#i'm Upset this is just awful

[keeps-ache]

i think it's very ridiculous that i don't know the rough estimate of frogs on planet earth. how am i going to compare it to mars if i don't know how many there are??

[poetry-protest-pornography]

Well.

Having to unfollow people for posts about Israel and Palestine has started.

I just ...

Can we all try to remember that individual citizens and random Jews and Arab peoples are not responsible for the horrors committed by the Israeli government and by Hamas?

Wishing for the atrocities to stop isn't some bullshit both sides-ism. Hundreds of innocent people -- children, literal babies -- have been murdered and brutalized. It does not hurt my heart or turn my stomach any differently if I know which side of the war the people are on.

Regular people are not responsible for this war, but they are the ones suffering.

There are no sides here that matter. You're either terrified about the safety and survival of all involved, or you have some bigotry to work through, because it's not soldiers and senators that are being raped and beheaded, it's people like you and me. And if you are only able to have compassion and empathy and gut-rending sorrow and fear for one group of people in this awful situation, then you should reflect on what that means about your own humanity.

So just...

Jews are not a collective. Jewish people should not be universally condemned and attacked for the actions of the government of one country. Palestinians should not be made to answer for the actions of Hamas. No one should be living like this.

[mokeonn]

Hey quick question, why the fuck was everyone angry at sword and shield for being ugly, rushed pokemon games but was pretty much completely fine with Scarlett and Violet being worse?

[figs-oliomedley]

I doubt Wu would train him against Misako’s wishes (see every episode of Season 1 before 10), but Lloyd would definitely come across them eventually

Plus given her mild reaction to Lloyd’s growth and the fact that he recognizes each her, she only left recently, when he was older

Plus plus, he would be safe at Darkly’s, Garmadon is literally Kruncha and Nuckal’s boss, they can’t hurt him

Were there better choices she could’ve made? Yes, but that doesn’t mean the choice she made was wrong.

Update: Turns out I’m a dipshit who forgot she leaves him when he’s young, ok :y

A lot of my points still stand though, albeit at a slightly different angle in some cases

[rapidhighway]

gonna vent for a sec but im so tired of this "don't wanna be an inconvenience", people pleasing shit ngl.....do people who do this know that they just come off as really rude and like... it just feels insulting each time

[lesbianshepard]

girl help redditors have discovered the concept of reclaiming a slur but think that it means that they can just call random people faggots without any nuance

[whenthewallfell]

first of all, I’m so obsessed with everything you draw omgggg ♥️♥️♥️♥️ and second, totally random question: when you’re drawing scars, like in your most recent drawing, do you think about/create the backstory behind the placement and type? I’m so intrigued by the process artists have and your use of detail is always so peak, I thought I’d ask

Omg thank you!! I tend to obsess over the details so it's awesome hearing they're appreciated <3 And yep, the scars are laid out based on how I think they were exposed to the bombs/fire at the end of MJ. To me, the way it's written implies that Peeta tried pull Katniss out of the fire or shield her from the flames - he was meant to be further back but somehow ended up covered in burns too even though there's no mention of anyone else having them, and I don't think that's for nothin'.

So with that in mind:

Katniss has a big one running up her back and along her neck where she was lying on the ground and kind of fused a bit with her clothes, but the majority of her scars are pretty delicate looking where the fire couldn't get a proper hold on her. There's a type of scarring called contracture where the skin puckers and creates these beautiful patterns that almost look like flames. They're lighter than the surrounding skin, which I thought would create a nice contrast, and also tend to reduce mobility (something about it fitting into the whole depression lethargy thing idk it makes sense in my head). She also has a lightning scar running up the inside of her bow arm from Catching Fire, I've just not drawn anything where it's visible yet.

Peeta's scars are focused mainly around his back and arms where he was trying to cover her - you can also see a bit of it in the post-Mockingjay prosthetic concept design where he's got extra scarring around the back of his leg. His are based more on hypertrophic scarring, with raised bumps and darker discolouration from prolonged contact with the fire. They can look gnarly but they're actually quite soft and don't impede movement as much as contractures. He also has a lightning scar from when he bounced off the forcefield on his chest, by his heart.

Thanks for taking an interest and letting me natter on, hopefully this wasn't too gory/off-putting to read through

[jellogram]

Remember how "Karen" used to mean "suburban white lady who calls the cops on black men" and then like almost immediately it morphed into "the customer is always wrong and asking for a manager or requesting a refund makes you an entitled brat" with a side dose of "rude and angry women are the worst humans on earth."

Criticizing white women for weaponizing the police against black people? Not interesting enough apparently. But loving capitalism and hating angry women? Hell yeah let's have 10,000 viral videos that's the good shit right there. That woman being a bitch in a starbucks is worse than Hitler and we should doxx her children

[egg-emperor]

so gonna be real I barely do life updates here anymore but I've got some bullshit coming up in my personal life that's not looking good. I said I was working on finding out what's wrong with my health from doctors and getting help for a bunch of stuff in my life in general and getting a support system and stuff and I was and it was going well and things were looking up

but now I've been forcefully inducted into some programme thing to push me into doing something I'm physically incapable of doing with my disability but it's apparently mandatory or I'll lose some of the support. I don't know why they decided I can when they know of my issues (and they haven't even recieved the form where they're supposed to be checking for my capability yet so wtf) but apparently there's no way for me to opt out and it's going to last for a year at least

and I've seen a lot of negative things about this program when I wasn't even seeking bad reviews, the majority is negative. so my life might be about to go to shit for a while and I'm already feeling miserable and it hasn't even started yet lol. this may genuinely badly affect my mental and physical health which I've been working so hard to deal with lately so it's very upsetting and stressful

I hope it's not going to take up all my time and I can still be as active as I want to be here because it's one of the things that actually brings some brightness to my life. I also hope all the stress it's going to put me through doesn't affect my behavior here and seep into what I do but I'll try my hardest not to let that happen because my blog is one of the very few positive things in my life atm

best case scenario is they realize I can't do this and take me off it but it's not looking good. that would be more likely in a perfect world where people could take invisible (well mostly invisible for me) disabilities seriously. because I'm not even that hopeful about the doctor stuff at this point, maybe it's just because it's taking so damn long for the referrals I need for them to check me out in the areas needed but I don't know if they'll even find out what's up with my chronic pain and or if I'll get a diagnosis

so yeah I think I'm actually just screwed and life is about to become even more painful and exhausting for me than it already is and a hell of a lot more stressful as a result but maybe if it leads to my health worsening like fainting in front of people again it'll be enough for them to see that this was a bad idea haha. I mean first of all my first meeting about this has been booked for me the day I'm literally taking an 24 hour ECG test because they won't even let the doctors try to finally find out what's wrong with me before pushing me to do this ffs

[my-name-is-bunnyfoxy]

POV: You want to join an art challenge for August regarding TMNT but the person hosting it is someone who wrote a Mikey gets adopted by the Rise turtles and you also fear that you doing it would come off as you supporting the creator meaning you support their fanfic that doesn't give any respect to 2012 and makes Mikey look like a damn crybaby and also for some reason calls him Casper and not to mention this person supports Unfamiliar Familiar

[lee-blogs]

Grief shows itself in weird ways. Like i haven't physically cried since the day of his funeral, but i've got no motivation or drive to do anything. Way worse than my normal amount.

I'm clipping coupons for when my mom and i walk down to the grocery store today and i can't help but think that he'd be doing this if he was here. I see foods and things that he'd like and for a split second it's almost like he's here again. Not knowing that i'll have a little surprise treat to give him next time i see him.

But that won't happen.

[cowardlycowboys]

nail videos are so cool and fun to watch but I could not get my nails done ever

[baejax-the-great]

Hi, I saw on one of your ao3 comments that you think Homers' Achilles is on the spectrum. This is a really interesting idea to me, but I don't know that much about autism - could you elaborate on why you think that? (Also, I think all of your fics are amazing ☺️)

Autism as a word and diagnosis did not exist in ancient Greece, and I have no idea if there would have been a similar concept about it (doubt it) or if more likely people with certain autistic traits would have been considered to have a certain type of personality. So for me to say that Homer deliberately wrote Achilles as "autistic" is a little tongue in cheek.

That said, reading the Iliad I did have a moment of "Ohhhh, dude's autistic I get it." Some people might look at my reasoning and say, "well, that could be a whole other thing with these other reasons," and that's fair. This is just how it came across to me and why.

Sense of justice/fairness. This is one of the more obscure autistic traits (that often gets misunderstood and shit upon by people), but it's how the book begins, so I'll start here. Autistic people are more likely to learn and follow rules to a T. This gets rolled into the trait of "rigid thinking" and has been related to autistic people's preference for solid routines. To think about where you lie with this trait, one example is the "walk" signal at a crosswalk. Some people jaywalk when the road is very clear and no one is around. Some people jaywalk when the road ISN'T clear because they don't give a fuck. And some people will wait for that light to turn white no matter what because that's what you are supposed to do and there are rules (although culture/country of origin will also affect how much relevance traffic lights have in your life).

This is a rule, but it has little do to with justice. So to figure out where you stand in terms of justice sensitivity, another metric is how angry you feel when you watch someone cut in line and not get punished for it. Some of us will sigh and move on with our life because dicks are everywhere, whatever, and some people will have a harder time letting go because this person broke a rule in an obviously unfair way, and they should be punished for that.

This trait does not mean that autistic people have a better sense of what justice is or what rules/laws are "just." That is all very subjective. But this trait does result in a stronger negative reaction to seeing those rules/laws violated.

Such as rage.

Achilles fits the bill here in both in terms of rigid thinking and his sense of justice. His reputation in the Greek tradition is as someone who was very educated. In fact, he is the most educated with regards to law and religion than the rest of the Achaeans thanks to his time with Chiron. More than that, he actually cared about what he was taught and was considered kind of a stick-in-the-mud in terms of believing that the armies should follow the rules and customs of their people at all times and that violating their own laws was bad, even if you really, really wanted to bang a hot chick.

When Agamemnon decides to take Briseis, he is breaking a Rule. The common interpretation of what happens here is that he has violated Achilles' pride and honor in doing so, and Achilles loses his shit. That's valid. To me it read a little differently. I mean, for one, Achilles is 100% correct in the first book. Agamemnon pissed off the gods in a way he shouldn't have bringing plague on everyone, and how does he solve this? By agreeing to do the thing Achilles told him to do to solve it and then immediately violating their customs to steal from Achilles, bringing down a plague of "Achilles is not going to help you anymore."

Achilles cries to his mom that he wants the gods to fuck over the Greeks to prove Achilles right, which is deeply immature, but also really makes sense to me. Like, Agamemnon did this shitty, illegal, rules-breaking thing, and he needs to feel the consequences of that action. Achilles isn't a god who can bring down a plague, but his mommy is, so get fucked, Agamemnon. It's Zeus time.

During the time Achilles is out of the fighting, he is routinely called hard-hearted, stubborn, and other words to indicate he will not be swayed, which again speaks to his rigidity of understanding how things should be done.

The Way Achilles Talks About His Emotions. Achilles very clearly states what he is feeling throughout the book, and he often restates it. We get it, bro. You're mad. And then sad. Really, really sad. While this is almost definitely for the audience to understand his feelings and just how deep they run, Homer also could have just told us outright what he was thinking without having Achilles say it out loud repeatedly. It also felt to me that Achilles talks about his feelings far more often and bluntly than other characters do, but again this could be because the story revolves around his 'rage.'

Regardless, even if it was purely for audience benefit, this is a behavior I have noticed with my adult ND friends, which is basically after a childhood feeling confused by what other people around them are doing or why they are reacting to things in a certain way, they have a strategy of very bluntly expressing themselves and where they are at in this situation. It can be far easier than trying to follow the subtleties of NT culture and just get whatever issue it is out in the open. Saying to someone "I am angry at you" can come off as overly aggressive and blunt depending on context, but it cuts to the heart of the matter. We can compare this with Odysseus, who does not express any very deep emotions at all in the Iliad (other than the fact that Thersites should shut the fuck up, anyway), presumably because that's nobody else's business.

The Embassy. Achilles' point to Odysseus that this entire war was started over a man stealing a woman is so correct and so ignored. He looks at this situation and says: Paris stole Helen, and Agamemnon rallied all the Achaeans to come make war with Troy. Agamemnon steals Briseis, and I'm meant to... keep fighting for him? In what way does this make sense?

Everyone around him sees it from a completely different perspective, basically that Achilles got angry over a girl. To Achilles this is not what it is about at all. And I'm with him on this. If stealing a woman is a sin egregious enough for thousands of Greeks to spend 10 years attempting to sack a city, then it is the same amount of egregious for Agamemnon to take Briseis and he's lucky Achilles didn't kill him immediately and sack Argos. He's getting off easy, which Achilles tells him.

Reading Odysseus lay out his argument followed by Achilles cutting him down with that bit of logic was like, yeah, I'm with Achilles, I don't even think he's being stubborn I just think he's right.

In the embassy chapter, Achilles also has his famous line about despising men who say one thing but mean another. Being very truthful and having difficulty noticing lies is another common trait of autism, and it would make sense for Achilles to find the dishonesty of his colleagues deeply annoying.

Old British scholars called him a sociopath. This might seem like a weird one, but I'm adding it into evidence. When I read the Iliad, I see Achilles as a very emotional person. Given that half the book is about his grief over Patroclus, I find calling him incapable of caring about others incredibly bizarre. But in addition to determining that these scholars who wrote these batshit essays have never once in their life had a friend, much less a friend that they loved, this kind of fits with how a certain type of old-fashioned scholar understands autism. I've actually been at neuroscience talks with crusty old assholes who talk about how autistics and orphans are incapable of empathy, and then use evidence that really just says to me they express empathy in a different way. (Yes, orphans. For real. A real talk I went to in like 2015. Did you know that orphans don't have feelings and don't care about the feelings of others. /s) Add to the old British tradition of their feral private school kids (which I believe they call public school? idk those assholes in blazers, you know the ones) literally caning each other for being smaller, weaker, or just different, and this to me is solid evidence that Achilles is neurodivergent and unwittingly awoke the bloodlust in these old (dead) bastards.

Speech Patterns. Not being able to read Ancient Greek, I can't actually say much about this one, but multiple scholars have commented that the way Achilles speaks in the Iliad is different to all the others. He has a unique way of speaking. Again, this is not necessarily an autistic trait, but it is common for autistic people to have different speech patterns than NT people, so it's more just a "hmmm, maybe" than actual evidence.

I feel like I'm forgetting other little things, but I'd have to fully reread the Iliad with this in mind to jog my memory, and maybe one day I will. TLDR; Achilles has a very rigid way of thinking and an uncommon way of expressing his emotions.

And as always, autism is a spectrum. Anything I've written about here isn't necessarily true of any autistic person out in the world.

[piplupod]

so there's a trans woman who goes to the centre and everyone calls her by her birthname which she is like... fine with but only because she has no choice but to be fine about it. anyways I've known her for a while through a trans group before the centre so I asked her today if she'd rather I call her by her birthname or her chosen name and she said she prefers her chosen name but I can call her by her birthname if I want and oh my god I was about to cry for her bc god I really feel that whole situation fjdkdl, I just told her "no I WANT to call you by the name you prefer, that's why I'm asking, I want to make sure it's safe for you if I call you [preferred name]" and she seemed so grateful and I'm just :') eeurrgghh i hate how we have to be grateful with crumbs !!!

its just absolutely wild to me that she's presenting femininely and wears skirts and dresses and everything and uses her preferred name when she writes her name down on stuff and yet everyone at the centre calls her by her birthname and he/him pronouns. like. how are people so fucking rude and oblivious ??? she's even worn a she/her pronoun pin to the centre like.... people are so fucking stupid about trans people I stg.

idk I'm just hoping to make her feel a bit more comfortable and maybe if I start calling her by the right name and pronouns then everyone else will too eventually because I know she doesnt feel safe correcting people. I'm not going to make a big thing of it obviously bc I don't want to put her in danger but I will be using the correct name and pronouns now that I've double-checked with her about it, and if I start feeling like it's making things worse for her then I'll check in with her again at that point. I've honestly been stumbling trying to use he/him for her when I mention her to other ppl because she is just... she/her in my brain. it's what I know she wants to use so it feel fucking awful to use anything else !!!

[tsfennec]

.

[wings-of-flying]

this is the hate elon musk site and yet i've seen nothing about how he's actively encouraging these far right riots in england. he said that a civil war was inevitable. muslims and immigrants are being targeted by thugs who claim their motivation is to enact justice after the murders of those three girls, but the suspected killer is neither a muslim nor an immigrant. arrests are being made but it doesn't feel like enough. tool shops in my city are closing early due to fears of being looted and providing weapons to these terrorists, for that's what they are. it's fucking terrifying