#can we get that number higher

[spell-fox]

vicissitude as a love language <3

slightly crunchy file version of sketches of various bits from last session. Linden gave themselves one (1) antenna under the watchful gaze of the Duchess (using some of her discarded moults), put makeup on Cash/Monroe, the duchess! Linden gifted their small (regular height) bf Abaddon a vicissituded bone bracelet, then went back for vicissitude and chill

Cash/Monroe is @cynical-tuba, the Duchess and Abaddon are SPCs by @urbanknightart <3

Some close-ups

[toytulini]

terfs go climb into a hole and start rotting. animals cannot inherently tell your "biological sex" you are all so fucking stupid. All this post is saying is that animals are not infallible judges of character and some of them make really stupid vibe checks and that people should try not to take it personally. Unless youre a terf in which case they know and they hate you and you should take it personally

re that one post tbh i do want to stress i dont think animals are like magically psychic at knowing your True Gender tbh i think ppl definitely get way too weird about Animal's judgement of ppl.

Sometimes a dog will vibe check a man and the dog will be right and you should listen. but sometimes the dog will vibe check someone for no good reason. sometimes dogs have wack judgement. sometimes dogs have biases influenced by their owners or previous owners. like. there are Racist Dogs. its not the dogs fault, but that doesnt make the bias theyve developed less real, or less potentially hurtful. i dont think we need to like, Cancel Dogs Bc Sometimes Ppl Can Train Them To Be Racist, but we do need to stop perpetuating the idea that a dog's judgement of someone is infallible. theyre not responsible for it and its not their fault its developed, theyre just dogs, they didnt choose it, but that doesnt mean theyre RIGHT lmao. i think its important to stress this for many reasons but in regard to that last post specifically, if youve ever been vibe checked as a gender you arent by a judgy dog its literally not your fault. might not even be the owners fault. not the dogs fault cos like. its a fucking dog. you do kinda have to be the bigger person in that scenario cos the other person is. A Dog.

[torchickentacos]

I think one of the worst feelings is when you have a special interest in something you're decidedly not intelligent enough to fully understand, so you just sort of emptily rotate it in your head for a bit without actually GOING anywhere with it

[banbrotsu]

me: trying to figure out what the deal w/ non-japanese sorcerers is

reddit: bc of the barrier there's more sorcerers in japan proportionally. it's like a greenhouse effect. sorcerer's are super rare outside of japan bc the lack of cursed energy

me: okay so we're just ignore the nyc exists? or that places like honduras get called the "murder capitol of the world"? bc like if things like curses and curse energy are heavily related to negative emotion and large population and shit then i call some kinda bullshit. still deciding on which but there's bullshit afoot.

[samarecharm]

FINALLY. GOLD EGGSTRA WORK BADGE !!!

[baishouqijia]

i am desperately trying to be more active but i'm experiencing mental burnout. just want to say thank you for the interactions even when i'm only checking in here now and again - i'll respond when i'm feeling better! <3

[lil-gremlin-gal]

NaClYoHo Days 23 & 24

Day 23

usual daily dishes

second doctors appointment this week

sent trial return to work forms to doctor for signing/review

called sister to check in

put in an order to take advantage of the ordinary's slowvember sale

updated Christmas shopping/budget list

Today (day 24)

usual daily dishes, laundry

threw away some expired food

threw away dead table flowers

wiped bathroom counter

moved meat from freezer to fridge so I can try to cook dinner tomorrow

I haven't felt too much more sucky than normal the last couple days, but in addition to thyroid problems and whatever undiagnosed dysautonomic problem I'm having, I also have you-feel-shitty-disease (ME/CFS), so my normal "feeling normal" is already pretty sucky. If you feel 100% normally and drop to 30%, you feel it! But if you feel 35% normally and drop to 30%, maybe it doesn't impact you as much? idk

Did lots of sleeping and resting yesterday and today, and will hopefully perk up back to normal next week to finish the month strong.

[forffax]

Woaugh. Spread out in my folders I have 2220 conan imaches. Maybe more if I have some unsorted ones....

[dadvidtism]

cc tier list.. putting it here to rant a little in a ‘not into a wall’ way.. for personal needs.. 😇

[wizardofgaysex]

the pandemic fixed ao3 because half of the m/m fics coming out now are tagged with vaginal sex

[fish-in-need-of-a-bicycle]

Update below original post

The Iranian Regime is going to execute rapper Toomaj Salehi for supporting protests of Jina Amini’s murder by the regime in his songs.

Iranian activist Elica Le Bon says, “Iranians in the diaspora picked up on the fact that the regime tends not to execute people who become known to the international community. We have seen many examples of prisoners that were either released on bail or had their sentences commuted through our “say their names to save their lives” campaign on social media, using hashtags to garner attention for their causes, and even before social media existed, through getting the stories of political prisoners to international media outlets. Once reported on, and once the eyes shift to the regime and the reality of its pending brutality, realizing that the action is not worth the repercussions, we have seen them back down and not execute. For that reason, this is part of an urgent campaign for readers to talk about Toomaj as much as you can, using the hashtag #FreeToomaj or #ToomajSalehi. Every comment makes a difference, and if we were wrong, what did we lose by trying?”

Update: Hey everyone! Toomaj Salehi’s death sentence was overturned! The most recent article I could find says he is still in jail though. Please keep sharing, because people to need to understand what’s happening. According to Amnesty International, Iran carried out 74% of the world’s executions in 2023, not including executions from China since they don’t release those numbers. The execution rate is growing higher with 67 executions in June alone, 48 of which were ethnic minorities despite all together being only 40% of the population. Their crimes are protesting the government for murdering women. Please keep sharing, because while there are many injustices happening far away that can’t be stopped by posting, the Say Their Names to Save Their Lives Movement works.

[jupitercl0uds]

world where i can get all the benefits of turning 18 (opening comissions without having to rely on my mum) without all the deficits (everything else)

[the-physicality]

im ruminating about the expansion draft....would love some rules

[curlicuecal]

playing science telephone

Hi folks. Let's play a fun game today called "unravelling bad science communication back to its source."

Journey with me.

Saw a comment going around on a tumblr thread that "sometimes the life expectancy of autism is cited in the 30s"

That number seemed..... strange. The commenter DID go on to say that that was "situational on people being awful and not… anything autism actually does", but you know what? Still a strange number. I feel compelled to fact check.

Quick Google "autism life expectancy" pulls up quite a few websites bandying around the number 39. Which is ~technically~ within the 30s, but already higher than the tumblr factoid would suggest. But, guess what. This number still sounds strange to me.

Most of the websites presenting this factoid present themselves as official autism resources and organizations (for parents, etc), and most of them vaguely wave towards "studies."

Ex: "Above And Beyond Therapy" has a whole article on "Does Autism Affect Life Expectancy" and states:

The link implies that it will take you to the "research studies" being referenced, but it in fact takes you to another random autism resource group called.... Songbird Care?

And on that website we find the factoid again:

Ooh, look. Now they've added the word "some". The average lifespan for SOME autistic people. Which the next group erased from the fact. The message shifts further.

And we have slightly more information about the study! (Which has also shifted from "studies" to a singular "study"). And we have another link!

Wonderfully, this link actually takes us to the actual peer-reviewed 2020 study being discussed. [x]

And here, just by reading the abstract, we find the most important information of all.

This study followed a cohort of adolescent and adult autistic people across a 20 year time period. Within that time period, 6.4% of the cohort died. Within that 6.4%, the average age of death was 39 years.

So this number is VERY MUCH not the average age of death for autistic people, or even the average age of death for the cohort of autistic people in that study. It is the average age of death IF you died young and within the 20 year period of the study (n=26), and also we don't even know the average starting age of participants without digging into earlier papers, except that it was 10 or older. (If you're curious, the researchers in the study suggested reduced self-sufficiency to be among the biggest risk factors for the early mortality group.)

But the number in the study has been removed from it's context, gradually modified and spread around the web, and modified some more, until it is pretty much a nonsense number that everyone is citing from everyone else.

There ARE two other numbers that pop up semi-frequently:

One cites the life expectancy at 58. I will leave finding the context for that number as an exercise for the audience, since none of the places I saw it gave a direct citation for where they were getting it.

And then, probably the best and most relevant number floating around out there (and the least frequently cited) draws from a 2023 study of over 17,000 UK people with an autism diagnosis, across 30 years. [x] This study estimated life expectancies between 70 and 77 years, varying with sex and presence/absence of a learning disability. (As compared to the UK 80-83 average for the population as a whole.)

This is a set of numbers that makes way more sense and is backed by way better data, but isn't quite as snappy a soundbite to pass around the internet. I'm gonna pass it around anyway, because I feel bad about how many scared internet people I stumbled across while doing this search.

People on quora like "I'm autistic, can I live past 38"-- honey, YES. omg.

---

tl;dr, when someone gives you a number out of context, consider that the context is probably important

also, make an amateur fact checker's life easier and CITE YOUR SOURCES

[buckleydiazmp4]

do you mind if i ramble in the tags about my weird relationship with making art in fandom for a second

[orcboxer]

Sure there's zombies killing and eating people on the street but those people are not dying from the virus they're dying from comorbidities. For instance, that guy we saw getting eaten on the way into work today clearly died from blood loss, not infection, plus he already had a heart condition. People with preexisting conditions are just going to have to take care of themselves. Say it with me, "They're all already dead to me." See, that feels a lot better now doesn't it?

Good because you still have to go to work. No we're not paying you extra. Yes we're doubling grocery prices. No you don't qualify for disability. Or healthcare. Or a home.

Look, if you get bitten, you can stay home for one day, I guess 😒, but then you need to come in early. We're really short staffed at the moment, despite our company's profits being higher than ever. In fact we may be laying some of you off next month. You don't mind working off the clock right?

Also you look silly with that protective gear. We're gonna harass you for it, not like institutionally but just socially. Who cares if a zombie attacks you? Who cares if we invite them into the building? You don't need to defend yourself, you're just overreacting. If you get bitten just tell everyone the festering bite mark is from a different animal, that's what we all do.

And hey, don't worry so much. It's endemic, which means we don't have to keep track of how many people are dying from it anymore. Just look at those numbers! It's only killed 2,000 people in America this week! That's basically nobody! We're back to normal!

If everything starts tasting like rotting meat for the rest of your life, it's probably something else. If you experience brain fog or you forget things constantly or you're tired all the time after even minor physical activity, it's just because you're lazy. Yes every other virus you ever get will also be increasingly worse but that's just a coincidence. Those viruses just happen to be exponentially worse now.

Plus, those few weeks during the lockdown were terrible for my mental health. I just can't keep living like that, so we have to go back to normal life, which now involves people biting each other and twitching uncontrollably and rotting visibly.

You can't expect the world to wait for you. "Already dead to me," remember?