What frustrates me about disability advocacy is that…of all the people I’ve seen talk about it, 99% of them - even ones who are disabled themselves - have eventually proven that their support has limits. Really stupid and arbitrary ones, at that.
You support disabled people…but if you see an adult with a DIAPER BULGE in their pants in public it’s ON SIGHT, get your kink out of my face! Actually, even if it’s not a kink, that’s still gross and, like, it’s not like the diaper exists to CONTAIN waste, you’re a biohazard! Just stay home!
You support disabled people…but, ugh, you’re so sick of masks, they feel so icky, the CDC isn’t advising them anymore so really how bad can it be, if you don’t want to be permanently disabled even worse than you already are then why don’t you just stay home forever?
You support disabled people…but if you see anyone using a non-conventional straw that someone’s billed as “anti-aging” on TikTok you proudly declare that you’ll smack them, because what do you mean it might be a motor control or sensory thing?
You support disabled people…but no one is REALLY so disabled that they can’t manage their lights conventionally, clean their homes by themselves, or hold a pen for extended periods of time or at all; that’s just something people make up as an excuse for Bad Tech and exploitative luxury services.
You support disabled people…but, god, control your by-definition-uncontrollable tics, they’re SOOOO annoying and rude!
You support disabled people…but when someone stops masking or runs out of spoons and starts speaking in a choppy, hard-to-understand way, it’s a joke.
You support disabled people…but AAC is, like, sooooo annoying and hard to understand, learn to talk like a normal person instead of pointing like a baby or whatever, geez.
You support disabled people…but you hate image descriptions and video transcriptions because they’re, like, sooooo ugly and transcriptions SPOIL things. (Not to be confused with “frequently not having the spoons to translate images and videos into text, which is a skill; one which everyone should try to develop, but a skill nonetheless” - I get that, it happens to me, but if you take issue with OTHER people adding them to your posts for Aesthetic Reasons, you’re…kind of a dick! I’m not sorry for saying it!)
You support disabled people…but you think teehee funny joke annotations are a much more valuable use of caption tracks than, you know, actual captions are.
You support disabled people…but you still concern-troll people with armchair diagnoses of heavily stigmatized disorders for harmless weirdness, or try to paint them as icons of some kind of horrible social ill.
You support disabled people…but you’re still convinced that every asshole is mentally ill, probably A Narcissist, and what do you mean that’s a loaded thing to call someone when a heavily stigmatized disorder is rudely misnamed as such too, isn’t it easier to, like, change the name of the disorder throughout the whole system than it is to just stop using that word as your go-to Bad Person Pathologizing Word, which you definitely need? (Or worse, you see no problem with this clash because you’re convinced it IS Bad Person Disorder…)
You support disabled people…but you see someone mumbling to themself on the bus and you get as far away from them as possible because it’s “scary”.
You support disabled people…but you constantly try to pull “gotcha"s about people telling you not to touch people’s assistive devices.
You support disabled people…but someone being okay with their delusional disorder and talking about that is BAD and PROMOTING SELF-HARM.
You support disabled people…but your body positivity still focuses exclusively on "people can be healthy and fat at the same time!” as if people who ARE fat because of health issues and/or have health issues BECAUSE of their weight don’t exist or deserve support.
You support disabled people…but you declare that advocates who want us all to have more access to things that improve your quality of life are the REAL ableists for acknowledging that those things that you currently can’t do tend to improve quality of life.
You support disabled people…but your advocacy for yourself involves distancing yourself from people with more support needs than you.
You support disabled people…but you treat addiction of any kind, or use of anything with known addictive tendencies, as a moral failing.
You support disabled people…until the accommodations they need clash with your own, then it’s not just a benign incompatibility that sucks just as much for them as it does for you; no, you are an innocent victim and they are a horrible ableist.
You support disabled people…until it’s too inconvenient. Too weird. Too scary. Once that line is crossed, it’s not a disability issue anymore, they’re, conveniently, just a Bad Person.
It’s fucking exhausting and I’m sick to death of it.
A photo of a man reading a neon sign on a tree that says “Healing also means taking responsibility for the role you play in your own suffering”.
End ID]
the rudest most helpful thing anyone ever said to me is “why do you keep hurting your own feelings long after [the person who once hurt you] probably forgot about it” like literally just dear god you’ve split me open so neatly my entire soul is just flopping around on the ground between us now but thank you
Just fyi if you’re autistic/adhd and struggle specifically with this sort of thing, please know what what might be happening is something called perseveration, which is a common neurodivergent behavior that can include, among other things, revisiting emotions repeatedly and being unable to break loose from processing or managing stressful events.
Don’t keep hurting your own feelings. But don’t feel bad if you get stuck there, either. Something else could be going on.
Holy fucking shit.
I had never heard about perseveration before, and it just explains so much!
Trying not to cry because holy shit, it’s caused so much trouble in my life!
What the fuck?!
Why has nobody told me about this before? This knowledge could have changed my life drastically!
Narrat 🐀 is a game engine I created to easily make interactive fiction games (narrative RPGs, visual novels etc) for desktop or browser. I’ve worked on this game engine for some time, mostly to help friends make their games. It’s been used on a few small games, and some bigger ones in progress.
The demo is a bit boring with placeholder art and content just to show features, and is pretty outdated, but I never posted it here so I figured I should
I really want to make a proper demo one day that would be a small game that actually makes sense and maybe has actual art… but not sure what it would be yet
Games made with Narrat
Here are some screenshots of games made with Narrat. They’re also listed on the website if you want to play them or find the creators:
🎮 Games from the Narrat Game Jam(they’re playable in your browser and free):
Here’s a not really exhaustive list of fun features at the top of my head:
🚀 Super easy to get started with a tool that will setup your project either empty or with a template in a minute
✍️ Customisable characters, branching dialog and conditions
👩💻 Super easy scripting with a custom made language that focuses on letting you write dialog, but can be used for more advanced logic if you need it
🎧Audio support for music loops and sound effects
📘RPG features like skills with skill checks, inventory, quests
🎨 Accessible UI customisation with CSS allowing for a wide variety of designs
⚙️ Extremely configurable with a layout that can be adapted to different games
💡Plugin system (in TypeScript or JavaScript) to add functionality to the engine, new bits of UI or even extend the scripting language with your own commands!
🖥️ Steam export setup by default (the Steam overlay will work out of the box if you enable it)
🎬 Support for GIFs or webp in images for easy animation (thanks to the browser doing it for us)
🖼️ Dynamic sprites and text to programmatically display custom elements on screen (has been used to make a card game by someone)
🌍 Completely free and open source, and with a helpful Discord community to help with problems
Here’s what the scripting looks like (from the demo game):
I want more people to try this engine so please try it or help people know it exists ❤️
Narrat 🐀 is a game engine I created to easily make interactive fiction games (narrative RPGs, visual novels etc) for desktop or browser. I’ve worked on this game engine for some time, mostly to help friends make their games. It’s been used on a few small games, and some bigger ones in progress.
The demo is a bit boring with placeholder art and content just to show features, and is pretty outdated, but I never posted it here so I figured I should
I really want to make a proper demo one day that would be a small game that actually makes sense and maybe has actual art… but not sure what it would be yet
Games made with Narrat
Here are some screenshots of games made with Narrat. They’re also listed on the website if you want to play them or find the creators:
🎮 Games from the Narrat Game Jam(they’re playable in your browser and free):
Here’s a not really exhaustive list of fun features at the top of my head:
🚀 Super easy to get started with a tool that will setup your project either empty or with a template in a minute
✍️ Customisable characters, branching dialog and conditions
👩💻 Super easy scripting with a custom made language that focuses on letting you write dialog, but can be used for more advanced logic if you need it
🎧Audio support for music loops and sound effects
📘RPG features like skills with skill checks, inventory, quests
🎨 Accessible UI customisation with CSS allowing for a wide variety of designs
⚙️ Extremely configurable with a layout that can be adapted to different games
💡Plugin system (in TypeScript or JavaScript) to add functionality to the engine, new bits of UI or even extend the scripting language with your own commands!
🖥️ Steam export setup by default (the Steam overlay will work out of the box if you enable it)
🎬 Support for GIFs or webp in images for easy animation (thanks to the browser doing it for us)
🖼️ Dynamic sprites and text to programmatically display custom elements on screen (has been used to make a card game by someone)
🌍 Completely free and open source, and with a helpful Discord community to help with problems
Here’s what the scripting looks like (from the demo game):
I want more people to try this engine so please try it or help people know it exists ❤️
Hey, we all know to avoid Tapas (the webcomic platform, not the delicious finger foods) by now, right?
They’re going after young creators again with a new “incubator program”, so just as an FYI, let’s examine some information from their call for submissions.
First off, they’re looking for 600+ panel full color comics to be completed in 6-9 months. Script to final art. That’s about a 120+ page graphic novel, for comparison. (Also, the fact that they use the word “season” is a red flag — they’re looking for tv series, not comics.)
Mobile-Optimized Vertical Format Your project must fit our preferred format: full-color, mobile-friendly (also known as “vertical scroll” or “infinite canvas”), and be long-form narratives. A single season will consist of 20-25 episodes, with each episode being roughly 30 panels.
Time Frame Most projects will start in July and take approximately 6 - 9 months to complete one season of an original story. While we will try to work out a schedule that is most comfortable for you, the ideal start date for projects will be in July or August.
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Wanna know how much money we’re offering? You gotta send us your idea first, sorry. But don’t worry, we promise it’ll take up a ton of your time and not give you any benefits!
How much will I be paid? Can you give an estimate? Because everyone’s situation is different (length of story, production time, etc.), we are unable to provide an estimate of compensation. Details about compensation are worked out after we give you an offer. You are under no obligation to accept the offer.
How much of my time will be required for this program? This project will take a significant amount of your time to complete so we ask that you carefully consider your schedule before submitting.
Do I get benefits (like health insurance or parking expenses)?
No. Being selected for this program doesn’t mean you will be considered an employee of Tapas Media, which means you are ineligible for benefits.
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THIS is the real boogeyman of the agreement, though. In practice, “joint ownership” means “really, they own it” — you won’t be able to do anything with your own stories without their permission and involvement. This is NOT a normal or fair publishing practice.
Who owns the copyright of the resulting work?
The copyright will be shared between the creator and Tapas Media.
Why is this a joint ownership?
As we are investing a significant amount of money, effort, and time into your project, we feel that asking for co-ownership is fair. If the idea of joint ownership isn’t comfortable with you, please don’t feel obligated to apply.
end of screencaps]
If you remember that whole Tokyopop debacle, a lot of cartoonists lost their work altogether from signing one of these “joint ownership” contracts. This is a giant red flag.
Last one, and they tried to bury this information: they’re gonna give you no time to negotiate this contract. They want you to start working the same month you get accepted. This isn’t time to hire a lawyer/agent to read over it and help you fight for better terms.
Important Dates Submissions Open: June 1, 2018 12:00 AM PDT Submissions Close: July 1, 2018 11:59 PM PDT Responses will begin rolling out after submissions close.
Time Frame Most projects will start in July and take approximately 6 - 9 months to complete one season of an original story. While we will try to work out a schedule that is most comfortable for you, the ideal start date for projects will be in July or August.
end of screencap]
Anyway, they close their own dang FAQ saying basically “if you don’t like it then fuck off”, and to be honest, it’s in your best interests to do exactly that.
Start that awesome webcomic on your own, keep your copyright intact, avoid these people like the plague
I don’t like this, I don’t like that.
We understand that this program might not be a good fit for everyone. If there is an aspect of the program that doesn’t sit well with you, you don’t have to apply.
end of screencap]
Oh, and if this helped, you can check out Mel’s work melaniegillman.com, where they do stuff with colored pencils that makes me weep.
