#brainweasels

[marlynnofmany]

"Is that why I've been feeling so clearheaded lately? Huh! Good to know. Anyway--"

Over the years of extensive cybernetic augmentation you installed various artificial alternatives to your organs and even added some implants to your brain. You’ve just been informed that your organic components have all been dead since last week.

[embervoices]

Oh, it's THAT kind of day. *sigh*

But I already TOOK my meds, dammit!

[ragedaisy]

.

[teaandinanity]

Fanart for a certain scene in chapter 3 of Servant to a Different King by @tossawary that smacked me upside the head and said 'DRAW' (I am having such a good time, it is such a treat to read!)

[embervoices]

I imagine my intrusive thoughts as cartoon weasels who are trying desperately to rescue me from problems I do not, in fact, have.

"Yes, thank you for the bouquet of dead roses and old mistakes. You're very sweet. Also, incompetent, and kind of stupid, but very, very sweet! Headpats for you. Go take a nap."

life hack: imagine your ocd intrusive thoughts are anon hate so you can reply "the reading comprehension on this site"

[loversandantiheroes]

Not to put too fine of a point on it, but if you're any sort of creative artist that struggles with mental health and the way it affects your ability to create the way you want to (and perhaps feel you need to), please play Alan Wake 2.

Sam Lake gets it.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i spent a real long time pretending to be chill about nsfw jokes and stuff in group chats and joining in with it where possible and bringing in weird bad quotes from academic queer theory to laugh at them and stuff and the whole time just feeling strange and ashamed and completely unable to discuss any of those topics *earnestly*

and gradually over time the shame about the jokes lessened but i was still only ever able to talk about those topics *as jokes*. i got good at them. i'm regularly the person lowering the tone of the whole group chat, tbh, though this is partly bc some of my group chats are with (mostly straight) people who are simply Not That Online. and still when it came to Real Stuff i felt only shame and embarrassment. but i'd squash it! i was really fucking good at squashing it! i could make jokes so evidently i was totally fine and normal about all of this. i never considered that sometimes i was the one lowering the tone bc being perpetually out of my comfort zone meant i'd lost sight of boundaries and appropriateness tbh, I was too busy feeling like I was getting away with something that i could pretend so well

and when other people were talking about their experiences or looking for advice i was there. i talked the talk. i did my best. i found the resources and i never ever let the shame show. and once during one of these conversations somebody said to me that they wished they could be that chill and sex positive and it made me realise how fucking good i was at pretending while inside i was still that nineteen-year-old who didn't know where the clitoris was and, even after they learned, wouldn't masturbate on sundays because it felt weird and blasphemous

i spent so long so full of shame. completely and utterly imprisoned by it and saturated by it and unable to escape it no matter how hard i squashed it down and pretended to be all enlightened and chill and relaxed about sex. and we joke about tumblr being the celibacy website, and the internet gets more hostile to "adult" content all the time and this is hardly an exception, but tumblr has still been crucial to breaking out of that mindset. all the yearning and the horny shitposting and the reminder to kill the cop/evangelical youth leader inside your head here has helped me, actually, to realise that sometimes you're allowed to want stuff for real. not just as a joke

and having a place where i feel even a little bit anonymous (even if i do have some irl friends as mutuals) has also been essential to feeling like i can voice some of those wants out loud and not have my whole face and life attached to it. which has also been a crucial step. i can't say that shit to my friends because my friends know me. i can only say it to you because you don't. but that's a step forward from saying it to nobody

[pavlovianfuckery]

me writing raunchy smut: tee hee ho ho *twirls villain moustache*

me writing more tender smut with feelings: *hides face in hands* this is so embarrassing someone kill me now

[clatterbane]

That said, I really am getting into some significant trouble with needing to play whack-a-brainweasel lately, as my appetite seems to be coming back with a vengeance. And I am finding myself starting to eat "normal" adult amounts again.

The brainweasels may be getting pretty loud with their objections, but I am still going to grab some ice cream and then leftover curry. Because fuck 'em, I want to be as healthy and happy as possible. I am also currently drinking some homebrew cider, at umpty bazillion calories per glass.

One of the things that's actually funny is that I have been eating SO MUCH more sugar (and carbs in general) since I did finally get appropriate treatment, with the supplemental insulin I've needed since at least 2008.

It's extra fun when you already have an ED history, and get plunged into that "you're obviously slowly killing yourself with knife and fork, but what would anyone expect from a lazy fat American?" mentality. Coming not least from the people who are supposed to be helping. The ED brainweasels were certainly having a party for too long, and I probably did my system some extra damage with restriction and overexertion. Whatever I did, it was not going to fix my fucked-up pancreas--and things just kept getting worse as more and more beta cells gradually died off.

I still have to nope right away from too many legit triggering conversations even among people with known autoimmune diabetes. No damned wonder we have like a 30% rate of diagnosable EDs, even on the "I did nothing to cause this, HONEST" autoimmune side of things. (I don't even need to get started on the misplaced Type Wars hierarchical BS again. Pisses me off even worse, as someone who nearly got killed by ending up on the "wrong" side of some terrible assumptions for way too long.)

And that 30% is mostly among people who did not already have disordered eating behavior (or significant scrupulosity problems) going in. It's positively encouraged--again, not least among professionals who are supposed to be helping. While being one of the fastest ways to cause your body serious mischief, especially once you throw supplemental insulin into the mix. If I am never exposed to another word about intermittent fasting or obsessive focus on carb counting with a moralistic tone, it will be way too soon.

Thankfully I have yet to hear one single goddamned word that's not genuinely medically appropriate about my weight or presumed eating habits since I did have that spectacular collapse, and then got to be clinically underweight enough that they have been repeatedly commenting on that--between the mistreated diabetes itself and the resulting GI damage from that final ketoacidosis crash. Regaining some weight and actually feeling hungry again more often, as I keep recovering from that bullshit and am consistently physically able to eat solid food again, has been sort of doing my head in lately. Not least because I do not want to get treated like garbage again, as I do recover and get back to a healthier weight. I have seen how that works, and really do not need a repeat.

There's still too much that's kinda triggering on an ongoing basis, but at least I am quite deliberately telling myself that I can eat whatever the hell I want and mostly actually DOING it. I am now decently equipped with insulin and a CGM to watch my blood sugar levels, and the world is my smörgåsbord at least as much as it is anyone else's.

I may actually go and get some ice cream in a little while. Because I want it, and I do have the technology.

[anonymousdandelion]

Nothing shuts down the “nobody wants me here/nobody notices me” brainweasels quite like being handed the Havdalah candle.

[zorilleerrant]

someone please trick me into writing one or more of my current projects because I keep just not writing

something really tickles me about the idea of rewriting Carry On back into fanfic and I have a sketchy outline

Ryan the Cameraman/Garfield the Production Assistant story I call "Interview with a Vampire Documentarian"

Yankee Candle/Bath & Body Works human AU fic which I could explain but trust me it'll make even less sense then

there's something taking shape about a 1D fic exploring the bounds between original fiction and fanfic but it's not quite there yet. might end up being different RPF that one's just a big fandom so I won't be stepping on any toes

I've got like a barely bullet points outline of a D&D-style pseudo-historical setting to tell my story about my beloved OCs, two tax evading orcs who run a pest control business to get rid of low level monsters for farmers and small villages

[medinaquirin]

Funny to be falling down a pit of self-loathing and suddenly remember that oh yeah, this is the shit I'm in therapy to be knocking the fuck off, and that I should, in fact, be knocking it the fuck off.

[jupiterjunebug]

4 and 12!

4. A story idea you haven't written yet

I've been sitting on a Severance inspired au that I thought up actually after reading your Eternal Sunshine au fic haha! Very loosely inspired....i havent watched severance.......

Then I also have the Steampunk circusy au tho I'm thinking I might make it Dishonored inspired because I adore dishonored and it would hive me an excuse to replay it while im entering promo mode (I can only get comfortable writing a chara if I listen to enough of their speech to make educated guesses on how theyd phrase things....voice is the thing im the strictest about with myself and BOY does it make writing guys from a promotion whose primary language I don’t speak. Hard)

12. A trope you're really into right now

Monster/magic is real fics. Whether it just be "yes, the goths are real witches" or full on "these guys that are completely normal in kayfabe are werewolves". My daydream au that im not going to write because it is in no way coherent narratively is one where I've just started incorporating monster headcanons as they click with me.

[storm-and-starlight]

The hardest thing in fandom is when there is one person who has great analysis on every aspect of the text BUT you physically cannot *stand* their takes on your favorite character

[advestager]

re: last rb and disregarding its objective coolness factor when i can get past my phobia: good god WHY won't anyone tag their fuckin insects so i can blacklist them!!!! i can't make informed choices abt when my mental health can handle LITERAL TRAUMA IN 4K if i don't know the video is gonna be bugs until it's ALREADY STARTED PLAYING

[baronmpontmercy]

Shakes myself by the shoulders stop! Comparing! Yourself! To! Other! People! It! Makes! You! Feel! Worse!