#at your age

[doccywhomst]

#i’ve been thinking abt that cringe post #i think the latent feelings behind ‘cringe’ are shame and sometimes envy/bitterness #same vibes as when six year olds say ‘those toys are for babies’ if they’ve been shamed for their age by older kids #anyway. i think part of the healing process is realizing that shame puts you at war with yourself bc part of yourself is a social being! #and that part of you wants community and acceptance (maybe love). shame is the absence of acceptance #unlearning shame means learning self-love and gaining the confidence to find your people #jerma #cw jerma #(someone asked me to tag lol)

[atissi]

i don't really like when people say dungeon meshi is accidentally good autistic representation, because while i understand not wanting to make conclusions without explicit confirmation from the author, there's always the weird assumption that non-western authors somehow don't know about things like neurodivergency/queerness/etc. (on top of the assumptions that east asian authors are somehow more naive or oblivious to "western" social issues).

given that dungeon meshi started being published in 2014, it's not really a "work belonging to its times"—it's as contemporary as any other media we discuss on this site, which means it should be fair to assume it engages with contemporary topics (and at the very least, you shouldn't say that the representation is accidental with so much confidence)

but anyways, the chapter "perfect communication" in ryoko kui's "terrarium in a drawer" is some of the most straightforward autistic representation I've seen, and from now on I'm going to assume that laios's character writing is absolutely intentional in that regard:

#beepbeep.txt #dungeon meshi #ryoko kui #this is me trying to explain h/ollow knight lore #also yayyyy reading new things. chapter 18 'spring' is basically UFUT if you squint (sorry for the jumpscare if you know UFUT) #but the last two pages were such a surprising gut punch....it's hard not to see it as a metaphor for both the experience of raising childre #and of taking care of your parents in old age....aughh....

[emilnikos]

I need non autistic people to realise meltdowns are a real debilitating thing that has a serious effect on your mental and physical health NOWWWWW!!! The way its been trivialized and lessened pisses me the fuck off. It's not a tantrum and it doesn't come from "being too weak-willed" it's painful and it's embarrassing AND MOST OF ALL IT'S INVOLUNTARY!! Don't claim to be an ally to autistic or disabled people and then make fun of people who have meltdowns. Literally get the hell out of my sight

#i can't believe i have to day it but autism /is/ a disablity. its disabling. meltdowns are part of that. #'oh this is a lukewarm take' you dumbshit fucks have been throwing the word neurodivergent and meltdown around so #casually they have both been said at me with the same disdain as a swear word. you guys will accept making fun of autistic people #if someone jn your circle who is 'cool' does it first. at your big ages. shut the hell up

[rivetgoth]

It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.

#also has made it increasingly difficult to relate to those early into their transition honestly #like not in a bitter way it’s just like hard to express how diff the experience is #of being like a year on T vs 5 😭 #ETA I muted this post ages ago now but fwiw seeing transphobes pop up in the notes on occasion just to say cruel reactionary shit #you are clowns I cannot imagine seeing a post that is ONLY about discussing with folks about the reality of a medication #and choosing to make that your moment to get a schoolyard bully jab in about how you find it gross or something. #you are less well adjusted than most children. may the universe be kinder to you than you are to others.

[dazzlerazz]

You should draw that girl with missing teeth. You should draw that girl with a crooked nose. You should draw that girl with a double chin. You should draw that girl with fat on her body. You should draw that girl with a buzz cut. You should draw that girl with large eyebrows. You should draw that girl with a lazy eye. You should draw that girl with large nostrils. You should draw that girl smiling with gums. You should draw that girl with body hair. It's enrichment for her, treat her right

#art stuff #those who were here for thorne raise your had #and the one pic I posted of her ages ago #10k #20k #30k

[feypact]

public libraries in the usa offering free digital library cards to people not in their areas (as of october 2023):

brooklyn (13-21yo us residents)

seattle (13-26yo us residents)

boston (13-26yo us residents, EDIT: just commonly banned books)

los angeles (13-18yo california residents)

san diego (12-26yo us residents, not the whole collection just commonly banned books)

these books unbanned cards (unless otherwise stated) get you access to each library's complete libby/cloud library collection, no hoopla/kanopy/physical copies included.

ebook collections are expensive to maintain (many american libraries have annual fees for non-residents because of this) but because of an uptick in book banning (particularly brutal in mississippi last summer) larger libraries have opened their doors more, which is very kind of them!

i've used my seattle card for the last several months and their libby collection has about three times the books that my local library does, which is wonderful for accessing more niche titles or skipping a waiting list. would love to hear of similar ebook initiatives internationally!

i use library extension (firefox/chrome/edge compatible) to check all my collections (+ the internet archive) at once, works for several different countries highly recommend it.

spotify seems to be offering 15hrs/month of audiobook listening to premium subscribers and while that does seem useful if you're already paying and are after a new release with a long library waitlist, libraries are better for everything else.

#library tag #banned books week #banned books #emmybody talks #for international users... your mileage may vary! #i mean i suppose you could lie about your age/location to get some of these. i doubt theyd check i would just feel bad. personally. #post brought to u by banned book week but also being moderately annoyed at ppl mad about the spotify thing #libraries are wonderful but they have their own limitations and i think using both is good!

[greelin]

people when trauma victims act traumatized especially in a way that is unpalatable to them because it involves lashing out and unpredictable moods and having boundary issues rather than just being demure, sad, and consumable

#the surprise at unpredictability is always so fucking baffling to me. this is someone who’s been under extreme stress/duress #for ages. Do you think you can just bounce back. regulate everything immediately. when you’ve been in Survival Mode your whole #fucking life. LOL #you don’t just fucking Know how to be a human being. magically. because you’re out of the situation now. like.

[roach-works]

listen. aging into your thirties rocks. yes your joints get a little creaky. yes you can’t sleep in a pretzel on the floor anymore after a concert or a convention. and you lose some friends. but the thing is that you sort out who your real friends are and you sort out who you really are. and you get to see your friends settling into careers they like, and adopt new dogs and cats, and you find a job you can stand, and get really good at arts and crafts, and maybe that book you loved as a kid gets a movie deal and it doesn’t suck, and you learn to like new food and bake your own bread, and you realize that the great portfolio of self harm scars you all used to curate are going white with age and not updated, and half your friends are a different gender now and so much happier and maybe you are too, and you know who you are, and that it’s a journey and not a revelation. it’s a direction you’re headed, and you’re enjoying the trip.

reaching your 30′s rocks. and i’m hearing good things about what comes next, too.

#you don't have to age gracefully #you can hit it like a cannonball #just get out of your twenties alive

[anotherpapercut]

genuinely it will never stop baffling me how people will wear twilight shirts and talk about team Edward vs team Jacob and then the same people will be like "I'm not basing my personality off of a piece of media (harry potter) made by a transphobe 😌" like good that's great! so you can excuse racism but you draw the line at transphobia? good to know

#remember when twilight came out and there were news articles about the quileute tribe and also if you read the books with your eyes #you know that theyre extremely like INSANELY racist #i remember reading them at age 10 and thinking 'wow this author hates women and native americans' #and i was right bc later i found out shes mormon 😐 #begging you all to take racism and especially pretty extreme racism against natives seriously lmfao

[raintides]

they're going shopping

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #tara is chaperoning #mr dekarios! i daresay your bag cannot possibly get any fuller #(gale kicked puppy expression) but this book has been out of print for AGES #tara the tressym

[lgbtlunaverse]

There's a version of the "don't go grocery shopping while hungry" rule specifically for writers where you should never under any circumstances be allowed to touch your draft within 3 hours of reading a really good story. Because sometimes when you read something great your head goes "fuck this is so much better than my stuff I should make that more like THIS instead!" Look at me. That's the devil talking and you should close the document NOW.

#you will make superficial edits that do not gell well with the rest of your work #and won't actually capture what you thought was so good about that story #close the doc. sit down. think about it for a while. inspiration is fine. getting a 'eureka' moment from another story is fine #but if you find yourself comparing your work one to one with someone else's and taking any differences to be flaws on your part then STOP #you will never write good stuff by trying to make it look less like you wrote it #writing #writing advice #guess who just had to go into her google doc history and undo a bunch of panic-induced edits #because she read a fic about the same characters she's writing for? #meeee. they aged badly within just a few hours of hindsight. learn from my mistakes #self-hatred is not a good motivation for creation #fic writing

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

#dungeon meshi #mithrun #Cithis Ofri #Pattadol #Fleki #Lycion #Otta #Happy Canary Debut Day! These guys wont really get to be very present until the next season of Dungeon Meshi #But I can still be excited to see them animated!!! #Shout out to Pattadol - I also tend to occupy 'The Punchline' niche of the friendgroup. #The punchline differs from 'The Jester' who willingly absorbs the jokes. The punchline is often unwillingly the joke. #You are either the one no one likes or the well beloved little-sibiling-esque friend. Good luck figuring out which! #Yes it is canon that Otta is into Women. YES she dates younger women and dumps them when they age. #This isn't a fan made bit. It's real. #Dungeon Meshi has no romance but it does have canonically queer characters. #Shipping is fine and all but it is a running theme in the series than *everyone* who expresses romantic interest in someone - #-finds that love unrequited. Just something to be mindful of to measure your expectations of this series! #Ah! In other housekeeping notes; I'm going to *try* and add Alt Text to my dungeon meshi thurday posts going forwards. #I might not be able to do it day of but I will try to get it done within a week.

[fefairys]

getting real fed up with my peers treating teenagers like shit. how did you forget so fucking quickly what it's like to be them. shame on you.

#this is about people my age getting into internet discourse with teenagers #and calling them stupid and overall belittling them and being a jerk to them #like. literally just block them if they are being a shithead #teenagers are shitheads sometimes #youre not going to change them #they need to grow up on their own #and an adult making fun of them isnt going to help #in fact it is going to hinder the process #if you want to try to help you need to be kind #if theyre not receptive to that and are still being an asshole then it is not worth it #and you need to go do something else with your time #you are a fucking adult

[fleshdyke]

art tips that actually help. tracing pictures is fine. try not to shade with black. draw as much as you can all the time and make it shitty im so serious. dont buy expensive materials its not worth it. never post your art to tiktok. raise your commission prices. sparkle on be yourself

#i dont care how good or bad your art is or how old you are or how low your self esteem is RAISE YOUR PRICES #and if you’re like 13 and people in their 30s are giving you like $5 for your art you’re being exploited i dont care if that’s how much you #set your prices at. you are being exploited. 30+ year olds can afford more than $5 for art from a teenager #source: i did that for fucking ages. dont do that. #rambles #100 #1k #10k #20k

[catmask]

with that said there are characters that a fat maybe not canonically but they are spiritually. to me. they may not be drawn that way but i know whats true. ive seen it like a sort of prophet

#serizawa. send post #he did NOT live his life as a shut in for almost a whole decade to be drawn SKINNY! not by me at least #also like so many characters over the age of 30. no more fit moms and dads GIVE them that divorce body fat NOW! #*strikes you down with the force of god* #but honestly alternative for serizawa that ive always liked is that he gains weight when he starts working for reigen #because he can now go out and eat new foods :D he has actually gained an appetite because he's moving around more #and isnt just eating like instant ramen or whatever his mom brings him #see how easy it is you can just believe it with your heart. you just have to find the ways to make true waht u know #scratchpost #txt

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

#hlep #original #mental health #my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need. #the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it #i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support #and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist. #the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28! #a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents. #they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of #huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the #longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong. #and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives. #you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead? #or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of. #no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow. #i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel #i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong. #just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop