thegoronman-blog

[thegoronman-blog]

[thegoronman-blog]

[thegoronman-blog]

The Island

Hey Tumblr, I’m mostly up in here to post about writing and other stuff I make. My big thing is writing, and it’s something I’ve always had an eye for. 

My first  creation here is an odd prompt we had for creative writing I go off of with the name of the Island. We drew straws from a hat and got three things to work with, and a location. I got a poleaxe, a pickle, and some bones for some guy on an island surrounded by an electric fence that nobody could get past. 

I was taking physics that year, and our teacher had done a demonstration about how pickles could conduct electricity, so I used that, I hope you enjoy. 

I woke with a start. I screamed in my mind and then out loud. All i could see for miles around was fog. Where the hell was I!? I forgot to breathe and clutched my chest. I thought to myself for a moment. What happened last night?

Oh right

I said that i’d go for one drink.

Well regardless, I was on a island in the middle of nowhere with nothing but zombie smoke to look me in the eye. I began to wonder when the fog would clear. Stress was cascading through my arms now, and I realized where I was. The ground around me was all dirt, no grass. There were boulders and other stones complimented by trees that appeared to rise infinitely into the sky. Moss grew on these rocks, and the dirt was so moist and fertile that you could toss a flower seed onto the ground and it would grow naturally within days. I thought to myself again. Where was I? The landmarks I had were christmas trees, boulders, and grassless soil. I had to be somewhere up north, because nowhere else is there fog and big trees all at once. I decided to run for a while. Who knew where I really was? The edge of the island would surely tell me, there could be land, or people outside of it. I was starting to get my hopes up, when after about an hour of running or so I met the edge of the island. Or rather the edge of the island met me, as a massive wave leapt out of the water almost to hi-five me as I soon realized that the island I was on was elevated by a tall cliff face that was victim to crashing waves slurping away its rocky face. The fog on the island began to clear around the edges and it became easier to see, a luxury I desperately needed because that fog was incredibly thick. I stare out at the skyline. There was nothing at all for miles. I screamed to myself. I then cried for about five minutes as I soon realized that I had to have been all alone in this place. After I got myself back together, I took to both of my feet and turned into the forest. I could see my breathing, which was such a strange phenomenon to me because back home it was never cold enough for this kind of condition. I started feeling cold though, and I desperately needed warmth.

It was late into the morning when my hangover began to end a little bit and it became somewhat easier to think to myself. I had made a fire out of a few sticks lucky for me, because nothing on this damn island was dry except for the few sticks i found hiding under rocks. I thought to myself. If most of the world was charted, then how come I had never really heard of this place? I had read my fair share of maps, and never really heard of any pacific northwestern islands that were so far away from anything that you couldn’t see land off of it. I felt the chain around my neck grow cold. I ripped my necklace off and stared at it. It had been a gift from my soccer teacher when I was young. She had always reminded me to kick with the inside of my foot instead of the toe for the least amount of pain when punting it. She had always looked out for me adequately, a little more than the other boys during practice in fact. Whenever I cut my legs from sliding too hard on the grass, she would always patch me up herself before directing the rest of practice. It was some of the only maternal affection I had ever had. Mother had died when I was little and

A twig snapped.

The necklace fell from my hand as I rose to meet the sound. I shouted some gibberish at the top of my lungs and nothing replied. I turned around. Nothing there. But I felt called by the forest to move deeper into its bowels. I walked slowly and cautiously. It sounded like there was some strange kind of mongolian singing going on as I went. Then there it was, hanging from a tree and sticking out like a sore thumb, it was a massive bone that obviously belonged to the ribcage of some massive, dead thing. I went forwards softly stepping as I went. More bones began to appear as I stepped through the colossal forest, that seemed to deepen with every movement I took. Some of the bones were strewn about in the ground, some were stuck in the trees. Often they were suspended by ropes and grappling hooks. The singing in my mind grew continually louder as I reached its loudest point. The skull of some huge dead animal. By the soft contours on its surface, and the texture and shape of its teeth, I assumed it was a whale. Below it, a box. I knelt down to the box, wooden, with a tiny metal lock to guard whatever assuredly valuable treasure it held within. I picked it up, and opened it. The chanting stopped abruptly and my face was greeted with... a pickle. I laughed to myself, thinking that there was no way someone set up all of this and left only a pickle behind. And what was with the chanting from before? Was it only my mind? Or something making noise. I looked all around the monument and found nothing. Trippy. Must’ve been something to do with my hangover. I guessed it wasn’t over.

Early into the afternoon I got bored and started chucking rocks out to sea. One was big and heavy, and sunk just as well. One was light and curved, and made a small attempt to float on the surface before sinking right below. Finally, there was a smooth stone with perfect mass and ideal surface area that I chuckled as well as I could into the now tranquil sea. It skipped gloriously, one time, then two times, then three, four, five, six, and it would have made seven if not for the gigantic invisible electric fence that stood out where the open sea would begin. I scratched my head. Why is there an invisible electric fence, a pickle guarded by whale bones, and all in the pacific northwest. Some crazy person must be making my story or something. I threw a few more rocks at the fence to assure myself that I wasn’t hallucinating the electric spark that I had seen just before. I was right, there was most certainly some kind of invisible wall before me.

The day grew into a dark one, and I grew tired of the island. I needed a way off. But there was a huge fence blocking my exit, and no way to bring it down. I stared at the pickle that I had received earlier. It had a surprising amount of vinegar in it. I didn’t try it, though, I hated pickles. I hatched an idea. The huge whalebones I had seen before were all strung up. I could probably use the string to put the bones together and create a raft of some whalebone. But there was one issue, I had no way to get the string down from the tops of the trees. All had seemed lost.

I slept believing that I would die on the island.

I had a dream that it was a sunday, and that dad was making his world-famous pancakes for me before baseball practice. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a tradition, and traditions aren’t ruined by anyone but people who hate fun. At least, that’s how I saw it. The light of the morning shone behind my dad as he wiped sweat from his brow and picked me up with both arms. He would always look me in the eyes and say “You’re my son,” to himself. Nothing was better than hearing those words.

As I realized that I was laying on the incredibly fertile soil of the pacific northwest, I also found that my cheeks had been streaked by water, as if I had been crying. There was no way that could have happened, I told myself, as I rose to my feet by command of my stomach. It was breakfast time.

I was ripping through the corpse of a particularly fat squirrel I had found when i noticed something. There was an axe stuck in a tree nearby. As I got closer to it, I realized it wasn’t any old axe, but a poleaxe, rather. It had a spearhead, a weight on one end to balance it out, and an axe head on the other, that was filled with plenty of small knicks. The thing could do me well. It could even cut down the strings that held my whale bone. “AHA!”, I shouted, a lone man in the forest half naked and chewing on the innards of some dead and decaying thing.

The sun hit my forehead as my plan flew into action. The straps holding the whalebones had turned out to be quite sturdy, and it took all the force I could muster to cut them down. Rather hastily, I put my raft together, fastening the string into carvings I made into different ends of the bones, and making planks out of the flattened bones I had found. I did so until it looked seaworthy. It actually looked pretty cool all things considered. As for the poleaxe I had, i could use it as a paddle or, the far superior option, an oar. I also took a spare whalebone and both of those would be my way out. Using the incredible versatility of my poleaxe, I carved some wood bits into U shapes and tied them to the boat with all the strength I could muster. It was time to leave, but not before getting one thing. The pickle.

Staring out at the skyline, I knew that my raft had to suffice in my getaway. I stood, poleaxe and whalebone in both hands. I took my pickle in my hand and threw the whole vinegary mess up in the air. It was suspended for just a moment. I had one shot at this. I took my poleaxe and swung it on the hammer side as hard as I could. I was standing in a stadium as the announcer screamed “AND ITS GOING HOME”. I heard a whole crowd of parents angsty to go home cheering me on for giving them a reason to go. The game was sealed. There would be no more struggle for us.  My pickle made it to the electric fence and found itself stuck to a branch on the wall. Electricity rushed to the especially salty and vinegary pickle and I watched for what seemed like an eternity before the pickle was glowing a stunning bright orange, and blew a hole in the fence large enough for me to get through, thank god. Having overloaded the electric fence, I was now safe to bypass the electric water. Putting both of my sticks into my raft, I lept in and prayed to the lord that it would stay in one piece on my way down. Again, with incredible luck, it remained so. I breathed an incredible long sigh of relief, and rowed my boat eastward, into the infinite horizon, and whatever land beyond that might have awaited me.

[thegoronman-blog]

Meltdowns: A Survival Guide

Not all autistics get meltdowns (or get them often), but many of us know the harsh reality of how bad they can be.

You scream; you cry; you get angry; you snap at every little thing. You feel like your skin is on fire; every sound is thunder in your ears; your head hurts; you’re going to explode. You rock, you pace, you bang your head, you throw things, you scratch at your body, you kick, you hit. Some or all of these things can happen during an autistic meltdown. When everything just becomes way too much for you to handle, when every emotion, sense, and thought is screaming “STOP! NO MORE!”, it literally becomes the definition of “sensory hell”.

It doesn’t get much better after the meltdown passes. You end up exhausted, sensitive, weepy, unable to talk.  You need quiet and darkness and you feel disoriented and dizzy, even physically sick. The meltdown aftermath can last for hours or even days while you recharge.

We can’t stop our meltdowns from happening any more than we can stop physical pain when we get hurt. It is completely involuntary and none of us want to have them. So what can we do? Survive them.

Meltdown Survival Tips:

Before

If you know you are prone to frequent meltdowns, keep your nails short so there’s less chance of damaging your skin.

Always keep sound-cancelling products near you (ear defenders, ear plugs, headphones). If you are in a work environment and can’t get accommodations, ear plugs might be your best bet.

Keep stim tools nearby. Tangles, fidget cubes, fidget spinners, and chewelry are great for when you’re at home or in a casual environment. When you are at work, spinnable pendants, bead jewelry, spinner rings, diffuser necklaces, or something small and soft to touch can be helpful. If you have pockets, you can also quietly fidget with something inside them (For example: one time I was in meltdown mode all day at work and the only way I could cope was by smoothing my thumbs across these two slick tags I found on the ground).

If you can tell you’re approaching meltdown mode, try explaining to others that you need to go somewhere quiet and dark. If you can’t explain, make some logical excuse to take a short break and go somewhere else. 

Have a comfort object or plushie available. Even bringing a small one like a Disney Tsum Tsum in your bag can be comforting.

Explain to people you trust what meltdowns can be like for you before you have one around them so they can try to help and keep you safe. Make sure you tell them what they should and shouldn’t do in the event of a meltdown so they don’t accidentally make it worse while trying to be helpful (i.e. touching you, asking too many questions, etc.).

If you bang your head during meltdowns, don’t put anything hard and pointy in your hair. There might not be time to take it out while in meltdown mode and it could cause serious damage to your head.

Have alternate communications available! Texting, a notepad app on your phone, pen and paper, or even basic sign language can all be good options.

During

Even if you don’t have stim tools, try to body stim (it really does help!).

Do your best to keep breathing. Resist the urge to hyperventilate.

Use grounding techniques, counting, or singing and humming little nonsense songs during the meltdown to help you focus on something to stay calm.

Sometimes weight and pressure can help you better ride out a meltdown. 

Don’t be afraid to sit or lie on the ground. It would be a lot worse to fall down and hurt yourself during a meltdown than it would be to avoid the stares of people around you.

If a police officer tries to confront you, keep your body language as open as possible. Don’t act aggressive, call for help if you need to, and don’t try to run away. Don’t reach for anything in your pockets or bag and don’t try to protect your possessions from being taken. They most likely won’t understand your behavior even if you explain you’re autistic, so do your best to follow what they say, even if it’s hard while in meltdown mode. Your physical safety is of utmost important in that moment.

If a stranger confronts you to ask if you need help or accuse you of causing a disturbance, just say as simply and calmly as possible that you need to be left alone and that you’ll be okay soon.

If you can, try and remember that the meltdown will pass, no matter how awful it feels. It’s going to be okay.

After

If you accidentally do something harmful to someone during a meltdown, please be responsible for your actions. You can’t help that it happened, but it still happened. Apologize for what you did to those people and explain what was going on without using it as an excuse. If possible, ask if there’s anything you can do to make up for the “damage”.

Meltdowns take a lot of energy and might make you hot. Make sure to find ways to cool down if you need to (Sometimes you can feel very cold after too, like a fever, so change your needs accordingly).

Please be understanding of yourself once your meltdown is over. Try not to hate and blame yourself; it’s not your fault.

Reach out to one of your comfort people and tell them you don’t feel well (or if they know you’re autistic say you had a meltdown) if it will make you feel better to talk to them. Just don’t overwhelm yourself with conversation.

If you did end up harming yourself somehow, please try to take care of it as soon as possible after the meltdown. Clean any wounds, get ice packs, and take medicine.

Drink plenty of water and eat something if you need to.

After the meltdown, practice self-care. Watch a comfort movie, wrap up in a blanket, take a bath or shower, eat some sweets, pet your animals; do something that makes you feel a bit better and happier.

If you have a meltdown while you’re out, go home as soon as possible.

If you can, take time to rest and sleep.

It may take a couple of hours to days to fully recover so go easy on yourself during those times.

A meltdown can be one of the major symptoms we hate having as autistics, but there are ways to make it easier and help them to not interfere with our ability to enjoy loud, fun things we want to do, to work, interact with our friends, or anything else.

If you have any other suggestions for how to manage and survive meltdowns, please reblog and add them!

–

Ok to Reblog!

Day 28 of Autism Acceptance Month 2018

Check out:

Keep reading

[thegoronman-blog]

Apps To Kill Time On

Keep seeing some posts circulating about popular websites and wanted to make a version for apps.

These are apps I’m way too addicted to. Am I missing any?

P.S. I’m on an iPhone so these are iPhone apps, but probably have an Android version too.

Edit: Sorry for all the time I’ve taken away from your life

Commaful - popular fanfiction, story, and poetry community 👑

Bettr - the reason my friends are jealous of my Insta

Sweatcoin - get paid to walk

Tiktok - coolest videos on the internet (top 10 app in the world)

Spellbound - addictive horror 👻 and romance stories

Helix Jump - legit the most addicting game on my phone

Calm - Award-winning app for meditation and sleeping better

Tenkyu - tilt your phone and watch the relaxing magic happen

Slime Road - bet you can’t hit the bullseye ⚾️

Hempire - become a plant mogul

Dune! - Ride the sand dunes like a baller!! so much fun

Hotspot Shield - free proxy/VPN to bypass school filters

Betternet - free proxy VPN, like Hotspot, try both and see which you prefer

Terrarium - build the ultimate garden empire

Golf Orbit - ever played golf on mars?

Sling Drift - beep beep - level 70 is insane 🚗

1Q - get paid to answer simple questions 

Bee Factory - become a honey tycoon

Wind Rider - fly through a city in a wing suit

Spill it - drop balls and break glass

Fire Balls - shoot balls at obstacles. gets pretty hard

Paper - can you conquer all the territory and win?

Two Dots - a fun puzzle game. easy time killer

Planet Bomber - let’s nuke some planets

Ice Racing - race down a mountain at record speeds

Splashy - bounce the ball accurately to survive. requires focus

Snakes Vs. Blocks - even more fun than the original snake hehe

Twenty48 Solitaire - best toilet game

Knock Balls - shoot down blocks with a canon - surprisingly relaxing

Wishbone - fun game for comparing stuff like hair, celebs, sports

Hole - fuck up a city muahaha

Dosh - get paid to shop

Yarn - stories that are seriously creepy af

You’re welcome 😉

[thegoronman-blog]

Maui is not obese

Maui is a powerful demigod. Big and strong and… oh, you think he looks fat?

That’s probably because you’ve been conditioned by the media to accept this

as what strong and fit looks like. Amiright?

Sadly… these guys are not all that strong. Yeah, they got muscles… but they aren’t built in a useful way. They are built for looks and that’s about it.

This… 

is a strong guy. Actually a competitor in the Strongman competition. But… his tummy sticks out and he doesn’t look like a Dorito. 

You know who else is strong?

These guys…

And Maui…

Look at those arms, omg. And that solid, sturdy torso. You can see a shadow where his meat covers his ribs, but he doesn’t look like any slouch to me.

And this guy…

That’s Dwayne Johnson’s grandfather. When the Disney animators showed him their sketches of Maui, he pulled out a picture of his grandfather and showed it to them because he was amazed how similar they looked. This dude was also a pro wrestler.

There’s actually a great infographic about ab muscles and stuff over HERE. but this is the part i want to show you.

Now… look at Maui again.

That thickness don’t move like fat. It doesn’t jiggle and he’s able to flex it. Look at how it sits on his body. It doesn’t sag… he doesn’t have a gut. There’s even a slight V shape to his torso.

It’s just big and not ‘defined’.

And people aren’t used to that.

(sorry, this isn’t the most organized post… i kinda just let it all spill out)

[thegoronman-blog]

Nov. 23, 2018

POWHATAN, Virginia — Alex Campbell was just 7 years old when, he says, his principal dragged him down the hall to the school’s “crisis room.”

Administrators reserved the room, a converted storage closet, for children who acted out. He still remembers the black-painted walls. The small window he was too short to reach. The sound of a desk scraping across the floor, as it was pushed in front of the door to make sure he couldn’t get out.

Alex, who has autism spectrum disorder, says he was taken there more than a half-dozen times in first grade, for behavior such as ripping up paper or refusing to follow instructions in class. The room was supposed to calm him down. Instead, it terrified him.

“When I asked for help or asked if anyone was still there, nobody would answer,” Alex said. “I felt alone. I felt scared.”

According to the latest data collected by the U.S. Department of Education, public school districts reported restraining or secluding over 120,000 students during the 2015-2016 school year, most of them children with disabilities. Families and advocates have documented cases of students being pinned down, strapped to their wheelchairs, handcuffed or restrained in other ways. Both practices, experts say, can traumatize children, and may lead to severe injuries, even death.

Alex is determined to close the seclusion rooms for good. Last week, the 13-year-old told his story to legislators, congressional staff and advocates to mark the introduction of the Keeping All Students Safe Act, a bill that would bar the use of seclusion and significantly curtail the use of restraints in schools that receive federal funds. No federal law currently regulates the use of such practices on students.

“We believe schools should have a safe environment for students to learn and grow,” said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District. Scott sponsored the legislation with fellow Democrat Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia’s 8th District.

“It’s a civil rights issue,” added Scott, who serves as the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. “Children should not be subjected to practices that are counterproductive, endangering their safety or health.”

Alex tried to keep the “crisis room” a secret.

No laws required school administrators to tell his parents what was happening. Alex says the principal warned him that if he said anything, he would spend the rest of the year locked in the room.

But Alex’s parents said they could tell something was wrong. They noticed unexplained bruises on his knees. He became increasingly anxious. His father Sean Campbell, who works as a data specialist in a public school system, thought it was especially strange when Alex visited the school where he worked and asked where the children got “locked up.” He stopped wanting to go to sleep.

“That’s when it hit me,” Campbell, Alex’s father, said. “He doesn’t want to wake up because he doesn’t want to go to school.”

Eventually, Alex broke.

“He started babbling like crazy,” Campbell said. “‘I can’t go back to that room. I can’t go back.’”

The idea of the school not notifying them appalled Alex’s mother, Kelly Campbell, who has taught in public schools for 11 years. “If a child falls on the playground and bumps their head, I’m obligated to call the parents,” she said. “I’ve been told that in every school I’ve worked with. Something like that could happen to Alex, and nobody has to know about it? Like it’s some dark secret?”

While a landmark piece of federal legislation called the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, mandates that all students with disabilities are provided with a free public education tailored to meet their needs, regulations governing the use of restraint and seclusion in schools vary from state to state. Many states don’t require school administrators to notify parents when their child is restrained or secluded. According to a recent analysis published by the Autism National Committee, only 28 states provide “meaningful protections against restraint and seclusion” for children, including those with disabilities.