#and now I will have more...........

[ahollowgrave]

-- o, this sweet love!! o, this divine grief.

[bitchfitch]

writing advice for characters with a missing eye: dear God does losing an eyes function fuck up your neck. Ever since mine crapped out I've been slowly and unconsciously shifting towards holding my head at an angle to put the good eye closer to the center. and human necks. are not meant to accommodate that sorta thing.

[rafeandonlyrafe]

well 🧍‍♀️ as a reminder this blog is NOT a safe space for trump supporters but it IS a safe place for women, queers, trans ppl, people of color, undocumented people, and any marginalized group.

[arcanegifs]

ARCANE LEAGUE OF LESBIANS: 2x08 - “Killing is a Cycle”

[tawnysoup]

Found my fav Slay the Princess route recently. Dragon my beloved. Your horrifying beak mouth was an impossible-to-refuse lip syncing challenge 💖

Shoutouts to @blacktabbygames for making such a cool game!

[icewindandboringhorror]

(also feel free in the tags to clarify Why you made the choice you made!! :0c)

[coleopterabyte]

Part of the reason I'm so adamant about encouraging people to get comfortable with bugs, my own interests aside, is because we cannot have a bright, solarpunk future without them.

A green future is not a bugless future. It is, in fact, a fairly bugful future. If you care about ecological stability, then you need to start with bugs, because they're the most at risk with our current use of pesticides.

[nathaniacolver]

arcane ships be like

i love a show that teaches equality (😭😭😭)

[goodsniff]

CREATING BLUEY - Tales from the Art Director

Chapter 4 - It's (gotta be) Done! Beyond Bluey

The final chapter. Beyond Bluey and the power of Animation

FREE on Substack

Thankyou all so much for following along. The outpouring of support and care for the artists behind the art has been really heartening throughout this whole process. Not to be cringe but I honestly think this medium captures the human spirit better than any other form of expression, so I know whatever the future brings for us we’ll be able to weather it for that reason alone. 🕊️

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

It's always so weird to come down from the biology heavens to see what the average person believes about animals, plants, ecosystems, just the world around them. I don't even mean things that one simply doesn't know because they've never been told or things that are confusing, I'm talking about people who genuinely do not see insects as animals. What are you saying. Every time I see a crawling or fluttering little guy I know that little guy has motivations and drive to fulfill those motivations. There are gears turning in their head! They are perceiving this world and they are drawing conclusions, they are conscious. And yet it's still a whole thing if various bugs of the world feel pain or if they are simply Instinct Machines that are Not Truly Aware of Anything At All????? Help!!!!!! How can you look at a little guy and think he is just the macroscopic animal version of a virus

[marisatomay]

You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

[sadclowncentral]

while i was trying to wade through the large amounts of people trying to leave the central subway station, everyone abruptly came to a halt in front of the subway turnstiles. two french girls had misunderstood the tap-out process, and one of them was now stuck behind the gate. as i was wracking my brain on how to explain the tap-in tap-out process of the milan metro to both of them with my rudimentary french while they both got increasingly upset at the closed gate between them, a young teenager suddenly pushed me to the side.

i was just about to give him my most scathing disgruntled glare when he took out his ticket and, after realizing they had no common language, started gesticulating wildly in front of the french girl left behind. he pointed at the ticket, then at her, and very seriously said: “on three, we go.” she nodded, and after he counted to three, holding up his fingers so there could be no confusion, they sprinted through the gate together, giggling profusely afterwards as if they had just pulled off the heist of the century,

it was just a small moment during the morning commute. but i realized then and there that the time i had spent trying to intellectualize the problem and wondering if my lack of language skills would be awkward the situation could have already been resolved. and that while i had been mad about being pushed aside, the teenager got it exactly right: no questions, no fear or shyness, just direct action to help where you can and rushing there to do so. i think about him every time now when i run to lift someone’s pram or ask a lost looking person if they need my help despite the fear of being rude. on three, we go.

[egophiliac]

missed the mark by (looks at calendar) uhhh. hm. but I really wanted to do something for the 5th anniversary! happy five years to these idiots 🎉

[hamletthedane]

The movie Wicked is proof that any source material can be vastly improved by simply making the intense female friendship much gayer + the mutual male love interest both wildly bisexual and lowkey down to just be their third

[the-autism-album]

[wordpress-blaze-157764418]

numb little bug

I want to start this off by saying—loud and proud—I am a BIG believer in mental health treatment, medication, therapy, Reiki, moon water, yelling into the void... whatever it takes to feel okay again when you’re not.

That said, this is not a post about bashing meds. This is a post about finding the right ones—and the very real hell of wandering through the wrong ones like you're in the world's most depressing pharmacy-themed escape room.

For years, I was in and out of medication. I always had this mental image of the version of me I wanted to be—happy, light, energetic, sarcastic in a charming way (not the burnt-out feral goblin flavor). And for a while, I was that person. I was active, smiling, fun, present. A good mom, a good friend, a good me.

Then life did that thing it does. You know, where it sucker punches you and then asks why you’re crying.

Between COVID, burnout, isolation, and the thousand papercuts of adulthood, I slowly became a version of myself I didn’t recognize. Introverted became full-on hermit. I hated leaving the house. Hated even thinking about it. I was trapped in a cycle: Work. Home. Despair. Insomnia. Repeat.

And because life wasn’t spicy enough, I started drinking way too much and mentally berating myself for not “getting it together.” I thought, I used to be strong. I used to be fun. I used to laugh more. So, like any exhausted, overwhelmed, emotionally constipated healthcare worker, I went to the doctor.

We ran through the Greatest Hits: insomnia, panic attacks, depression, that “everything is wrong but I’m still somehow functioning” vibe. I’d always been high-strung, perfectionistic, a bit of a control freak (Type A, but make it spicy). Eventually I was tested for ADHD and autism—and surprise! My brain’s just a limited-edition collector’s item.

I left with a pile of prescriptions and a flicker of hope that maybe this was the start of getting myself back.

At first? Magic. I was sleeping. I wasn’t panicking. I didn’t care so much if the towels weren’t folded the “correct” way (and that’s saying something). But… I still wasn’t happy. I didn’t feel like me. I felt numb. And yeah, numb can feel like “better” compared to raw despair—but eventually, it’s just another prison.

New meds, new hope, same result.

I was exhausted no matter how long I slept. I was hiding in bed from my own life. I watched my dogs—who just wanted to play with me—lay by my bed like little furry emotional support sentinels. My kids needed me, and I couldn’t reach them from whatever fog I was buried in.

It got dark. Really dark. Like “do I even want to keep doing this?” dark.

I finally sat with my little cocktail of pills and wondered: what if part of what’s wrong is right here in this pile? SSRI after SSRI, they numbed me, but never healed me.

So I did what you’re not supposed to do (don’t be like me, seriously), and I stopped everything except my sleeping meds. Withdrawal was like fighting a demon in a Walmart parking lot with flip-flops on—but eventually, I surfaced. And something weird happened.

I started to feel… better.

But of course, life tossed another curveball and my anxiety and panic attacks came storming back in like they were late for a meeting. So I went back to the doctor, hat in hand, feeling like an idiot. Another SSRI. Round four. Spoiler: it did not fix me. I was back to dragging myself out of bed, missing out on life, watching time with my kids and dogs vanish into a medicated haze.

So yeah, I finally said, enough. We tried a different class—an SNRI this time, with Wellbutrin in the mix.

And then…

I. Woke. Up.

Like really woke up.

I felt rested without a pharmacy’s worth of pills. I cleaned my kitchen at 10 p.m. because I wanted to. I started talking with my kids again, asking questions about their lives and actually being present. I didn’t cancel plans last-minute. I walked the dogs. I got up the first time my alarm rang. I didn't feel like I was existing in some doomsday fog. I started living again.

The worst part of feeling good again is realizing how long you didn’t. How much you missed. How much of yourself you lost—and how alone you felt in that hollow space.

And I’ll be honest, I still wake up wondering if it’ll slip away again. If it’ll all fade back into the haze of too-much-and-not-enough.

Because here’s the truth people don’t talk about enough: not all meds work the same for everyone. SSRIs, SNRIs, tricyclics… it’s all trial and error. And error. And another error. And then maybe a win.

You think you’re doing everything right—taking your meds, seeing your doctor, checking all the boxes—and you still feel like a ghost in your own life. And worse, no one gets it. They don’t understand why you can’t just “come out,” or “go for a walk,” or “snap out of it.” They don’t understand the bone-deep shame of missing your kid’s milestones because you were too tired or anxious to get off the couch. They don’t get that you want to do things, but your brain has other plans—usually involving doom spirals or hiding under weighted blankets.

But if you’re in that space right now, let me say this: Don’t settle for half of you.

Keep going. Try the next thing. Advocate for yourself like your life depends on it—because sometimes, it really does.

I’m still on medication. I’ll likely always be. But now, I’m on the right ones. And for the first time in years, I feel like myself again.

Not numb. Not empty. Not just surviving.

Me. Whole. Here. Living.

And that… makes all the difference.

Source: numb little bug

[sabertoothwalrus]

modern au laios