#like NEW STIMULUS !!!

[chimkin-samich]

I love the little detail that Moon's eyes are glitchy with the blue coming through, also 'seethe motherfucker' XD

Yeah? It’s actually an effect you can see when you take a picture of a screen, Feral saw it when she was looking how taking a pic of screen would look like since the boys eyes are screens and that’s the effect that came out! Sun didn’t get it mainly cuz we forgot about it lol

And yeah Moons very vulgar when protocals aren’t in the way to stop him Skdkf, this is actually a new AU we’re their caretaker bots that her parents had gotten for her grandmother, but she didn’t like the idea of being taken care of by anyone be it bot or human so she tells Tari to take em off her hands

They were separate at first but due to Sun falling off the balcony during a panic of thinking he was getting sold away and separated (That’s was Tari’s dads plan even if he wouldn’t have been able to but Sun was to anxious to realize in the moment) he feel on a fence and with Him and Moons agreement she placed Suns AI in Moons body

This is them after they moved in with her, maybe around the 8 months mark or so, they’ve already realized their feelings but are keeping quiet at least until they go to the process to get their certificate of sentience/citizenship cuz they know Tari would refuse to entertain the idea even if she feels the same way because she still owns them on paper

So in the mean time the 2 make due with competing for her attention, which becomes even more competitive when Eclipse shows up since his sweet, shy, affectionate nature allows him to “win” more often lol (their AI’s merging allowed him to rebuild himself since their coding was originally built for him but they split it and the body to make to duo bots instead)

[sapphic-schizo]

saw some scumbag scam ad on youtube that went like "ignore the smokescreen of the middle east drama..." 😦 middle east drama smokescreen....a whole city being wiped off the map is drama to distract you from... stimulus money that doesn't exist. i cannot with these losers get a real fucking job and stop being the absolute worst

[sunsetzer]

I just relearned how much I fucking love minecraft, like, my neurodivergent brain gets hooked in the music and the concept of being able to build my own little house and have animals and collect materials and make things. I also learned that the caves are both way cooler and way scarier now. And the Nintendo switch is not a good console to host multi-player on.

[noisemachinedotcom]

suddenly genuinely excited about music in a way i havent been in a long long tume

[a4g]

i want to watch spoke apocalypse video for the 5th time

[realnielsbohr]

I love getting into new media. looking at stuff for the first time is so much fun

[ghastbutlikegay]

You know when you spend two weeks revisiting the same daydream world every night as you fall asleep (or sometimes when you’re doing something boring like making coffee or microwaving food) and you keep building on it with new scenes and new backstory and worldbuilding and you’re invested in the characters and their story arc but then the story arc comes to its conclusion and you haven’t managed to invent new conflict for them so now you’re stuck either scrambling to find conflict that feels unnatural or clinging to the few gaps you’ve yet to fill in and hope you discover new conflict hidden somewhere there

[arolesbianism]

I think Jackie should be put in a time loop of the month before the earth explodes. I just wanna see what she does. I don't even want it in a "I want her to introspect" sort of way I just want to see her spiral. How long could she manage before she stopped trying to fix it in the same brute force manner she always has gone at her problems with. Would she even stop? Would she even see this as a curse? Would she ever stop for a second to regret? Or would she go in already having regrets?

[medicinemane]

Always hungry, always broke, and always having my mom toss a new catastrophe my way... but never actually being given control of the money despite the fact that I've been able to hold on to my stimulus checks all these years only spending them on emergencies, but she blows her disability and wracks up credit card debt

But see... she'd feel like a child if she had to ask for money for things... it's much better when she has full control so she can do things like spend $300 on microtransactions in a single month

Then my grandma gets mad at me for having to help with money cause I don't have a job, and if I just had a job it would be fine (and no doubt I'm pretty shit for not working despite not having anything wrong with me)

When I get stuff cleaned up my mom just uses it as a new spot to dump trash so... there's no point

I provide nothing to the world, I have no talents or skills, everything I do is wrong, and I'm just kind of a drain on the world despite having nothing stopping me from actually doing shit except my poor character

...kinda hemming and hawing on ordering this cause even $18 is a hell of a lot of money to spend on killing myself unless I'm actually gonna do it. If I get it and then keep putting it off... well then that money would have been real better spent elsewhere

...but on the other hand this can't keep continuing... maybe I can take the money I was trying to save up to buy a new mic so I can actually talk to people and spend it on this instead

[lil-vibes]

to all my comic making people out there, im giving you a hug. shits so hard i got frustrated and downloaded Duolingo and started learning high valyrian bc im the biggest fucking nerd

[bookishdiplodocus]

The Neurodivergent Writer’s Guide to Fun and Productivity

(Even when life beats you down)

Look, I’m a mom, I have ADHD, I’m a spoonie. To say that I don’t have heaps of energy to spare and I struggle with consistency is an understatement. For years, I tried to write consistently, but I couldn’t manage to keep up with habits I built and deadlines I set.

So fuck neurodivergent guides on building habits, fuck “eat the frog first”, fuck “it’s all in the grind”, and fuck “you just need time management”—here is how I manage to write often and a lot.

Focus on having fun, not on the outcome

This was the groundwork I had to lay before I could even start my streak. At an online writing conference, someone said: “If you push yourself and meet your goals, and you publish your book, but you haven’t enjoyed the process… What’s the point?” and hoo boy, that question hit me like a truck.

I was so caught up in the narrative of “You’ve got to show up for what’s important” and “Push through if you really want to get it done”. For a few years, I used to read all these productivity books about grinding your way to success, and along the way I started using the same language as they did. And I notice a lot of you do so, too.

But your brain doesn’t like to grind. No-one’s brain does, and especially no neurodivergent brain. If having to write gives you stress or if you put pressure on yourself for not writing (enough), your brain’s going to say: “Huh. Writing gives us stress, we’re going to try to avoid it in the future.”

So before I could even try to write regularly, I needed to teach my brain once again that writing is fun. I switched from countable goals like words or time to non-countable goals like “fun” and “flow”.

Rewire my brain: writing is fun and I’m good at it

I used everything I knew about neuroscience, psychology, and social sciences. These are some of the things I did before and during a writing session. Usually not all at once, and after a while I didn’t need these strategies anymore, although I sometimes go back to them when necessary.

I journalled all the negative thoughts I had around writing and try to reason them away, using arguments I knew in my heart were true. (The last part is the crux.) Imagine being supportive to a writer friend with crippling insecurities, only the friend is you.

Not setting any goals didn’t work for me—I still nurtured unwanted expectations. So I did set goals, but made them non-countable, like “have fun”, “get in the flow”, or “write”. Did I write? Yes. Success! Your brain doesn’t actually care about how high the goal is, it cares about meeting whatever goal you set.

I didn’t even track how many words I wrote. Not relevant.

I set an alarm for a short time (like 10 minutes) and forbade myself to exceed that time. The idea was that if I write until I run out of mojo, my brain learns that writing drains the mojo. If I write for 10 minutes and have fun, my brain learns that writing is fun and wants to do it again.

Reinforce the fact that writing makes you happy by rewarding your brain immediately afterwards. You know what works best for you: a walk, a golden sticker, chocolate, cuddle your dog, whatever makes you happy.

I conditioned myself to associate writing with specific stimuli: that album, that smell, that tea, that place. Any stimulus can work, so pick one you like. I consciously chose several stimuli so I could switch them up, and the conditioning stays active as long as I don’t muddle it with other associations.

Use a ritual to signal to your brain that Writing Time is about to begin to get into the zone easier and faster. I guess this is a kind of conditioning as well? Meditation, music, lighting a candle… Pick your stimulus and stick with it.

Specifically for rewiring my brain, I started a new WIP that had no emotional connotations attached to it, nor any pressure to get finished or, heaven forbid, meet quality norms. I don’t think these techniques above would have worked as well if I had applied them on writing my novel.

It wasn’t until I could confidently say I enjoyed writing again, that I could start building up a consistent habit. No more pushing myself.

I lowered my definition for success

When I say that nowadays I write every day, that’s literally it. I don’t set out to write 1,000 or 500 or 10 words every day (tried it, failed to keep up with it every time)—the only marker for success when it comes to my streak is to write at least one word, even on the days when my brain goes “naaahhh”. On those days, it suffices to send myself a text with a few keywords or a snippet. It’s not “success on a technicality (derogatory)”, because most of those snippets and ideas get used in actual stories later. And if they don’t, they don’t. It’s still writing. No writing is ever wasted.

A side note on high expectations, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism

Obviously, “Setting a ridiculously low goal” isn’t something I invented. I actually got it from those productivity books, only I never got it to work. I used to tell myself: “It’s okay if I don’t write for an hour, because my goal is to write for 20 minutes and if I happen to keep going for, say, an hour, that’s a bonus.” Right? So I set the goal for 20 minutes, wrote for 35 minutes, and instead of feeling like I exceeded my goal, I felt disappointed because apparently I was still hoping for the bonus scenario to happen. I didn’t know how to set a goal so low and believe it.

I think the trick to making it work this time lies more in the groundwork of training my brain to enjoy writing again than in the fact that my daily goal is ridiculously low. I believe I’m a writer, because I prove it to myself every day. Every success I hit reinforces the idea that I’m a writer. It’s an extra ward against imposter syndrome.

Knowing that I can still come up with a few lines of dialogue on the Really Bad Days—days when I struggle to brush my teeth, the day when I had a panic attack in the supermarket, or the day my kid got hit by a car—teaches me that I can write on the mere Bad-ish Days.

The more I do it, the more I do it

The irony is that setting a ridiculously low goal almost immediately led to writing more and more often. The most difficult step is to start a new habit. After just a few weeks, I noticed that I needed less time and energy to get into the zone. I no longer needed all the strategies I listed above.

Another perk I noticed, was an increased writing speed. After just a few months of writing every day, my average speed went from 600 words per hour to 1,500 wph, regularly exceeding 2,000 wph without any loss of quality.

Talking about quality: I could see myself becoming a better writer with every passing month. Writing better dialogue, interiority, chemistry, humour, descriptions, whatever: they all improved noticeably, and I wasn’t a bad writer to begin with.

The increased speed means I get more done with the same amount of energy spent. I used to write around 2,000-5,000 words per month, some months none at all. Nowadays I effortlessly write 30,000 words per month. I didn’t set out to write more, it’s just a nice perk.

Look, I’m not saying you should write every day if it doesn’t work for you. My point is: the more often you write, the easier it will be.

No pressure

Yes, I’m still working on my novel, but I’m not racing through it. I produce two or three chapters per month, and the rest of my time goes to short stories my brain keeps projecting on the inside of my eyelids when I’m trying to sleep. I might as well write them down, right?

These short stories started out as self-indulgence, and even now that I take them more seriously, they are still just for me. I don’t intend to ever publish them, no-one will ever read them, they can suck if they suck. The unintended consequence was that my short stories are some of my best writing, because there’s no pressure, it’s pure fun.

Does it make sense to spend, say, 90% of my output on stories no-one else will ever read? Wouldn’t it be better to spend all that creative energy and time on my novel? Well, yes. If you find the magic trick, let me know, because I haven’t found it yet. The short stories don’t cannibalize on the novel, because they require different mindsets. If I stopped writing the short stories, I wouldn’t produce more chapters. (I tried. Maybe in the future? Fingers crossed.)

Don’t wait for inspiration to hit

There’s a quote by Picasso: “Inspiration hits, but it has to find you working.” I strongly agree. Writing is not some mystical, muse-y gift, it’s a skill and inspiration does exist, but usually it’s brought on by doing the work. So just get started and inspiration will come to you.

Accountability and community

Having social factors in your toolbox is invaluable. I have an offline writing friend I take long walks with, I host a monthly writing club on Discord, and I have another group on Discord that holds me accountable every day. They all motivate me in different ways and it’s such a nice thing to share my successes with people who truly understand how hard it can be.

The productivity books taught me that if you want to make a big change in your life or attitude, surrounding yourself with people who already embody your ideal or your goal huuuugely helps. The fact that I have these productive people around me who also prioritize writing, makes it easier for me to stick to my own priorities.

Your toolbox

The idea is to have several techniques at your disposal to help you stay consistent. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by focussing on just one technique. Keep all of them close, and if one stops working or doesn’t inspire you today, pivot and pick another one.

After a while, most “tools” run in the background once they are established. Things like surrounding myself with my writing friends, keeping up with my daily streak, and listening to the album I conditioned myself with don’t require any energy, and they still remain hugely beneficial.

Do you have any other techniques? I’d love to hear about them!

I hope this was useful. Happy writing!

[chipjrwibignaturals]

anyway! ive recently developed some weird ocd-esqe symptoms i think

[inkskinned]

"your pet doesn't love you; it just has learned that it will get treats if it acts a certain way. it can't understand you."

in between humans, i don't always speak the language either. love has always been hard for me. i don't trust it. i can't read it easily on people's faces - i'm usually trying to read past it; to the "other parts", the ones that make sense to me.

but my mom always offers me food as soon as i get through the door. my brother calls me at weird hours, just to be talking. my sister has a nightmare; asks me to please drive safe in the morning. i throw my friends random parties, just to celebrate something. she drives 45 minutes to spend 3 hours with me. amelia holds my hand while we both cross the street.

no, my dog and i don't have the same language. so what? this is not the same thing as communication. my dog is a good study in how trauma can heal - a rescue from the racetrack; i've been watching his personality develop slowly. in the last year, he's gotten so comfortable with me that he'll ask me to sit down on the grass so he can use my body as a seat. (it's important to note: he is huge. he squishes me. i don't complain. i find it lovely.)

love for us is also just endorphins and behavioral response. i'm a poet, the number of sad men that have tried to "teach me" how stupid it is to be a hopeless romantic is ... not a low one. i cannot count how many times someone has argued - it's all chemical stimulus - as if the fact of it makes it less magical. we're just electrical signals reading the universe! that's fucked up. that's so beautiful.

i find it hard to believe that in the spectrum of evolution we are the only species to feel like this - we already know that dogs and cats also have endorphins. why wouldn't they experience joy? love? companionship? in what world is it a new thing that i had to earn it? in every relationship, both individuals have to work to learn the language. i had to teach my dog what trust is. it's okay that it took time for him to learn it.

in the human world, when i love someone, it's hard for me to speak it. i write them poems or make them food or give them a cool rock i found on the beach.

i don't know how to tell goblin i love him, so i tell him through treats. through a new collar, fancy mattresses, a little bow on his leash. i tell him with long walks and petting him and sitting down on the wet ground so my 70 pound sharp noodle of a dog can prance on my thigh bones and take an awkward - if loving - seat.

"you taught your dog to love you" is kind of a cruel way to reframe what actually happened: i loved him so loudly, it skipped over language and species. the two of us just saying - oh! i have figured out a way to tell you that you make me happy.

[appleoftheireye]

I have never really understood how people could struggle to take medications, like whether they forget to or just don’t do it regularly. Not in a bad way, just in a ‘weird, I don’t think that would ever be a problem for me’ way

Until now, when I’ve been beating off this depressive episode I’ve felt coming on like a storm front all week with a stick, and I simply CANNOT make myself take the simple birth control and melatonin combination my brain needs to let me fall asleep and I’ve been laying here for hours now and wow my executive dysfunction has been KILLING me for LITERALLY DAYS

And uh. Yeah idk maybe once I actually get pills for my gods awful mental health I should be a little worried about not actually taking them

[ohnogodpls]

Bad habits

Transcribed: ["What's the matter, Wriothesley?" "All good... I just want a smoke..." "I thought you were quitting" "I am.. I only take like... 4 per day..." "I heard somewhere that a new, healthier stimulus could help as a distraction. For every cigarette you don't smoke I will give you a kiss. How does that sound?" "WHEN I SAID 4 I ACTUALLY MEANT 40 YOU KNOW" "Oh my, that's not healthy. Should I inform Sigewinne?" "please don't..."]

[todropscience]

GULLS WILL DECIDE WHAT TO EAT BY WATCHING PEOPLE 

Herring gulls (Larus argentatus) can perfectly thrive in coastal  and urban landscapes, however, these birds will steal your food as soon as you are distracted. Urban gulls pay attention to human behaviour in food-related contexts, and will mimic what humans almost all the time, a new study shown.

In a simple test, researchers studied how herring gulls behave in front person eating snacks on Brighton beachfront, UK. They gave the gulls the choice between two differently coloured potato chips,  and when the human were eating potatos chips from one color, seagulls approached the food, and chose the same colour that the experimenter was eating, the 95 per cent of the time.

Seagulls were able to use human cues for stimulus enhancement and foraging decisions. Given the relatively recent history of urbanization in herring gulls, this cross-species social information transfer could be a by-product of the cognitive flexibility inherent in species who steal food, called kleptoparasitic species. This success in urban environments is suggested to result from behavioural flexibility, which is likely to require specific cognitive adaptations. In food-stealing birds, success is said to reflect an ability to integrate and use information about both the environment and other individuals, and kleptoparasites generally have usually larger relative brain sizes than their hosts.  

Photo by Jon J. Laysel

Reference (Open Access): Feist et al., 2023) Inter-species stimulus enhancement: herring gulls (Larus argentatus) mimic human food choice during foraging. Biology Letters.