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crazy how these are the only characters in mouthwashing!

Make Video Games More Accessible By...

Dear game developers: 

Make your games more accessible by

Allowing Button remapping

Supporting multiple kinds of controllers

Supporting multiple types of inputs for when solving puzzles or clues

Match the color and or pattern puzzle

Follow the sound and controller vibration to find the mcguffin

Allow for zooming in and out if you’re doing any kind of “pattern alignment” puzzle. 

Subtitles on everything, for fuck’s sake

If your motion/camera thing’s instructions start with “stand up and….”, rethink your design.

Allow for adjusting the field of view

Aim assist.

If someone is struggling with a puzzle or task, start offering tool tips and hints on screen

Remember that the goal is not to have the player play the game like you would. The goal is for the gamer to have fun and experience the game and art you’ve spent so much time and energy to create in a way that brings them joy.

Removing and avoiding harmful tropes around disability - physical or otherwise.

Hi, Tumblr. It’s Tumblr. We’re working on some things that we want to share with you. 

AI companies are acquiring content across the internet for a variety of purposes in all sorts of ways. There are currently very few regulations giving individuals control over how their content is used by AI platforms. Proposed regulations around the world, like the European Union’s AI Act, would give individuals more control over whether and how their content is utilized by this emerging technology. We support this right regardless of geographic location, so we’re releasing a toggle to opt out of sharing content from your public blogs with third parties, including AI platforms that use this content for model training. We’re also working with partners to ensure you have as much control as possible regarding what content is used.

Here are the important details:

We already discourage AI crawlers from gathering content from Tumblr and will continue to do so, save for those with which we partner. 

We want to represent all of you on Tumblr and ensure that protections are in place for how your content is used. We are committed to making sure our partners respect those decisions.

To opt out of sharing your public blogs’ content with third parties, visit each of your public blogs’ blog settings via the web interface and toggle on the “Prevent third-party sharing” option. 

For instructions on how to opt out using the latest version of the app, please visit this Help Center doc. 

Please note: If you’ve already chosen to discourage search crawling of your blog in your settings, we’ve automatically enabled the “Prevent third-party sharing” option.

If you have concerns, please read through the Help Center doc linked above and contact us via Support if you still have questions.

The Mouse and the Shoe Box

I am not exactly sure what was done that night was the right thing, but this is what happened. It was during my sophomore year of college back in St. Louis during the spring when I and two of my friends, Mandy and Angela went out for a walk through Washington University’s campus one night.

It sat directly across the street from us with lights and black gates surrounding it like the jewels of an oversized crown. I tended to go along because it was the size of a small city compared to ours and I think I just liked to be part of something bigger than myself. I always felt like that place was consciously trying to swallow up as much space as possible.

I can’t recall what was said in particular during our walk, but something stifled our habitual chatter that was our nightly ritual. This was when we saw the mouse. It mustn’t have been any bigger than a golf ball. Its tail bent at an almost perfect 90 degree angle and uselessly dangled at the broken joint.

Upon noticing our presence, it tried to flee as one would when one finds three giants of unknown species lumbering towards you at night. But without the aid of a working tail for balance, its intended trajectory towards a nearby bush fell apart. It slowly and involuntarily drifted towards its left. Constantly it tried righting itself only to veer off course away from the apparent safety of the shrubbery. It looked to me like a ship trying to dock only to be pushed back out by the tide. The frustration from its little ruddy brown frame was palpable.

My two companions went into a frenzy of compassion for this creature as they stooped closer to examine it. I stayed behind, watching the scene a few steps back. Soon they concocted a plan to save this unfortunate thing.

For we all thought, in its present state, it was easy prey for something bigger and faster than itself. Mandy kept watch over the mouse as Angela ran back to her dorm room to grab an old converse shoe box. I slowly let out a sigh of resignation for the night.

When she returned, the two of them tried coaxing the now equally confused and frightened mouse inside.  As the two finally managed the task by lightly shoving it inside with the shoe box lid, I couldn’t help but feel embarrassed by the whole thing unfolding before me.

To this day I’m not sure if my embarrassment was for me or the mouse - maybe for the both of us. When we got back to our campus they tried feeding it leaves of lettuce. Hoping that by tomorrow it would be able to fend for itself. Angela volunteered to keep it in her room to supervise their furry refugee.

The mouse was dead by morning. I don’t know exactly when but from what she told me when she went to check on it, it was motionless in one corner of the box, its lettuce untouched in the opposite end.

Even now, I still remember it trying so desperately to get to that bush, and away from us. I wonder what would have happened if we never found it: Would it have really died? Would it have eventually made it to the bush? Would it have mattered either way in the grand scheme of things? I think in the end, I will never know for we intervened or, more aptly, interrupted nature’s course. We know no more than the mouse in that respect.  

Awkward Assumptions and Mistaken Sexuality

There's been a lot of stuff in my walk through life that I've been mistaken for because of my looks and mannerisms. 

I've been thought to be Indian, Cuban, some sort of Pacific Islander, or something or other. But those don't usually come about as often as a certain one does. 

For more times than I can remember, I've been assumed to be gay...a lot of times.

The first time it happened was when I was at work helping a woman with finding some CDs.

About two hours into my shift at work, a woman approached me asking me for help looking for a CD. She had on a deep purple blouse accompanied by a black button-up cardigan. Her shoulder-length hair bobbed with anxious energy as her head craned from left to right in search of something. As per my salesman script, I asked what type she was looking for and she replied in hushed tones “I’m a little embarrassed to say this;” she then leaned in closer the, almost whispering “I’m looking for… Broadway musicals.”

I waved my hand as if to shoo away her concerns. “Oh no worries,” I said “I listen to everything from Wu-Tang to Dolly Parton, so you have nothing to worry about.” We then shared a little chortle as I led her to the music section.

As I was searching for her CD she said “Oh look.” To the right of us was a line-up of Dolly Parton’s albums. The first in line depicted Dolly in a tight Pepto-Bismol-pink colored dress that was so tight it looked painted on. She was reclining on what looked like a bale of hay. Her hair took up three quarters of the album art. Her bosoms handled the rest.

We both stared at this case for only a moment – no more than two seconds when this woman chimed in:

 “Look at this, you must have loved this one since you’re gay.”

“What?”

“You know, you’re gay, right?”

“Actually no, I’m… I’m not.”

“Oh…”

After this exchange a great silence fell. Her eyes held a plaintive wideness as if she was waiting for me to say “Just kidding, I am gay!” and she could breathe a sigh of relief. But it did not come. And then each muscle in her face went slack one fiber at a time. As if the realization of her folly was weighing down on her cheeks and crow’s feet. 

In that fleeting silence that lasted forever, I wonder what might have caused her to think it. Was it that I liked Dolly Parton? My black thick-rimmed glasses? My mannerisms? Or was it the lisp? Something had to be done to break the tension.

I slowly turned around and picked up the complete musical adaption of Phantom of the Opera from the rack and offered it to her with a guileless smile.

“Is this what you were looking for?”

She replied with a hasty jumble of syllables that I could not make out, and quickly made her exit 

Honestly, that was the first of many times that people thought I was gay and I can't truly grasp why. I suppose, it may come from me being a good dresser? I'm well spoken? I can dance with some resemblance of rhythm?

All these things are at best, the stereotypical facets of homosexuality, but if that is the components that people based their assumptions of me, does that mean - at least in a dichotomy sense - that straight men are a mass of poorly dressed neanderthals?

While it doesn't happen every day, it has occurred in a startlingly quick rate. 

I think it's a matter of the times. In older time periods, in the time of the dandy gentleman, I would be considered pretty friggin' manly with my sweet capes and hats.