#everyone's different

[not-poignant]

Hallooo, sorry if this is a dumb question but what is face casting? 😭

Face casting is when people match characters to pre-existing models, actors and other celebrities!

It is generally pretty harmless, but it's been the source of some pretty significant drama in the past on this blog and the easiest way for it not to be is to just not put anon face casts on the channel!

I have zero problems with folks face casting for themselves or enjoying them on their blog or with friends etc. They just don't happen publicly here.

It's not dumb at all! And not everyone does it. I'm someone who doesn't do it (and whose image of a character can be sometimes permanently impacted by someone's facecast and not always in a positive way - though it's not always negative either!)

Everyone's face casts are awesome and valid though, especially if they make reading and connecting to the characters more enjoyable. :D

[dunkelzahn]

One of the things I think a lot of people don't really get about writing is that it doesn't necessarily have to be fiction.

Like, fiction writing. Good, excellent, create your worlds, tell your stories, may it be popular and lead to success. But it's so easy to crush your writing under the weight of your own expectations, isn't it? It's so dreadfully easy. You can write a first draft, or just an opening, and give up because you feel there's no way that it'll ever be good enough to show to anyone and that just taints your feelings about the work, your skills, and writing in general.

But what if you didn't seep all of that into your fiction? Just... write something. Doesn't have to be fiction. Like a diary entry. Your thoughts on the news. Conversations you want to have. Events in your life. A paragraph or so on that nice meal you had. Non-fiction stuff, things no one will read. Something with an audience of one person, totally personal and private.

Still, it's writing. I've written furious screeds about topics I don't think anyone else cares about, so I don't bore folks with posting them. I've written tutorials about subjects that've undoubtedly been covered, and in a more comprehensive way than I could manage. I've written love letters to someone that'll never read them. Sometimes what I write is just transcriptions from another source. (No one I know is interested in recipes from 14th century England.) I've written political rants aching with frustration. I've written reviews of canons and products. I've written apologies that will never cross the bridges I've already burned. Even, embarrassingly, a few bits of poetry. They were awful.

And, yes, I've written fiction, both original and fan fiction.

Sometimes it's experiments. Sometimes it's just to get my emotions straight. But writing about the real stuff, the stuff that isn't fiction, the stuff that doesn't have the expectation of readership.

Some of it's saved onto an external. A lot of it, I just delete once I've done it, after I let it sit for a day or four. Then I'll come back to reread it and feel satisfied that I've got it out of my system. So I clear out the text document and start on something new.

But the thing was, I wrote it. And it was freeing because, since I knew I'd be the only one to ever see it, I had no expectations and felt no pressure to make it good.

And, honestly, I feel like doing that frees up some of the pressure for when I do write something that's intended for others. It's like singing in the shower.

Anyway. This got overlong. The short of it is just this: When someone says 'just write something,' they don't necessarily mean to follow it with 'and show it to everyone.' I think a lot of people get caught up on that silent adder and it makes them shrivel up when they do keep writing and never manage to meet their own expectations.

So write, but write for yourself. If you happen to think it's good enough to share, do it. Otherwise, just treat it as private practice, a way to vent out those ideas and feelings until you either find the diamond you want to polish and show off or you decide that you're ready to show off the diamonds you've already got.

[voskhozhdeniye]

So either 2023 or 2022, the Ukrainian military tweeted AI generated pictures of characters from Harry Potter armed with weapons and dressed in Ukrainian military fatigues. It included some caption like, everyone can be a hero.

@anarchist-caravan just sent me this.

I'm still seeing people with Ukraine flags in their profile, so I'm assuming the propaganda is still working for that war. Russia had asked for a peace deal very early in the war. The UK and US governments blocked Ukraine from making the deal. Most of this destruction could've been prevented, but that didn't fall inline with Western interests. They're using the country and its people as a..... human shield against Russia if you will. As you can guess, it's not going well for Ukraine. The peace deal, which multiple heads of the EU have spoken about, wouldn't portray Russia as the aggressive terror state the US needs it to be labeled.

The propaganda is needed to justify the war.

I find it interesting that Israel used a TIE fighter in their AI generated May the 4th be with you tweet. That's what the bad guys fly...........

I found this interesting also.

I just gave you the answer.

[spectrumlife99]

To all autistic people who have a "childish" special interest, or just happen to like something that is viewed as "childish" by everyone around you, I see you and feel you. Your interests are valid, there is nothing wrong with liking something geared towards children as an adult. Don't let people who tell you otherwise get you down, you should be free to like what you like, especially if it helps you through tough times.

Sincerely,

An autistic person in his 20s who still really likes Thomas the Tank Engine, and who would still really be into PAW Patrol if I hadn't developed a phobia of sirens

[mistressemmedi]

omg I love risotto❤️ what kind/type/style??

So, I use a chicken stock base and arborio rice.

First I gently fry some diced pancetta until it starts gaining some color and then add some finely chopped shallots to fry in the pancetta grease (usually add some oil as well). Once the shallot is looking a bit translucent, I add some of the broth to the pan and then the rice. Stir a bit and add a bit of red wine and let the risotto marinate and reduce while it's cooking on low heat (adding stock as the rice dries up while it cooks - usually takes about 20 min with arborio, a little less with carnaroli rice). Salt and pepper as you go.

Once the rice is close to being cooked, I'll add some chopped radicchio. Let that go for a bit and finish it top it with some butter and pieces gorgonzola that will melt with the heat of the rice once served.

Finish with a sprinkle of grated parmigiano :)

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[liones-s]

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

[borrelia]

if you donate one single us dollar to the unrwa, you will have donated more money than you would have by clicking that stupid arab.orb link every day for four and a half years. yes, they do actually donate money to the unrwa, but even with tens of thousands of clicks, most of that money is the baseline $90 they send every quarter. from 2023 quarter 4, half a million clicks turned into $380.57. maths out to six hundreths of one cent per click. just donate to unrwa.

[lonepower]

yes i Am paying real money to make you all look at our new dog. we've had her for 3 hours and if anything happened to her I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself. her name is Tater Tot

[iwasbored777]

We're not appreciating the Weird Barbie enough. It's said in the movie that she helps everyone who need help while they always see her as someone who's not as good as them. She was friends with all dismissed Barbies and Kens, was there to offer support and safe shelter for everyone who needed it in Kendom, without her nothing in the movie would've been alright. When Stereotypical Barbie calls her "ugly and unwanted" she still helps her.

She was representing a woman in women's world who was pushed aside by other women because she didn't fit in but still had more wisdom and kindness than everyone who thought they're better than her.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[starii-void]

going to chb must be crazy like imagine sharing a camp with

-one of the strongest demigods ever who's saved the world like at least 3 times, fought multiple gods & titans and WON (and is a tartarus survivor)

-the literal main architect of OLYMPUS who's also saved the world multiple times (also tartarus survivor)

-THE lord of the wild who's also close friends with the first two (and has helped save the world multiple times)

-an emo kid from the 1930s who again helped save the world and is also a tartarus survivor (TWICE)

-a son of apollo who survived tartarus with nothing but cargo shorts and sheer will (pun intended)

-the main designer and builder for the argo II, also the first hephaestus kid to have fire powers since hundreds of years ago (did i mention killed gaea? no? yeah he did that too)

-a girl who somehow charmspeak-ed gaea into falling back asleep (also side note daughter of super famous actor because why not)

-pretty much everybody is a two-time war veteran

-THE GOD APOLLO who just sometimes comes down to visit in the form of a teenage boy

-did i mention dionysus, god of wine madness and theatre

-also chiron, trainer of pretty much every greek hero ever

[aueua]

people with siblings: how do you feel about them?

[captainkirkk]

Concept: Peter actually got bitten by a totally normal spider. It's just a coincidence that his mutant powers were awakened around the same time

[war-forged-storms]

I have to be honest, when people are objectively into plus sized bodies it turns me on, and I’m not sorry.

I don’t want to have sex where we tiptoe around the fact that I’m fat, I actually want my body to be touched on and groped and worshiped during sex and if someone gonna be weird about it, I’m not going to enjoy myself. I want someone to grab and kiss and mark on my belly the way they would any person no matter the size, as for the rest of me. I’m deserving of that type of sex, and to shame people who want to give me that type of sex just kinda feels weird and fatphobic.

The way that people treat any sort of attraction to fat bodies as fetishization and chasing just frustrates me to no end, sometimes people just are attracted to fat people and know how to love on us the way other people are loved up on.

[bumbleboa]

I saw one scruffy older Cora-san design and had to draw my take on it immediately, with a bonus Law to fill space.

You can say a lot of things about One Piece Odyssey, but it did give us a Law & Cora tag-team fight in which Law shambled to the location of Cora's bullets and that is just objectively cool.