jean-michel basquiat, smoking at the mary boone gallery, new york city. photographed by lee jaffe (1984)

Lee Jaffe, Jean-Michel Basquiat on the bullet train in Japan, 1983.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lee Jaffe and Julian Schnabel at Indochine in New York City, 1984.

Photos by Andy Warhol

Tosh with Lee Jaffe, producer of “Legalize It,” in 1975.

Jean-Michel Basquiat photographed by Lee Jaffe, 1984.

Dropout introduced me to a story of a glass cat that's aloof and conceited, but learns to be more agreeable to people by using a stethoscope to hear the heartbeat of other people, a story that gets me very emotional just thinking about it

...

And it was in the show Um Actually and the error of the statement is that that's not what the actual story is at all.

I'm crying over a story that does not exist.

Yeah, the “snack player” is cool and all, but what about the “DM wedding officiant player”?

I think in D&D terms the typical assumption would be that a character with a chronic illness and/or chronic pain would have a low constitution score. The reality is a lot of people like myself would probably have constitution as our biggest stat because not only are we constantly staying up while fighting our bodies, we’re generally expected to ignore our own physical needs and wellbeing in exchange for being able to get things done. For example, I have been fully in the middle of a POTS episode and had to cook myself dinner, carry multiple loads of laundry up and down the stairs, etc. Like there’s such a real thing to Ashton Greymoore having chronic pain and yet their highest stat being Constitution.

I think something people are really good at acknowledging for Ashton as well as being apparent with Taliesin is that chronic illness generally means you’re stronger than people would assume, but you also blow through your resources faster and they can be just as counterproductive as they are helpful. It’s important to note that Taliesin struggles with chronic issues like hand tremors and has other chronically disabled friends like Dani Carr.

Like personally as an AMAB person with a condition that primarily hits AFAB people particularly hard, I’ve had cardiologists tell me “If anything your heart is overly muscular.” Which like, thanks dude yeah that’s decades of anxiety and years of POTS hitting and me having to stay standing up. Like I was in marching band in high school and I was the kid basically double-time marching in giant steps every show because I was the easiest to place since I’m so tall. Then when I worked fast food I had to either maneuver through hoardes of people to get back to my station or just push through them completely. In 90+ degree weather in the summer in Alabama with an anxiety disorder and a “heart condition” that’s actually just another neurological condition. Like I spent years doing manual labor and unloading trucks and pallets while exhausted on like 3 hours of sleep. You have to develop that kind of resilience when the capitalist system reinforces a world where no matter what if you want to survive as a person straddling the poverty line you have to work your ass off.

This doesn’t even get into the kind of resiliency you have to develop as an undiagnosed neurodivergent person who’s being told by absolutely everyone for most of your life that you’re doing everything wrong. Like Adaine from Dimension 20 is such a good example of that. This is also why I love the portrayal of Ayda Aguefort so much, because she really is like me having to learn everything from books because no one else in her life can explain things the same way that a book can. That is one of those things that as a late diagnosed autistic & ADHDer it’s really hard to explain personally without getting really like tragic or depressing in conversation because it sometimes is just a matter of “I’ve effectively been abused my entire life purely because the system wasn’t built for me and I had a lot of expectations I failed to live up to.”

All of this as a way to say that neurodiversity and disability are much more interesting and heroic feeling when they are portrayed by actually neurodiverse and disabled people, as well as those who love those people enough to tell stories that include them. I think TRRPGs and RPGs in general are a great way to explore this. Often times when we see disabled people in shows or movies that revolve around their disability there is a lack of agency, whereas often times with TTRPGs you have to create your own agency in the first place.

me: haha parasocial relationships are so weird like imagine thinking you know a celebrity like a friend smth or hahahah i could NEVER

also me: …. oh dimension 20/critical role cast, you guys are my best friends!!!!! 😁

tables are to dimension 20 as doors are to critical role

Finally started watching the new Matt Mercer Adventuring Academy, and be still my heart, Brennan bringing up Caduceus as a character whose spotlight and stakes comes from loving his friends and Matt agreeing a calling Cad the heart of the group and talking about how beautifully Taliesin played him and then Brennan bringing up Ricky Matsui as the same type of character, how masterfully Zac played him despite the obstacles of lacking big internal conflict in TUC season one I am well fed.

Lee Jaffe, Jean-Michel Basquiat on the bullet train in Japan, 1983.

Get Brennan Lee Mulligan and Taliesin Jaffe in a room together to see who can make the most accurate crow/raven noises

An article about the mental health benefits of D&D. There are some familiar faces in the video(including Brennan Lee Mulligan and B. Dave Walters) The article itself also features quotes from Aabria Iyengar( @quiddie here on Tumblr), Taliesin Jaffe and Liam O'Brien. It's a very well written and interesting article! I highly recommend it.

Also if that doesn't convince you please enjoy this photo of baby!Brennan

Anytime Brennan Lee Mulligan gets to play is an absolute delight but Mossbrow might be my new favorite character of his.