It's Valentine's Day!. This past week, rather than focusing on love for others, we've been trying to focus on Loving Ourselves and prioritising self-care. At the start of the week, we asked our community how THEY Love Themselves, and here's what some of them said 🧵:

Rest isn't optional, it's part of managing your access needs and conserving your energy over time. Loving yourself can mean pacing activities and taking breaks before symptoms escalate. Rest supports self-maintenance, participation and sustainability over time.

Boundaries are practical tools. Deciding ahead how much energy or time you can give someone or something can make saying no easier (though sometimes still not EASY), and can protect your capacity.

Disabled people are often encouraged to push past our own limits to meed non-disabled expectations. Take care of yourself by using your aids and accommodations when you need to, and adjusting plans as your symptoms fluctuate.

Celebrate all the small wins. Sometimes progress is tiny, and noticing it is a way of loving ourselves and keeping momentum without burning out. If doing something imperfectly means you get it done, do it imperfectly. Perfection is the enemy of success.

Pacing is hard, especially when you want to keep going with whatever you're doing. Try to decide on break points ahead of time, such as after a set amount of time, or after completing part of a specific task, instead of waiting until your own breaking point.

#BlackHistoryMonth is still going strong, so please consider supporting more of our fellow Black creators! Join Silver and CSilverstone today for their slots in the Black Excellence Raid Train, and learn more about them in the thread below. 🥄⤵️ 💚: r3dlabs.com/events/black...

Love yourself by noticing what makes you feel good (this could be music, gaming, drawing). Once you know what works for you, try and carve out a bit of time for it (even just 5 minutes). Taking care of ourselves includes giving ourself permission to do things that bring us joy.

You can support yourself by making your space feel comfortable and assistive. Even some small changes (tidying a tiny corner, lighting a candle, even making putting things you might need within reach) can make the world of difference.

One way of loving yourself is to focus on staying connected to yourself. Drink tea, listen to music you like, or just pay attention to where and when you are in space. These are ways to count small moments and ground yourself.

Mindfulness doesn't have to be sitting in silence and meditating (especially if you find that hard). You can be mindful by paying attention to what you're doing, noticing small sensations, or just focusing on single simple activities.

Love yourself by trying to avoid negative self-talk. This doesn't mean you need to force positivity on yourself, just pay attention to harsh thoughts and try to switch them for neutral or kind language. It may feel forced or uncomfortable, but small switches can add up over time.

Positive self-talk is great in theory, but hard in practice, especially when you're struggling for energy. One way we can make this easier for ourselves is to have reminders ready, like an affirmation jar or some notes you can glance at when you need a little boost.

Happening soon, come stop by!! 🌟 💖 twitch.tv/spoonplatooncrew

Loving yourself can start with the basics. Sometimes the most "simple" things can be hard to remember. Take a minute to notice if your body needs any food, water or rest, and try to fulfil those needs if you can. You don't need to take care of yourself perfectly.

Valentine's day is often made about loving other people, but this Valentine's week, we're trying to focus on loving ourselves. We're trying to celebrate having self-compassion, and making time to take care of ourselves. 🥄 💕 How do you love yourself?

World Cancer Day was February 4th, and we wanted to share some resources and highlight Spoon Platoon Cancer survivors. Please take a look below to get to know @adobeard and @gamingwithgrayce, as well as helpful information and links:

replying to this tweet w my n my wife's support links, we are reliant on mutual aid to stay afloat, anything helps 💸💕🏳️‍⚧️ paypal.me/stemmonade venmo.com/u/stemmonade cash.app/$stemmonade ko-fi.com/stemmonade patreon.com/stemmonade www.amazon.com/registries/g... throne.com/stemmonade

I am incredibly excited to have the opportunity to chat with the founders of Soul Ace Day - a day to celebrate the intersection of Ace identity and African American identity! Join myself, @yagirllici.bsky.social, Kim, and @gentlegiantace.bsky.social on Sunday Feb 9 at 2:00pm EST on Twitch!

Want to follow the most blackest coziest content creators? I got you!! I have a little Bluesky feed you can just pin to your homepage. This feed is filled with some of my fave cozy black creators :) bsky.app/profile/did:...

First and foremost, alt text must always be informative and descriptive of the content in the image. It can have character and humor, but it still needs to be informative and descriptive. Alt text is not a place to add easter eggs or jokes for sighted users.

🎊 Accepting New Members! 🎊 While we aren't an official stream team (yet), Spoon Platoon is a community of disabled and chronically-ill streamers sharing resources and spoons to uplift each other. We'd love to have you join us. 🥄 Apply here: ⤵️ 📝 forms.gle/R2euwk7GXY1k...

Black Disabled History matters too!! Our strength is Black History ✊🏽 Our resilience is Black History 🖤 Our beauty is Black History 🦋 Our influence is Black History ✨ Black Disabled history matters because disabled people contributed so much to our history

Happy Black History Month 🙌🏾❣️ I'm Silver, a black/filipino trans artist with a passion for serving freaky, alternative, queer cats to all! 🐱🫀🔪🔥 🔗 linktr.ee/blacksugarpill Support black artists/creators forever and always 🕺🏾💖 #art #blackartist #blackhistorymonth

This Black History Month, we're honoring and uplifting some of our Black members: their creativity and contributions help shape the heart of Spoon Platoon every day. You can check the comments below to get to know each of them better.

Those in the U.S. please consider participating in today’s general strike to support to the #ICEOut movement. Resources on ways to help. 🔗⤵️

It's #CommunityManagerAppreciationDay, so we're exploring ways we can show up for the unsung heroes of the games industry. 🎮 And naturally, we've made a list. 💚 🔗 safeinourworld.org/news/how-you... If you've already done our training, why not recommend it to your moderators? 💡

My friend @silascallisto.blacksky.app needs help to pay for his emotional support animal {& beloved husky}'s vet bills‼️ Ares has a low appetite, unusual lethargy & high anxiety which means he needs: blood work, x-rays, ultrasounds, & more that'll cost $2.6K. PLEASE Share & Donate If you Can‼️💖

✨✨✨DONOTHON UPDATE ✨✨✨ 🎉 we're over HALFWAY to our goal!! 🎉 we still have a TON of rad art to raffle off and goals to hit!!! come help us out!! 🔔 boosting and spreading the word also goes a long way!! 🔔 #mutualaid #queerstreamer #furrystreamer #donothon

Today is International Day of Acceptance💙 Acceptance means recognizing people with developmental disabilities as whole, capable individuals—each with their own strengths, voices, and dreams.

We want to take the time to congratulate the wonderful winners of the 1st Disabled Creators Awards! We had a wonderful time hosting this year and learned so much, so thank you for giving us the opportunity to celebrate disabled creators! 💌

It takes less than a minute to enable this feature too! YOU might not care, but someone who needs & requires alt text DOES. Accessibility in this day & age is important

And for those who want to know HOW to do proper alt text -- here's a visual tutorial guide on how to do so.

@jazzadelegames.bsky.social is an inspiring advocate for the disabled community, we're so excited he won the Disabled Mutual Aid / Charity Creator of the Year Award!! Big congratulations, absolutely deserved! 🥰

Join us in celebrating SP member @rascallygrandpa.bsky.social in their incredible win! Congratulations!! 🎉✨

Just announcing that I had to repost it again so here is the new content ID, as the other link isn’t working anymore! Sorry 🫡 assets.clip-studio.com/en-us/detail...

I've updated the carrd I made for resisting ICE resources! Feel free to share wherever and add to your panels! Please let me know if links don't work for some reason or if there are additional resources I should add on to this! resistice.carrd.co

Fruities and Cuties at Magfest!

Shoutout to these Spoonies for making it to the finals in the Disabled Awards: @bibiibloom.bsky.social @rascallygrandpa.bsky.social @hypofroge.bsky.social @cosmicquarts.bsky.social @jazzadelegames.bsky.social @adobeard.bsky.social @miktastic.bsky.social Voting ends tonight! Happy New Year! 🎉

Ironically, we were low spoons this week during #InternationalPersonsWithDisabilitiesDay, but still want to uplift disabled voices (even if we're a tad late). Here are some words from various community members on what community means to them. Thank you for sharing spoons with us. 🥄✨

Its Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, which is very personal to me. Im raising funds for charity, and giving away steam keys as part of a drawing for donations! We have Spirit City Lofi Sessions, some horror games, and maybe more later! tilt.fyi/aCROhDx4qf #charity #cancer #awareness

We're celebrating Latin Heritage Month and we wanted to highlight some of our community members! You can check the comments below to get to know each of them better.

Happy Indigenous People's Day! Check the comments to see some of our amazing Indigenous members. ✨

On this Indigenous Peoples Day, Fruities would like to share about the indigenous concept of "two-spirit" and highlight indigenous members of our team! Today is a great day to support indigenous business, read stories from indigenous people, and engage with indigenous content creators.

As International Week of The Deaf passes we want to highlight a few of our Deaf / Hard of Hearing team members! We've also created a few helpful info graphics on accommodation and learning in the 🧵 below! Check out @poksmox.bsky.social and @adobeard.bsky.social

Annnnd that's a wrap! Official post-train trailer still to come, but enjoy this finale video I made to thank everyone for helping! We will be taking a much needed rest to recharge spoons, but promise more events will be on the way. 🥰 #SPRaidTrain2025 #DisabilityPrideMonth

Thank you for the Baldur's Gate 3 stream! We are nearing the end of Baldur's Gate 3! We took the love over to @novanagi.bsky.social who is playing Hades 2 as part of the @spoonplatooncrew.bsky.social raid train! Thank you to @snazzyazzy83.bsky.social for the raid

Around 15% of the global population, or an estimate of 1 million people, are disabled. #DisabilityPrideMonth asks us to advocate for the inclusion of disabled people, accepting them as they are. How do we, as streamers and content creators, make our spaces accessibility-forward?