dmeghann

[dmeghann]

My morning glory doesn’t like the wind chime

[dmeghann]

There is something so beautiful about reaching out to the monstrous with intent to touch it gently. To risk the sharp teeth and the lethal claws, to defy fear and revulsion, and choose to be delicate with something that can be, and often is, incredibly brutal.

[dmeghann]

[dmeghann]

Damascus was a bad man at the vet and was very bitey so he got put in the lizard straight jacket for his x-rays.

[dmeghann]

Kestrel-dad not sure how to dad but he’s trying his best.

[dmeghann]

gender is a performance and im getting heckled by those old gay muppets

[dmeghann]

Art by Artem Chebokha

[dmeghann]

action movie about a guy who pretends to be a hitman and does the whole “25% up front and the rest when the job is done” thing but then just keeps the down payment, doesn’t kill anybody, and stops responding to the client’s calls, knowing that they can’t sue him for breach of contract without confessing to trying to hire a hitman. problem is now a lot of people who are comfortable with the concept of paying someone to kill someone else are mad at him

[dmeghann]

in recent years, there's been a push in therapeutic circles to shift the language from "attention-seeking" to "connection-seeking" behavior.

i was an attention-seeker. i was the textbook example of an attention-seeker. i was a troublemaker. i would self-harm. i destroyed my own relationships. i was uncontrolled, dramatic, sensitive. i took everything personally. i had "nothing" to be depressed "about," but made a big show of how sad i was nonetheless. i was really unsafe about myself in a lot of ways.

the strange thing about that is: it meant others could ignore me. the prevailing wisdom behind knowing something is "attention seeking" is to say: well, since you want it that bad, you're not getting any. it meant i was lower-on-the-list of concern. it meant an eye-roll.

the belief was that: since i was obviously doing these things on purpose, it would be bad behavioral training if i was "rewarded" for it. it would "teach me" that i simply had to make enough fuss, and i'd finally get all that missing attention and love. no, it was better to ignore that stuff.

i was suffering. and it felt like - oh, it doesn't matter how loudly i am in pain, nobody gives a shit about if i'm living or dying.

awhile ago, i went through my journals from that time. a lot of them read the same thing. in them, i am convinced i am invisible. that nobody wants to hear me, to see me. that i could die or vanish and nobody would even notice. i didn't even want attention - not really - because it was always dismissive, mocking. nothing i ever did would be good enough to get someone to actually-worry about me.

that's a terrifying thing for me to read as an adult. that is a child who fully has no problem committing. that is a child who has no concept of feeling loved. the most basic human instinct is missing from her life.

i needed help. i didn't know how to ask for it. i was a kid. i was a kid in a bad home, and whenever i thought things couldn't get worse there - they almost always did.

and the ways i showed that - the ways i tried to deal with that - they made others dismiss me. i wasn't suffering prettily. after all, if i was really in trouble, why wouldn't i just march into the first counselor's office and ask someone to help me? i had the opportunities, right? what did i think would happen, exactly? that someone would finally stand up and do something? who even wants that kind of responsibility?

i heard connection-seeking for the first time about three months ago. my therapist mentioned it when we were talking about my history. it rang some kind of horrible bell, deep inside me. i don't know what she said in the rest of her sentence. i just started... crying.

"oh no", i said to her. "i think i just realized: i have no idea how to forgive them for minimizing the ways i was hurting."

how many other kids, though. how many other kids were out there drowning, snatching around for a lifevest, some kind of rope - how many were straight-up ignored.

how many of those kids aren't gonna get old.

[dmeghann]

this is gonna sound like a shitpost but the best advice i have if youre consistently coming off wrong is to start talking like an elcor

you will feel like a dumdum at first, but once you get used to it youll realize that telling people what kind of thing you're about to say ahead of time flattens their anxiety a huge amount

ive been starting every question with "question:" for awhile now and i almost never get people reading too much into what i mean anymore

it seems super dumb, but "what are your plans tomorrow?" gets people asking me what i have planned despite me obviously being in the process of figuring that out, whereas "question: what are your plans tomorrow?" gets me a quick rundown of their schedule, followed by "why?"

it also makes it really easy to work tone indicators into your verbal speech. if you're always saying "question: [your question here]?" then no one blinks when you say "genuine question: [question that could read as sarcastic]?"

it also gets you out of your own way for any types of things you struggle to say. "can you make sure to do the dishes before you go to bed?" feels like an argument waiting to happen, but "request: can you make sure to do the dishes before you go to bed?" gets the words flowing on a neutral word while making it clear that you're not looking for a fight

so yeah. suggestion: talk like an elcor

[dmeghann]

“How can you not be angry?”

“I am angry,” the werewolf said. “But unlike you, I don’t have the luxury of showing it without being called a monster. Without someone taking it as a sign of proof that I need to be put down like a rabid dog, that I’m just like what the stories tell you.” 

“But everyone gets angry…that’s human.”

“Up until the point when you’re not human.”

[dmeghann]

If courage isn’t the absence of fear but doing the right thing regardless of it, maybe confidence isn’t the absence of insecurity but knowing you have real worth despite it

[dmeghann]

-Batman #664

I keep seeing people saying Batman needs to get rid of/kill the Bruce Wayne Persona.

This is the reason he can’t, Batman is the hero Gotham deserves at night but Bruce Wayne is the hero gotham deserves during the day. Batman is limited in the things he can do, he can fight criminals and lock them away and keep you safe maybe another day but Bruce Wayne has the ability to provide for the people of gotham (which Batman can’t).

He funds a lot of Gotham, offers orphans his home and takes them in as family. He doesn’t care if you’re under-qualified for the job, he’d rather you be safe and so he gives you a job (maybe gruffly but at least instead of only telling you to get your life together, he gives you the means to do so without degrading you).

He has the Martha Foundation to help run orphanages and gives children free schooling and give upcoming artists grants.

He has the Thomas Foundation for medicine and has set up several clinics in Crime Alley and Gotham.

He gives so much to a city that at best tolerates him as Batman and exploits/mocks him as Bruce and yet this man truly believes that he’s not a good man deep in his heart

[dmeghann]

cooking while chronically ill

baking with arthritis or other chronic hand pain

living with chronic migraines

adhd meal plan

chronic pain tips

getting yourself to eat

[dmeghann]

[dmeghann]

Pro-writing tip: if your story doesn't need a number, don't put a fucking number in it.

Nothing, I mean nothing, activates reader pedantry like a number.

I have seen it a thousand times in writing workshops. People just can't resist nitpicking a number. For example, "This scifi story takes place 200 years in the future and they have faster than light travel because it's plot convenient," will immediately drag every armchair scientist out of the woodwork to say why there's no way that technology would exist in only 200 years.

Dates, ages, math, spans of time, I don't know what it is but the second a specific number shows up, your reader is thinking, and they're thinking critically but it's about whether that information is correct. They are now doing the math and have gone off drawing conclusions and getting distracted from your story or worse, putting it down entirely because umm, that sword could not have existed in that Medieval year, or this character couldn't be this old because it means they were an infant when this other story event happened that they're supposed to know about, or these two events now overlap in the timeline, or... etc etc etc.

Unless you are 1000% certain that a specific number is adding to your narrative, and you know rock-solid, backwards and forwards that the information attached to that number is correct and consistent throughout the entire story, do yourself a favor, and don't bring that evil down upon your head.

[dmeghann]

NO MERCY PERCY