We all want to be heroes of our own stories. Well, how do we make that happen? Welcome to Gaining Advantage. Hi! I'm Dale Critchley owner and chief tea drinker, of Wyrmworks Publishing. We are all about using tabletop role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, to make lives better. The big project that we're working on is called Disabilities & Depth, Creating Disabled and Neuroatypical Characters in Dungeons & Dragons. And I made an offer in our last episode, but if you didn't see it, the offer still stands for just a couple more weeks, and that is, if you are disabled or neuroatypical or mentally ill, and you are a player of Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition, or you're an artist, then we are interested in having you as part of this book. We've had a number of people step up and we really appreciate that, to make this book happen. And so what we're offering is, if you would like to share with me your disability symptoms, then what I'll do is I will share with you the entry that I have in the book, because we are taking, like every symptom in existence, pretty much, plus a bunch of fantasy ones, and creating game mechanics, for all of it in order to normalize disability and neurodivergence and mental illness in people's lives. And so if you are interested in helping out with that by looking at the write up that I have in the book for your symptoms, you can tell me, Is that how you experience it? Is that how it feels for you, and do the game mechanics that we've developed, makes sense? And in exchange for your feedback and sharing that personal experience with me, I will offer you a free copy of the book. If you're an artist, and are interested in submitting artwork, and joining our artist community, then, for you, you will not only get a free copy of the book, but you will also get access to the manuscript to be able to start using it right now in your games or however you'd like in order to look at it, and that is normally only available to our young dragon patrons, but we are offering it to you as a thank you for submitting artwork for this project, because all of the artwork in this project will be created by disabled, neurodivergent or mentally ill, artists. Also I'd like to announce that, possibly by the time you see this, if not the following Monday, that we will have launched our Accessible Adventure Of The Week, and Disabled NPC of the Week. They will be They're already available to our patrons, and they will be launching on Monday for the public. You can find those at DMs Guild or the easiest way to find them is to sign up for our newsletter at WyrmworksPublishing.com, and then you'll get notification as soon as they're available. And so now with all that done, let's get to our first interview. Wyrmworks Publishing What if Superman never went to a planet with a yellow sun? What if Tony Stark didn't have the money to build his armor? What if Frodo didn't have help with the One Ring? Contrary to the myth, heroes don't become heroes on their own. It takes resources of one kind or another. Today, we welcome Moni Barrette, co founder of Creators, Assemble!, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting indie creators and promoting education through popular culture and gaming. Welcome, Moni. Moni Barrette Hi there. Thanks for having me. Wyrmworks Publishing So tell us about Creators, Assemble! What was the driving force that started it, and how does it work? Moni Barrette So we are, as you mentioned, a nonprofit organization. And we are only about a year old. We started, and I'll just be honest, so I'm a librarian. And it's a group of educators. And it actually started in the comic space specifically, because, as a librarian, I saw how much comic books were bringing a joy of reading, that as a career librarian, I hadn't been seeing a surge of in that way. And we actually got into the gaming in the similar manner, in that, basically, you know, I do play role playing games, I do read comics. But moreover, as an educator, I feel it's my job, and it's our job as a community of educators to see what new ways there are out there for people to learn and find a love of learning and bring people together and have social emotional growth and community building. So that's kind of the idea behind Creators, Assemble! We actually started with in person, networking events, at Comic Con, at San Diego Comic Con, and then at New York as well. And what it was, was basically having publishers, indie creators, quote, unquote, comics' famous creators, and librarians and teachers come together and actually talk from each person's perspective what we could do to work together more to get people reading more to get people discovering these comics, and then it kind of expanded—the ttrpg community has been so welcoming to us that, as libraries have started to kind of see the benefit of hosting games in the library, we've been working to kind of promote that idea that you can bring a community together and have wonderful library programs that bring people to your libraries and engage people in classrooms through the gaming community. Wyrmworks Publishing Wow. Yeah, no, that's great. Both comic books and, and role playing games were my upbringing. And I know that my vocabulary, my reading, my writing… I'll give you a great example. After my freshman year of high school, we moved—I switched high schools, and I had already taken American history. And so I was expecting to take world history. But because, at that school, they did American history as a sophomore, and I couldn't fit World History into my schedule, because I was supposed to already have that, I ended up taking American history twice, and never took world history. And yet, because of comic books, and especially the research that I did for my Dungeons and Dragons game, I knew so much more world history than my classmates did. And Moni Barrette That's what we're striving to kind of help close that gap. Is there such a big disparity still, like, there's teachers and librarians who get it and we see it, we see that they enjoy it when we hear stories like yours, but to like companies, it's still kind of anecdotal, right? Like, it's, you know, D&D Beyond and, and, you know, Marvel Studios, they, they see it, but as far as the publishing side, you know, well, where's the money really coming from, and they're still in this, I could get on a soapbox for days, but there's still a lot of folks who don't see the benefit of like, allowing, you know, the games or the books to be distributed in libraries because, well, you know, if people are borrowing it, they're not discovering it and reading it. And so that's part of what our work aims to do is to kind of do some studies, some independent studies and surveys and kind of show, "No, through the ttrpg gaming programming that we had at the library, students were able to, you know, increase their test scores or increase their subject knowledge in American history or world history, like you said, by this percent." So that's the kind of like unicorn that the education community is chasing, that we're hoping through our network, and through having fun and playing and building this community that we can actually help bridge that gap. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, yeah. So you're saying that education can be fun? Moni Barrette Yes, it should be fun. Why are we making this drudgery? And you know, I've said this, and librarians hate it when I say this, but only as far as literacy, we're losing the battle. Slowly, but surely fewer people are reading. Fewer people are engaging that way. And through assigning something they love, and even adding a gaming component, adding a reason for people to come together and discuss it and be social, you know, these are ways that that get people to learn. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so then how can — you've kind of touched on this — but how can people in the ttrpg community benefit from your work? Unknown Speaker You know, and that's, that's, that's such a big like, "Oh, you know, you guys need us," but, but truly, with the company, right, you try to look at what is a need, that can be fulfilled in a certain, you know, arena. And in this case, you already know you love playing games. What a wonderful welcoming community even more so than comics—I'm sorry, but ttrpg community has been incredible, as far as like welcoming Creators, Assemble! as a new company with open arms—but as far as how they can benefit from us, well, a growing of network, you know, finding like minded people. And then also again, if you are, see, I've been a librarian, who, at my, at my library, my origin story kind of was we didn't have adult graphic novels there. We had kids and teen graphic novels. And I had to long story short come up with a lot of justification. Why would you spend money on comics for adults, and, you know, once I came up with that justification, and they let me buy a few, they ended up getting a lot of checkouts, and a lot of like, programming came from that, you know, graphic novel bookclubs and the like, and I started seeing the results. And that's where I started sort of teaching other educators like, kind of, if you build it, they will come right in a cheesy way. So it's the same thing with ttrpgs is like, you know you want to do this in your library, because you see that your library users have fun doing it. But if we can help you with some of the justification that when you have to talk to the library director, "Why are we having 4 hour d&d games in the library," or if you're a teacher, and you're having to tell parents that you know, your classroom spent time doing this or that game, let us help you with actual facts and statistics and talking points. So that, you know, will support you in saying we see the value in what we're doing, you're doing but also, here's how you communicate that to the world at large. Wyrmworks Publishing That's funny, I just had a flashback of a time that I was considering a job in another city. And as I was trying to decide, one of the things I looked at was the online library catalog in that city to see what inventory they had of graphic novels. So that's fascinating. Moni Barrette That then compel you to want to use it because of the inventory they did or didn't have, like, were you more prone to wanting to use a library if they had more graphic novels? Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, yeah. Because the one I was at, had a really nice collection. And so I was in that library constantly. And I'd take my kids there and stuff. And it was but that, you know, that motivated me to go there. Moni Barrette Yeah. And that's music to my ears to hear you say that, because that was specifically my my argument is adults are people too, as weird as that sounds. My experience in libraries is that you have a way older adult demographic who sort of read the latest, like James Patterson, and all those guys, and that's fine. You know, we need that as well. Or you have kids who have a lot of support from their school systems and their parents to want them to use the library. And then you have everyone yours and my age that come in, and they're like, "Well, I haven't been to the library since I was in fourth grade." Like, how do we stop that from happening? By offering things like gaming, like like minded people in their community to hang out with, like comics that you know, will bring them in and keep them engaged? Wyrmworks Publishing Right, so how has the creative space changed thanks to Creators, Assemble!? Moni Barrette We are just such a big cha… No, you know, I don't know that in one year, we can say that we've changed the space, but I do hope that people are seeing…. One thing that I didn't mention that we also do is support indie creator folks. That was started, again, primarily illustrators and writers, but has expanded now to even like traditional print book writers, folks who are coming up with their own ttrpg games. And so I'm hoping that people are seeing the true support. You know, unfortunately, at this stage, I don't have the means to build, say, like, the things that protect comics workers, for instance, the industry needs a lot more protection involved. But you know, we are someone who has your back if you're negotiating a contracting position, and you just want to know if they're being fair to you. Also, you know, we're here to help promote the work that you're doing, when it's in line with with our objectives. And so I hope that people see that that is a true…. Also transparency, there have been similar pop culture centric companies that aren't very transparent in, like, where funding, you know, when donations come in, where it goes, what kind of projects they're doing. And for us, you know, our board meetings are open, anyone can come, any member of the public can come and voice their questions or concerns about anything we're doing or give us their ideas and feedback. And I just hope that that transparency and that true network of supportive people, and not really allowing anyone who treats anyone poorly into that space is a real safe, supportive environment for everyone in our, you know, in this pop culture, gaming, comics, creative space. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, so we have people who are writers and editors, and all kinds of things that Moni Barrette Yeah Wyrmworks Publishing Gonna be watching this. Moni Barrette Sure Wyrmworks Publishing What do you specifically, what would be the first thing that you might have to offer them or that they might want to connect with you about? Moni Barrette Those folks, you're always welcome to connect with us. We do have a discord now. It'll be up on our websites and also info at creatorsassemble.org ask any questions that you have. But I would also recommend for those folks to go over to our YouTube channel. And it is just literally creatorsassemble. It's YouTube slash creatorsassemble. Because we have a lot of older interviews now up there from folks who work in editing, folks who work in writing, and a lot of like non traditional So, especially in comics, it's like everyone kind of goes for the same couple of jobs. But we have some like Gina Gagliano, from Penguin Random House talking about what other types of opportunities there are in the space, how to get them, what to look for. So check that out, for sure. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, so you just rescued a djinn from the hands of an efreet, and it offers you three wishes to achieve Creators, Assemble!'s goals, what do you wish for? Moni Barrette So I actually wrote this down, expand, continuing to expand the network, which I don't know if I need to use a wish for because the way things are going, and I mean that in a great way, as, you know, the network is continuing to expand. So thank you for your part in that Dale and having us for this interview. And funding, I'm just going to be completely transparent: we started at the height of like, lockdown is not the most ideal time, because we weren't, we weren't eligible for any of like the government grants that went to nonprofits because we hadn't been established long enough, you know that the height of the COVID pandemic was a great and terrible time, as far as great because we had a literally captive audience, right, everything we do is virtual. And so lots of folks were able to connect and feel a sense of community during that really tough time. But also funding has been a challenge. We're looking to fund like a mentorship program for at risk youth, right now by pairing them with creators to actually work on projects together. We work with Make A Wish we do a lot of great things. But we're doing this as in addition to our day jobs. We're doing this you know, out of pocket and through the benefit of donations. So funding is a big one. And I don't really have a third one because I am in love with what we're doing right now. I know that the board and our network of folks that work with us feel the same. We're always looking for more volunteers to help with things. But at the end of the day, it's just more time if I had to wish for anything. It's just more time to continue expanding and doing more of the same. Wyrmworks Publishing Cool. You said mentorship, it just that's my favorite buzzword so…. Moni Barrette Oh, buzzword. Yes, yeah, we're actually doing a mentorship coming up with Make a Wish for a critically ill young lady who wants to learn how to she's got a little character that she's always wanted to kind of see as like in a story. And so we're working with one of our creators to be her mentor, to kind of show her like how to put this character into a comic and make a story out of it. And even like what kind of technology you use to do that and what it's like to be a creator for a living. So that's the kind of thing we would definitely want to do more of, but it takes funding, obviously, to compensate these mentors for their time. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, so what one message would you like to give people who have creative ideas, but don't know where to start? Moni Barrette So as far as not knowing where to start, in general, and this is what I've heard from other creators, so just full disclosure, I'm not a creator myself, but um, is Believe in yourself. Do it, whatever it is, you're passionate about whether it's RPGs, you know, creative making things, do it a little bit every day, even if you're not happy with that day's results, just keep pushing. And another big thing, and I don't think a lot of people in kind of these independent pop culture spaces realize, you really have to be comfortable marketing and advocating for yourself. So and that's a hard skill when you're someone who just wants to stay home and get paid to draw, right? And that's where we come in to help — we actually help develop people to learn like, it's, it's gonna be a constant hustle for you. But here's some best practices and some people you can talk to. But yeah, those are the kind of the things that I would definitely recommend. And then just, you know, everyone, join a community where you're comfortable and feel safe and be kind to one another. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay. And so are there any projects that you're working on right now that you can tell us about? Moni Barrette Yeah, I mentioned that Make a Wish. Another thing that's real relevant to this audience, excuse me, is we'll be launching our TT…our toolkit for using comics in the classroom is launching now. And we have some volunteers and are still accepting volunteers to work on our committee to develop a ttrpg toolkit for youth and educational spaces. So what that will entail will be sort of like quickstart FAQs for the educators and as I mentioned, for, you know, parents, and all those folks about why we use ttrpgss and what the benefits are, and then best practices to actually give educators practical ways to get started utilizing those materials. So I think that's going to be huge. We've got some great partnerships going with that, as far as, you know, ttrpg communities that want to expand what they're doing as well. But that is one of the major projects that we're super excited to mention. Wyrmworks Publishing Cool. Well, I'm excited to hear about it. So that's great. Moni Barrette Thanks. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, so we will have all your contact information in our show notes. But where's the one best place that you'd like people to start to learn more about you or to contact you? Moni Barrette I would start at creatorsassemble.org. That is our website. And it has everything from there, the limelight gallery supporting our creators, a way to sign up for our newsletter, which actually our latest one just went out yesterday, our Discord server information will be on there as well. So that's probably the best place because you can email us directly from there as well. Wyrmworks Publishing Alright, great. So Moni, thank you so much for coming on the show. And we'll put those links in the show notes. Moni Barrette Great. Thanks for having me. Wyrmworks Publishing Welcome to Playing the Other: how to play a disabled, mentally ill, or neurodivergent character, whether it's a PC or an NPC, and how to do that in a way that properly represents symptoms, so as to represent those real life people in your game, and give them depth as characters while avoiding harmful stereotypes and tropes. Today to help us with that, I'm happy to welcome Heather Thomas. Welcome Heather. Heather Thomas Thank you. Wyrmworks Publishing So what would you, to start out with, what would you like to tell us about you as a person and as a gamer? Heather Thomas Person…gamer…. I love playing tabletop RPGs, it's probably actually the only multiplayer games that I play, because, unlike other ones that are more focused on competing, tabletops are more about working cooperatively. Of course unless you have the one person who just wants to assassinate everybody, but what's the odds of that? And the other thing I'd like people to know is that I do have a lot of hobbies that I do. And they've… actually the reason I have so many is a) I'm functionally disabled so I have way more free time than I know what to do with, and b) they're actually a part of coping strategies for dealing with the symptoms that I have. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay. All right, so what would you like people to know about your symptoms, how you experience them, how you adapt to them, and what is and isn't helpful. Heather Thomas I have quite a few symptoms from because I have four different things going on with me. But the two that I've had the longest that I've had the hardest time dealing with is intrusive thoughts and executive dysfunction, and intrusive thoughts is, you know, just this random thought popping into my head that I'm not actively thinking about it, but it just shows up. One way I've described it to a friend who also plays D&D is it's like being the target of a sending spell. And so it's just the random thing, and another way of describing it is like going into a grocery store and you hear the music that they're playing, that's your regular thoughts, and then when the PA system comes on for an announcement, that's the intrusive thought where it's sudden, jarring and alien, and dealing with it is difficult. I personally have this happening every day, multiple times a day, but it actually will happen to everyone at some point. Another term for it is called the void, because typically it is a thought of prompting you to do an action that will lead to you dying. And the only way I've really found to deal with it is from a learning mindfulness as part of the dialectical behavioral therapy I went through. And that is to acknowledge the thoughts, and then just move on. So, like about a month ago, I was driving along and I had this thought, as I saw a semi coming on the opposite lane, so, "Oh, you should…I should swerve in front of this semi," which came totally out of the blue, because I didn't have an episode where my suicidal ideation flipped from the passive, "I'd rather be dead than continue dealing with all of this," to the, "I'm going to kill myself," active ideation. And I said that I'm looking at it and it's like, "Thank-you. But no, we're just going to keep driving like normal." It's just one of those things where it's like, it happens. And I have to accept that it happens, because I can't do anything else about it. So… Wyrmworks Publishing So there's a difference then between those thoughts entering your head, and like urges to act on them. Heather Thomas Yeah there is. So, and over time of having to go through this, I've learned to tell the difference between an act of suicidal ideation thought and then just the intrusive thought words: "Where'd that come from?" and it took a lot of time to realize what was going on. And for somebody who doesn't ordinarily deal with intrusive thoughts, it probably would be very alarming to just suddenly have this urge to do something that's going to end with them dying and it's just like, "What the hell is going on?" So, Wyrmworks Publishing Sure. And, and it's worth noting, and you mentioned this before, but I want to emphasize it that everyone has random thoughts that pop into their head once in a while. And so if you've experienced, that I know when I was researching this particular topic, I came across this and I thought, "Oh, I have these weird random thoughts that pop into my head that are, you know, destructive or you know, that I think, 'well I would never do that, why, why am I, why is this idea, popping into my head,'" and I thought it said something, you know, really terrible about me that I was having these thoughts, and then I found out, no this is just something that the brain does, and, and it's totally normal, but your experience with it sort of takes that and amps it up into something that's, that's on a whole nother level. Heather Thomas Yeah, it basically makes it, instead of being every blue moon, once in a blue moon, it's every day, and it's constant. It makes it a problem. And like I was thinking about it earlier today, it's like, "Well why would our brains do this?" and I kind of came up with this idea that it's probably some part of our brain leftover from pre-evolution where we had to trial and error, everything. It's like, "hey, what will happen if you do this," and we no longer have to do that because we have a big enough database of, well, "If we do this, this is going to happen and bring still, it's like, "But I need to try it out to see what happens." Wyrmworks Publishing Sure. Okay and so then what is…you kind of already talked about how you deal with it, what what's helpful, are the things that, you know, it seems like when it comes to disabilities and things like that that people always have suggestions that are not helpful at all, and I know that that feeling of, you know, "Have you tried this?" And you go, "Yeah, yeah, right, because I never thought of that before." Heather Thomas A lot of times, it's not helpful to have that and sometimes it is. But I would say probably the most helpful way to go into that, if you really care about trying to help somebody in that manner, is to start off by asking, "What have you tried?" That way, if you have a thing where it's like, "Oh, maybe this would help them," you first get out of the way if they've even tried it, because then you're asking, you're not think…acting, rather not leading in with the assumption that they never thought of it themselves, you're asking, "Okay, what have you already tried?" Wyrmworks Publishing That's, you know, it's funny, that's so simple and yet is completely brilliant and applies to, you know, I'm so happy for you to say that on our first time of having a guest on for this segment, because this is going to apply to every single segment, moving forward. Heather Thomas It's like one of those things like the other thing I find so unhelpful, because I will sometimes end up breaking down in public, and I'm just bawling because depression. And invariably, I will get asked by strangers, "Are you okay?" It's like, "I am crying. No, I not okay." Like there are much better questions to ask me like, "Can you cope?" It's like, "Is there someone that we can get to help you?" So many better questions than, "Are you okay?" It's like, when is a person crying ever a sign that they are okay. Wyrmworks Publishing Yeah, yeah, we have a really weird ways of communicating, you know, the sort of standard idioms that we use to talk to each other, and we kind of default to those things, but yeah, a lot of times they're really not helpful at all. Heather Thomas No, not at all. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, anything else, with, with intrusive thoughts before we move on to executive dysfunction? Heather Thomas Not that I can think of, no. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay. All right, so then you tell us about how do you experience executive dysfunction? Heather Thomas Executive dysfunction, to me, mostly comes up when I need to make decisions. Like, it could be as simple as my fiance asking me, "What do you want to eat?" And I'm just like frozen. No idea. You can't make. Nope. Nope. Just come up with something. It's like, honestly, like you have an idea of things I do like, things I don't, just, just make something please, because it is a thing where I start getting really anxious, because it's like, "I should be able to do this, and I can't." And it gets bad to the point of, I do not like the color pink. But if you were to hold up two sets of dice, one that's any other color and one that's pink and asked me to choose which one I want, there's a no brainer choice for me, and I'm still frozen. And it's just like, "Why does it work this way?" And it's the same thing when it comes to making, like, I need to do things, and it's like, oh I get more than, like, two, three things that need to be done and then it's just like looking at it like, where do I start, and freeze. So it's a kind of thing and then that's where you get it looks a lot like procrastination because they're not…people with executive dysfunction aren't doing things that need to be done, because when they look at, "I need to do this, this and this," they freeze, so they do anything else. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay. So, what have you found that's helpful to deal with that? Heather Thomas Well, on some decisions like food, I was like, "Yeah, you're the one cooking or you're the one driving, so you choose. I'll find something at a restaurant that, like most restaurants, I can find something that I'll eat." And when it comes to like the tasks, I actually have made myself a thing had it laminated where it's like things in need of doing. There's 20 lines. I have more dice than I probably will ever need, but I love them. I am a dice goblin. And it's like, "Okay, write out all the things I need to do, and if there's something that's more important than other things that needs to get done sooner or later, it gets written down a couple more times." And then just roll the die, if it comes up an 18, look at the 18th thing on the list, go do that. And then erase it, maybe add another thing from, you know, make a second entry of something else on the list and then do it again and do that for as much things as I have energy for because with the fibromyalgia that I have, I only have so much energy in a day, like, basically I have spell slots that I can use for tasks and then after that it's like no, "I need a long rest." Wyrmworks Publishing Alright so then, you've already talked about what's helpful. Are there any, beyond that, things that are not helpful? Heather Thomas Well, it was a process of elimination, like finding that and like just like writing a list out was not helpful because it's like, thinking about 'em like, "Oh I'll make lists and then I'll know what I need to get done, and it'll be easy," and it's like looking at this list and I'm like, "No, that didn't help at all." And having somebody who's like, "Just do one thing," and it's like, "But what thing?" So it's just a process of elimination to come up with this thing where I'm like, "Hey, make a list of, you know, things that add up to any of the die sizes that I have," because I play Dungeons and Dragons just like I have all these different sizes of dice, and then just roll it then I'm not choosing what to do, I just, I make the list, number it and roll the die, random number generator. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay, so if someone is including a PC or a Dungeon Master's including an NPC in their game with symptoms like yours, how would you like that character played, and how can the other party members help? Heather Thomas Say, the main the executive dysfunction is easy like they would have a hard time deciding something and like in combat, like if they needed to choose between, like, which, you know, enemy might be the more, more of a threat, they might lose a turn. You know, because they, they just can't decide. And one of the ways that a party member could help them out is, you know, using, I think, you know, talking would be a free action to sit there and say you know, "Hey, you know, attack this person here." Yeah. And so give them direction. You know, make that choice for them when it's important and, you know, maybe just sit there and guide them in where it's, less important choices, it's like just go ahead and make those choices for them, and just have a lot of patience when it comes to them freezing on making a choice, outside of combat, and the intrusive thought one is hard, because unless the character is telling the party members that they're having these thoughts, the party really can't help them. So that's part of having it being an invisible illness, if you don't tell them, Tell somebody that it's happening, you look like you're…nothing's wrong with you. But if the party member does decide to take their party members into confidence, you know, they could sit there say "Yo, hey, it's happening again. And it's like, yeah, and then party members can go. Okay. Yeah, what's the thought? Like, do you really want to do it? What do you think will happen if you do it?" And, you know, talk them through it and it's like, yeah, yeah, we're here for you. We got you. Wyrmworks Publishing Okay. All right, great. So, then, do you have any online projects social media profiles, anything like that that you'd like to share. Heather Thomas I have recently started streaming on Twitch, both crocheting that I do and playing video games because I like doing my craft and it's like, I'd like to share these with people because I know fewer and fewer people, at least around me that crochet so it's like, Hey, these are interesting and it's something that, it's like, I can do this, and it kind of helps me with my symptoms, and it's like, also as a way to try to help me with my anxiety when it comes to talking to people, make myself get out there and try to talk to people so…. Wyrmworks Publishing Cool and we will include links to that in our show notes. Heather Thomas Thank you. Wyrmworks Publishing And so, to close out the segment I want to emphasize that everyone's disability is different, and so note that what you heard today doesn't represent everyone with similar symptoms or diagnoses—this is just one example. And so if you'd like to come on the show and help people understand your symptoms, so that they can have more accurate representation in their games, you can just go to WyrmworksPublishing.com, and contact me from there. Heather, thank you so much for sharing yourself with us so that we can bring reality into fantasy and thus make that fantasy world a reality. Heather Thomas Thank you for having me. Oh, are you still here? Great! Thanks for that! I appreciate it! So that means that you must care about making people's lives better. So, if that's the case, then please consider helping us to help you and other people do that. You can do that by supporting our Patreon, but it's just as helpful — just as helpful — we're not just asking, "Hey, give me your money." Right. We're also asking even instead to click on that Like button. Click on that share button. Click on that subscribe button. That helps to get the word out so that if you can't support us financially, there are other people out there that can, but they just don't know about this yet. All right? And even besides that, just we want to get the resources that we have available into the hands and minds of as many people as possible. We want to let them know—we believe in what we're doing here—and we really think that it can help a lot of people, but if they don't know it exists, then they don't know where to find it. It can't help them. And so, please take a moment to hit that like button, hit the share button, hit the subscribe button, and and let people know about this. And then, a reminder that if you have a disability, if you are neurodivergent, if you have a mental illness, and you would like to help people understand your experience better so that they can accurately reflect your experience to others, then contact me, however is easiest to you. You can email me at Dale@WyrmworksPublishing.com, or you can use the contact form on our website, WyrmworksPublishing.com, or you can send me a private message on Twitter, @WyrmworksDale or however is easiest to get ahold of us our Facebook page, and, and let me know that you're interested and we would love to have you on the show. And so now as we wrap up this episode. Here's my question for you, and love you to leave a comment below: What obstacles do you encounter in your creative pursuits?