Escapism

I am disabled. I get pain-beaten and strobed.

I am in pain, and sometimes in danger, from abled policies which require pain-beaters and strobes.

I am also autistic and trans. I got bullied and bashed unconscious as a kid, and I learned to hate myself for it.

I am a gamer too. Sometimes I play and design games to explore history. Sometimes I play and design games to escape this situation, though and that’s okay.

I want to find games that won’t strobe me, won’t trigger my migraines, and will allow me to play with my sensory and coordination issues. Most tabletop games work for me, but relatively few computer games do.

I also sometimes want to find games that allow more of us to escape the nasty situations some of us face, though, too. Even if only for a while. I don’t want to get stuck with games which *support* racism, sexism, ableism, etc., so I try to avoid games when the publishers complain about “SJW” “censorship,” or of course, if they support racism, sexism, ableism, etc.

P.S. And I've been thinking about how to bring escapist social justice into a semi-historical setting. How about a Roman-age setting, in Scythia east of Dacia, where Spartacus's rebels have settled after escaping from Italia, with Amazons from the east trading horses, Gutones from the northwest trading amber, and so on?

Don't Blame Protesters for Police Violence

When police fire tear gas and concussion grenades at protesters, that doesn’t mean the protesters were or are committing violence. It means the police are committing violence.

I wasn’t able to participate in today’s protests, due to my disabilities, but while peacefully protesting years ago, police attacked the group I was with, and someone knocked me to the ground, and police repeatedly sprayed pain into my eyes and mouth. Judging by photos of the beating, and bruises afterwards, they also beat me with an improvised club. I have severe asthma, and I could have died if it had gone down my throat instead of my esophagus. I don’t have epilepsy, but I had some kind of seizure due to the pain.

Blaming protesters is victim-blaming. Bullying survivors to try to figure out what we must have done to deserve the violence can be triggering for some of us with ptsd from this violence. It’s not right, factually or morally.