my followers: please help me stay accountable. If I reblog something that marginalizes trans people (or sex workers or POC or anyone else), please let me know so that I can make amends.
PSA if you’re a terf and you follow me please just … don’t. Thanks.
Some people can lift 200 pounds. But if they carried it everywhere they went for an entire day without ever putting it down, they’d severely tear their muscles and cause permanent damage to their body.
Some people can enter a 140° car in the summer to get something out of the car. But if they stayed in the car, they’d die from the heat.
Some people can hold their breath underwater for 30 seconds. But if they tried to go scuba diving without the necessary gear, they’d drown.
Clearly, someone doing something for a short period of time does not automatically mean that they can do it indefinitely with no problem.
So why do people assume that if someone can walk for a few seconds, they don’t need a wheelchair?
Clearly, someone doing something for a short period of time does not automatically mean that they can do it indefinitely with no problem.
