#also take care of yourself

[grape-jucie-dog]

Me looking at all of the projects I'm working on all at once:

Don't stress yourself out with 5 or 6 different projects guys. 💀 It keeps you busy but you might burn yourself out after a while.

[batcavescolony]

Katniss is such an unreliable narrator. She says "Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me" girl you deliver strawberries to the Mayor, you hunt and trade for the district, when you fell at Prim being chosen someone caught you, when you went to Prim people parted for you, when you volunteered EVERYONE stopped. Idk how to tell you but I think you're a pillar of the community.

[teaboot]

Wait you had autism and still got along with the other kids and knew what was going on with them?? I was never able to do that! I still chose to do my own thing but would have been unable to answer those questions.

I mean I didn't really WANNA make friends for a super long time so it didn't really matter? And if anyone was outright mean I don't think I noticed till like 6th grade.

After 6th a few other kids liked to throw or kick things at my face or steal my art supplies or give me mean nicknames- I remember almost all the boys in my class one year started a thing where if I got within 4 feet of them they'd yell "[tea] GERMS!" and make a dramatic mad-dash escape, and that was kinda hurtful, but IDK how long that was a thing??

Anyhow I started asking them if they had a crush on me or if they were just stupid, and when they asked what I meant I'd just be like "well there's two reasons boys act stupid around girls. Either you have a crush on me, or you're just always this stupid"

And that invariably led to them yelling "I'm stupid, I'm stupid!" or telling me, "I'd rather say I'm stupid than say I like you!"

Which might have been hurtful if I wasn't growing into a mild superiority complex that assured me I was smarter than them, and nicer than them, and there was really no need to desire the approval of stupid, mean people.

(This was, of course, backed up by the fact that my father was one of those mean, stupid sorts of people, and I fully beleived if I could handle him, I could handle anyone my size, and so what if you dont like me? My own dad doesnt like me, am i supposed to value your opinion?)

Then by highschool I got hot, and if one of them started chatting me up I'd just be like "You wrote in my yearbook in 2002 that I was a huge loser. Why would I want to hang out with you"

And by THEN I'd met enough genuinely fun, interesting people who actually liked me that I was never around anyone who openly disliked me anyways.

Not until I started to realize I wasn't 100% a girl and cut my hair off- Then I started hearing other girls whispering to each other that I looked like a lesbian- gasp- which, again, was actually pretty funny, 'cause then I'd just tell them not to get their hopes up 'cause I wasn't available.

Then I graduated, and moved, and it turns out I'm actually kind of hot funny smart and successful, and whenever I fall into the deep deep pit of dumb ugly stupid imposter-syndrome, I remember that as mean as other kids were sometimes, their parents thought I was the best.

So anyways get fucked Gabe from ninth grade, your mom used to give me candy and bail me out of detention. I had the biggest fucking crush on your mom dude

[silliestlittlecat]

this line is about fun ghoul and party poison btw. party poison is the only friend that makes fun ghoul cry && fun ghoul is a heart attack in black hair dye. if u even care. whatever.

[13ag21k]

Yesss!! A friend of mine who is the sweetest and the most caring human being in the universe is cancer and she does just that, makes sure everyone is well fed while she eats half a meal per day. God bless you all💖

what is like... the most on brand, stereotypical zodiac sign trait is true for you?

[rotshi]

"You deserve better" Idk i felt like drawing some metadow cause they're neat !!! and i do like them !!!

[thepeacefulgarden]

[rileylastname]

maybe it’s because it’s “too obvious” but im surprised how few readings I’ve seen of the Substance (2024) that discuss the themes of addiction and substance (ha) use & abuse.

in moderation you can use the substance to become a better, more fun, easier, happier version of yourself. then you realize you no longer want to be who you are when you’re not on the substance. then taking the same dose that used to be enough before isn’t enough anymore, so you want to take more, and just a little bit more couldn’t hurt, right? so you start to take even more. but this is only taking away from sober you, which is painful and difficult and even scarier than what compelled you to take it in the first place, so of course you can’t stop now. now you want to take even more, you NEED to take even more. sober life becomes harder and harder to bear, especially compared to how much easier everything is on the substance. now you’re not only using it to enjoy that feeling anymore, you’re using it to hide from what you’re turning into without it, from what you’ve already turned into.

every minute that you’re sober is spent counting down the days until you can use again, and the ends of being high are spent dreading going back. the sober self is upset and jealous at how irresponsible the high self is. the high self is upset at how much of a buzzkill the sober self is, and wishes they could exist on their own, without requiring their sober tether to existence. but the sober and high selves are the same person, you are one, and you become jealous and angry at yourself for ruining your own life in a vain attempt to become an impossible version of yourself that you most desire to be.

you want so badly to have all—and only all—of the best parts that you milk yourself dry, until you end up with all—and nothing but all—of the bad parts. by the time you truly feel that you have indeed lost everything and know you need to stop, the damage is already done, and there is no going back. you wish you had stopped at the first chance, you wish you had never started to begin with. and even then for many people the only way to deal with this terrifying, painful reality is to use even more, because you have made this terrifying, painful life without your substance feel unliveable, even scarier yet than what had made you use in the first place. there is nothing left to do but to hide from your own life, and the only ways to do this are to stop, to love yourself and take care of the person that you are now… or to keep taking more and more, using until there is truly nothing left, not even yourself.

[the-salamanders-xo]

When I was in middle school, one series of books being held in our library made a big difference to me.

Not only did the author place a great deal of importance on the beauty of the little and everyday things, they managed to connect that beauty with the impossible complexity of the larger world... and even more so on the fact that caring about those things can have an impact.

If there every was an argument for the power of books to expand your world view and challenge your views (alongside anything by Terry Pratchett), Diane Duane's Young Wizards series is it.

And core to that whole work is the idea that all that the ones who want you to feel drained, apathetic, and tired of the world and what goes on in it are the ones trying to break it down to rubble. Whether for good intentions or bad, they have figured out that the best way to get what they want is for no one to fight against it, to point it out, to object to it.

But when you do care, even when it hurts, and takes energy, and knocks you down to the floor, it has an impact. Not always the impact you thought, or what you wanted, but It. Matters.

So don't give up. Take the time to recharge, reset, by all means recover. But letting it happen knowing you could have done more will hurt all the more than trying and failing.

Failing means you know more than you did. NOT trying means you never got anywhere, and now will never know.

That has happened in small things often enough that I don't intend for it to happen in big things. You don't have to be on camera, in the front row. And these days, with an alarm clock/calender/map combo in your pocket at all times, it is easier than ever to vote. And that, good people, is an excellent bare minimum.

So take your time to breathe. Take care of your self. Find the beauty in the small and everyday... but remember to carry that to the bigger things around you. Find what you care for, and protect it. Cause then it means something.

browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.

Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.

But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.

If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.

I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017

…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.

I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.

Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.

Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.

I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.

This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.

[yuwuta]

katsuki might be a little rough, brash to those who don’t know him, he might bluff with fake threats but even then it’s all talk and much milder when directed at you than at his friends. because katsuki is kind, he’s reasonable, he’s gentle, he’s a lover through and through. he doesn’t even ever really get mad at you, and when you’re mad at him, he doesn’t let that be either. the only time he’s mean is when he’s being nice to you; when he’s being so gentle and willing and willing and willing to be kind to you even amongst your frustration that it feels smothering, almost as if you’re undeserving of his rationality and patience. he doesn’t think so, and he won’t change his mind on it, either. he loves you and you’re precious to him so you’re going to have to get used to it and get over it because he won’t stop

[bacchuschucklefuck]

we let the ocean drown out our voices/enjoying the bitterness/in the chaotic light, I close my eyes and see

[radiance1]

Killer Croc's little bro was apparently in Gotham.

How did everyone know? Because he was seen physically dragging said older brother out of the sewers and into the nearest cafe.

And Killer Croc was just. So docile??? He was shy, a bit nervous, amused, and was practically harmless. Which wasn't something anyone would have associated with Killer Croc.

And the fact that said little bro can lift him up easily too? What kind of parents did they have for their son to be able to lift up the Killer Croc so easily?

Meanwhile, Jack just doesn't get why everyone reacts negatively to his big brother, it's not like he was a ghost for goodness sake and yea he's working on not being like he was before his son revealed himself to be part ghost, but still.

His brother was still human, just extra.

Why did Jack come to Gotham? He was kinda maybe forced out the house to go and find his brother because he liked talking about him but never actually went out to find him.

Jack and Croc may be half-brothers, yes, but he's still family.

Jack strongarms Killer Croc into not living in, well, the sewers and at his house he bought when he came to Gotham and they both caught up with each other's lives. Jack told Croc about his family, and by extension the shit views he's had on ghost because it was a major part in their family dynamics, and Croc told him about his own life in Gotham.

Minus the more gruesome, parts.

Killer Croc lives with him for a while and notices that he didn't really seem to care for his life. Which is a major no to Croc, who tries to get him to gain some amount of self-preservation, yes he knows that his little bro is more durable than the average human has any right to be but please for the sake of your big bro's heart, please take care of yourself.

Jack is a bit floored by this, and tries to wave it off as a non-issue. But if Jack can strongarm Croc into living with him, then Croc can definitely strongarm Jack into things as well.

Busting through walls is fine, alright. He gets it, it's very fun. But please don't stick random things into your mouth that can kill you, nor follow strangers down an alleyway and shrug off a stabbing (Killer Croc had some choice words and actions for the person who did such a thing.), and please, please practice stranger danger, little bro. Please.

No, he doesn't give two, three, four, five or ten fucking shits if you have microsurgeons in your blood that gives you a superhuman healing factor, you can still feel pain little bro, and stop skipping meals and sleep to work on your inventions! No, you cannot substitute either for energy drinks!

The batfam keep an eye on the two brothers and find it to just be the both of them strongarming the other into healthy behaviors basically. (With a lot of verbal and physical "I love you"'s, the Batfam could NEVER. slash joke teehee.)

[chalkrub]

thank you for a great art fight! here's some of my final attacks. had a blast, already missing it - see you next year!

[spoopdeedoop]

Helloooo mind sharing just some sketches maybe? I really wanna study your art so bad cause i genuinly want to draw like you🥹 ive been drawing for over 11 years and yet my art style still looks like it was drawn by a 13 year old😭

AWGSVD im flattered thank you….. and yes of course!! i have a ton of traditional junk from the past month or so that i’d normally not post here bc its all messy and improfessional but i was just thinking about maybe sharing some so you came with literally perfect timing

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

How to say no

Positively DBT - BDD, Autism, ADHD Peer Support

[thepeacefulgarden]