#the learning company

[fairmerthefarmer]

Anyone else remember/play cluefinders?

[nostalgiahime]

Pokemon Project Studio CD-ROMS - Red & Blue Versions (1999) [✩] [✩]

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[themattress]

Favorite Simplistic Villains

Morty Maxwell - Yeah, I know that the similar character I.M Meen is the one with all the meme fame, but this is the guy who burdened my childhood education on the computer and he has a far greater resumé. Morty Maxwell is a crazed manchild known as "The Master of Mischief", and that moniker is literally all you need to know in order to grasp his character. He causes trouble purely for the lolz, and it's up to you as either the Super Solver or the Super Seeker to put a stop to the chaos he creates. Morty Maxwell is like a child-appropriate preparation for darker villains like the Joker, villains who lack solid motivation and rationality and do evil purely for their own twisted amusement, and that's why I appreciate him so much.

Bowser - He's a big mean monster who wants to conquer the kingdom and make its princess marry him. What could be so endearingly simple and easy to understand them that? And as long as Bowser maintains this incredibly simplistic foundation, there's no limit to what can be done with him to further flesh him out as a character. There are villains that you love to hate, but Bowser, for all of the legitimate villainy he has committed over his almost four-decade career, is practically impossible to hate. He's just too likable in his simplistic persistence, not to mention all the occasions he takes time off from evil-doing to play sports or party games with his enemies, giving rise to the phrase "Go-Karting with Bowser" to describe villains who indulge in life's casual pleasures alongside the heroes. Bowser is great in almost every game he appears in, and he recently extended that greatness into the realm of cinema courtesy of Jack Black's impeccable voicework. You just can't go wrong with the King of the Koopas!

[blueyheeler]

PC games from my childhood part 2/?

The Learning Company Treasure Cove (1992)

[louderfade]

Super Solvers: Treasure Mountain

[sunny-paradise-girl]

Reader Rabbit's Kindergarten, 1997

[mikurulucky]

A rare Super Solver with shiny white beady lil eyes. Kinda looks like the black mage from Final Fantasy drawn like this lol.

[gibbearish]

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

[hardcore-gaming-101]

Top 47K - DUSK + Operation Neptune

Join the HG101 gang and special guest Mallick (https://www.twitch.tv/superelectricviolence) as they discuss and rank a fast-paced, horror-themed shooter inspired by the Quake generation. Then stick around for one of those only-on-HG101 games that combines education and entertainment!

[yunisverse]

pray for me, I have an incurable illness where very time i see crossover art of Funny Little Dude In Spacesuits games i think "hmm. digivolution stages"

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[retrocgads]

USA 1990

[psychedelic-charm]

Boy, this 3D graphic didn't age well.

[louderfade]

Super Solvers: Midnight Rescue

[sunny-paradise-girl]

Reader Rabbit: Learn to Read with Phonics, 1999