#giving yourself good advice

[ashipiko]

deuashi bonding time. as requested

I THINK THEYD BE REALLY CUTESY GROCERY BUDDIES!!! like to imagine one day ashi needed to go to sam’s shop to get some stuffs but didn’t want to call up ace cuz he had basketball practice. so then she called up deuce and they had a really funsies time!!! 🫡 she felt bad but he said it felt good helping someone out HAHAHA. next day ace got wind of it and got a little butthurt tho

yyyyeah

[j-jonah-jameson-official]

Mr J I'm heading to Wendy's. You want anything?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. I’M ON A STRICT DIET OF BLACK COFFEE AND THE WHINING OF MY PHOTOGRAPHERS!

[comics-centalx]

Just batbros being brothers and vibing over how Bruce is being a diva

All jokes aside, though, I love how Dick is telling Tim what he needed to hear back when he was Robin but never got to hear.

[toanw]

any tips for beginner artists?? I love ur art !!

thank you!!! Im not great at giving art advice but i can try lol…

here are some rules i try my best to follow to this day when im aiming to improve:

make art a habit: mileage isnt everything, but it certainly helps!! It’s much harder to improve if youre rarely creating.

dont be afraid of making mistakes, but always try to understand the mistakes you make. If something doesn’t look right, try your best to figure out why!! you’ll get better at catching yourself with time.

get to know the tools you already have instead of fixating on the tools others use. i find that beginners especially tend to obsess over the brushes/programs/tablet/etc. that their favourite artists have, but the truth is that artistic skill is transferable between mediums and no single tool is going to magically make you a better artist. its very easy to get caught in this trap, and i still do sometimes!!

draw the things you want to draw, even if you know they’re beyond your current skill level. taking risks goes hand in hand with my second point—the more mistakes you make, the more you’re going to learn!! and remember that you can always redraw a bad drawing.

go into a drawing knowing roughly what you want to create. mindless doodling is an easy way to make yourself believe that you have no ideas, and it can lead you to hate the act of sitting down to draw. you don’t have to know exactly what the finished product will be like, but make sure you have a tangible goal!!

these aren’t concrete rules you HAVE to follow by any means, but they are things that i wish someone had told me when i started out. i hope you find them useful!

[sharkneto]

Hey, sorry if this is a bit of a personal question - and feel free to ignore it if it is - but how did you know you wanted to start hrt? I am someone who IDs as transmasc and knows in an ideal world, I would've loved to have been born a guy. But the idea of going on hormones is terrifying because I can't figure out if I really want it... I worry about regretting it, or it making me 'unappealing' physically, or my friends judging me for it. Did you ever struggle with similar worries?

I think every person thinking about and starting HRT goes through this. A rite of passage, if you will, and also not a bad thing to do. HRT is a big step, some of the changes (especially on T) are irreversible. It's good to think through if it's a choice that's right for you or not.

That said, it's also Just A Thing You Can Do. I first started really questioning my gender at the end of 2020 (thank you, Elliot Page, for coming out and making me go "oh shit, you can do that?"). I got a therapist to talk about gender... Mid 2022? And started hormones spring 2023, top surgery a year later.

Before getting the therapist, I spent over a year Just Thinking About It. And a lot of the thoughts were around the changes on T and if I'd like them or not or if I'd regret them. If I'd be ugly, after being conventionally attractive as a woman.

It hits a point, though, where eventually you have to pull the plug one way or another. I spent a lot of time thinking about how my body would change on T. A Lot. With longing. I caught myself putting things off Until I Knew For Sure and because I didn't want to do it while being perceived as a woman. I was sitting, treading water for a hypothetical Later that I could start moving towards at any time. I was scared for the Teenage Round 2 phase, and didn't want to spend months being "ugly and awkward", but then the months passed anyway and I was still in the same spot.

HRT isn't an all-or-nothing thing, you can ease into it on a low dose. My doctor started me on a low dose and we ramped up over months. Some T changes can start pretty quickly (voice dropping, bottom growth - this isn't true for everyone, but was true for me). If these changes excite you, make you feel good - great! Keep going! If they scare you, feel wrong - stop. Assess. Figure out what about it isn't right (a gender therapist for all of this process is a Huge Help). In early days if you stop T, the changes can revert, for the most part. But you can always stop at any time.

The bigger thing I actively worked to wrap my head around before starting HRT is - Who Cares If You're Wrong? What's right for you now might not be right for you later. The idea of detransitioning was scary to me, society has such a weird spotlight on it, the Right uses people who have detransitioned as props against transition. But it shouldn't matter. At the end of the day, if I do change my mind, I'll know myself better, and I don't think it's wrong to chase and find comfort in your own body.

A year+ on T, I've mostly made it through the ugly duck phase, I think. I was lucky, I didn't get bad acne or get too oily or anything (after having horrible acne in my first puberty). Most of what I dealt with was the chronic baby face, where I was getting read as male but a teenager - I'm almost 30 and a woman wanted to card me over a free T-shirt at a baseball game because it had beer logos on it. After some middle months of changes and going "oh my god what am I doing" and not feeling confident in how this was all going to turn out, I think of myself as relatively attractive and I think I'm just going to get more vain as my beard comes in. Some of that is physical, sure, but I think a significant amount of that is me feeling more confident in myself and liking the body I'm in more. I was never a selfie or picture person, now I am. I joke I'm like a budgie, always looking at myself if there's a reflective surface nearby. I'm more excited to exercise, I'm interested in lifting weights for the first time, I'm curious what my body on T can do and become. Keep your eyes on the pieces that are going well, the changes exciting you, and let the rest catch up.

My social circle helped a lot. I'm very lucky and blessed to have great friends and family, all of whom are supportive. If you don't have friends who are supportive of you, that are judging you for exploring yourself rather than lifting you up for it, it's a sign to expand the social circle and find ones that are. Family is harder, but that's a thing you have to navigate for yourself and find your own boundaries for.

So, there's no ~one moment~ where you're 100% certain that medical transition is right for you. It's a huge unknown and you're changing the body you've had your entire life. At some point, though, you just have to jump and see how it lands. Part of being alive is making mistakes and doing things you might regret.

That said, the regret rate for trans people is something like 3%. The regret rate for knee surgery is something like 20%. Trust yourself.

[unopenablebox]

unfortunately those Cutting and Deep h3ather havril3sky ask polly "here's why you're lonely/here's the empathy failure holding you back" excerpts everyone loves to post

are just permanently recontextualized for me by her series of op-eds about how everyone in her family is an incomprehensible one-dimensional pod beast with completely unlovable preferences for things like "starbucks drinks" and "conversations about their lives", which she tolerates, with enormous difficulty, only through a sense of duty and a bunch of rationalizations about how actually it makes her sexier and cooler that she's willing to endure it

[oh-cramity-its-amity]

i love my friends so much. i feel like yesterday i had a lot of shit going on in my head and i woke up to my friend explaining things in a way that put my mind at ease. i dont feel as anxious anymore because i know i was overthinking. i think my dad said it best when he told me that he thought my wonderful brain of mine just wants to think problems are bigger than they actually are. he is right! im just inexperienced in life and half of the time im scared im doing something wrong but- HEY. i need to be more confident in making mistakes. making mistakes doesn't define me as a person!! i need to stop worrying about doing life right and just live for the sake of living and doing what makes me happy!!!!!!!

[forcebookish]

ok i'm finally watching only boo ep9 ('s scenes with shone) and is this really what people were mad at shone about? oh my god...? didn't moo sign a contract that said he wouldn't date while he was a trainee????? am i not remembering that correctly?

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

🌟

I reblogged this ask game and then failed to finish the answers to any of the asks i got. whoopsie. better late than never.

Anyway let's try the director's commentary of the train king scene from pez dispenser debris.

I love the train king intro. it's so fun and goofy. it's just got some really fun humor to it in my mind. I had so much fun writing it.

it is a completely pointless scene.

It has no plot relevance. Train king is not the chekov's gun hanging bravely on the wall of that fic. It will have no overarching effect on the plot. So why the fuck is it there?

Well, because it was fun.

Pez dispenser debris has lived in my head for at least two or three years now. Not in the exact form it is now, but it's a very old and much-adored story of mine. I was incredibly fond of it. I tried to write it years ago, and got as far as the first scene, which was originally Izuku and Mirio walking along the street and running into the bus hijacking, which led to the rogue quirk.

It was a good starting point. It's where the action actually started. But it just didn't feel right to me.

So it sat in my drafts for a long time, collected dust, and I spun my wheels on other projects for a while. I went back to it, and tried again, and the new first scene was Izuku rushing in late for the meeting with the realtor. It still didn't feel right. it gave more development to Izuku and Mirio's relationship before we hit action, but something just wasn't right.

Train King was just a silly reason i made up for why he was late. The scene originally wasn't shown, only mentioned in a single sentence. And then I decided--fuck it, it would make for a fun scene. just do it for shits and giggles.

And I had fun writing it. Which means it's probably the only reason why i hit publish on pez dispenser debris to begin with instead of leaving it in my drafts. Because I was in a state of extreme burn out when i started writing that fic, and the train king scene led me to realize what that fic needed to be for me: just something fun and silly to write.

Technically speaking, pez dispenser debris is very sloppy. There's a huge amount of pointless asides and flashbacks that don't contribute to the plot in any way. the entirety of chapter four could be deleted and it would be the exact same fic if i just slightly edited the conversation between aizawa and izuku in chapter six. I legitmately wrote chapter four, said "wow, that was pointless," and hit publish

because I liked it anyway. Like, what the fuck is the point of the backflip treaty? Dabi's extremely reluctant semi-redemption? Absolutely nothing. I just had a good time writing it and thought other people would have a good time reading it.

it wasn't meant to be """"good"""" art. it was meant to be fun, and that's what it was. I had so much fun writing my silly little flashbacks and asides. All of my fics have those kinds of background stories and scenes that exist in their "universe," and most of them never make it into the fics because it wouldn't be plot relevant and it wouldn't make for """"good""" art. With pez dispenser debris, I wanted to just give myself permission to write something fun and silly with as many pointless scenes as i wanted. And train king started that.

[lecoindecachou]

People always get real weird about Beyoncé right before she drops an album. Hate that for her.

[areyoudoingthis]

the thing about not fucking up my sleep schedule during the summer so that i don't end up having to suffer through a week of insomnia to fix it (aside from this being a new experience for me, usually i manage to unfuck up my sleep schedule in a day or two) is that staying up all night reading during the summer is literally the reason i stay alive. it may sound dramatic but i spend the whole work year subjecting myself to a hateful schedule of being up before the sun, and the reason i survive it is because i know come january I'll have night after night of reading for hours and hours and hours uninterrupted, peaceful quiet. I've been doing this since I was a child, it kept me going back then too, it's kept me going my whole life. i can't afford a lot of expensive pleasures like traveling, or buying that new gaming pc I've wanted for years, but i can stay up until 6am reading every day for a month. yes I'd love to avoid going through the hell week I've just endured ever again, but if you ask me to sacrifice my favorite summer passtime literally what's the point of being alive

[yourqueenb]

“Drew only does casual”

“Drew doesn’t do commitment”

Ok that’s fine, but girl are you good with that??

[bleue-flora]

Omg I laughed when my teacher fell over. But i wasn't laughing at her pain I was laughing at the absurdity of what happened. Cam you relate, like autism laughing at wrong times. I always feel bad but I can't stop myself from smiling or laughing.

lol look people falling can be very funny there’s a reason there are complications of it (my favorite are the pool and ice fails lol) and my general rule is is that laugher is the best medicine but… in general unless the person who fell is laughing it’s not okay to laugh, as that person is likely not only hurt but embarrassed so be mindful of that. In some cases you can show concern first then turn is funny but again it depends on the situation and person on whether that’ll be okay with them. For example if I tripped in my heels and someone laughed it doesn’t feel very good it feels like I’m being made fun of, but if I tripped then made a joke about oh to be woman and having to wear heels and laughing at myself being clumsy then I’m inviting others to join in… as far as not being able to control it or whatever it’s hard for me to think of a specific example, I’m older than I was so I think I have developed the skills to not do that I suppose. But if I think about it, it seems like my strategy is to have someone who I can whisper in their ear and they’ll laugh secretly with me not at someone in a mean way but a did you see that typo in the slideshow... XD

[not-poignant]

*waves* I want to start off by saying that your works have been a huge comfort in my life over the years. They've helped me through some really trialing times and I'm forever thankful for everything you've done, even when life hasn't been kind to you. I've slowly been coming to terms with the fact that I have chronic pain, maybe fatigue too, unknown still. But it's been a hard pill to swallow, I feel so angry that I can't do stuff. Do you or any of your followers have advice for accepting this?

Hi anon,

Firstly, I'm so sorry you're going through this process, especially one that also involves fatigue, because fatigue is a son of a bitch. (You can - to a degree - treat some forms of pain, but there's almost nothing out there for genuine fatigue except rest and the core needs, and even then, it rarely listens).

My advice is going to be from stuff I've mostly learned for myself, but everyone's journey is different. What I like to tell myself might hurt someone else, so if I say anything here that doesn't work for you, remember it's important to find your own things too.

If necessary, look for support groups, if you have no diagnosis yet but have chronic pain and fatigue, groups for ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) and Fibromyalgia are probably the best places to start.

As for advice, the first is that it's normal to be angry and it's normal to feel betrayed (by your body and by a very ableist society) and it's normal to feel sad and upset. Acceptance isn't the absence of these feelings, it's not a place you get to where you transcend these emotions, because it's normal to grieve what the course of life has taken from you. And part of the journey of chronic illness re: accepting where you find yourself, is also accepting the emotions that come with it, even if they feel really ugly or you don't want them. Not being able to do stuff you used to do, or the way you used to do it - of course you'd be angry, because that's loss. And loss by nature, creates grief.

Acceptance is the moment - for me - where you have a bad day re: anger and resentment and can stop and go 'oh of course I feel this way, I have lost a lot, but even though I'm annoyed or angry at my body today, I'm going to be kind to it and care for it to the best of my ability, because I'm sick, and that's what I'd want to do for anyone who was this sick. And I'm going to check if I need to ask for help, and remember that I don't have to do this alone.'

There might come a time when you're ready to brainstorm and problem solve, or days where you have more energy. For example, I can't hike for hours anymore, and haven't been able to for years. But I can stop and think 'what did I like most about hiking?' And it would be - the things in nature I can see. Well, I can still get out to nature, especially on accessible paths, or places that have carparks and botanical gardens. Or it would be physical exertion - well, I can do purposeful physical exertion with very gentle physiotherapy, it's not the same, but it still gives me a feeling of physical accomplishment. Or it would be I really like being in nature - thankfully there are a lot of places you can be in nature if you have friends or Ubers to take you there, and you can also bring nature to you re: plants in the home.

Generally speaking, getting creative with what is lost is part of the process of acceptance. But it doesn't always come straight away, and it doesn't always come without resentment. I have days where I'm still fiercely, fiercely angry that I can't do the things that I used to do. The fact is, the world is ableist, friends have internalised ableism, I'm often feeling guilty or frustrated that I can't do things when I just...can't do them and it's not my fault. I'm just sick.

Definitely consider organising some kind of therapy or even vent sessions with someone you trust (who has the capacity to handle it, though not many folks do, understandably) - medical trauma, and the experience of a chronic illness, can be traumatic. And look around for a good doctor and professional support network.

Pain on its own causes fatigue, so look at enrolling in a pain clinic (they have wait lists, so it's good to get the ball rolling now), and make sure that you've had at the very least a blood panel of your inflammatory markers because many causes of chronic pain can be treated or medically supported.

It's worth making friends with some folks who have chronic illnesses and spoonies, or the people who just 'get it' even if they don't. People who will never pressure you when you have to cancel. People who love you when you don't see them for months at a time. People who understand when you vanish from an online conversation halfway through without saying goodbye. These folks are worth their weight in gold.

There's things like - it's worth exploring concepts like mindfulness in chronic illness, as well as pacing (I hate pacing, but the one time I seriously tried it, I felt better and could do more - it's just so frustrating in concept). It's worth writing down the things that trigger bad episodes of pain or fatigue for you, and then thinking of ways to accommodate those things (for example, socialising causes flares for me, so I don't do it often, and I try not to do too much in one week). Research the 'energy envelope' and learn what yours is.

As to the grief and the anger, this is also something you will go through again and again, though the periods of acceptance may last longer, and feel more genuine. We're not trying to stop the emotions of grief and anger, but it is worth learning how to wrangle those emotions when you turn them against yourself, when you look for something to blame and hurt yourself in the process. Remember, if society accommodated disability and invisible illnesses better, your life would probably be a little easier, some things are actually down to how society treats us. If I knew I could access a program that delivered meals because I'm medically too tired to cook, my life would be easier. So when I go 'fuck my body is useless' - the truth is - society is pretty fucking useless, and my body is doing its goddamn best.

But you can be extremely mad at society for dropping the ball on all of this. Or upset. Or disgusted. Or betrayed. It's all valid. Society drops the ball on chronic pain and illness and fatigue every damn day.

The chronic illness train, for nearly all of us, is one that we board eventually, and it almost always has multiple stops. We never just acquire one thing, because age tends to give us age-related chronic illnesses too (arthritis, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, etc.). These declines can each come as a new shock, and going through one new illness or symptom isn't always going to look as the same process that preceded it. A new chronic illness might feel like nothing at all if it's easy to manage (see my acquisition of allergic eczema) or it might hit you really hard if it comes with pretty reduced mortality (see my acquisition of COPD). You might get decades between one thing and the next thing, or you might not, but it's a train that in the course of humankind billions of people have been on.

The people who treat you badly for being sick are the ones who refuse to believe the train exists and that it's coming for them. They often think that if they live 'well enough' they can avoid the train (they can't). Maybe that was something you once believed as well. I know I did (and sometimes still do).

And as for when we treat ourselves badly for being sick - some of it's grief and trauma, and a lot of it is internalised ableism. Having a chronic illness is not your fault anon. Even though it doesn't feel like it, your body is doing its best for you, and the process of acceptance is learning that we need to also do our best for our body, and that we should expect society to do the same, even though it often doesn't.

Idk if this was anything along the lines of what you're looking for. Tbh I still find it really hard. December just gone was one of the hardest months I've ever had the misfortune of living through not just because of chronic illness but because of my emotional reaction to three new diagnoses I wasn't prepared for, and I spiralled hard when I realised just how sick I was (no one likes to see 'possible severe liver disease' on a CT scan). We never just go through the anger or grief once, but it does get easier, and the periods of time where we just make our lives into a new shape that pleases us become longer.

Anon, you will find new things that please you and fulfill you even as you lose old things. The new things won't replace those old things, but they will bring moments of ease and comfort and joy. We all experience this process. But do chase them down. Look for them when you have moments of energy. Seek them out. The simple things in life that nourish you, whether it's soft blankets, or good food, or a particular movie or show, or a book. Pain and fatigue are bitches, but many of us with it are avid collectors of 'things that nourish, fulfill and are joyous to us.'

I wish you well with it all! The chronic illness train can feel like a very lonely one because it races us away from the people in our lives who aren't on it yet - but the truth is hundreds of millions of us are on it right now, and there will be lots of different types of advice and support waiting for you, and very few of them will deny you your anger at the situation you find yourself in. Very few people find themselves excited to board the chronic illness train, and often you don't realise it's picked you up until you learn you can't get off.

That part sucks. But accepting that it sucks goes a longer way than trying to convince yourself it shouldn't.

[autisticlee]

I know it's wrong and bad to say this, but sometimes I really hate when my friends have other friends. (specifically when I can't also be friends with those friends) because every time I want someone to hang out with or talk to, the only couple friends I have are always busy with their other friends. when I want to plan something with them, they will always choose the other friends over me. they will cancel plans *with* me as soon as other friends ask, but won't cancel plans *for* me when i ask. they will use up their social spoons on other friends and leave none for me. always putting things with me off or simply not responding at all.

i'm always told by random people when I say I want mkre friends "it's better to have a couple great friends than many aquantances" or something like that. but honestly it sucks because you can't rely on 1-2 people to always be there for you every day or every week when you want or need someone. if you keep asking, you're seen as annoying and clingy and they will ignore you eventually (or worse)

it's annoying that they get to fill their social needs at all times, but I never get to. because i'm never the one that gets to go first in the social queue. and when it gets to my turn, it refreshes and i'm pushed to the back again.

the only solution I can ever think of is being friends with my friends' friends too....but for some reason!!!!!! that never works out!!!! (if my friends will even share their friends with me to begin with)

[sabraeal]

as a writer how do you stop thinking about like getting kudos/comments? I've just started writing fanfic, and when I start a writing something -- it goes well and then eventually I get to point where I'm like "ahh but what the readers don't like that? or what if I don't get as many kudos or comments" and it makes it difficult to continue because then it becomes stressful -- I guess how do you deal with "wanting to write stuff for yourself" and "wanting validation" thanks!

You're going to hate this answer, because I hated it too, but TIME. When you first start writing and you get kudos and comments and people love what you're doing, it's a huge validation of your effort and talent, and it's natural that you want MORE of it. When I first started putting up fics I already had been writing for 15+ years, knew I was good at it, and still for a good few years found myself really glued to the hit counter, and the kudos, and wondering how I'd be able to get people to comment the same way they did on things like Seven Suitors.

But the thing is that commenting comes and goes in waves, and unless a fandom has a big comment culture, or is large enough that you're guaranteed a good glut of them every time you post...you're going to hit a point where you write exactly what everyone wants and get crickets. And at that point you'll get ANNOYED, because LOOK, I MADE THIS, i made it for YOU GUYS, and now y'all don't have anything to say? It'll get to you. It'll make you doubt that you know what anyone wants at all. It'll happen and it'll suck the whole time.

Lots of advice will say "write for yourself," which is an excellent sentiment. You should always write what YOU want. Put into your fic what you want to see, write the nitpicky poetic metaphors and craft the most screwball twists your heart desires. Pour yourself into the most niche AUs and most tin-hat canon theories. At the end of the day, you want the IDEAS you put down to be for you, because comments and kudos are nice, but if they don't come...you have to be proud of what you put out, even when it feels like an echo chamber.

But also...we don't POST things for ourselves. We post things to share. Fic are a conversation with canon and it is perfectly natural to want to create something that creates conversation among other fans. So you're never going to fully get the need for validation out of your head, you're not. You can hide hit counts and ignore your inbox all you like, but the want to have someone interact with your work, to inspire someone to reach out to you will ALWAYS be there. You just have to create a healthier relationship with it.

Be confident in what you write. Think less about whether people will like it, and more about how you WANT them to react. The reader is the most important character in any novel, but it's the one most authors forget to manage. When you come to a point where you go "oh man, I hope this is good for them!" stop and go, "what do I *want* them to be feeling here?" Focus on where you're putting their attention and whether you WANT it there. There's so much you can do when you visualize your relationship with the reader as PART of the work, and it takes off a lot of the pressure of "is this good? is it disappointing? will this get me validation?" and brings it back into the realm of storytelling. You are taking your reader on a journey, and when you do it well people will think less about "did I like that?" and more about "what comes next?"