#NO ABLEISTS ALLOWED ON THIS POST

[disabeetled]

Actual goddamn cluster B positivity post

since i rarley see Cluster B positivity beyond "ohhh theyre still people! they arent scary!" i decided id make one

hey cluster b folks! among folks i know who have i have observed...

your passion to get help, not just for you but for others suffering

your ability to be creative and make the coolest goddamn things

your ability to bring your heart to any situation

your ability to look at situations obectivley

your ability to ask for help

your fear that you will hurt you or others, and the very real upset that causes

your ability to be compassionate, a quality science says you lack

your ability to laugh, smile, joke around

your ability to make others laugh and smile

take what positive statement applies to you, leave the rest. i wish you all well. im sorry that society as a whole doesnt "get" you. you and your struggles are real. even if youre just doing DIY healing and not seeint a professionial because you are afraid, or due to any other situation, youre valid. please know i love you (the cluster b person reading this) sm

also anyone who comments shit abt Narcissistic Abuse or how people w ASPD are scary or WHATEVER OTHER ABELIST BS will be immediatley blocked. really and truly: the abelist trying to comment's opinons do. not. matter. i dont care if youve been hurt! my goddamn groomer had BPD but *there is good in ppl*

[starheirxero]

Oh my GOD y'all I just saw a post and it made me feel vindicated about something I totally forgot bc it was like. "People act like doing a lot of things (drinking, partying, having sex, etc) while having schizophrenia is a bad thing" and like. Goddd I don't know if y'all remember this, but yk how Sun having schizophrenia was a topic for a while bc of Sun's hallucinations?

Do you guys also remember like. that someone made a post saying that Sun should not have been drinking wine at all because of his schizophrenia??? And how they were very firm that Sun was making his disorder, like, worse? by drinking???

Cuz. I remember thinking it was so weird to assume that, despite Sun insisting "no, I haven't even been drinking enough to get proper drunk, it's not a problem and I'll even cut back because people are getting worried," they were so sure that Sun was just totally throwing himself down the drain bc schizophrenic people Shouldn't be drinking at all. apparently.

And I just. It's so weird remembering that bc wow, that really Was a kinda trashy take huh? Like maybe for some folks, if they drink, their hallucinations or their delusions will get worse yk? But. That's not a guarantee. A schizophrenic person knowing their boundaries with alcohol shouldn't still be seen as this deeply tragic thing. Like wow, you're not really viewing schizophrenic people as People, are you 🤨

[mallach]

i finished the ruination novel! crazy to get back into the part of league i hold arguably the most obsession over, after a good couple of years avoiding it. no more associative ooze! my interests are mine again, wahoo!

anyways, while the dialogue was very on-the-nose and (not sure how else to put this) reassuring the audience that the main cast doesn't hold any bigoted flaws common of the IRL time period they're vaguely aping, it worked out pretty well!

kalistas stiffness makes perfect sense for the type of lady shes meant to be, and everyone refusing to empathize with thresh is an interesting highlight of their morality in and of itself. probably just a symptom of slightly lacking character complexity, but i don't particularly care; its fun to overanalyze.

(i wasn't expecting ryze[!?] to be an important character, either. forget he exists, honestly)

also. viego. god... viego.

[writterings]

procastinating at work but here's my philosophy for today: it's okay to hate a behavior in someone else but also understand that this behavior does not make them a bad person. like i HATE when i'm venting or talking about a serious problem i have and then the person i'm talking to starts trying to relate by talking about a similar experience they've had. like absolutely hate it. make me feel like the focus is being taken off me and it genuinely is in some ways, regardless of your intent. yeah, i understand that's your way of trying to comfort me -- but that's not the way i need or want to be comforted, and that's what matters in a situation where i'm coming to you to be helped.

and that's okay! like. no one is in the wrong here unless i have explicitly asked you to support me in a different way and you're intentionally refusing, or if i lash out at you when i could just disengage. it just means you're not a person i should go to for help when talking about my problems. we can still be friends, you and i can probably support each other in different ways, but we're just incompatible in this regard. and that's like....okay. it's okay to be incompatible with people.

[lokestar]

new year, same bullshit

y'all really can't keep your ableism out of your fandom analysis, can you? you just have to drag personality disorders into this.

what i'm going to say applies both to the IRL treatment of people with personality disorders and fandom analysis, because the former affects the latter in such a blatant way that it's literally a miracle that people with said disorders are still in fandoms in general considering how hostile and vile the others are towards them.

newsflash, people aren't defined by their disorder(s), because they're PEOPLE and people have FACETS. a personality disorder affects said facets, but that's not all there is to it.

their disorder(s) also don't make them inherently evil, because 1) that's literally not how it works?? and inherent evil is not a thing?? and 2) PEOPLE HAVE FREE WILL. they have a disorder that affects them and can affect other people, but they're still free to choose what they do. they're people, not robots following a code.

personality disorders are not inherently evil either. like all defense mechanisms born of trauma (because they ARE born of trauma most of the time, but y'all will never admit that, cowards that you are), they can spiral out of control and become maladaptive. they can also get better with time, with the right support, in the right environment, however that looks for the person with the disorder. just like with anything related to trauma, it depends on many factors, both internal and external. acting like that is a moral fault, or inherent flaw of some sort that is to be eliminated and shunned is ableist and fascist behaviour (that's literally the concept of degeneracy, have you learned nothing??).

just because you can't comprehend that people can be affected by trauma beyond depression and ptsd doesn't mean you get to demonise them.

it doesn't mean that you get to equate them with being evil, murderous, sadistic, and similar terms.

that includes all personality disorders, by the way. all ten of them. not just the one you sometimes tolerate but are still quick to throw under the bus when it serves you. you know the one.

so do us all a favour and keep our names out of your mouths and your writing.

to those with a personality disorder who engage in this shit as well. do better. the non-disordered won't like you more because you chose to deride us with them. they'll put you against the wall with the rest of us in the end.

[zapsoda]

oh theres people who would send death threats if they knew someone liked a character huh

[jjammy-skies]

I will not live past 40.

(A poem, by me, about accepting being sick.)

I will not live past 40.

I say these words with love

Cause I know you need it.

You need to feel reassured

My mortality isn't a vendetta.

Because I love you,

And I love your attempts

To try to make me feel better.

I hate hurting your feelings when I say

"There is no getting better"

Because you try and try to find

A solution; A goal; Something;

Anything for me to look forward to.

And I say them with grief

Knowing I will spend years

Helping others grieve a body not yet dead,

Because I have already laid it to rest;

In that coffin of a hospital bed,

In the spaces between my books,

And figures and toys,

That all take up space on my shelves;

What I can piece together of my personality,

So I can lay myself bare before you.

I say this with malice

As you try to convince yourself

you played no part in the rot consuming me.

Like there was an attempt to save

This body built of your mistakes.

You refuse to look me in the eye.

It’s enough of an admittance

for me to feel powerful between us for once.

Using my condition as a weapon

Against those who claimed weaponization

When I could not even move.

I say them with understanding

As I understand you don't know yet

What it means to die.

I hate to be the first;

I don't want to be the reason

You must learn about death.

I don't want to feel

Your small hands in mine as I try to explain

What it will mean when I'm gone.

Milestones and birthdays and graduations,

All missed and forgotten.

Anniversaries spent recounting your childhood,

You can't seem to remember a time I wasn't sick.

I say it with acceptance;

As I know who I am,

And all I've loved,

And all I'll leave behind.

In that grief and malice and love;

In those shelves and toys and little hands in mine.

I accept this rotting corpse.

I will show it love.

I will show it grief.

I will show it malice.

I will show it understanding.

I will show it acceptance.

[forget-me-not-automaton]

Friendly daily reminder that cringe culture can exist without the word itself ever being uttered by the perpetrator 😇

[thetragicallynerdy]

Reminder from someone with actual literal brain damage from a brain injury to stop fucking using "brain damage" and "brain injuries" as a means of describing someone whose opinions you don't like or deem as stupid.

It's ableist and offensive as fuck, and for some reason a lot of leftist people think it's okay to use. I've seen posts replying to right wing racists calling them "brain damaged if you believe this" and "do you have a brain injury? do you not understand X?". Just now I saw a beautiful post about fat people throughout history that was absolutely ruined by opening with "How do we break it to boomers with actual brain damage and nostalgic brainrot..." before continuing to say that fat people existed throughout history.

Brain damage does not make you racist. A brain injury doesn't make you ignorant, or fatphobic, or unaware of history and politics. Stop fucking using my disability as a catch all to describe people you think are shitty. Y'all use it like it's a replacement for how people used to use the R-slur, which shows you learned absolutely nothing about why the R-slur was wrong to use and decided to throw in other disabilities instead. Fuck off and stop doing it.

(And don't do it with other disabilities either, because I know y'all do.)

I know a lot of people with brain injuries. They're smart, and funny, and compassionate. They learn about the world and care about social issues and wish they could go to protests if their disability won't allow them to. Are there right wing people with brain injuries? Sure, absolutely. But they are not right wing because they have a brain injury, and using any disability as an insult is still fucking ableist.

Tldr - stop using brain damage and brain injury as an insult. It's ableist and incredibly offensive.

Love, your local brain injured/brain damaged pal

[lesenbyan]

actually deleting a rb from last night bc the more i think about it the more I don't think I agree with OP

[neon-sunsets]

okay. let’s talk about jayce’s monologue, since people are calling him ableist.

for context, not that it matters: I have a significant mobility disability and a progressive chronic illness which, even when managed, can kill me. I’m not in exactly the same boat as viktor since my disease isn’t terminal, but I’ve had very similar experiences to him. this shapes my perception of him and of this storyline.

this is the monologue:

You’ve always wanted to cure what you thought were weaknesses. Your leg. Your disease. But you were never broken, Viktor. There’s beauty in imperfections. They made you what you are. An inseparable piece of everything I admired about you.

first, it should be noted that “what you thought were weaknesses” is not the same thing as “things that are good.” jayce is not saying that viktor’s disease is or was a good thing. what he is saying is that he admired (loved) everything that viktor was, which included the things viktor thought made him a burden or a problem. remember also that jayce almost doomed the world because he couldn’t let viktor die; he would never imply that viktor dying was a good thing.

the next question, then, is whether viktor sees himself as a burden or not. I think it’s implied that he does — it’s certainly not unrealistic to think that viktor might have come to view himself, or at least his disease, as a burden and a flaw. disabled people often view ourselves that way either because of internalized ableism or because society constantly tells us that we’re burdens and that our bodies are abnormal and wrong. viktor displays behaviors that indicate internalized ableism, including hiding the fact that he’s coughing up blood from jayce the first few times it happens and generally refusing to be in the public eye in a way that is self-effacing and not just him being private. yes, he says in act 1 of season 1 that he believes in himself, but he does also call himself a cripple in a dismissive way in that same scene; also, he doesn’t have the disease at that point. arguably the entire scene where he runs despite clearly being in pain is an example of his internalized ableism, but that’s another post.

more evidence for viktor’s perception of himself being negative is that he clearly has a sense that he doesn’t deserve to be loved (specifically by jayce, but maybe also in general). we see this when he asks jayce why he’s still persisting in saving him. we see this with his generally self-effacing behavior. we see this with the fact that in all of season 1, the only person he allows to touch him is jayce, and that the only person he actively touches in the entire show is jayce. viktor is reserved and not good with his emotions, which is a huge part of his arc this season. all of these behaviors point to him having a negative self-perception.

I think it’s important to really consider how jayce perceives viktor and how viktor perceives himself. I don’t think this season handled everything perfectly, but I think they handled this very well. viktor has been written with a fullness and complexity that most disabled characters don’t ever get. him being morally grey doesn’t mean he’s “problematic” or “bad representation.” obviously I’m only one disabled person, but I really love jayce and viktor and I think their story is beautifully written.

[lycanm00n]

Ɐ + N/AHAA - Together in Difference

Ɐ (derived from the mathematical symbol meaning 'for all', and pronounced as 'Turned A') is a symbol/term for any and all within our overlapping communities.

We (those involved in coining this term) realised there was no actual term that encompasses all identities, seeing as not everyone identifies with alterhuman or nonhuman.

This symbol is for:

Anyone and everyone who doesn't identify with the traditional definition of humanity. This involves alterhumanity, nonhumans, therians, human and nonhuman fictionkin, otherkin, endels, holotheres, clinical zoanthropes, linkers, otherhearted, and ANYONE else who has an addition to their humanity, isn't human in the slightest, and everything in between.

Anyone who is ready to celebrate the overlaps between our communities, and allow us to experience a wider community without trying to put everyone under a human or not human label.

The celebration of being different! To laugh in the face of 'cringe' and embrace your unique experience of life.

We're also, in this post, coining the acronyms N/AHAA and/or ASAA! These are Non/Alterhuman and Adjacents, and Alterspecies and Adjacents! They both mean exactly the same as Ɐ, but are an easier to pronounce alternative.

The symbols in the pictures are completely free to use! They also don't have to be pawprints - we're working on alternate versions for different species.

Involved in coining:

@lycanm00n (me!), @koirankusema666, @canis-dentem, @howlinginsolitude and @devotional-devouring !

This symbol and term is NOT for any zoophiles, zootherians, MAPs, pedos, etc. Sanists, anti physical nonhumanity, ableists, and anyone fitting basic DNI is also not welcome to use this. This is a queer and neurodivergent friendly label.

[crippled-peeper]

you’re allowed to feel like your “mental disabilities” are “less valid” and taken “less seriously”. you are allowed to discuss this and even make your own posts about it. you are allowed to express your feelings and experiences about your own disabilities.

what you are NOT going to do is go up to random physically disabled people you DON’T KNOW and instantly make it our problem to fix personally. you are not going to blame us for your own internalized ableism and insecurity that has nothing to do with us just because you saw a mobility aid and decided it was time to go off. you are not going to assign us blame for shit somebody ELSE said to you. especially when you don’t even give enough of a shit about is to learn our fucking names before launching into ableist rants at us

[anim-ttrpgs]

Disabilities and Monsters in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy

Through a discussion with @vixensdungeon (great blog to follow for TTRPG stuff by the way) it came to our attention that some of our more jokey and memey posts and reblogs may have given some people a slightly skewed idea of what Eureka, and particularly the “urban fantasy” parts of Eureka are really about, and its tone. We like to joke around about it, and the “cute monster girl” angle really sells on tumblr.com, but actually playing these types of characters in Eureka is not exactly a power fantasy. They eat people, and often eat them alive. If you find that cute, funny, and/or sexy, well, Eureka is still probably just the game you’re looking for, but that isn’t the main thing. Eureka uses the fact that many of these characters necessarily subsist off the flesh and/or blood of other people as a loose metaphor for mental and physical disability.

Imagine you need something that everyone else has but you don’t. If you don’t have it regularly, you will literally start to waste away. The only way to obtain this thing is to take it from another human being, who also needs it, and others will deny that you need it, and abhor that you need it. It’s not uncommon for people, even “progressive” people, to say something along the lines of “they need to all be killed for the good of society,” even if they don’t realize that’s what they’re saying. You didn’t choose to be this way. This is the reality of monsters in Eureka, and many people in real life.

And then even when you have that thing you need, for now, there are many facets of society that you just can’t participate in because your condition makes them impossible for you, like if a vampire wanted to take a run on a sunny beach. Monsters in Eureka will be challenged by their supernatural weaknesses at every turn, while hiding their abhorrent needs from society and even the rest of the party, and asking why they have to be this way. Finding clever ways to get around and circumvent their weaknesses is a core part of the gameplay of monster PCs in Eureka. Imagine you and your friends want or need to go somewhere, but that somewhere is on the other side of a river. The river has a well maintained bridge. For everyone else but you, a vampire who can’t cross running water, getting across the river is the simplest task in the world, so much so that no one would even consider it a task, but for you, it’s a challenge, and for gameplay, it’s a puzzle.

It isn’t totally hopeless, as many of the jokes and fan comics show (those aren’t just memes, they’re only showing one side of the coin and not the other). Monsters who accept, or even embrace and celebrate their monsterhood, can and do exist canonically, alongside monsters who can’t bear to do what they do. In some cases, these may be the same monster on different days.

I’m going to conclude this post by posting two excerpts from the rules text itself.

Disabilities are Disabling

So why don’t disabilities grant any advantage? It isn’t too uncommon for RPGs to have some sort of “flaw” system, where during character creation you can give your character “flaws” or some kind of penalty, and usually get that balanced out by being able to add extra bonuses elsewhere. Sometimes, these “flaws” may take the form of disabilities.

One particular high-profile indie TTRPG takes this beyond just character creation, and makes it so that if a PC receives a “scar” in combat that reduces their physical stats, their mental stats automatically go up by an equivalent amount, and proudly imply that to make any mechanic which results in permanent consequences or makes disabilities disabling is ableist. We think you can probably tell what we think of that from this sentence alone, and we don’t need to elaborate too much. 

We do think, in the abstract, “flaw” systems in character creation are not a bad idea. They allow for more varied options during character creation, while preserving game balance between the PCs.

But in real life, people aren’t balanced. The events that left me injured and disabled didn’t make me smarter or better in any way - if anything, they probably made me dumber, considering the severity of the concussion! Some things happened to me, and now I’m worse. There’s no upside, I just have to keep going, trying harder with a less efficient body, and relying more on others in situations where I am no longer capable of perfect self-sufficiency.

A disabled person is, by definition, less able to perform important daily tasks than the average person. To deny this is to deny that they need help, and to deny that they need help is to enable a refusal to help. This is the perspective from which Eureka’s Grievous Wounds mechanic was written.

When a character is reduced to 1 HP (which by design can result from a single hit from many weapons) they may become incapacitated or they may take a Grievous Wound, which is a permanent injury with no stat benefits. Grievous Wounds don’t have to result from combat, they can also be given to a character during character creation, but not as a trade-off for an extra bonus.

“But then doesn’t my character just have worse stats than the rest of the party?” Yes, haven’t you been reading this? There is no benefit, except for the opportunity to play a disabled character in an TTRPG. This character will probably have to be more reliant on the rest of the party to get by in various situations. Is that a bad thing?

Monsters Essay

All investigators in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy are regular people. They can also be a monster, like a blood-sucking vampire or a broom-riding witch. Importantly, this works because despite their unique nature, monsters are still regular people. You can read more about this in Chapter 8, but the setting of Eureka does not have a conspiracy or “masquerade” hiding supernatural people from normal society. Though they are still largely unknown to modern science, they exist within normal society - and a lot of them eat people.

The default assumption in RPGs has been that monsters are just evil by nature, doing evil for evil’s sake. RPGs that seek to subvert this expectation often instead make monsters misunderstood and wrongfully persecuted, but harmless. Eureka takes a wholly different approach.

There are five playable types of monsters in the rulebook right now, and it’ll be seven if we hit all the stretch goals, but for simplicity’s sake this discussion of themes will just focus on the vampire. Despite them applying in different ways, the same overall themes apply to nearly every monster, so if you get the themes for the vampire, you’ll get the gist of what Eureka is doing with its playable monsters in general.

Mundane investigators have to keep themselves going by eating food and sleeping (see p.XX “Composure” for more information). Well, vampires can’t operate the same way. They don’t sleep, and normal food might be tasty for them as long as it isn’t too heavily seasoned, but it doesn’t do anything for them nutritionally. Their main way to keep themselves functioning is fresh living human blood, straight from the source. To do what mundane PCs do normally by just eating and sleeping, vampires have to take from another, whether either of them are happy with this arrangement or not. They do not, of course, literally have to, and a player is not forced to make their vampire PC drink blood, just like you reading this in real life don’t literally have to eat food. You do eat food if you want to live in any degree of comfort or happiness, and vampires do drink blood or they eventually become unable to effectively do anything.

This is numerically, mechanically incentivized and not simply a rule that says something like “this character is a vampire and therefore they must drink blood once every session,” to demonstrate that the circumstances a person faces drive their behavior. In America, there is a tendency to think of criminality and harm done to others as resulting from intrinsic evil, but people do not just wake up one day and decide “I think I’ll go down the criminal life path.” Their circumstances have barred them from the opportunities that would have given them other options. 

People need food; food costs money; money requires work; work requires getting hired; but getting hired requires a nearby job opening, an education, an impressive resume, nice clothes, charisma, consistent transportation, and so on. For people without other options, crime becomes the only method left to meet their basic needs. Would you rather take what you need from other people, or go without what you need? There are people who don’t have the luxury of a third option. Failure to meet the needs of even a small number of people in a society has high potential to harm the entire society, not just those individuals whose needs are unmet.

As their basic need for blood becomes more and more difficult to ignore, a vampire is going to encounter much the same dilemma. There is really no “legal” or “harmless” way for them to get their needs met, even if they do have resources. Society just isn’t set up for that. And no, your kink is not the solution to this, trying to suggest every vampire just find willing participants who are turned on by vampires or being bitten is suggesting sex work. It’s one step removed from telling a girl she should just get an OnlyFans the minute she turns 18, or that women should just marry a rich man and be a housewife that gets their needs taken care of in exchange for sex and housekeeping. Being forced into such a dynamic isn’t ethical or harmless for the vampire or for their “clients.”

“Oh well, then the vampire should just eat bad people!” You mean those same bad people we just described above? Who gets to decide which people are “bad people?” Who gets to decide that the punishment is assault or death?

Playable monsters in Eureka are dangerous, harmful people. They were set up to be.

Society not being set up in a way that allows monsters to make ethical choices brings us to the next theme: monstrousness as disability, and monsters as “takers.”

Vampires have to take from others a valuable resource that everyone needs to live, and the extraction of which is excruciatingly painful and debilitating. No one knows what happens to blood after a vampire drinks it, it’s just gone. Vampires are open wounds through which blood pours out of the universe.

This is a special need, something they have to take but cannot give back. Their special needs make them literally a drain on society and the people around them. In the modern world, there is a tendency to feel that people must justify their right to life, that they must pay for the privilege of existing in society. This leads people to consider “takers” (people who take much more than they give back, such as disabled people) as something that needs to be pruned away for the betterment of everyone else. Even many so-called “progressives,” while they claim not to agree with pruning “useless eaters,” still hold the unexamined belief that people must justify their existence. To reconcile these two incompatible ideas, they instead simply deny that disabled people take more resources than most people, and are capable of giving back less. This sentiment is perfectly illustrated by the aforementioned game’s insistence that disabilities are never a net reduction of a character’s stats.

Vampires and other playable monsters are inarguably “takers,” but in positioning them as protagonists right alongside mundane protagonists, Eureka puts you in their shoes, and forces you to acknowledge their inner lives and reckon with their circumstances. You have to acknowledge two things: first, that they are dangerous, that they are harmful, that they take more than they give - and second, that they are people. Because they are people, Eureka asserts that they have inherent value, a right to exist, and a right to do what they need to do to exist. (We also acknowledge that their potential victims have a right to do what they need to do to exist and defend themselves, but that is a separate discussion.)

One final point to touch on is mental illness. Mental illness is a disability, one pretty comparable to physical disability in a lot of ways, so all of the above points can apply to this metaphor as well, but there are a few unique comparisons to make here.

It’s not the most efficient, but there are a couple of loopholes deliberately left in the rules that allow vampires to sometimes sporadically restore Composure (and thus their ability to function) without drinking blood. Eureka! moments and Comfort checks from fellow investigators can restore Composure.

When writing the rules, we came to a dilemma where we weren’t sure if it was thematically appropriate for monsters to be able to regain Composure in these ways (since it could lessen their reliance on causing harm), but ultimately we decided that yes, they can.

People with mental illnesses may have the potential to be harmful and dangerous, but all the information we have access to has shown that mentally ill people with robust support structures and control over their own lives are much less likely to enact harm, whether through physical violence, relational violence, or violence against the self. This is why we kept that rule in for playable monsters. Being able to accomplish their goals, and having friends who are there for them, makes that person less likely to cause unnecessary harm.

Vampires are especially great for demonstrating this because they’re immortal and they always come back when “killed.” They can’t be exterminated, they aren’t going away, there will always be problem people in society, no matter how utopian or “progressive.” Vampires are a never-ending curse, who will always be a problem whether they like it or not. The question is how you will grapple with their inevitable presence in society and how you will treat them, not how you will get rid of them.

Eureka is as much a study of the characters themselves as it is the mystery being solved by the characters. It is a game about harsh realities, but it is ultimately compassionate. It argues through its own gameplay that yes, people do have circumstances which drive their behavior, people do have special needs that are beyond their ability to reciprocate, many of those people do cause harm or inconvenience to others, and all of them are still valuable. 

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but you can still check out the public beta on itch.io to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, etc.!

You can also follow updates on our Kickstarter page where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more, you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy earlier, plus extra content such as adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[teaboot]

Hey! Bamboo toilet paper person here. Your response was very thoughtful-- I want to apologize for placing the onus of climate issues on individual action, haha. I work at a zoo that bills itself as being very heavy on conservation messaging, but as a non-partisan organization we're obviously not allowed to talk about the evils of capitalism. This means that in our programming, we MUST place the responsibility of stopping climate change on individual guests, encouraging them to make more environmentally conscientious decisions like buying reef safe sunscreen or reducing carbon emissions by driving less. The most "political" we're allowed to get is telling people to stay educated and vote in favor of laws that will have a positive impact on the environment. I think I've been drinking the Zoolaid a little TOO much recently, because you're totally right-- the vast, VAST majority of damage to the environment is caused by major corporations, not random people working around their own unique needs. It was also low key a little ableist of me to take issue with that ngl.

Obviously no obligation to respond to this publicly (though it's fine if you choose to do so), but I did want to thank you for your response and mention that it did get through the nonprofit mission-based-organization propaganda living rent free in my head haha. Cheers!

Hey, you work at a zoo? That is SO cool, aadsdggjjg@!!!

And hey, no worries, you totally had a good point about endless waste and trying to counter it where possible- Just from personal experience involved in the barest edge of the fashion industry, I really, really, REALLY hate the idea that, like... people can't access simple shit like plastic straws, even if they're the best, most practical, least-harmful option for them.... because a 12 year old made up some random number for a school project about plastic waste

Where, as a zoo person, I imagine you're already aware that the average sea turtle is WILDLY more likely to die from abandoned plastic fishing nets or ocean-dump grocery bags than accidentally get a straw inside it

So here we are, using paper straws!- which may be an improvement, or may not, I don't have that data, and construction emissions are their own thing- BUT WE STILL HAVE OCEANS FULL OF ABANDONED NETS

WHICH ARE OBJECTIVELY WORSE, but MUCH harder to get rid of, and as the average person doesn't USE fishing nets, it'd much harder to market as a "You, not me" sort of issue.

Cleaning up fishing nets isn't trendy. It isn't sexy. You can't troubleshoot a cute little trendy solution for it that you can market to upwardly-mobile tweens.

But a reusable water bottle? A cute canvas tote? A metal straw? That's a solution you can buy and feel good about.

Never mind that you need to use a single cotton reusable bag somewhere like a million times before the cost of its construction counterbalances the cost of a single grocery bag every time you shop- which, hey, some of us were reusing as trash liners for their wastebaskets, or bundle bags for donating clothes, or lining for our leaky winter boots!

If a better option is available, I'll take it. But as ZERO HARM is next to impossible at this time, I personally am gonna aim for MINIMAL HARM as long as I can.

...sorry, I didn't mean to ramble off again.

But hey, if your nonprofit is doing good things, feel free to shoot me a link! I can post it on my blog :D

(Link to original post for context lol)

[bullywugprincess]

As an autistic person, I think some autistic people (and neurotypicals attempting to be good allies) are sometimes doing more harm than good with how insistent we are that autistic people are as capable of achievements as anyone else.

I’m feeling quite tired right now and writing this first go without thinking too much about how I’m wording it, so please bear with me while I explain how I mean that. Basically I just saw a post of a father saying his son is autistic and has struggled to get a job because of it, but he was a really polite, sweet young man, and because of his personality one employer overlooked his struggles and gave him his first job. The post was him showing pride in his sons hood personality and spirit, and half the comments were autistic people saying it was patronising and “of course he can get a job, autistic people can do normal things and achieve things like everyone else.”

And look. I get it. We’re tired of being treated like children. We’re tired of being the subject of “inspo porn”. We’re tired of people acting like we can’t do things just because we’re autistic. But I think a lot of autistic people who are more well adapted and low-needs (again please excuse my terming, I know we don’t use low functioning/high functioning labels anymore but I don’t know what the alternative is) get offended by people acknowledging that some autistic people DO struggle, whether it’s with making friends or academically or with getting and keeping a job. Statistically speaking 3 in 10 autistic adults are in full time employment, compared to 8 in 10 non-disabled adults. And yeah that statistics probably off because of how many people go through life undiagnosed, but the point still stands. Because of learning difficulties, problems with socialisation or being unable to cope in a work environment due to sensory and other issues, many autistic people are unable to work. I don’t know the situation of the son from the post, but it is clearly something he’s struggled with, and the dad is not being patronising by acknowledging that struggle and praising him for overcoming it. By responding to a post like that by saying “of course autistic people can get jobs”, you are doing what ableists do. You are implying that people who can’t work because of their autism are actually just not trying. You are making autistic people who feel really proud of themselves for getting a job despite the difficulties they face seem stupid for it. And, if you’re not careful, you become someone’s excuse to claim autistic people don’t deserve accommodation or disability allowance/benefits because “they don’t need it, autistic people are perfectly capable of getting jobs.”

Another thing to consider: think about that person who said “you’re autistic? But you don’t behave like my 7 year old nephew? That’s not what autism is.” By saying autistic people can do something because YOU can do it is setting a rigid view of What Autism Is. Which like. We’ve all established is bad.

Again I’d like to apologise for how badly worded and ramble-y this is but autism is a disability, and it effects everyone with it differently. Let’s not diminish other people’s struggles