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ok so here’s my attempt at drawing renate reinsve

But Elmo, after cheerfully surrendering his old toys, sees that the children who swapped toys with him are playing with his toys “wrong”! They’re imagining entirely different make believe scenarios! They’re pretending the football is a dinosaur egg instead of a rocket ship! Aaahhhhh!!!! And this is so distressing to poor Elmo that he does the unthinkable: He does swapsies-backsies and takes all his toys back!

This being Sesame Street, he learns that you can’t control how other people play pretend, but you can join in if you want to! And if you don’t want to, that’s ok, you can just play pretend your own way by yourself or with someone else who wants to play that way too. You can still be friends with people who play pretend differently than you (and aren’t being mean/harmful/etc, do not bad-faith-read this 🤨).

Clark is addicted to his grief. His struggles fuel him and give him purpose, and embracing his flaws served as a rebirth for him (he’s literally remembered in the backrooms as a manifestation of anger, grief, and despair though Captain Clark.) without the rage, the complaining, and the alcohol Clark doesn’t exist— I think that’s what scares him so much.

Mary, on the other hand, is adverse to it. Despite being a therapist and basing her life around others, she can’t save them just as much as she can’t save herself. She runs. She spaces out when she sees mother-daughter relationships, she distances herself from areas that remind her of childhood, and in the face of the same trauma and anguish Clark craves— she runs for her life. Obviously part of it is because she wants to survive, but another layer to that is she can’t cope with her own feelings.

It even shows up in how these two talk with eachother! Clark is ego-centered, even in his more self-deprecating talk during his therapy sessions. Mary repeats phrases from her book because she’s detached from the emotional aspect of her job for reasons she may not even understand yet.

For Clark, the “Window from Within” was a way IN (deeper into his grief, into isolation). For Mary, it was a way OUT (out of her grief, out of her struggles.)

Not to mention it appears in their still lives!! As I mentioned before, Cap’n Clark is everything horrid about Clark; his drunkenness, his hostility, and the fear he brings to the people around him— he embodies Clark’s emotional complexity. In contrast, Mary’s still life is unmoving and seemingly catatonic. Her still life doesn’t feel anything. Doesn’t do anything. Like her regular self, she’s detached from feeling anything and everything!!!

This is the new flag, the old one was more vivid and in a z shape, but it's been made more neutral to be inclusive of people with seizures or sensory issues.

Each stripe represents a different aspect of disability:

Red: Physical disabilities

Yellow: Cognitive & intellectual disabilities

White: (And this is the key one I think) Invisible AND undiagnosed disabilities

Blue: Mental illnesses

Green: Sensory disabilities

You don't have to be a jerk about it. The most effective yet civil way of dealing with harmful "humor" is just pretending you don't get the joke and asking them to explain. "I don't get it, what's girl math? What's a girl dinner? What do you mean by you're just a girl? Can you explain the joke to me?"