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A ragworm having a nice moment by the water.

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they should invent a january that doesn’t make you go through every emotion known to mankind every day

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uhg god my old art was SO- *remembers there's no point in being dismissive of my old art bc i was still learning and it's not fair to disregard the efforts of a young artist, even if it's my own work* *through gritted teeth* foundational to the development of my current style and skill level

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Did this for a gift exchange on the swtd discord and I'm really proud of it so I'm going to post it here as well 😛😛😛😛

The two other versions are just so you can see the colors better because I was really proud of my coloring job....

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Princess Camilla of the Volsci, a fearsome warrior trained in warfare by the Amazons, aided her ally King Turnus in his war against the Trojan refugees. During the war she was slain by Arruns, a Trojan ally whom the Goddess Diana then killed in revenge.

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It's one of those

Netsuke of a Plum Sparrow (Japan, late 18th century)

kind of days.

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can I control U

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(notices you because you touched the threads of my web)

oh hi!!! ^^^^w^^^^

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Anthro Tick based on a conversation I had the other day where I informed some people about their anatomy.

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New update for Dust n Dread! more funny shenanigans

Latest update

Start from the beginning

Subscribe for free on the Patreon to read the next update early!

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I realized the other day that the reason I didn't watch much TV as a teenager (and why I'm only now catching up on late aughts/early teens media that I missed), is because I literally didn't understand how to use our TV. My parents got a new system, and it had three remotes with a Venn diagram of functions. If someone left the TV on an unfamiliar mode, I didn't know how to get back to where I wanted to be, so I just stopped watching TV on my own altogether.

I explained all this to my therapist, because I didn't know if this was more related to my then-unnoticed autism, or to my relationship with my parents at the time (we had issues less/unrelated to neurodivergency). She told me something interesting.

In children's autism assessments, a common test is to give them a straightforward task that they cannot reasonably perform, like opening an overtight jar. The "real" test is to see, when they realize that they cannot do it on their own, if they approach a caregiver for help. Children that do not seek help are more likely to be autistic than those that do.

This aligns with the compulsory independence I've noticed to be common in autistic adults, particularly articulated by those with lower support needs and/or who were evaluated later in life. It just genuinely does not occur to us to ask for help, to the point that we abandon many tasks that we could easily perform with minor assistance. I had assumed it was due to a shared common social trauma (ie bad experiences with asking for help in the past), but the fact that this trait is a childhood test metric hints at something deeper.

My therapist told me that the extremely pathologizing main theory is that this has something to do with theory of mind, that is doesn't occur to us that other people may have skills that we do not. I can't speak for my early childhood self, or for all autistic people, but I don't buy this. Even if I'm aware that someone else has knowledge that I do not (as with my parents understanding of our TV), asking for help still doesn't present itself as an option. Why?

My best guess, using only myself as a model, is due to the static wall of a communication barrier. I struggle a lot to make myself understood, to articulate the thing in my brain well enough that it will appear identically (or at least close enough) in somebody else's brain. I need to be actively aware of myself and my audience. I need to know the correct words, the correct sentence structure, and a close-enough tone, cadence, and body language. I need draft scripts to react to possible responses, because if I get caught too off guard, I may need several minutes to construct an appropriate response. In simple day-to-day interactions, I can get by okay. In a few very specific situations, I can excel. When given the opportunity, I can write more clearly than I am ever capable of speaking.

When I'm in a situation where I need help, I don't have many of my components of communication. I don't always know what my audience knows. I don't have sufficient vocabulary to explain what I need. I don't know what information is relevant to convey, and the order in which I should convey it. I don't often understand the degree of help I need, so I can come across inappropriately urgent or overly relaxed. I have no ability to preplan scripts because I don't even know the basic plot of the situation.

I can stumble though with one or two deficiencies, but if I'm missing too much, me and the potential helper become mutually unintelligible. I have learned the limits of what I can expect from myself, and it is conceptualized as a real and physical barrier. I am not a runner, so running a 5k tomorrow does not present itself as an option to me. In the same way, if I have subconscious knowledge that an interaction is beyond my capability, it does not present itself as an option to me. It's the minimum communication requirements that prevent me from asking for help, not anything to do with the concept of help itself.

Maybe. This is the theory of one person. I'm curious if anyone else vibes with this at all.

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Some commissions I did during the last few months ^^ ----------------------------- 💜BuyMeaCoffee💜Patreon💜

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Meanwhile, in the bayou...

Thank you to @bittermelonfarmer for commissioning this piece!

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read right to left

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Looks around

So I like randomly worldbuilding things for example these old arts of robot unicorn attack 2

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