#just so inaccessible like the people who work there can't even afford to go to the shows lmaoooo

[themightyrancho]

god live theater / performing arts prices make me so depressed lol

[beatrice-otter]

The Other Half of the Social Model of Disability

Lots of people in fandom are aware of the Social Model of Disability, which is a direct contrast to the Medical Model of Disability. Problem is, most of those people only understand half of the Social Model.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the "in a nutshell" version is that the medical model views disability as something that is broken and which needs to be fixed, and little or no consideration is given beyond trying to cure it (and little or no consideration is given to the needs and wishes of the person who has it). The social model of disability, on the other hand, says that the thing that disables a person is the way society treats them. So, for example, if someone is paralyzed and can't walk, what disables them from going places is buildings that are not wheelchair accessible. (Or possibly not being able to afford the right type of wheelchair.) Inaccessible spaces and support equipment you can't afford are choices society makes, not a problem with the disabled person.

People then take this to mean that the only problem with disability is the society that surrounds it, and therefore in some utopian future where capitalism is no more and neither is ableism or any other form of bigotry, all problems disabled people have will be solved.

Except that what I've just described is not actually what the social model of disability says. Or, rather, it's only half of what the social model of disability says.

The actual social model of disability begins with a distinction between impairments and disabilities. Impairments are parts of the body/brain that are nonstandard: for example, ears that do not hear (deafness), organs that don't work right (e.g. diabetes), limbs that don't work (paralysis), brain chemistry that causes distress (e.g. anxiety, depression), the list goes on. The impairment may or may not cause distress to the person who has it, depending on the type of impairment (how much pain it causes, etc.) and whether it's a lifelong thing they accept as part of themselves or something newly acquired that radically changes their life and prevents them from doing things they want to do.

And then you have the things that disable us, which are the social factors like "is there an accessible entrance," as described above.

If we ever do get a utopian world where everyone with a disability gets the support they need and all of society is designed to include people with disabilities, that doesn't mean the impairments go away. Life would be so much better for people with impairments, and it's worth working towards, but some impairments simply suck and would continue to suck no matter what.

Take my autism. A world where autism was accepted and supported would make my life so much easier ... and yet even then, my trouble sleeping and my tendency to hyperfixate on things that trigger my anxiety would still make my life worse. I don't want to be cured of my autism! That would change who I am on a fundamental level, and I like myself. My dream is not of a world where I am not autistic, but a world in which I am not penalized for being autistic and have the help I need. And even in that world, my autism will still sometimes cause me distress.

There are some impairments--conditions that come with chronic pain, chronic fatigue, etc.--where pretty much everyone with that impairment agrees that the ultimate goal is a cure. But nobody knows how long a cure will take to find (years? decades? centuries?), whereas focusing on the social things disabling you can lead to improvement in your daily life right now.

In conclusion: the social model of disability is very valuable, and much superior to the medical model on a number of levels. But: please don't forget that the social model makes a distinction between disability and impairments, and even if we reach every goal and get rid of all the social factors that disable people, some impairments will be fine and cause no distress to the people who have them, some will be a mixed bag, and some will still be major problems for the people who have them.

Also on Dreamwidth

[cy-cyborg]

Dealing with Healing and Disability in fantasy: Writing Disability

[ID: An image of the main character from Eragon, a white teenage boy with blond hair in silver armour as he sits, with his hand outstretched. On his hand is a glowing blue mark. He is visibly straining as he attempts to heal a large creature in front of him. /End ID]

I'm a massive fan of the fantasy genre, which is why it's so incredibly frustrating when I see so much resistance to adding disability representation to fantasy works. People's go-to reason for leaving us out is usually something to the effect of "But my setting has magic so disability wouldn't exist, it can just be healed!" so let's talk about magic, specifically healing magic, in these settings, and how you can use it without erasing disability from your story.

Ok, let's start with why you would even want to avoid erasing disability from a setting in the first place. I talked about this in a lot more detail in my post on The Miracle Cure. this line of thinking is another version of this trope, but applied to a whole setting (or at least, to the majority of people in the setting) instead of an individual, so it's going to run into the same issues I discussed there. To summarise the points that are relevant to this particular version of the trope though:

Not every disabled person wants or needs a cure - many of us see our disability as a part of our identity. Do difficulties come with being disabled? absolutely! It's literally part of the definition, but for some people in the disabled community, if you took our disabilities away, we would be entirely different people. While it is far from universal, there is a significant number of us who, if given a magical cure with no strings attached, would not take it. Saying no one in your setting would be disabled because these healing spells exists ignores this part of the community.

It messes with the stakes of your story - Just like how resurrecting characters or showing that this is something that is indeed possible in the setting can leave your audience feeling cheated or like they don't have to worry about a character *actually* ever dying. healing a character's disability, or establishing that disability doesn't exist in your setting because "magic" runs into the same problem. It will leave your readers or viewers feeling like they don't have to worry about your characters getting seriously hurt because it will only be temporary, which means your hero's actions carry significantly less risk, which in turn, lowers the stakes and tension if not handled very, very carefully.

It's an over-used trope - quite plainly and simply, this trope shows up a lot in the fantasy genre, to the point where I'd say it's just overused and kind of boring.

So with the "why should you avoid it" covered, let's look at how you can actually handle the topic.

Limited Access and Expensive Costs

One of the most common ways to deal with healing and disability in a fantasy setting, is to make the healing magic available, but inaccessible to most of the population. The most popular way to do that is by making the services of a magical healer capable of curing a disability really expensive to the point that most people just can't afford it. If this is the approach you're going to use, you also typically have to make that type of magic quite rare. To use D&D terms, if every first level sorcerer, bard, cleric and druid can heal a spinal injury, it's going to result in a lot of people who are able to undercut those massive prices and the expense will drop as demand goes down. If that last sentence didn't give you a hint, this is really popular method in stories that are critiquing capitalistic mindsets and ideologies, and is most commonly used by authors from the USA and other countries with a similar medical system, since it mirrors a lot of the difficulties faced by disabled Americans. If done right, this approach can be very effective, but it does need to be thought through more carefully than I think people tend to do. Mainly because a lot of fantasy stories end with the main character becoming rich and/or powerful, and so these prohibitively expensive cure become attainable by the story's end, which a lot of authors and writer's just never address. Of course, another approach is to make the availability of the magic itself the barrier. Maybe there just aren't that many people around who know the magic required for that kind of healing, so even without a prohibitive price tag, it's just not something that's an option for most people. If we're looking at a D&D-type setting, maybe you need to be an exceptionally high level to cast the more powerful healing spell, or maybe the spell requires some rare or lost material component. I'd personally advise people to be careful using this approach, since it often leads to stories centred around finding a miracle cure, which then just falls back into that trope more often than not.

Just outright state that some characters don't want/need it

Another, admittedly more direct approach, is to make it that these "cures" exist and are easily attainable, but to just make it that your character or others they encounter don't want or need it. This approach works best for characters who are born with their disabilities or who already had them for a long time before a cure was made available to them. Even within those groups though, this method works better with some types of characters than others depending on many other traits (personality, cultural beliefs, etc), and isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution, but to be fair, that's kind of the point. Some people will want a cure for their disabilities, others are content with their body's the way they are. There's a few caveats I have with this kind of approach though:

you want to make sure you, as the author, understand why some people in real life don't want a cure, and not just in a "yeah I know these people exist but I don't really get it" kind of way. I'm not saying you have to have a deep, personal understanding or anything, but some degree of understanding is required unless you want to sound like one of those "inspirational" body positivity posts that used to show up on Instagram back in the day.

Be wary when using cultural beliefs as a reasoning. It can work, but when media uses cultural beliefs as a reason for turning down some kind of cure, it's often intending to critique extreme beliefs about medicine, such as the ones seen in some New Age Spirituality groups and particularly intense Christian churches. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to connect these kinds of beliefs to disabled people just being happy in their bodies. Alternatively, you also need to be mindful of the "stuck in time" trope - a trope about indigenous people who are depicted as primitive or, as the name suggests, stuck in an earlier time, for "spurning the ways of the white man" which usually includes medicine or the setting's equivalent magic. I'm not the best person to advise you on how to avoid this specific trope, but my partner (who's Taino) has informed me of how often it shows up in fantasy specifically and we both thought it was worth including a warning at least so creators who are interested in this method know to do some further research.

Give the "cures" long-lasting side effects

Often in the real world, when a "cure" for a disability does exist, it's not a perfect solution and comes with a lot of side effects. For example, if you loose part of your arm in an accident, but you're able to get to a hospital quickly with said severed arm, it can sometimes be reattached, but doing so comes at a cost. Most people I know who had this done had a lot of issues with nerve damage, reduced strength, reduced fine-motor control and often a great deal of pain with no clear source. Two of the people I know who's limbs were saved ended up having them optionally re-amputated only a few years later. Likewise, I know many people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics via spinal injuries, who were able to regain the use of their arms and/or legs. However, the process was not an easy one, and involved years of intense physiotherapy and strength training. For some of them, they need to continue to do this work permanently just to maintain use of the effected limbs, so much so that it impacts their ability to do things like work a full-time job and engage in their hobbies regularly, and even then, none of them will be able bodied again. Even with all that work, they all still experience reduced strength and reduced control of the limbs. depending on the type, place and severity of the injury, some people are able to get back to "almost able bodied" again - such was the case for my childhood best friend's dad, but they often still have to deal with chronic pain from the injury or chronic fatigue.

Even though we are talking about magic in a fantasy setting, we can still look to real-life examples of "cures" to get ideas. Perhaps the magic used has a similar side effect. Yes, your paraplegic character can be "cured" enough to walk again, but the magic maintaining the spell needs a power source to keep it going, so it draws on the person's innate energy within their body, using the very energy the body needs to function and do things like move their limbs. They are cured, but constantly exhausted unless they're very careful, and if the spell is especially strong, the body might struggle to move at all, resulting in something that looks and functions similar to the nerve damage folks with spinal injuries sometimes deal with that causes that muscle weakness and motor control issues. Your amputee might be able to have their leg regrown, but it will always be slightly off. The regrown leg is weaker and causes them to walk with a limp, maybe even requiring them to use a cane or other mobility aid.

Some characters might decide these trade-offs are worth it, and while this cures their initial disability, it leaves them with another. Others might simply decide the initial disability is less trouble than these side effects, and choose to stay as they are.

Consider if these are actually cures

Speaking of looking to the real world for ideas, you might also want to consider whether these cures are doing what the people peddling them are claiming they do. Let's look at the so-called autism cures that spring up every couple of months as an example.

Without getting into the… hotly debated specifics, there are many therapies that are often labelled as "cures" for autism, but in reality, all they are doing is teaching autistic people how to make their autistic traits less noticeable to others. This is called masking, and it's a skill that often comes at great cost to an autistic person's mental health, especially when it's a behaviour that is forced on them. Many of these therapies give the appearance of being a cure, but the disability is still there, as are the needs and difficulties that come with it, they're just hidden away. From an outside perspective though, it often does look like a success, at least in the short-term. Then there are the entirely fake cures with no basis in reality, the things you'll find from your classic snake-oil salesmen. Even in a fantasy setting where real magic exists, these kinds of scams and misleading treatments can still exist. In fact, I think it would make them even more common than they are in the real world, since there's less suspension of disbelief required for people to fall for them. "What do you mean this miracle tonic is a scam? Phil next door can conjure flames in his hand and make the plants grow with a snap of his fingers, why is it so hard to believe this tonic could regrow my missing limb?"

I think the only example of this approach I've seen, at least recently, is from The Owl House. The magic in this world can do incredible things, but it works in very specific and defined ways. Eda's curse (which can be viewed as an allegory for many disabilities and chronic illnesses) is seemingly an exception to this, and as such, nothing is able to cure it. Treat it, yes, but not cure it. Eda's mother doesn't accept this though, and seeks out a cure anyway and ends up falling for a scam who's "treatments" just make things worse.

In your own stories, you can either have these scams just not work, or kind of work, but in ways that are harmful and just not worth it, like worse versions of the examples in the previous point. Alternatively, like Eda, it's entirely reasonable that a character who's been the target of these scams before might just not want to bother anymore. Eda is a really good example of this approach handled in a way that doesn't make her sad and depressed about it either. She's tried her mum's methods, they didn't work, and now she's found her own way of dealing with it that she's happy with. She only gets upset when her boundaries are ignored by Luz and her mother.

Think about how the healing magic is actually working

If you have a magic system that leans more on the "hard magic" side of things, a great way to get around the issue of healing magic erasing disability is to stop and think about how your healing magic actually works.

My favourite way of doing this is to make healing magic work by accelerating the natural processes of your body. Your body will, given enough time (assuming it remains infection-free) close a slash from a sword and mend a broken bone, but it will never regrow it's own limbs. It will never heal damage to it's own spinal cord. It will never undo whatever causes autism or fix it's own irregularities. Not without help. Likewise, healing magic alone won't do any of these things either, it's just accelerating the existing process and usually, by extension making it safer, since a wound staying open for an hour before you get to a healer is much less likely to get infected than one that slowly and naturally heals over a few weeks. In one of my own works, I take this even further by making it that the healing magic is only accelerating cell growth and repair, but the healer has to direct it. In order to actually heal, the healer needs to know the anatomy of what they're fixing to the finest detail. A spell can reconnect a torn muscle to a bone, but if you don't understand the structures that allow that to happen in the first place, you're likely going to make things worse. For this reason, you won't really see people using this kind of magic to, say, regrow limbs, even though it technically is possible. A limb is a complicated thing. The healer needs to be able to perfectly envision all the bones, the cartilage, the tendons and ligaments, the muscles (including the little ones, like those found in your skin that make your hair stand on end and give you goose bumps), the fat and skin tissues, all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the structures within the bone that create your blood. Everything, and they need to know how it all connects, how it is supposed to move and be able to keep that clearly in their mind simultaneously while casting. Their mental image also has to match with the patient's internal "map" of the body and the lost limb, or they'll continue to experience phantom limb sensation even if the healing is successful. It's technically possible, but the chances they'll mess something up is too high, and so it's just not worth the risk to most people, including my main character.

Put Restrictions on the magic

This is mostly just the same advice as above, but for softer magic systems. put limits and restrictions on your healing magic. These can be innate (so things the magic itself is just incapable of doing) or external (things like laws that put limitations on certain types of magic and spells).

An example of internal restriction can be seen in how some people interpret D&D's higher level healing spells like regenerate (a 7th level spell-something most characters won't have access to for quite some time). The rules as written specify that disabilities like lost limbs can be healed using this spell, but some players take this to mean that if a character was born with the disability in question, say, born without a limb, regenerate would only heal them back to their body's natural state, which for them, is still disabled.

An external restriction would be that your setting has outlawed healing magic, perhaps because healing magic carries a lot of risks for some reason, eithe to the caster or the person being healed, or maybe because the healing magic here works by selectively reviving and altering the function of cells, which makes it a form of necromancy, just on a smaller scale. Of course, you can also use the tried and true, "all magic is outlawed" approach too. In either case, it's something that will prevent some people from being able to access it, despite it being technically possible. Other external restrictions could look like not being illegal, per say, but culturally frowned upon or taboo where your character is from.

But what if I don't want to do any of this?

Well you don't have to. These are just suggestions to get you thinking about how to make a world where healing magic and disability exist, but they aren't the only ways. Just the ones I thought of.

Of course, if you'd still rather make a setting where all disability is cured because magic and you just don't want to think about it any deeper, I can't stop you. I do however, want to ask you to at least consider where you are going to draw the line. Disability, in essence, is what happens when the body stops (or never started) functioning "normally". Sometimes that happens because of an injury, sometimes it's just bad luck, but the boundary between disabled and not disabled is not as solid as I think a lot of people expect it to be, and we as a society have a lot of weird ideas about what is and isn't a disability that just, quite plainly and simply, aren't consistent. You have to remember, a magic system won't pick and choose the way we humans do, it will apply universally, regardless of our societal hang-ups about disability.

What do I mean about this?

Well, consider for a moment, what causes aging? it's the result of our body not being able to repair itself as effectively as it used to. It's the body not being able to perform that function "normally". So in a setting where all disability is cured, there would be no aging. No elderly people. No death from old age. If you erase disability, you also erase natural processes like aging. magic won't pick and choose like that, not if you want it to be consistent.

Ok, ok, maybe that's too much of a stretch, so instead, let's look at our stereotypical buff hero covered in scars because he's a badass warrior. but in a world where you can heal anything, why would anything scar? Even if it did, could another healing spell not correct that too? Scars are part of the body's natural healing process, but if no natural healing occurred, why would a scar form? Scars are also considered disabling in and of themselves too, especially large ones, since they aren't as flexible or durable as normal skin and can even restrict growth and movement.

Even common things like needing glasses are, using this definition of disability at least, a disability. glasses are a socially accepted disability aid used to correct your eyes when they do not function "normally".

Now to be fair, in reality, there are several definitions of disability, most of which include something about the impact of society. For example, in Australia (according to the Disability Royal Commission), we define disability as "An evolving concept that results from the interaction between a person with impairment(s) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." - or in laymen's terms, the interaction between a person's impairment and societal barriers like people not making things accessible or holding misinformed beliefs about your impairment (e.g. people in wheelchairs are weaker than people who walk). Under a definition like this, things like scars and needing glasses aren't necessarily disabilities (most of the time) but that's because of how our modern society sees them. The problem with using a definition like this though to guide what your magic system will get rid of, is that something like a magic system won't differentiate between an "impairment" that has social impacts that and one that doesn't. It will still probably get rid of anything that is technically an example of your body functioning imperfectly, which all three of these things are. The society in your setting might apply these criteria indirectly, but really, why would they? Very few people like the side effects of aging on the body (and most people typically don't want to die), the issues that come with scars or glasses are annoying (speaking as someone with both) and I can see a lot of people getting rid of them when possible too. If they don't then it's just using the "not everyone wants it approach" I mentioned earlier. If there's some law or some kind of external pressure to push people away from fixing these more normalised issues, then it's using the "restrictions" method I mentioned earlier too.

Once again, you can do whatever you like with your fantasy setting, but it's something I think that would be worth thinking about at least.

[velvetvexations]

I understand the instinct behind it to a degree but it really does worry me how fast people in progressive spaces are willing to buy into conspiracy level thinking about there being shadowy groups of transphobes plotting to freeze other trans people out or like, that every big news story or movie/tv/book release is planned to distract us from Sudan or Gaza, cuz like quite often things are just coincidences? The most insidious thing about systemic oppression is that it's so self-sufficient it doesn't NEED people to conspire to fuck over xyz demographic, it just does that on it's own. The instant you buy in to conspiratorial thinking you're in danger, and that includes painting a large group of queer creators as active, intentional transmisognists who should be shunned forever and ignoring the realistic read which is that it's clearly an unfortunate coincidence that can be fixed! It's the whole "if the building was designed to be inaccessible even if everyone working there loves disabled people the building is still inaccessible" thing, for a lot of reasons not a lot of trans and queer people end up even in the line to possibly be front and center in a show or two, and Dropout is clearly working to change that and include queer people, but it's slow going and the system is stacked against trans people and no one is perfect and Dropout is also still a VERY small company all things considered trying to build themselves up from almost nothing, they need support so they can offer space to more trans people and transfems! Like what good does spreading a bullshit rumor about the main cast all being closet raging transmisognists do aside from tear down one of the only queer platforms we have??

When College Humor got bought by Sam they could only afford like ONE employee, do we want to have to wait years and years and years for another new platform to arise that has the money and power to represent us?? I'd rather uplift and push to be better a platform that is run by queer people who want to do better for all of us even if they don't always succeeded than sit here begging Disney to acknowledge that we exist while spreading horrid rumors about every legit queer creator who wants to platform us secretly being a huge bigot in disguise.

It's so awful, I hate how every time someone works their ass off to make a fucking difference for queer people all the terminally online progressive queers have to rip them to shreds for not being 100% perfect in every way until we have nothing but sanitized corporate overlords who don't think we deserve to be on screen at all. Every progressive queer creator gets put through this eventually and I'm so sick of it. The Vlogbrothers, The McElroy Family, Nightvale Presents, She-ra, Steven Universe, Chappell Roan, Becky Albertalli, it KEEPS happening!! And we will never get anywhere if the slightest misstep or honest unfortunate coincidence is enough to deem the only people who are trying to represent us, many of which ARE us, as irredeemable bigots who should be crucified in the town square.

Imo this is just a massive case of people always falling for conspiratorial thinking out of a refusal to actually understand how systemic bigotry works in favor of the "everyone is always secretly intentionally conspiring against us" lie and refusing to give queer creators/allies ANY grace or room for error or the benefit of the doubt because like. I guess destroying other queer people and our allies is what some of us do best. The fact that it's only ever queer people and allies who get this treatment makes me sick. We can't let ourselves have anything, it's perfect or it's evil. What the fuck is even the point of queer rep anymore if all of it is going to get treated like this eventually?

.

[thefirstknife]

I think the reason people are saying that scene should have been in Lightfall's campaign is because it's so incredibly vital to the story and anybody who isn't around for, can't afford, or skips seasonal content is missing such a hugely important scene. Which is actually a fair criticism of the entire seasonal model, which makes the game a lot less accessible for new players unless they're capable of doing hours of research and sitting around watching videos to get the story (which, for a *game* people do for fun is a lot to ask and a large turnoff for a fair few people). I agree that as is, the scene wouldn't have fit in the expansion we actually got--but I can see the complaint that they should have structured the campaign in a way that included this information. (Though some people are being very rude in how they give the criticism)

Yeah, I agree with that. I think a better way to go about it is to continuously ask for a way to preserve seasonal content (at least some of it) in the game. As of right now, a lot of some of the most crucial events in the game happened in seasons that can no longer be played and can only be viewed online. Bungie even started uploading all seasonal content officially to their youtube for people to be able to see, but that just makes us go back to the days of D1 where crucial lore was online instead of the game. Obviously in this case, a whole seasonal story mission with cutscenes is probably harder to keep in the game than lore tabs but you know.

A really good way would be to make use of the in-game timeline feature and expand on it. Make the timeline more in-depth, add more menus so that you can click to see more about a season and have menus that allow you to access and rewatch seasonal cutscenes and officially made summaries done with the in-game engine (something like the summary made as an intro to the Season of the Deep). Summarise a season with more information and let us rewatch cutscenes as a part of the timeline feature.

Best case scenario would be to grab most important seasonal gameplay missions, pack them into mini replayable missions and drop them in a Legends tab where people can go to check out past content and replay it themselves. This doesn't have the involve the full seasonal content obviously, because the seasonal activities and environments are gone, but a lot of those were not open world instances anyway. Saving Saint is entirely in a separate environment.

Obviously, all of this is a lot of work and, depending on the engine and other issues, may not even be possible. At least not right now. It would be nice though, especially the second option.

For now, I think we'll be stuck with youtube-only content which isn't the worst, but it's definitely inaccessible and it's not ideal. I'm sure that Bungie will keep the summary of this knowledge in the same way they summarised a lot of other stuff recently as intros to campaigns and seasons. Hell, TFS teaser included a summary of the last few years of the story and that was 40 seconds long. They will not just like... completely forget to mention this ever again.

Definitely the best thing would be to make sure that this cutscene will be viewable in-game. I hope that at some point they'll make this possible. It's the core issue of this whole problem and I wish people focused on that instead of saying that this should've just been a part of the campaign or that it would've "fixed" all of Lightfall when that's simply not true and also would not make sense. But do I wish for this cutscene to remain in the game forever? Absolutely. We desperately need the timeline feature to actually offer a substantial look at the timeline and content of past seasons, including cutscenes.

[raven]

i get & kind of agree with your point, i guess i'm just looking at the bigger issue as a whole. i do think in a lot of cases it's super feasible to just. play something else. or to wait until you can afford to upgrade your pc, etc. but i think the trend in the gaming sphere (esp triple A titles) of not caring for optimization and expecting consumers to just keep up is a little concerning for the future of gaming. i think gaming is already something that's inaccessible to a lot of people for inescapable reasons (required internet access for most games now, having to purchase consoles or a pc isn't cheap, etc.) and with with the way optimization is becoming more scarce i think it's leading to a future where new releases will be entirely unreachable for a large portion of the community which is an issue that should not exist. if 60% of your target audience can't afford to play your game, what's the point?

yeah definitely. &i did somewhat feel this with the new dragon age, there were so many just.. pointless visual effects on the screen, most of which i couldnt turn off, and i couldnt help but think "would this game run better if it didnt have these...?" while style is important, i do think game studios should be focusing more on WHY you need a game to be in a certain visual style. why do you need certain filters etc. veilguard didnt even look good, imo, so whats the point... But also like. games are for two types of people: people with powerful computers, who care about their computers being top of the line and able to run anything, updating whenever they can and people who will buy a new console every console generation, because games are pretty much guaranteed to work on the latest consoles. and unfortunately if you are not a rich pc gamer or a slightly less rich console gamer, you might not be playing the big hits. but like, thats why you get a console, so you can play without needing to worry about an upgrade for several years. Idk. ive never had a console and i just play what i can play. but there are a lot of people out there with consoles. and it seems to be going fine for them, bc if games dont run on consoles theyre promised on, theres usually patches and more work done. I also dont really care about the AAA audience or studios and if the studios go under... Thats not my problem i dont really care if they live or die. Maybe the world would be better off without call of duty,? If gaming companies are fucking us over with optimization, theyre fucking themselves over, and if they have to shut down.. well that's on them. I have other games to play. (& like, when i say innovation in triple A games.. you know whats the kinda shit im talking about its game awards shit its not call of duty its like, god of war, red deaddedemption, death stranding (...2!), elden ring, baldurs gate 3 (not really triple a, but the reach and success can make it feel like one). (Im not personally interested in all of these, but im interested in what they have done for the medium.) of these games that have released, theyve had issues and most have been fixed. And most of them have done things worthy of discussion, even if they take up a lot of space and people like to complain about that. We can only hope interesting games arent dead on arrival because of poor optimization, but it seems most of them havent been.

[eolewyn1010]

Charité, season 4 - episode 4

I'm here to spoiler, and don't say I didn't warn you!

"Two more Paleobacterium deaths" - not Maral's very first patient tho! He will conveniently stay alive until the very end.

Does anyone else think it'll be a depressing blow to Julia to come home and find that, when Maral finally puts in an effort into unpacking boxes to furnish their new home, all she unpacks is her work stuff?

"Extreme heat wave continues" - but we won't show our protagonists sweating! They have to look like models.

It's not that actress' fault, but her facial structure reminds me uncomfortably of season 2's Magda Goebbels. Plus, she's 1st, dressed like she has too much money (and she probably has if she can afford 4 in vitro treatments), and 2nd, remarkably unscathed for someone who has recently been in a car accident that ended fatally for another participant.

Julia. This woman is pregnant and very freshly widowed. Refer her to grief counseling?

Nurse Kachel is only around to literally open doors and talk some platitudes in Berlin dialect, huh?

Nice of Maral to give away a ticket for an event she planned to go visit with her wife. Oughta be good for the marriage.

Also, what do you mean "men's team or women's"? Does that mean sports are still segregated in a way that makes them inaccessible to nonbinary people?

Dylan, just report her. At this point, her trying to treat a patient is illegal. She should not even be in the tract.

With the background that Ferhat probably attempted suicide at some point, it feels hypocritical of him to be opposed to his patient choosing death over a living situation he deems unbearable.

Wait a minute. She's 16 weeks into pregnancy and already knows her baby is gonna be a boy. But Julia's test was the first that turned up the microplastic poisoning? How quickly does that develop / how incompetent was her previous doctor?

Come on, Julia, you can't be surprised that she's desperate to keep the baby.

I'm not entirely sure why they have to plant the child back in at all. If they have artificial (and completely disease-free) wombs at their disposal, wouldn't it be the safest course to keep the fetus in there until maturity?

It's very rude to develop a revolutionary kind of surgery and then not haste to train others to do it when it treats an issue that a ton of people worldwide are likely to have. 1st season at least had a reason for not many doctors knowing a certain kind of surgery - modern medicine was in its baby shoes and worldwide networking was scarce and slow. But with all that technology? Get teaching!

If you're suicidal, try romance! It solves all depressions! ...Honestly, fuck Ferhat. For someone who also gets to do psychotherapeutic treatment, he's so bad at human emotions.

Marlene is one of very few characters this season I give a damn about, and she's being stood up by this dumbass Ferhat. Ugh.

Maral. Wine is not a balanced diet.

"You wanna talk about your work? No, I get to complain about my work now!" Maral, you suck as a wife.

And then, literally just after that, she has the absolute GALL to accuse Julia of not listening to her about her problems! What the actual fuck. Maral, you suck as a wife!

You also have no right to deny Julia information about her son.

"From my perspective, yes." Have you ever talked to your wife in the past weeks, even once? Sheesh.

That telling-off was so overdue. So obviously, the next thing Maral does? Get drunk, be a workaholic, and go to extremes to prove a point! Woo! It's feminism when it's women who make the bad choices! I hope she knows she's on one level with Robert Koch now. And that is so not a compliment.

Discount Daniel Sträßer would seem even shadier if I he weren't surrounded by bad CGI.

Thanks, Nils, for calling Maral the asshole that she is.

Emilia, if you think Charité has to protect its precious reputation, you go and solve the medical mysteries yourself.

Wow. Wow, Ferhat. This episode is titled "Courage", not "Violation Of Your Patient's Bodily Autonomy". wtf, why is this guy a doctor.

Dylan, you should have Maral arrested. She's a walking (ok, lying-down) breach of infection protection law.

Way to go, Julia! And please change your gloves before you operate any further. That's fucking disgusting.

Does anyone else find it sus that Dylan, Maral's declared but male rival at the hospital whom she keeps trashtalking and tyrannizing at work, gets to look so much more affectionate with her than her actual wife?

Thoughts on this season's questionable queer rep aside - my problem is that Maral's behavior doesn't feel as though she wants to save lives. It feels like she wants to prove at any cost that she is right. That is an unsympathetic feature in everyone and a potentially catastrophic one in a doctor. And Ferhat isn't far behind. Are these supposed to be protagonists?

[wackywibr]

I'm sad.

Waking up in the morning to be bombarded with the constant feeling of hopelessness of the USA's current landscape (on the internet and irl) is so hard.

Want an abortion to save your life, be it due to medically, economically, or even due to your age? Sorry, you can't.

Want to be able to transition safely in a world that's based on freedom of choice to be who you are? Get the medical procedures you need to feel comfortable in your own skin, as well as be able to give yourself a new legal name? Sorry, you can't.

Want to try and be be able to live with any type of medically challenging condition so you can just be among the rest of society? Sorry, you can't.

Want to go to school freely without the constant looming fear that maybe, one day, you might have your life ended there for some fruitless act another wanted to enact? Be it for attention, or other means? Sorry, you can't.

Want to be an artist and have fun with your aspiring projects, videos, and more? Maybe to someday be known and address stories out there that could help someone else just like you? Or, even, just be something anything that brings joy to the world? Voice acting? Illustrator? Journalist? Etc? Sorry, you can't.

Want to stop your government from supporting a whole fucking genocide thats happening? Because we did something literally similiar back during a past genocide? And it's absolutely abysmal to know our people are unknowingly having blood splashed on their hands because of the government's intolerance to support the innocent? Sorry, you can't.

Abortion is killing kids and ruining families! Abortion is immoral because you're murdering a child, you bastard!

Trans people are hurting kids! Drag individuals are hurting kids! You're going against god's word! You're evil and you will never be this imaginary identity!

Being disabled is inaccessible to anyone "normal"! You aren't worth the health care nor the patience to be accommodated too!

People should have the freedom to get whatever automatic weapon they want with no supervision or training!

Ai, chatgpt, and other automation is the future because its seamlessly "accessible" and more affordable since it can be trained by taking prexisting works!

We need to support getting rid of unnecessary """terrorism""" being enacted to keep this powerful body in check! All those innocent people are actually in the powerful body, not in the """true opponent""" territory!

I just don't understand how those who are swayed to think this way sits there and comphrends that this is correct. All these other people who are sitting there with uncertainty in their own existence. With more and more piling up everyday including the long winded fight for equal rights and more.

And nonetheless, there is nothing I can do about it. To make a change to this and maybe to someday bring everyone together. But out of stress, fear, lack of knowledge and the reach of what to do I'm forced to sit back and silently watch.

It makes me Frustrated. Overwhelmed. Hopeless.

And it just makes me sad.

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

To any doctors out there, if you are actually saving lives and getting results, and still can't get full approval your issue might not be something as insubstantial as "bedside manner" it might be a failure to consider finances and disability, or to act in a way that's timely.

Did you prescribe a name brand of something that isn't covered when you could have prescribed a brand that is, or that is way cheaper? Do you habitually do this and make your patients work for affordable meds you could have prescribed in the first place?

Did you make it inaccessible to see you for an appointment? Did you refuse to see someone in a video appointment and make a disabled person travel unnecessarily and risk their life in a pandemic so you could "see them face to face" because you're weird about video calls not feeling real enough to you?

Is your office staff full of -frankly- cunts who refuse to communicate in ways that are accessible to your patients, such as talking to a partner or friend with the appropriate permission forms filled out or refusing to communicate in writing. [some people have sensory processing issues and cannot properly understand language over the phone from unfamiliar speaking voices, etc...]

Do YOU habitually refuse to communicate in ways that are more accessible to your patients such as letting them communicate in writing by bringing letters to their appointment or just not talking over them and giving them time to think and speak? Do you make them feel so rushed through the appointment that they forget everything?

Do you do things like force disabled people to make multiple appointments months apart for 5 different referrals you could have discussed and given out in 10 minutes total in one appointment because it's "office policy to have one issue per appointment"?

Does it take 3 months or more to get an appointment with you even for something urgent like a bladder infection, with no alternative other than going to the local emergency room.

Did you generally put an unfair burden to "prove" their symptoms on your patient instead of just believing them when they say something is really painful or that they can't pee, or something was different a week ago? "Well I have to go by what it looks like to me today right now :)" thereby implying they are lying or 'mistaken' about what it was doing yesterday or a week ago.

Are patients being forced to wait until symptoms have passed before they can have the test for whatever is supposed to be causing them. Such as with untimely testing at labs, waiting for appointments, or having to wait until symptoms are passed to even physically get to the tests because you don't have testing services for people who are too sick to leave their homes?

Did you misgender your patient? Do you and your office staff habitually and continuously misgender your patient?

Did you refuse to refer someone, treat, or do your own research because something was outside your personal comfort zone, leaving your patient to have to seek another doctor to make progress on whatever issues you haven't personally decided to treat? [such as refusing to either prescribe hormones or refer your patient to someone who can]

Do you generally treat disabled patients like they are being immature or refusing to cooperate when something is too hard for them, such as punishing patients for having memory issues or basically denying them care because of memory, mobility or communication difficulties? Is your staff doing that?

Are you refusing to believe patients when they tell you their physical limitations? Ie, "my bladder doesn't get any bigger than that without tearing, I do not have a normal bladder size, sorry??"

Are you refusing to consider the impact of conditions, such as risk factors, for conditions your patient is sure they have but are in the long process of diagnosing? ie, your patient has every reason to believe they have a connective tissue disorder and POTS that is putting them in the high risk category for a heart complication, but you are pretending they aren't in the high risk category because you don't have that condition confirmed formally on paper, so you are forcing them to try a treatment that is potentially life threatening to them.

Are you generally confusing what you can be held liable for or what's likely based on averages for what is a moral way to treat your patients or what might be individually true for them? ie, Refusing to consider they might have a rare condition and refusing to test for it because no one could blame you -legally- for not thinking they have something super rare, leaving them to suffer or potentially experience a life threatening or ending complication before it's caught/proven.

Do you go out of your way to refuse to test for the one thing your patient thinks it is, delaying diagnosis or peace of mind whether or not you are correct?

Do you try to emotionally placate your patients instead of just testing for what they are concerned about? [making a physical health problem or concern into a mental health problem in your view]

"Well in the end they figured it out just fast enough that I didn't outright die" becomes a lot less impressive when you could have actually saved them years of suffering or saved them from something like brain damage or worsening disability by making your services more accessible and listening to them sooner.

I have had plenty of doctors who were eventually forced to do their job and not fully let me die, but I'd hardly give them full stars for me still being here through some combination of me forcing their hand and 'dumb luck'.

[myimaginarywonderland]

Regardless of who you support or who you want to win, I think something that is not talked about enough is the fact that ever since last year most F1 news have just been negative.

And it's not like it's unjustified.

Not only the hugely controversial championship, the attacks from both RedBull (and also Mercedes to a degree), the deeply concerning safety standards, the controversial Spa race, the now more and more lack luster disregards for the rules, the debate about the budget cost cap, etc.

And that's only the stuff openly talked about because a lot of people pick up on it.

Now the race calendar which not only is way too much for any team personal or driver but also not at all according to the "climate change" goals of F1 and the continuing rise of way too expensive race tickets that are not at all making F1 more accessible to the general public.

Not to mention the continuing rising reports of all multitudes of assaults.

F1 since last year has not had a single good headline that has been published that was bigger than just the sport.

I think it's time we stop talking about how individual incidents are very bad or not and start asking ourselves how much longer we as the working class can even afford to have F1 as a genuine hobby.

As someone German who enjoys F1 is no longer accessible in my region. The only way I can watch it is by having a Sky membership. Sure for some of you that might be normal but basically since the 80s F1 used to be on RTL, a channel that so many German households had access to. It isn't anymore.

I have heard fans talk about how ticket prizes have tripled.

We are getting more sprint races, weird forma of qualy, street races etc.

This is a huge problem.

For years now F1 has been inaccessible to "normal drivers" meaning those without money, sponsors or not part of a driver academy. And as we have seen with Nyck, Callum etc. there's driver who either can't afford the step up or simply will never get it because other factors are more valued.

It's no secret that over the years F1 has more than ever become an elitist racing series that is not at all fully about talent otherwise we would have a vastly different grid.

And while this has always been a problem I think many of you truly aren't seeing the bigger picture that is here.

Because it's also now becoming an elitist hobby that no one but rich people can afford. Hell,I come from a good middle class family and travelling to some of the nearest races I would probably pay the equivalent to what I pay for a 2-4 week location. I could never afford a race unless I somehow get a high paying job.

And with the rising prices of inflation I don't think I could even afford a luxury like sky. Sure maybe I can but there's so many people already struggling to even pay rent who just can't.

With the races only going to more popular places, old tracks in countries with such big F1 memory just simply not being picked up, there's also the aspect of who actually can even visit a race close to them.

Now there's also all these fancy new ideas that literally no one wants to see.

So when are we as fan finally going to see the bigger picture that the beloved sport we are seeing is more and more becoming a celebrity and rich people spectacle that is literally formed by the governing body to be as fun as possible while completely ignoring anyone's safety?

When are we going to talk about the horrendous head that is the FIA choosing to portray F1, a sport with such rich history that lives on the fans, as some sort of spectacle like WWE?

When are we going to talk about how they bend the rules to manipulate race outcomes however they like (and now this isn't just talking about AD)?

When are we going to talk about how they us slogans to make themselves seem so progressive and inclusive but are doing absolutely nothing to protect the vulnerable targeted fans?

When are we going to talk about how the way F1 is currently run is not in any way sustainable unless they only want to cater to the rich people?

When are we going to talk about how F1 is continuing to push the fans away and completely forgetting that the sport lives on the passion of the fans?

[thedisablednaturalist]

I think people don't realize how alienating it is when you have to use a mobility device to go places and the place is inaccessible. When people say "sorry, but you can't come in here. There's no room for your wheelchair" because the room is packed with things (like an antique store where they don't want you bumping into fragile items). You technically don't NEED to go into that room yes, but it's just another way we are alienated from everyone else.

For someone who cannot stand and/or move unassisted, this is so much more infuriating. How can people be so okay with denying access to a portion of the public based solely upon things they can't control? And they are allowed to get away with it under the excuse of "historical property" or "we are just a widdle small business we can't afford a wheelchair ramp :(" I hate having to check Google to see if a place is accessible, to have to call ahead because Google is only right half the time. I've reported many places to the ADA but Ive never heard back about them.

If you can't afford accommodating everyone, you shouldn't be starting a business. Just like how if you can't afford to pay your employees a living wage you shouldn't be starting one. Accessibility should be part of the budget just as much as electrical and plumbing. It shouldn't be put into the amenities section.

As an ambulatory user, I can technically go inside without my wheelchair, but it feels like I'm being forced to give up a piece of myself, like a leg or an arm. I feel like I'm being forced to endure the pain my wheelchair alleviates just to eat at a restaurant or look at some pretty antiques. I wonder what would happen if I couldn't move without my wheelchair (what will probably happen in a decade or so). Will I no longer be able to have these experiences? I feel angry for the people who currently have to deal with being denied entry.

It's further infuriating when my wheelchair use is treated as something I do for extra comfort, like it's a pair of slippers or a massage chair. Something that adds extra comfort, not something vital to it.

I've been asked by my friends "can't you just walk this time? It would save so much time. I don't want to have to walk all the way around just to find a ramp. Just get up and we will carry your wheelchair over the bump/stairs/obstacle" they've seen me walk on good days. They see me able to lift my chair into my car (something I have to save energy for and that is extremely painful). Even though they have seen my bad days, it's like they are overshadowed by the days I'm able to fake being okay.

People see accessibility as a nice thing to have, not something that is required.

For people like me who can get by without it on good days, people treat me as stubborn or selfish when I refuse to stand up or am taking up space. My parents are confused why I take my wheelchair onto the bus when I could just fold it up and sit ""normally"".

I just wish people would understand that it's no one's decision but mine when I decide to use my wheelchair vs walk. That they have no right to pressure me. But I'm treated like I'm the selfish one. And people wonder why I don't ask for help. Because then I'm not in control anymore. People can decide to stop pushing me up a steep hill if they get tired and then ask if I can walk the rest of the way. Which I will have to do because I can't wheel myself up the steep hill. Or I'll just go back down and find a different way to get up the hill. Which of course pisses them off because "all their work was for nothing".

Idk if this post is just coming off as me rambling or venting, but I'm just so tired of being treated like this. Only helped when it's convenient. Only respected when it's convenient. I deserve to at least be respected and I deserve accessibility even if it isn't convenient, cheap, or #aesthetic. And everyone of all support needs do too.

[traincat]

I know the comic piracy debate is a never-ending cycle, but in India where I live, you can't get western comics (or manga for that matter). There aren't comic book stores. Sometimes on Amazon you can find collected editions worth more than INR 1000 at least, for the paperbacks. Most older collections, even from the early 2000s, will be upwards of INR 6000. And sure, it's because the exchange value is so low for Indian rupees, but that's still a LOT of money to Indian citizens. You can get digital editions of random odd issues for approx. INR 150, so that's there. But overall it's really a huge investment to buy a physical comic. So yes, I pirate. But I get so guilty when this debate rolls around, every time. I just don't see any other alternative.

I debated whether or not to answer this considering I haven't really addressed the comics piracy issue before so I'm not sure I'm the right account to talk about it, and also because my askbox is not a confessional and I am not a priest, but then some Spider-Man news broke that I feels ties into it this so whatever, we're going for it. The comics piracy debate comes up every couple of months and will probably continue to come up every couple of months until forever and all of these points have been stated before by others because nothing in this debate is new. First things first, you shouldn't feel guilty. I'm going to suggest actually that nobody should feel guilty, unless you are like, a millionaire and you're exclusively pirating indie books. The prices you're quoting are prohibitively expensive but I have some unfortunate news for everyone involved: the prices are really bad in the US, too. If you want good collected editions, especially in hardcover, they're going to run at similar if not quite equal prices. Comics have gone from a cheap hobby to an overwhelmingly expensive hobby.

This is a good article comparing to the cover costs of American comics since the 1960s adjusted for inflation which I think puts some things in perspective. Comics currently cost roughly $5 USD per issue, which doesn't sound that bad, even though most of my monthly streaming services are roughly that price for a whole month's access to a library of content. But it only doesn't sound that bad if you're not buying special issues (the Marvel Pride book retailed for $10), and if you're only reading one or two books a month. The problem is, American superhero comics are specifically designed so you're not reading just one or two books per month -- this is why we have events! And crossovers! Not for the story potential but because it forces the consumer to purchase more product. This is why there's constantly an event running with a checklist of tie-in issues in the back. So now you're spending probably at least $20 a month. If you're a fan with a lot of interest in different titles, and in different publishers, this can easily hit triple USD digits. It's a money pit. It's not affordable to most people. And this is where that new Spider-Man news comes in, because it was announced today that Amazing Spider-Man is going back to a thrice monthly schedule like it used to operate on during Brand New Day. Which sounds good at first -- more comics, yay -- until you realize that's probably going to be $15 USD a month for a one title. That's $180 a year for one title, not including annuals or special issues. That's not feasible for a lot of fans -- young fans, poor fans, fans with other financial obligations etc. And most people aren't reading just one title. I don't know how the X-Men fans are currently financing their Krakoa habit and I'm afraid to ask. There are services like Marvel Unlimited, which make things slightly more affordable, but I imagine the wait for newer issues to hit the service can be alienating for some fans who want to join in current discussions, the library has some incredibly massive holes in it which is unacceptable when it's coming from inside the mouse house, and I believe, although I could be wrong, that it is not available in all countries. Comics are no longer an easily accessible hobby, if you're paying for everything you read.

"But the creatives deserve to get paid" is the common argument and yeah, they do, I'm not arguing that point. They should absolutely get paid and they should get well. I'm a writer, I'm a published writer even, and I want to be a published novelist, and I definitely want to get paid, and I'm reserving the right to be a complete hypocrite about this, as I do with everything in my life, but this is where the difference between indie publications and Marvel publications comes in: Marvel is owned by Disney. There is absolutely no excuse for Disney not to pay their creatives. If they are not getting paid fairly, it's not because you pirated a book -- it's because Disney has a vested interest in not paying their creators, as evidenced by Alan Dean Foster's lawsuit claiming that they are withholding royalties from him. Fans pirating these books are not the reason the creatives are not getting paid fairly -- the creatives are not getting paid fairly for the same reason that Disney park employees experience homelessness, and it's because Disney would rather put that money into the pockets of their executives. There is no debate on that subject. It's easier and perhaps more convenient to blame fans for pirating comics rather than putting all of their money into what has been for years now a prohibitively expensive hobby to keep up with, but the fact of the matter is Disney could pay all of their creatives what they're worth without hurting their bottom line and instead chooses not to. That is not on you, as an individual reader. You have no reason to feel guilty about that, no matter what your circumstances are, and you do not have to justify your actions to either me or the House of the Mouse. I'm with you, and Disney ultimately doesn't care. They're making that money up elsewhere and then not distributing it fairly to the people who create the properties their media empire is built off of. But especially if you're buying older books, you should know that your money is not going to the creative team -- once it's out of publication, they're not going to get any of the money you spent on it. The argument then becomes that you should be supporting local comics stores which yes, is true, but also doesn't apply to everyone, like anon who doesn't have access to local comic book stores. And again, this can become prohibitively expensive -- collections are expensive. Older, hard to find collections can be very expensive. Once something is out of print, all bets are off on what it might be selling for. Buying single issues is only affordable if the single issue isn't desirable or sometimes if it's in exceedingly bad condition. For the sake of transparency, I have a fairly big single issue collection because it's my preferred format, but I had the time to bargain hunt, access to local comic book stores and large comic conventions, and I'm very good at sniping eBay auctions. The most I have ever dropped on a single issue was expensive for me -- and still under three digits USD -- and it's for an issue from the '60s that is not in great condition.

The problem with this debate is that it is generally a nuanced issue that always gets boiled down to "piracy bad" in a way that makes a lot of well meaning and well intentioned fans, especially the ones with extenuating circumstances, feel bad. It's not your fault. You shouldn't feel guilty. There are a huge amount of reasons why someone might pirate something that are not bad reasons and do not make you a bad person who is personally withholding money from the creators -- because you're not. I don't publicly tell people where to pirate comics, mostly because I really don't think it's that hard to find out for yourselves especially because several creators involved with Marvel themselves have, I suspect accidentally, posted pages of their work to social media WITH THE BANNER OF A WELL KNOWN COMICS PIRACY SITE STILL IN THE IMAGE please learn how to crop, so maybe my standpoint on the issue wasn't well known, but there it is. I think readers should, if they are able to financially and otherwise, support the creators they like, but that it should be acknowledged that this is a more complicated issue than it's commonly made out to be on Twitter and that the largest part of the blame needs to be put on the companies making these comics inaccessible to many and who refuse to pay their creators fairly, not on individual fans. Don't feel guilty, anon.

[yvesdot]

I didn't want to vote in the poll and skew anything since I visit my library at least monthly and participate in events, but as a regular patron of multiple libraries throughout my life (& a teen library volunteer at some point), this is a great list of reasons someone might or might not visit the library and I'm very curious about the results... bonus thoughts below. Many, many bonus thoughts below.

Transportation is possibly the largest issue: in my personal experience, most of the younger people I speak to who wind up pirating books instead of getting them from the library simply can't get there. Their parents won't drive them often enough, they aren't within biking/walking distance, and public transportation is awful. (eBook lending is also notoriously difficult due to the deranged copyright contracts involved, leading to massive wait times.)

With that said, many also read a lot more spontaneously than libraries can provide: they want their books available now! I can't tell you how many people of all ages come into the bookshop I work at, hear a book can be available within three days, and immediately go to Amazon. There is a real effect of "easier" and "faster" options: if you can pirate the book right now, the logic goes, why even bother going to the library?

I also find some people like to own their books, however briefly, especially when they can afford to do so. Many people prefer to buy a book, take however long they want to read it (and take it wherever with no fear of losing or muddying it), and then, if they really don't want it, get rid of it.

And of course social anxiety is an increasingly relevant issue in places where resources do not allow for searching library systems (or ILL) on your own, and especially if someone might not understand Dewey or similar organization efforts and not want to ask. Even getting a library card involves talking to people, and I remember getting some strangely brusque responses when I couldn't immediately produce multiple pieces of mail to a new address. I continuously forget that there is anything odd about my extremely transsexual appearance, but if I were a teen concerned about my GNCity, I might not want to interface with some of the largely older folks staffing the library (an institution facing a real staffing and funding crisis, but requiring inaccessibly high amounts of experience and education).

I would also argue that even more than the importance of individual events is the importance of advertising these events the right way. Younger people seem to spend less time on all the nuts and bolts of library websites and newsletters and more time not just on social media but in person: are there flyers clearly visible to people browsing the Teen section? Can you tell just from walking around the library where to go if you want to know more about events?

And with all that said, in case it's not clear, I absolutely adore libraries with every bone in my body and encourage everyone to do a little research into their local one and see if you can discover an exciting secret! Many libraries offer free printing, free magazines to read while you're there, financial advising, author workshops, and more; I like to come to my library's monthly reading series. Get out in your community! ❤︎

As a young librarian, I started trying to figure out why more young people aren't ever coming in; 90% of our demographic are the elderly and parents of children, and the rest are a rough mix of the kids and teenagers who come in just for school projects. As a result, I've been attempting different ways to get the Youth TM to come into libraries, but first I wanted to see why they don't come in. Please reblog to get this poll out to more people! <3

[compassionatereminders]

hey guys!!! hope ur days going well!! sometimes i feel bad abt how I know I'm autistic/ on the spectrum but I can't tell a lot of people that bc I cant afford to get tested. I know I am but I feel like just saying I'm self diagnosed makes me sound stupid and pathetic when I can't get tested and dk if it'd even come out in a good way or if my struggles would just be overlooked. Can I ask what ur guys thoughts are?? Sorry If uve done smth like this before but I hope ur day is good!!!

In a world where professional mental health care is still inaccessible to many people, I really don't think it's fair to judge the people who can't access it just for trying to understand and help themselves with the resources they do have access to. So I fully support informed self-diagnosis!

- Kat

You can't know for sure until you get tested, but you definitely don't need an official paper in order to use and identify with resources directed at autistic people. If they work for you, that's what matters.

- Cuddly

[thoroughlyskeptic]

“We both went to the London premiere but not together. We weren’t engaged and there was no reason to sort of show off to the world." USA Today November 18, 2014.

I'd like the Nannies to express their opinion about this please. With the full understanding that no person or persons on this side of the computer can control, sway or change Ben's mind or heart. That's not the point. The point is to understand what you believe is the psychological reasoning behind the decision to use that phrasing with his pregnant, soon to be fiancé and soon to be wife and soon to be mother of his child. According to People magazine and the Daily Mail, and those, including nannies, who said they have seen a Birth Certificate, Christopher Carlton Cumberbatch was born on June 1st.  Dislike it all you want, having a birthday makes it possible, and given human nature, likely that people will speculate on the date of conception, especially considering the facts, including the timing with regards to the Oscars and the shotgun* nature of the wedding. If it was a full term no problem pregnancy, 40 weeks, not under or over due, she was 2 and a half months pregnant when the above statement was made.

This story you nannies have built up, that Ben and Sophie have a true perfect love forever, that they never fight, how do you reconcile that with the whole unvarnished truth? Unless Sophie was totally gormless, she must have known she was pregnant. If Ben was dating her and truly in love, he would have known she was pregnant. They married three months later. He was in true love with the women he married, the woman he proposed to, whom he didn't mention by her name in interviews, and didn't want to walk down the red carpet to his movie premiere with the woman making his dreams come true, his dreams of being a father.

Now you are going to yell about things like privacy. That what he said was meant to protect Sophie and hide the pregnancy. I think anyone who is at all skeptical could answer that one. No one eager for privacy about their personal life talks to reporters, USA Today, or People magazine at all, let alone does a wedding dress spread in Vogue. I'm surprised it was in the print edition, and not the digital only. After all, maternity bridal gowns aren't really "en vogue". The long and short of it is that photo spread was well positioned and they managed to photograph her to look like she wasn't 5 1/2 months pregnant, perhaps to make that style of gown more in demand. Shotgun weddings tend to favor empire waists and lots of flounce to disguise the bump.

Now, I know the next question from the peanut gallery will be, why bring this up? They have stayed together, have two more kids together and it has been x and whatever years.

Here are several responses. Pick one or more in any combination.

1. Our feelings don't have to be right to be valid.

2. You have the option to object to our perfectly valid emotional reaction.

3. We have a right to block you from our page. You also have this right.

4. If you object to our opinions, you do not have to read our blogs or interact with us in anyway. If you are constantly feeling harassed because you see content from skeptics, BLOCK THEM, don't blame them! If the worker at Sea World handed you a poncho to protect yourself and you didn't use it, you can't blame the Shamu if you get splashed.(Sorry for the outdated and insensitive analogy but I wanted something easy to understand. I disagree whole hearted with the captivity of intelligent creatures be they aquatic or terrestrial mammals.)

5. We are valid in our own right as people. If you attack us on a personal level, we will defend ourselves and we have the right to do so.

6. As long as we do not interact with anyone,(i.e. Ben, Sophie, Karon, his management, etc) we can say whatever we want on our own blogs. The majority of us have never met him and don't want to. As far as we are concerned, Ben is an imaginary person that we are writing as a character for a long running D&D campaign.

7. However, the same does not apply to you. Many of you have gone out of your way to meet him. You believe that by sending hate to skeptics or doxxing them you will earn validation from him. I worry that some of you are on the brink and if he doesn't acknowledge you one time, or does something that you can't justify with your world view, one of you will snap. You think this about us, I know. But the nannies on the whole have much more emotional investment in Ben's personal life. (As a for instance, The skeptics call him Ben because at least one nanny has said that, "we don't know that he prefers that nickname so we should use his full name" another said "nicknames are for close friends and family and we aren't those, so we should call him by his full name or Mr. Cumberbatch." If Ben even has two thoughts about any skeptic or nanny(especially how they address him in blog posts) for the entire year I'd be surprised. Unless, of course, it when he has to think about you lot bothering him, stalking him, and generally making a nuisance of yourselves.

******

I also know you complain that the skeptics don't "love" Ben in every thing he does and don't always watch all his work. The gatekeeping within the fandom, not include how you discount and loathe the skeptics, is extreme. Fans must be all or nothing.

1. Not everyone has the money to participate fully, whether that is buying movies, theater tickets, merchandise or going to conventions to hear him speak. Disregarding fans based on their ability to participate, especially due to financial inability, is gatekeeping and it is the worst kind of gatekeeping. You are saying the only good fans are rich ones.

2. Generally the nannies viewpoint is Eurocentric as well. Some people have jobs, have children to raise, have other things that take priority over "being a fan". Being a fan requires time that poorer countries, less developed countries generally lack. Some countries censor the movies that are shown. Doctor Strange was not shown in the East the way it was in the west and unless you can afford to travel to another location,(Say the London Premiere that didn't quite happen and the nannies were upset because he didn't preform like a good little monkey in a suit for them?) you are made to feel left out by the uber fans.

3. Some people have emotional triggers. Ben's roles tend more towards the dramatic then comedic. Drama can deeply affect those who have experienced similar situations. He has been in movies dealing with Cancer, Childhood Abuse, Incest, Slavery, War, Pedophilia, have I missed any major triggers?

4. He is also in the MCU and the Hobbit movies which have flashing lights which makes them inaccessible to those who have seizures and migraines. Another oft used gatekeeping tactic in fandoms is the restriction of accessibility. In the US, there are compliancy laws for disabilities(although they aren't always obeyed) but smaller, poorer countries may not have accessible movie theaters. Fans with disabilities can not travel as easily as more abled fans. Smaller independent films Benedict made at the beginning of his career may not have captions or audio description or may be unafforable for those that have medical costs to consider.

5. There is also gender bias in the Cumberbatch fandom. One need only look at their chosen name, Cumberbitches. I can think of 15 more gender neutral terms off the top of my head but men and those who identify as male were inherently excluded from the fandom. I can think of ONE male fan. Maybe one that writes under his wife's account as to not get ridiculed. Because they would be ridiculed by the nannies, that is who they are, the "gatekeepers of the fandom", deciding who is worthy to be a Ben fan.

They have made fun of fans before. Not just skeptics. People they don't like or don't want in their little clique. So the majority of Ben's fans are middle aged rich white women. Not because that's who he's trying to reach as an audience but because that is who his uber fans allow to worship him.

If you are in need of examples of how out of control the uber fans are take the following for an example.

Someone did a nice tweet about other actors. It had nothing to do with Ben, although it did feature Tom Hiddleston and other Marvel actors. The ubers starting by saying Ben wasn't listed, then jumped into, well, a screenshot is worth a thousand words.

As they say, that escalated quickly...

*Shotgun Wedding is an American term for a marriage precipitated by the pregnancy. It comes from an American colloquialism, termed as such based on a stereotypical scenario in which the father of the pregnant bride-to-be threatens the reluctant groom with a shotgun in order to ensure that he follows through with the wedding.

[safety-net-did]

A thought that comes up again and again for me is the idea that if in-depth, dedicated, persistent talk-therapy were available to me, I could get better reasonably quickly and without drug/medical intervention.

I got messy and ranty and long. So I put a cut.

Like, if I could be in-patient with daily therapy and an actual plan of action and support to get through it. Given the time and resources to actually try and untangle the ball of yuck head on... Like the movies show rehab centers, except focused on trauma and not drug use.

Except there are no resources for that kind of in-depth work if you're not rich as fuck.

Even when I was in-patient we had the most lackluster fill-up-time programming imaginable, and half the time I was there I was also going to school anyway so it was really just an observed place to sleep and wake up.

Therapy since ha never been able to be hard-hitting or in-depth because an hour once a week (or, more usually, twenty minutes every three months) isn't enough to actually get into anything. I have issues surrounding trust and feeling connections with people, and the current model of intermittent therapy doesn't give enough time to actually overcome that in order to get to the root of the issue.

Writing this fills me with emotions. Anger that the system is so useless for complex issues. Self-criticism for wanting "too much", that I'm a fool for thinking I know better about what I need, that I'm selfish and lazy, that I could have been doing more on my own so how dare I complain that the world doesn't do enough for me.

Even if a facility existed like I think I'd want (close enough to be feasible, there seem to be some on the global scale) there's no way I could afford them anyway. Even the cheapest addictions centre 'round here is thousands of dollars a week.

I signed up to let people cause micro seizures in my brain because my condition doesn't respond to drugs... (probably because it's not a hormone/neurotransmitter imbalance, in my opinion) And I elected to do this because the other well documented and proven effective method, therapy, is inaccessible.

I'm so angry. I'm so tired. How dare people insinuate I haven't done my part to make my situation better.

I hate having to fight for the smallest scraps of help and assistance, scraps that don't make anything better, just make me ignorable.

That idea of "they don't tell you not to kill yourself because they want you happy to live, they tell you not to kill yourself because they don't want to deal with the mess of you dying."

I have issues down at the level of my core beliefs. But no one every send interested in or able to help me actually strip those back, look at them, and work on them. Or, rather, the few people who have shown interest/ability have all then become inaccessible to me for other reasons I had no control over. So I know the work is doable-- I've started on it a couple times.

But now I'm stuck with going to whatever therapist I can afford. And I just. Can't connect to her. So why bother going? But if I stop going am I really "trying my best"?