Thread by @DrJessicaLanger

So here’s the thing about the ‘no excuses’, ‘always hustle’ bullshit; the refusal to recognize that people - even neuroatypical folks, or those with a chronic illness or disability - have limits.

We KNOW people have limits.

The evidence? Video games.

Let me explain.

1/n

In every game ever made, there’s a recognition of limits. Look at, I don’t know, Super Mario World for the NES as an early game. Mario jumps into a pit? He dies. He hits a Goomba? He dies. There are places he can’t go, no matter how much he wants to or how much he tries.

2/n

But I’m thinking more about modern games.

Think about the Final Fantasy series. You have HP and MP. If you run out of MP, you can’t cast any more spells unless you eat or drink the right things, or you rest. If you run out of HP, you faint.

Sound familiar?

3/n

Honestly? It’s not just video games. #TTRPG’s have limits built in, too.

In #DnD, for instance, I play a wizard. A wizard can’t cast any more spells if they’re out of spell slots, no matter how urgent the situation is. They need a long rest to recover their magic.

4/n

Every game has limits built in.

#RDR2? If you’re out of dead-eye, you can’t do your dead-eye trick until you replenish it.

#Diablo? ‘I need more mana!’ says your character, over and over and over and over and...

Every single game.

Why?

5/n

Because games recognize what we refuse to recognize in real life:

People have limits. They *cannot do more than they are able.* And no amount of shaming them or anger at them will make them magically able to do more than they can do.

Now: let’s talk status effects.

6/n

In most games I can think of, your character can be afflicted by a status effect: poison, for instance, causes a slow leak of HP. Stop means you’re frozen. Fear means you can’t control your actions. There are many of these.

To some of us, they’ll seem quite familiar.

7/n

Status effects can often be healed, but it takes a special item or potion. And while you’re afflicted, you *cannot do what you normally can do.* And it’s not shameful. It’s just something that happens *to* you.

Like depression. Anxiety. Injury. A crisis.

Status effects.

8/n

The point?

Almost all games predicate their systems on:

People have limits. They cannot be expected to work beyond them.

Sometimes, outside factors affect people’s ability to do the things they could normally do.

So let’s understand this IRL, too.

/fin