Cooking centres me and Iāve been in a bad place for weeks. So today, bake!
Ended up with a carton of egg nog I donāt like because waaaay too much sugar so Iāve decided to experiment and make a rice pudding with it š¤
The egg nog has 3x the sugar of normal rice pudding recipe š±
Bay leaves; old fashioned British style š
I toasted the rice - itās why itās brown š„³ Using premium medium grain Japanese rice - the closest to sticky short grain I have on hand. Wonāt stick as well, might be tad soupy!
[vid: slowly pouring evaporated milk over toasted rice]
Itās going to be SWEET! Donāt have any citrus to offset so I added lots of cardamom which has citrusy notes. I cannot believe how much sugar is in this carton of egg nog!! 120g of added sugar by my calculation
I was just idly thinking while watching Aunty Donnaās Big Olā House of Fun that itās like a 2020 version of old 90s late night British sketch shows like the Adam & Joe show...
Found this lovely video š„ŗ
Friends Like These
All these old shows coming to Netflix and I have zero interest in watching anything from the 90s or early 2000s again... except I would 1000% watch the Adam and Joe show.
I know this is how Iām nearing 40 because Iām nostalgic for late night stoner sessions of my teens š¤£
Also watch Aunty Donna on Netflix. Itās the wholesome medicine we need for late 2020 š
Iām just gonna point out something I havenāt seen anyone else say -
In the trailer for Music, Maddie Ziegler is actually mimicking movements, facial expressions, and sounds that are closer to non-verbal cerebral palsy than nv autism.
Itās a really typical mistake people make.
Everything else has been said 1000 times today, but this is one thing that really illustrates WHY non-disabled people canāt play disabled characters authentically, why it hurts us ALL, and why us disabled folk see through it.
They canāt see the difference between us!! For REAL.
Even with apparent research weāre all the same to them! If weāre non-verbal = āspasticā but that is actually a very specific medical term turned slur/insult relating to very particular disabilities/diagnoses.
Itās been misused to portray everything from Autism to Down Syndrome.
Winter! Not my first rodeo with a face mask all winter. Iāve spoken about how much Iāve had to use them pre-pandemic. Only diff is now itās 100% of the time on the odd occasion I leave my house. No cold face š
Lockdown never ended for me, so the surge is just more of the same.
Iām v privileged I CAN lockdown, but because I have the luxury I also donāt really have a choice.
I mean, technically I could choose to take the risks others have, but theyāre actually different risks for people like me
+ I HAVE been close to death & prolonged, severe illness.
I know it too well. Itās not about fear, itās about having seen it, experienced it, lived it, and come out the other side. Many of the times my disabilities and chronic illnesses progressed it was related to infection (bacterial often), or worsened by viral infections.
One of the hard things for me when I advocate about my literal job, is not trying to reach the toxic ass whoās already made up their mind and are here in bad faith.
Itās trying to grow understanding within the community, encouraging people to speak with nuance instead of flames
I struggle with being able to see patterns and systems - I can see when we stray and are beginning to end up in the woods. I can see when weāre making mistakes, and so many times I feel like Iāve tried to sound the warning and so few hear me we end up there any way.
Itās hard to undo mistakes & backtrack. Itās hard to beat back the woods and things get muddied.
So many different brambles too - the wrong lens, biases, a lack of understanding of design or conversely experiences, miscommunications, misinterpretations, assumptions - it goes on
Itās widening of game design - accounting for *unintentional barriers* in player experience.
Itās not a defined set of options, solutions, or even features (except in specifics like communication). Definitely not ādifficulty modesā
Yes, options, specific features, difficulty modes, are sometimes *A* solution employed to address a particular barrier, but no, theyāre not always the BEST solution. Can we always DO the best? Sadly, no.
Sometimes itās a journey. Steps. Sometimes we have constraints in game dev.
Accessibility is about understanding, perspective, knowing player experiences for the whole spectrum of humanity. As our understanding and knowledge changes, so do our design approaches.
Design. Iterate. Implement. Test: like all game design.
Shoutout to everyone who lives with chronic pain. Itās so limiting & exhausting in a way that is truly impossible to describe
Itās also not just āpainā but the compounding impacts on mental or physical health & stress responses
I think thatās the thing thatās hard to get across
Iām going to ramble a bit because I think
1. Itāll help me feel less utterly depressed about once again being trapped by pain
2. I think itāll help others, even if the pain you live with isnāt as profound, all of this applies no matter what your personal pain scale looks like
I know I only tweet about this when Iām in the middle of a particularly severe flare because thatās the only time itās possible to even begin to convey. In between those really bad times I cope so I forget.
I regularly work well day to day even when my pain is 4-6/10
I was reading this article and the whole time I knew, I KNEW that what she was describing was dysautonomia (autonomic nervous system dysfunction) and a lot of the associated symptoms, and I was RIGHT. It's PoTS which is one of the most common forms.
You know the most utterly absurd thing? How are Drs STILL so uneducated about autonomic dysfunction? Even in a pandemic they don't twig on the constellation of symptoms
Here's the thing - it most commonly occurs with ME/CFS which is thought to be caused by... VIRAL INFECTION >>
I'm so mad reading this article. This isn't even about the pandemic it's going to be swathes of non-disabled people finally facing the tyranny of the medical system that so many of us have been dealing with for eons.
OK, story time because it's one of those days and giving a talk is kind of an emotional floodgate opening
I get a lot of praise for my speaking/presentations. There's a few people responsible for me even being a speaker or believing/understanding it's something I could do
>>
I assumed, being autistic and having memory deficits along with speech impediments/disabilities I would never be able to be a public speaker. It was just not really on my radar.
I did it a bit in my previous job, on panels at comic conventions but it wasn't the same as now
>>
Since joining the games industry in earnest in 2013 as a v vocal advocate, unafraid to take to the internet & speak up (on issues that were so stigmatised they would immediately insight harassment*), I've changed a lot
*not to mention 2014+ which we all know was a time