#this post is a form of processing

[astrangeavenue]

drew some totally normal sadnesses

blank bg and individuals below the cut

edit: i posted some of my thoughts that went into these designs! if youd like to read you can find it in the reblogs

[inkskinned]

there are a lot of posts out there that are positive and healthy coping mechanisms for handling the holidays. this is not one of them :)

i think there's like. going to be times in your life you will be stuck in a social situation that you cannot escape from gracefully. i do not know why the internet doesn't believe these times exist. it's not always just that your physical safety is at risk - sometimes it's legit like "i just don't currently have the energy or time to put in the effort of responding to this." sometimes it's a coworker you hate so much. sometimes it's just like, fine, you know? like you know you can handle your aunt when she's cheerily horrible, but if you actually set a boundary around her, it's going to be weeks of fallout with your father.

i don't know why people think the answer is always just "cut them out!" or "don't let them get away with that!" because ... the real world is tricky and complicated. i think kind of a lot of us have an internal "radiation poisoning" meter for certain people. like - i'm talking about the ones who are absolutely giving you gradual ick damage. like, you can handle them, but you'll be exhausted.

and yes. you absolutely should listen to your therapist and the good posts about handling others and set good boundaries and take care of yourself. prioritize peace.

HOWEVER :) ...... since im often in a situation with a Gradual Sense of Ick person i cannot just "cut out" of my life (without losing someone else precious to me) - i have sort of developed the most. maladaptive form of mischief possible. because like, if i'm going to have to listen to this shit again, i like to have a little bit of private fun with it.

now! again, i am physically safe, just mentally drained by this man. you should only do this with people you are not in danger with. which leads me to my suggestions for when your Unfortunate Acquaintance shows up and says oh everyone pay attention to me.

my favorite word is "maybe!" said as brightly and happily as possible. whenever the Horrible Person starts in on a topic you do not want to go further with, particularly if they make a claim that you know to be inaccurate, do not respond to it. you and i have both tried to actually argue with this person, and it hasn't gone well, because this person just wants the drama of an argument. however, "maybe!" gives them literally nothing to go on. it is incredibly disarming. they are used to people having some response. they know they can't prove what they're saying, and maybe! treats them like the child they are. it dismisses them in the politest way possible.

i like to say maybe! and then, in their stunned silence, immediately change the subject. this is because i have adhd and i will have something unrelated to talk about, but if you can't think of topics fast enough, i recommend just pointing to something and saying, "isn't that lovely?" because fuck you let's bring in some positivity.

by the way. that second trick - of pointing to something and stating an opinion about it? - that just works on its own, like, 70% of the time. i picked it up from teaching preschoolers. it's an intentional "redirect". it stops children crying and it also stops grown adults from finishing their explanation on why women belong in kitchens. dual wielding!

keep it silly for yourself. i absolutely do not care if people think i'm fucking stupid (it's more fun if they do) and as a result i will purposefully misunderstand things just to see how long it takes them to realize i've completely removed them from the subject at hand. when they say "women aren't funny" i get to be like. "which women." "all women." "all women in america?" "no in the world." "like the mole people? the people in the world?" "what? no. like, alive." "oh are we not counting the mole people?" "what the fuck are you talking about." "you don't believe in the mole people?"

similarly, i play a personal game called "one up me." my Evil Acquaintance literally knows this game exists (my family & friends caught onto it and now also play it) and it always fucking gets him. i don't know why. you have to be willing to be a little free-spirited on this one, though. the trick is that when they make one of those horrible little bigoted or annoying comments they are always making, you need to go one unit weirder. not more intense, mind you - just more weird. "you don't look good in that dress." "yeah, actually, my other dress was covered in squid ink due to a mishap at the soup store." "you shouldn't wear such revealing clothes." "wait, what? oh shit. sorry, your son tears off strips when no one is looking and eats them. i swear it was longer before we left the building."

the point of "one up me" is to completely upend this person's narrative. we both know this person likes setting up situations where you cannot "win" and then they really like telling other people how badly you handled it. in a usual situation, if you respond "please don't say something that rude", you're a bitch. but if you let it happen, you're letting yourself be debased. they are not usually expecting door number three: unflappably odd. because what are they going to say when they're telling everyone how badly you behaved? "she said my son eats her dresses" ".... okay?"

if you can, form an allyship with someone whomst you can tagteam with. where they can pick up on your weird "soup store" story and run with it.

the following phrase is amazing and can be deployed for any situation: "oh, be nice :) it's the holidays!" i do not know why this works as often as it does. i'll say it for the most random shit. i think this is bc most of the time these people know they're being impolite, they just like to fight.

godbless. when in doubt, remember that you could always start stealing their pens.

the whole point of this is - if you can't escape. maybe see how long you can just be. like. a horrible little menace.

[giantkillerjack]

[Just writing out my internal monologue to parse my thoughts!]

So I watched this helpful video and now I am considering a totally different approach to publishing my graphic novel script drafts! Maybe a different approach will help me stop feeling the need to nail down every tiny detail in what is supposed to be early, flexible drafts that I can share for feedback and for EVERYONE LOOK AT MY LITTLE GUYS

Ahem.

I've already done the kind of story beats that they're talking about here - I made some a long time ago to show the overall arc of the saga.

But maybe I can do some more storybeat art to show individual scenes as well!! And instead of posting an extremely detailed script for every scene, I could just share and give context for each storybeat art!

Maybe doing that would make it easier to consume the early version of the story I have been posting on AO3!

OR maybe I should stop publishing the script drafts altogether, so that I don't feel the need to polish so much this early on....

Anyway, I definitely want to continue working on developing a healthier relationship between pacing and my desire to publish quickly. I am always giving myself unnecessary urgency that doesn't make me faster but does make me anxious and guilty!

I do genuinely need to get faster at writing/illustrating/publishing, but shame does nothing for me but hurt. It's just a deeply ingrained reflex that I have to keep working on!

It's all complicated and nuance-y and shit, but i have made progress all around and I am starting treatment with an ADHD specialist.

So hopefully, I will continue to get slowly healthier and also be able to work on my honing my craft and getting closer to telling AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE ABOUT MY BOYS. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 (I am so grateful for all the helpful educational videos that talented people like this one share online!)

*Ponyo meme voice* Jack loves... storytelling! Jack loves... art! Jack loves...

Adderall.

[starry-bi-sky]

Out of Context Stuff for a Danyal Al Ghul au i haven't posted - Pit Beast Danyal

Damian, 13: Look, Danyal, -- I am so sorry for everything that happened between us in the League, I hope you can forgive me.

Danny, 10 (allegedly): (has been secretly plotting to murder Damian this whole time, is still gonna do it obvs, but is going to make it significantly less painful now)

Danny: I-- of course, older brother. :]

--------

Bruce: what do you have there, Damian?

Damian:

Danny: (a hulking 10ft pit beast standing beside him, growling idly with ram horns gouging out his eyes and a second set of horns jutting into the air, spines down his back, and a long, spiked tail with an animalistic, skull-like face)

Damian, who smuggled him in (they've made amends): a smoothie, father

----------

Damian: this is my little brother Danyal, i murdered him when he was five. He festered in rage for the last half-a decade, took over a League mountain base in Switzerland, murdered everyone inside and then tried to murder me when I went to investigate with Drake.

Danny: hello!

Damian: we're cool now

----------

Damian: thoughts on resurrection

Danny, (a full ghost): i will succeed in murdering you if you try it

Damian: we'll put a pin in it then

----------

Danny (still instilled with League values): why don't we just murder him??

Damian, on patrol (Danny followed him): we don't murder people, Danyal

Danyal:,,,,are you sick, Dami?? Have you been possessed? Why not!?

(There is raucous laughing through the comms)

----------

Danny, five, pre-death: Dami! :D

Danny, dead, vengeful: Older brother (:

Danny, post-forgiveness: Dami! :]

-------

For some actual context: Danny is fully dead in this au, its a result of the classic DPxDC Demon Twins "death duel" trope but instead of Danny getting revived, he stays fully dead. Danny was five, Damian was seven. His ghost lingered though, and due to the proximity of the pits his ghost steadily absorbed the ambient energy it was letting off. The pits are not corrupted ectoplasm in this au, it's just liquid ecto.

Which means Danny's corruption from an angry and hurt little ghost boy to an unrecognizable monster is from his own doing. It's a result of him stewing in his hurt and anger for years, it physically warped him. He's very powerful. Danny can travel between League Bases but chose a small, out-of-the-way base in the Swiss mountains to fester in and then just. Never Left.

His influence steeped into the very foundations of the building, allowing him to transform and warp the rooms and hallways for his own bidding, Meaning he could turn it into a seemingly unending labyrinth if he so wished to, and block the entrance.

Eventually, blinded (both metaphorically and physically) by his own rage, Danny grew powerful enough to appear physically in the living realm and attacked everyone in the base, slaughtering them all and leaving the base abandoned. He attacks anyone who dares enter -- whether that be other league members, or the unfortunate hiker who stumbled across the base. His conscious is steeped into every nook and cranny of the building, there is nowhere you can hide where he can't find. Nobody leaves without his explicit say so. Nobody ever does.

Him appearing as ten years old before Damian in the skits above is his own physical doing. First it was to prevent Damian from being suspicious of him. Damian initially thought Danny was revived with the pits, he was too busy with his own training afterwards to notice that Danny never showed up again, and when he did notice, he assumed it was because Danny was too ashamed of his loss to face him. He'd always forget to ask about him.

Then it becomes a personal choice to appear as ten. It's how old he would've been had he been alive.

danny forgiving Damian is kinda for an offshoot branch of the main au. Whereas the main au takes the form of a ps4 first person horror game where Damian and Tim are investigating the Base for Plot Reasons. There's no sign of the rumored "monster" living inside until the end, where Danny, who was found inside the Base and has been happily "helping" them look around, manages to persuade Damian into splitting off from Tim in order to "show him something."

This something turns out to be Danny revealing that he never really forgave Damian for that fight, and he reveals through a horrifying transformation, that he was the monster the whole time. Which the game subtly hints at throughout as Danny's strange behavior becomes harder to ignore.

First from his insistence to only refer to Damian as "older brother" (when before the duel he always called him Damian or Dami), to him right off the bat denying the existence of a monster when questioned. ("There's no monster here, older brother. It's just me.") To other various things, like his knowledge of the outside world not matching up to modern times or things going on with the league outside of the base, or what happened to the other league members.

This whole idea was inspired by the song "Scylla" from Epic the Musical, with Danyal being the voice of Scylla as well as Odysseus, while Damian stands as Eurylochus. The instrumentals after Scylla says "hello" is him turning into the pit beast, and Scylla's "drown in your sorrow and fears" part is danny, as the pit beast, snarling at Damian while he attacks him.

There's a Good Ending, a Bad Ending, and a True Ending. The Bad Ending results in Damian being killed by Danny, it happens when Damian decides not to question or suspect Danny and treats him kindly. The Bad Ending is a cutscene, where Danny kills Damian quick and painlessly.

Meanwhile the Good Ending is Damian killing Danny. This is a boss fight, and it happens when Damian treats Danny coldly and suspiciously the whole time. Danny as a result, decides to make Damian's death painful as he had planned to, which is why it's a boss fight because it only causes him to double down on his anger.

The True Ending is Damian escapes with Tim. It happens when you treat Danny warmly up until the last minute, where when Danny proposes to Damian that he wants to show him something, Damian goes to talk to Tim and finally, reluctantly agrees that something is off with Danny, and that he'll be careful going in. It starts off with the boss fight until a third through, where it then changes to a cutscene where Tim manages to get the door open and Damian escapes out. It's then a chase scene down a never-ending hallway as the building actively works to keep you trapped inside. But you eventually make it to the exit so long as you avoid all the projectiles and doors.

Remember when I mentioned that Danny only lets people leave when he wants them to? That's where the treating Danny kindly throughout the game comes into play. It causes him to second guess himself and, eventually, reawaken and strengthen the love and admiration he had for Damian prior to his murder. It's why in the Bad Ending he kills Damian quickly -- because by then, he loves him enough that he doesn't want him to suffer, but is still so consumed by his rage and need for vengeance that he kills him anyways. That quiet part is what allows Damian (and Tim) to find the exit, because some part of Danny still loves Damian enough that he wants him to live.

The True Ending ends with a cutscene of Damian and Tim tumbling out into the snow/grass outside of the base. Damian looks up back to the entrance to see Danny standing there. But rather than a ten year old boy, there's a little five year old Danyal Al Ghul instead. He stares at Damian emotionlessly, blood seeping from his chest, staining his clothes, and little, bloody sword in his hands and tearstains on his cheeks, before he turns away and disappears back into the building.

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[corviiids]

i found a bad post i made months ago in the privacy of my own home and now i need to air it out in public because it's getting mildewy and moths are eating it

[abirddogmoment]

It drives me crazy how people will label independent thinking dogs as slow or stubborn. It's a different flavour of intelligence, not less.

[multi-lefaiye]

kinda idle curiosity thought.

queer artists/writers/oc creators: do you incorporate queerphobia into your original works and stories?

(to be clear: this is a *no judgment zone*. i'm asking about your personal preferences with your own work. also i can't stop non-queer folks from responding but i would genuinely love some other queer folks' perspectives here.)

[fllagellant]

Do You Know What Dry Socket Is?

Informational post about something a lot of people might be unaware of.

So, let’s say you loose a tooth. You fell and knock it out, maybe you pulled it at home for whatever reason. All that is important in this scenario is that you’ve lost a tooth outside of a dentist visit, so there is no field professional there to walk you through the healing process.

Now, how do you recover from this? Saltwater rinse, wad of cotton to help slow the bleeding, painkillers, eating soft foods. It stands to reason that, like any other recovery period that involves the mouth and teeth, you’d also need a straw. Makes sense, easier to get liquid into your mouth and you’ll have more control over where in your mouth it goes. Makes sense, right?

You are about to give yourself dry socket.

The main difference between most other well known recovery periods from a jaw / mouth injury, is that the act of sucking on a straw can dislodge the blood clot from your gums.

The reason is, for a few days, your blood clot is actually smaller than the hole left behind by the missing tooth. Gums do heal quicker than most other tissue on your body , so the opening will close to be smaller than the blood clot itself. But there is a period of time, the first few days of healing, that the blood clot is at a serious risk of coming loose or being dissolved away . This risk does not truly go away until healing is over , but the likelyhood slowly goes down.

This blood clot being removed will reveal the traumatized and damaged nerve + the jaw bone to the open . Unsurprisingly, this is extraordinary pain, that nothing can soothe. Any fluid gets into the wound ? Food particles ? You inhale / exhale too hard ? That nerve is going to Ache. Not to mention , you’ re at an even higher infection risk now .

And the things that can cause dry socket are so innocuous , that unless you know about the possibility , you may do these actions without thinking.

1) Straws ( and Sucking )

The pressure from drinking through a straw is enough to pull the blood clot from your gums . This pressure can be caused by anything that requires sucking , this includes smoking as well . Anything that requires a strong pull into your mouth to eat / ingest is exerting the same pull on your loose blood clot . If you suck on a straw now , you can feel the kind of pressure vacuum you make in your mouth . That pressure does not care about what it might cause to dislodge .

2) Spitting Out Blood

At least , for the first 24 hours . After 24 hours ( specifically , after your gums stop consistently bleeding ) and you start doing saltwater rinses , you’ re free to spit . But regardless , forceful spitting can do the exact same damage as drinking from a straw . It’ s the pressure and force you cause . When you do saltwater rinses , don’ t really swish. Tilt your head side to side and slowly push the water around . For the first 24 hours , you are encouraged to swallow blood instead of spitting , to avoid the risk of spitting out the start of a blood clot and prolonging the bleeding cycle . Keep in mind the nausea this can cause .

3) Alcohol and Hot Food/Liquid

Paring these together since they cause similar issues . Alcohol can melt a blood clot , and abundance of heat can increase blood flow too the clot . Both of these will cause the clot to dissolve or come loose , but cold food/drink is more recommended . Yes , cold can cause an ache if it manages to come into direct contact with the healing area , but it will not affect the blood clot as seriously as hot food/drink will . Room temperature is also okay for consumption.

4) Exercise

Light exercise is okay , but anything that ups your heart-rate is upping blood flow to your wound . Nothing strenuous, nothing that pushes endurance , nothing that you know will exhaust you . Even if you heart-rate jumps from something like chasing a cat down because they have something they shouldn’ t have can cause increased blood flow ( trust me , it felt like I was undergoing divine punishment because I stopped my cat from eating a tuff of dog hair . ) The sudden taste of blood is a warning to slow down what you’re doing .

While dry socket can heal on it’s own, the gums will cover the exposed bone regardless of if there’s a clot there or not, this pain is not something anyone deserves to struggle with . Once again , dealing with dry socket is dealing exposed bone and nerve .

Dentists are expensive , and if you cannot afford a dental visit after the loss of a tooth, I only want you to be aware of one of the more serious complications that come with such a thing happening . Everyone deserves to heal in comfort , and I only want people to have the best chance at having a complication free healing process .

[latenightsundayblues]

A fag lighting a fag's fag with his fag. Now ive seen everything

[front-facing-pokemon]

[hailsatanacab]

chapter four!! birthday cake all round 🎂🍰🍰🍰🥳🎉🎈🎊

[aurosoulart]

working on a New Year's dragon! 🐉

[bitchfitch]

I have the general rule that I just, don't let myself give a shit about other people's dumbass opinions but I have one pet peeve that I just. Can Not let go of. and it's posts that go

How to write [Minority Group]!

Step 1: Make sure all your characters are exactly like me the op, or are exactly what I like to see in media.

Aside: Anything else is impossible, unrealistic, bigoted and you'll go to hell forever.

Step 2: They also have to use the exact language I do to describe themselves btw, no matter the time period or setting. See the above aside for further explanation.

Step 3: you should never ever even think about the actual mechanics of what makes a trope problematic in its impact in the real world. J ust memorize this list of things that should be banned in all fiction (for being problematic because I don't like them/someone else I agree with said they should be banned)

Step 4: Nuances in identity don't exist <3

[daddy-long-legssss]

I learned that you can make it to that kind of level and remain in tact as a human being. And I learned that Sheffield’s people are very similar to Irish people. We bumped into them at the same pub a fair few times. But I believe it goes beyond that.

�� Grian Chatten from Fontaines D.C. on what they learned after touring with Arctic Monkeys [x]

[silusvesuius]

fictional female characters and characters with insanely obvious cluster B personality disorders will never know peace as long as te/s fans keep making posts about them i mean it