For me it was how easily they slipped in the phrase “Epstein shutdown” that gave it away. That just seems so clearly phrased by someone who always hated Trump cosplaying as victim of a face eating leopard.

“D” is “disorder”. This means that the symptoms need to be clinically significant.

Everyone has occasional symptoms ghat are consistent with ADHD, but they need to be clinically significant to be considered ADHD.

I do think these sorts of memes are a bit… Icky. It kind of has the same vibes as the stories of women coming out as gay and their grandmother’s saying “well everyone is attracted to women”. Because it’s very possible that the person downplaying the significance is themselves undiagnosed or in denial. Or maybe the individual thinks their symptoms are not severe enough to be diagnosed when, in reality, it would be. And that also leads into discussions about the difficulty of diagnosis, the way it changes over time, the way that ADHD is considers by many ti be over-diagnosed in young boys and under-diagnosed in young girls, etc.

I also think that there’s it’s dangerous to try to carve up humanity with stark lines. That leads to societal divisions and dehumanization. The sentiment of “everyone is a little bit ADHD” can often come from a place of “we are all humans and I am trying to relate to you the best that I can”. The sentiment CAN be harmful when people are trying to downplay the significance, or even deny the existence of, disorders.

Well… You totally can. I like towerr defense games too, but I’ve never played one that I would call perfect. Even my favorite games I could dig deep and give design notes on. Where it’s feasible a lot of games have mods or hacks. A lot of people like Pokemon romhacks more than actual games. I put hundreds of hours into Civ 6 starting vanilla, but mods can fix a lot of the little inconveniences and add new content to the game. I think I’m in the minority of Skyrim players who prefers to keep it vanilla- most people mod the hell out of it.

Bloodborne was still fun, especially on subsequent runs and with co-op. I think it would be a way better game overall if they designed any sort of real onboarding experience. A training dummy in the hunter’s dream, maybe the ability to try out different weapons there before investing resources into them. Using better language (shooting someone is not a “parry”, and why does the axe do blunt damage while the hammer does piercing damage?). An actual goddamn map. A journal system to keep track of what you’ve done in the game so it’s easier to pick up again 3 months later. Clear item descriptions that include numbers. Explanations for what the stats actually do. None of this is what I would call “difficulty”, and once you gain the initial knowledge and experience these problems aren’t as big of a deal, but it does make the game a lot less accessible for new players.

And I question how much value their absence really adds to the players who do stick around to push through and get that experience. It seems like more of a marketing gimmick to be “different” and foment an elitist, hipster-esque fan base. Or maybe it’s a question allocating of the development resources. It’s a shame because there’s a lot of great design too, it’s just hidden behind these frustrating problems that the rest of the industry solved decades ago.

If I wasn’t motivated to play it for my boyfriend I would have just dropped it early on. I don’t feel like I accomplished anything by suffering through that frustration, I just feel annoyed that I had to deal with these problems I feel like I should not have existed in a 2015 game.

I keep on getting told this by people, especially fans of FeomSoft and soulslikes.

I figured I’d take a crack at them this year, and also Bloodborne is my boyfriend’s favorite game, so I played it. And that feeling that everyone describes about the satisfaction and accomplishment… Never happened. I beat the bosses and was just like… Okay, on to the next one then I guess. I did have a much better time playing through co-op with him, but I still wouldn’t say I felt accomplished by it.

I’m in a similar boat- the members of my polycule have been raving about it for a long time ad we finally watched it last month (both the movie and a live production).

The plot is almost non-existent. Like, not a whole lot really happens in the story. It could easily be condensed into an 11-minute cartoon runtime.

The music is… Bad. Just generic, theatrical, musical rock 'n roll. The songs aren’t really memorable or catchy. Tim Curry gives a great acting performance, and he has given great singing performances in other things, but all of the songs are written as more musical conversations than standalone songs. I’ve never even seen Frozen but I still get Let It Go stuck in my head sometimes. I hated Rent but I still get the stupid “525,600 minutes” song stuck in my head. From Rocky, I only remember funny moments like when he goes “antici… Pation”.

It’s dropping with elements of sexuality but never really uses them to say anything. Frank N Furter spends most of the time in a corset and garter, and a good chunk of the cast gets out in similar outfits too, but it’s more funny than sexy. There’s no message being sent about trans people. There’s very little even said about sexuality- maybe a soft message that Brad and Janet need to loosen up a bit, but at the same time Furter’s promiscuity is kind of condemned.

I do see a couple of strengths in it though. Most of the film/play is characterization. There’s tons of dialogue that doesn’t really explain what is going on but does give insight into the personalities of the characters. The long, drawn out, repetitive songs give plenty of time for the actors to dance around and interact with each other and the sets.

The other part is just… Fan service, I suppose. Especially for people who like muscles- even in the live production I saw both Frank and Rocky were impressively jacked. Colombia and Magenta show plenty of leg and cleavage. And I think you’re really on to something about there just not being a whole lot of queer media at the time.

Do you feel like you’re accomplishing something by playing a difficult game?

Personally I do not, and that’s fine. I play games to take a break from accomplishing things.

I enjoyed difficult games a lot more back before I got a job.

As others have mentioned, I’m not a huge fan of positioning this with introversion and extroversion because it seems to be getting at something else entirely. That being said, I do think there is value in looking at the personal motivation to assimilate into groups and how that may be correlated with other autistic traits.

Anecdotally, I remember a lot of my childhood revolving around the idea of “fitting in”. I remember being made to watch videos in school on the dangers of peer pressure. Cartoons, books, the posters decorating classrooms, even the memes all reinforce this idea. Either you’re part of the “popular” or “normie” group or you’re part of one of the “other” groups, but surely you’re part of a group… Right?

Reality and adulthood are in many ways more nuanced, but I still find people stuck in this way of thinking a lot. People ask questions like “do you like musicals?” or “do you like anime” or “do you like horror movies” or “do you like metal” and I’m like… I like the good ones.

Alternative folks give me weird looks because I don’t have any tattoos or piercings, and I wear simple clothes- no logos or patterns or prints or graphics, no spikes or studs or tears or patches. Non-alternative folks seem weirded out that I’m a guy with long hair and a long beard. Personally, I don’t put much consideration into fitting in with these groups when I’m making these choices. But it seems most other people do.

Another way of putting it is that a lot of culture seems to be consumed in bundles, while I prefer to make my selections a la carte. And I would be interested to see how strongly that trait relates to autism.

Increase productivity?

Which is why if we started making memes attributing behaviors to people who are just… Not sick… It would be really weird and innacurate.

Or like, what about people who are sick and are just having a good day? Or people who are sick but their meds are working so they don’t look like it from the outside? Maybe they are sick, but they just have a runny nose and not the cough you’re expecting?

The meme could have very easily been captioned “someone telling me about mindsets and positive thinking” and it would be perfectly fine. But, for no reason other than to sew hostility and division, OP added a bunch of irrelevant identity politics into the mix.

Do you go around to people who aren’t coughing and label them “sickless”?

Do you not know how meme’s work? OP is constructing a strawman. Claiming individuals who are white, middle class, neurotypical, male people exist. Implying causality between these identities and this behavior. Which is racist, sexist, generally bigoted nonsense.

“Neurotypical” is a term that only makes sense when talking about groups, and in contrast to other groups you are discussing. It only makes sense when you are aggregating populations of people. Referring to an individual as “neurotypical” is nonsensical.

Furthermore, inexpertly diagnosing someone on the bus (or otherwise, but the setting of the meme is a bus so I’m using that) as “neurotypical” just because you don’t immediately recognize any noticeable traits of neurodiveristy is extremely problematic. It’s dangerous to just toss the word “neurotypical” around casually.

Lol are those people in the room with us right now?

They assessed as not qualifying for a diagnosis for the specific disorders they are being tested for. That is a far, far cry from being “diagnosed as neurotypical”.

If no one is neurotypical, as you claim, then no one is neurodivergent

This statement here is just completely nonsensical rhetoric. You are staying it like it’s some sort of logical conclusion that it’s true when there is no such logical conclusion. Maybe that’s why you think it’s nonsense… Because it is nonsense that you’re making up, not me.

Neurotypical GROUPS exist. Neurotypical BEHAVIORS exist. Neurotypical INDIVIDUALS do not. You aren’t ever going to get diagnosed as neurotypical.

You missed my point entirely. “Neurotypical” is a term that only makes sense in conversations about specific forms of Neuro diversity, and when talking about groups. There is no such thing as a “neurotypical” individual. This meme is attacking “neurotypical” individuals, but in reality when talking about individuals “neurotypical” just means “I, as the observer, am not aware this person’s neurodiveristy so I’m just going to pretend like that means it does not exist”.

And your personal anecdotes are as useful to the conversation as any other personal anecdotes is. I’ve received plenty of unsolicited advice from women and people of color. For as many anecdotes you have about the “hustle” grindset of white men, we can find plenty of similar stories from non-white cultures. My Cantonese friend in high school who faced the pressures of his “tiger mom”. The cultural issues Japan and Korea are facing with overwork. Heck, this meme is attacking “positivity” from white men, but you could argue a lot of that “positivity” originated from the New Age movements which got most of that from “eastern” religions.

Attacking “middle class neurotypical white men” is the same bullshit culture-war nonsense that far-right groups use to single out and hate on everyone else. Just because it’s attacking different groups than usual doesn’t make it any less bigoted or any more correct.

Does the middle class exist?

Do “Neurotypical” people exist? Seems to me like the classic example of how the average woman has 2.5 children, but you can’t find anyone who actually gives birth to 2.5 children.

And I thought the ones selling positive thinking were white women? Or maybe Asian men- specifically gurus from “eastern” religions? I thought white men were supposed to be the ones following stoicism or nutritional supplements.

Its almost as if stereotypes and broad categorizations break down under scrutiny.

China kind of depends on who you ask and how you look at it. Some historians argue that if you remove a euro-centric bias, WW2 really started with the 2nd Sino-Japanese war in 1937. Or you could look further back to territorial disputes and skirmishes between Japan and China going back to 1931.

India was a British colony until 1947 and participated as part of the British Empire.

Pumpkin Jack. It’s a 3D platformer. I haven’t played it in a couple years, but I remember it being mostly linear. Not a ton of collectables, but some. 11 months out of the year it’s a pretty “meh” game, but it absolutely NAILS the Halloween aesthetic. Not “horror” or “scary” or “autumn” but very specifically Halloween.

MediEvil is similar, though much older. I have only played the original for PS1, though there is a modern remake on all platforms that looks pretty good. Not quite as explicitly Halloween-y, but still pretty close. Flawed in its own ways, but I would still say a better game overall than Pumpkin Jack. The levels were a bit less linear and it was a bit more like an adventure game than a platformer.

Luigi’s Mansion is a classic too.

A lot of other games have levels or worlds that are good for Halloween even if the whole game isn’t. Like Pumpkin Hill in Sonic Adventure 2, or Subcon Forest from A Hat In Time. Honestly one day I want to compile a list of all of these themes areas across my favorite games and the play all of these levels seasonally.

Trains, bicycles, and walkable infrastructure would be far safer, cheaper, and more sustainable.