#you're going in the sheet

[exile-on-uwustreet]

well now I have to go to Oslo to see that munch painting. it wasn't on the agenda. what else am I going to do in Oslo. but the painting

[chronicbitchsyndrome]

so: masking: good, unequivocally. please mask and please educate others on why they should mask to make the world safer for immune compromised people to participate in.

however: masking is not my policy focus and it shouldn't be yours, either. masking is a very good mitigation against droplet-born illnesses and a slightly less effective (but still very good) mitigation against airborne illnesses, but its place in the pyramid of mitigation demands is pretty low, for several reasons:

it's an individual mitigation, not a systemic one. the best mitigations to make public life more accessible affect everyone without distributing the majority of the effort among individuals (who may not be able to comply, may not have access to education on how to comply, or may be actively malicious).

it's a post-hoc mitigation, or to put it another way, it's a band-aid over the underlying problem. even if it was possible to enforce, universal masking still wouldn't address the underlying problem that it is dangerous for sick people and immune compromised people to be in the same public locations to begin with. this is a solvable problem! we have created the societal conditions for this problem!

here are my policy focuses:

upgraded air filtration and ventilation systems for all public buildings. appropriate ventilation should be just as bog-standard as appropriately clean running water. an indoor venue without a ventilation system capable of performing 5 complete air changes per hour should be like encountering a public restroom without any sinks or hand sanitizer stations whatsoever.

enforced paid sick leave for all employees until 3-5 days without symptoms. the vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through industry sectors where employees come into work while experiencing symptoms. a taco bell worker should never be making food while experiencing strep throat symptoms, even without a strep diagnosis.

enforced virtual schooling options for sick students. the other vast majority of respiratory and food-borne illnesses circulate through schools. the proximity of so many kids and teenagers together indoors (with little to no proper ventilation and high levels of physical activity) means that if even one person comes to school sick, hundreds will be infected in the following few days. those students will most likely infect their parents as well. allowing students to complete all readings and coursework through sites like blackboard or compass while sick will cut down massively on disease transmission.

accessible testing for everyone. not just for COVID; if there's a test for any contagious illness capable of being performed outside of lab conditions, there should be a regulated option for performing that test at home (similar to COVID rapid tests). if a test can only be performed under lab conditions, there should be a government-subsidized program to provide free of charge testing to anyone who needs it, through urgent cares and pharmacies.

the last thing to note is that these things stack; upgraded ventilation systems in all public buildings mean that students and employees get sick less often to begin with, making it less burdensome for students and employees to be absent due to sickness, and making it more likely that sick individuals will choose to stay home themselves (since it's not so costly for them).

masking is great! keep masking! please use masking as a rhetorical "this is what we can do as individuals to make public life safer while we're pushing for drastic policy changes," and don't get complacent in either direction--don't assume that masking is all you need to do or an acceptable forever-solution, and equally, don't fall prey to thinking that pushing for policy change "makes up" for not masking in public. it's not a game with scores and sides; masking is a material thing you can do to help the individual people you interact with one by one, and policy changes are what's going to make the entirety of public life safer for all immune compromised people.

[whimsyvixen]

He's so pretty, I want his Egyptian dick down my throat

(I already know, I suck at coloring but it's the effort that counts 😭)

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

ouaaeeurueuururhhgh

i'm awake ten minutes before my 10am alarm

anyone in toronto know if there's anything worth hauling ass out of bed for vis a vis boxing day?

[eddis-not-eeddis]

How To Stop Killing Conversations

Talking is hard. People are confusing. Making friends is difficult, and interacting with coworkers is tortuous.

You want to make friends, you want to reach out, but it's hard and every time you start a conversation it dies, or limps along until both you and the person you're talking to are looking for excuses to kill it and put it out of it's misery so you can both escape the increasingly awkward situation.

As an introvert who has suffered a lot of social anxiety in my time, let me share a few tricks I've learned over the years going through hundreds and thousands of excruciatingly painful conversations until I found something that works. I've kind of distilled the process.

ALWAYS ASK A QUESTION!!!

The first thing is to always leave your partner an opening. You need to let each other talk for a conversation to get off the ground, but it's more than that, really. You need to actively encourage each other to talk. The best way to do that is to ask questions.

Here are two examples of an introduction: Example A

You: Hello.

Them: Hello.

You: Nice to meet you.

Them: Nice to meet you too.

Example B

Y: Hello, nice to meet you, how are you? T: I’m doing well, yourself?

Y: I've been really well. How are you liking the weather?

T: I'm so happy the weather's finally getting cooler, I'm looking forward to pumpkin spice season. Do you like lattes?

Do you see how in Example A the conversation wasn’t going anywhere? It just kinda died, because there weren’t any openings for new topics, whereas in Example B, there were openings to keep the conversation going.

But what do you do if your conversation partner is as socially inept as you were two minutes ago and doesn't play along? All is not lost.

Example C

Y: Hello, so nice to meet you, how have you been doing?

T: I'm doing well.

Y: That's great, are you enjoying the nice weather, then?

T: Yeah. I'm glad it's finally fall, I'm looking forward to pumpkin spice lattes.

Y: I love pumpkin spice lattes! Pumpkin spice anything, really. I recently got the best pumpkin spice candle at the shop down the road, have you been there?

Even if they don't leave you an opening, you can usually make one. It may be difficult, especially when they don't give you much to work with. This is where having a go-to script is a life-saver--me, I always default to talking about the weather, so when in doubt, you can do that.* The important thing right now is to keep fostering the conversation, so once you bring up the weather, segue into a question. When they answer the question, make a brief comment or observation from your own experience and build off of that comment or observation to ask another question.

"But I don't want to make it about me. Doing that's bad, right?"

This is why that questions are important. If you haven't been asked a question, you kinda have to make it about you, you don't have a choice. But to keep from being an attention hog, follow up your shared experience or anecdote with another question.

Example D

T: I love pumpkin spice lattes

Y: Me too. I had the best pumpkin spice latte the other day at the cafe down the road, have you ever been there?

Now you've circled the conversation back around to them again, and you aren't taking the limelight. Sharing an experience is so important, you're trying to show that you understand, that you sympathize, that you relate.**

This really is the most important element of being a good conversationalist. You have to keep asking questions.

The one other thing I will touch on is introductions. DO NOT get into turn based combat.

Example E

Y: Hello

T: Hello

Y: Nice to meet you

T: Nice to meet you too.

Y: How are you doing?

T: I'm fine. You?

Y: Me too.

This will kill any possibility of continuing a conversation. Instead, get it all out of the way all at once, if at all possible.

Example F

Y: Hi, it's nice to meet you, how are you doing?

This is good, but this is better

Example G

Y: Hi, nice to meet you, how are you liking the weather?

Don't ask how they are doing, or if you do, before they can answer, follow it up with your placeholder (weather etc.) so they have to say some thing like

Example H

T: I'm fine, and I'm really liking the weather.

or

T: Not so great, the weather sucks.

Either of those options are much easier to work with than your basic "I'm fine."

Usually, if you can get past the introduction, you can get a conversation going. And then, even if you don't end up hitting it off with the person you're talking with, you at least don't leave the conversation feeling like you've died a thousand tiny deaths.

In fact, if you get past that introduction, you may have just made yourself a friend.

Remember folks, basically everyone around you is more afraid of you than you are of them, and in this benighted age no one has been taught conversation skills, so we are all pretty much in the same boat. (Unless you were born an extrovert, in which case we are all deeply envious and would probably kill you if we didn't need you in our sad and lonely lives so much.)

Have grace for one another, and for yourselves because talking with people is difficult.

Go forth, and stop killing conversations.

*If you are one of those awful people who likes to brag about how you hate small talk and only want to talk about important and meaningful things, I have one question: Do you ever have a conversation that lasts long enough to become meaningful? I thought not. Small talk is an important skill. Develop it.

**This is how you deal with sad or difficult situations too. When you want to show you sympathize with someone going through a hard time.

Example:

Y: How are you doing?

T: Not very well. My dog died last week.

Y: Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. My own dog died last year and I still miss her a lot. How are you handling it?

Now you've circled the conversation back around to them again. You aren't making it about you.

If y'all want, next time I can share how to extricate yourself from a conversation.

[sir-kettle-of-countertop]

Some little WIP sneak peak on a prop for an OC reference sheet. Meant to be a Geier self-maintenance guidebook of sorts.

How does it look so far? Is the language ok?

[naturecalls111]

Briefly opening commissions until the 13th! Need to replace a few art things of mine so if anyone is interested in a character-centric comm for the holidays, I have a few slots open – feel free to DM me! :3c

[morriganartblog]

Hello @canisalbus, have this wrinkled doodle of Machete

[deadhearthotline]

(directly referenced from the art for dancing around in circles until my little feet fall off by spellcasting)

my favorite line from looey dandy's world was when he said "it's dandin' time!" + dandied all over the place. ( @fizkid )

bonus:

on an unrelated note i've decided that these two are dating. sorry i don't make the rules

the fuckass references i made of these fuckass characters

[crescentfool]

reference sheets for my splatoon oc, whiffy the squiffy! 🫧

[nebuladreamz]

Finally fucking snapping hey chat- because EVERYONE AND THEIR MOMS AHVE BEEN TELLING ME TO GIVE IN

This is probably the. only post i'll probably make about him cause i know this rot won't last long before i submit to FNAF or horror again but anywho HI YEAH THIS IS MY BOY I MADE HIM OVER A YEAR AGO HES MY BABY HIS NAME IS GEO HE IS MY BABY BOY

Something something; he's a fortune teller that people can come to if they need the guidance! He sees the future through the gem in his eye but can only see what could happen instead of anything concrete

@saltyfryz cause you. fucking pushed me /silly /lh

[gingermaple]

cuteguy!!! ft. sphynx and avian designs

[zonezyo]

viktor has a good head on his shoulders... and another one on his desk.

[brodorokihousuke]

if anyone was curious (i know you are) Dhurke does not in fact have an eye modeled under his eyepatch. tis just a bunch of shaded skin.

Also, Datz somewhat unsurprisingly has a ton of custom textures for his expressions! Most characters only have 4, but he has 13 different variations split across 3 different texture sheets! This also includes his bearded self (2 of 13 variations).

[the-fibre-stuff]

My yarn still isn't here. Delivery day came & went, no yarn - not enough orders this month, the store owner mailed them instead.

Canada Post and my husband showed up at the same time, the package got given to my husband as he came in. The package was worryingly small...

Turns out instead of the 3x50g and 1x500g I ordered she packed 3x50g and 1x50g (in the same colourway as the cone).

On the plus side I get to keep the extra 50g of yarn.

[lilbittymonster]

Was thinking about Kitali and languages as I was falling asleep last night and she's gonna sound weird and out of place no matter where in Ishgard she is bc of how many registers she mixes.

Like she would absolutely have learned to speak Ishgardian before she learned to read it, and most of that exposure would've been with working class people from the Brume and the lower levels of the city. And especially so during the Restoration because she would've been spending most, if not all of, her time with the Skysteel workers. So she's going to adopt most of the speech patterns and mannerisms from them.

And then she's also married to a nobleman, who has a distinctly different speech pattern and accent, and because she spends the time she's not working or out dealing with Scion bullshit with him, she's going to pick those up as well and incorporate it into her understanding of The Ishgardian Language.

And because she learned to speak it before she learned to read it, the first time she tries to read one of Aymeric's books not written in Eorzean common, she's going to look up at him with anguish and confusion and betrayal as if he's the one responsible for why Ishgardian is spelled Like That. And then proceeds to bitch and moan about it while trying to reverse engineer it through context clues alone.

And then on top of all that, once Estinien joins the Scions and she's spending a lot of time around him and speaking in Ishgardian to deliberately exclude everyone else from their conversations, she's going to pick up his Coerthan idioms because I think he would stubbornly cling to those even after living in Ishgard for 20 years.

I just think language barriers are neat and I feel like they aren't utilised in game enough bc Video Game Mechanics.