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I saw this post on tiktok and as soon as I opened the comments I started sobbing

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The closest experience I've ever had to discovering "the vitamin" was buying a 100% wool outfit and wearing it in the winter.

Not only was I not freezing anymore, I was not sweating and overheating either. The horrible sensory nightmare of winter clothes disappeared.

In particular, I bought a pair of wool pants. They were a thrifted pair of fancy dress pants like you would wear at an important office job, and they were easily the most comfortable pair of winter-appropriate pants i'd ever worn. I wore them Every Single Day.

From that point on I realized a lot of my clothes were making me feel bad, and the common thread was polyester. Especially polyester blends.

It's a trap because the polyester clothes are the ones that always feel sooooo silky soft when they are in the store, whereas cotton, linen and wool can feel comparatively rough and scratchy. But when actually wearing them for hours throughout the day, it's the natural fibers that feel more comfortable.

Maybe the secret to sensory comfort is not about the presence of softness, but the absence of overloading sensations. Or maybe the sensory stress and agony is not triggered by texture of the fabric, but by how it breathes and regulates temperature.

Then there's the problem of clothing life span: polyester blends, no matter how soft they seem at first, become rough and scratchy and covered in hard, itchy pills after wearing them 10 or 20 times, whether or not they have been tumble-dried or even washed at all. (I tested it!) Linen and cotton become softer and more comfy the more you wear them, polyester but ESPECIALLY polyester blends become a constant stressor. Polyester blend t-shirts I used to love for their softness now feel bristly and irritating.

So now I'm trying to change my wardrobe to as many natural fibers as possible, and the more natural fiber clothes i have the more I realize that the plastic fibers stress me out. It's so easy to overheat or freeze in them and they're always degrading and becoming less comfortable and it sucks.

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Illustration by Sophie Lucido Johnson

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in absolute tears over this tik tok

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I wasn’t crazy about this piece so I wasn’t intending on publicly posting it again, but it keeps getting stolen every five minutes so I figured I’d put it here so people at least know who to attribute the original thing to lmao

[Digital illustration, Procreate App, 2020]

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i hope luigi mangione is proven innocent & gets to sue a ton of companies for slander and win & i hope he gets enough money to rebuild his life and get any help for his chronic pain that he needs & i hope he’s able to disappear from the public eye entirely if that’s what he wants

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I just came up with a really inconvenient, possibly unplayable four-player game: The Evil Advisor

All you need is a completely normal chess board and a deck of cards that you can somehow divide into an even amount of cards that mean "yes" or "no". Out of the four players, only two need to know how to play chess - those play the role of advisor. The other two play as rulers. At the start of the game, both advisors pull a random card from the deck, which dictates whether their goal is to win the game, or lose it. They keep their respective card, showing it to nobody else.

The rulers, who ultimately choose where to move the pieces, always aim to win the chess game, and also know that the advisor may or may not be on their side, and don't know whether to trust the advisor or not.

If the ruler wins the chess game, they win the whole game. An advisor only wins if they reach their own goal - if an advisor's goal was to lose, but the ruler wins, the advisor loses, and vice versa.

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Im back with more ive been dying at work but here I am

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I like how they heard Neal be clever and they're snickering like they heard a dirty joke.

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“Oh my god,” Peter said, staring slack-jawed at the vehicle.

“Yeah, kid? Like what you see?” Tony grinned.

Peter stuttered, his eyes so wide they might pop out. “Yes—I—it’s just—this car is worth more than me.”

Tony frowned. He grabbed the kid by the shoulders and forced him to meet his eyes. “Nothing is worth more than you, kid.”

Peter’s cheeks blushed a deep cherry red. He stared at Tony, dumbfounded. “Th-thanks, Mr. Stark.”

Tony cleared his throat, averting his gaze and leaving Peter with an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Yes, well. Cars decrease in value. Children are an investment, or whatever.”

Peter’s lips twitched. Here was the mentor he knew and loved. “Sure, Mr. Stark.”

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When I am appointed to represent a child, my first action is to separate them from their parents and tell them the following things:

1. I am their attorney. I do not work for their parent or the judge or the cops. I don’t care what any of those people want.

2. My job is to listen to them and try and make what they want happen in court. (At this point I make a joke about how most people want me to get them out of trouble but if someone wanted to be in trouble I would do my best.)

3. What they tell me is confidential. It goes nowhere unless they agree to it. (If old enough, I talk to them about mandatory reporters, and how I’m a mandatory non reporter.)

4. I will give them lots of advice because I’ve been doing court for a while and I know a lot about it, and they don’t. It’s all really complicated, and if they don’t understand what’s happening it’s my job to help them figure it out.

5. They will make the decisions. (At this point I usually have to reassure them that I’ll help, I’ll speak for them in front of the judge, and I’ve got their back. It’s scary to have an adult say you’re in charge, most of the time.)

6. I tell them I know it’s absolutely wild to have some stranger come in here and say “hey, you can trust me!” and that I get if they don’t believe everything right away, because I plan to show them through my actions and my words that I’ll fight for them.

7. But nonetheless, I will treat them like a person who can make decisions, because they are living their life and I am not.

I do not:

Pretend to be cool.

Try to be their BFF.

Overwhelm them with detail.

Let their parents in the room until the kid asks for them. (I provide openings for this, and ask if the kid wants their parent to help them remember and understand.)

I want to emphasize I went into this job knowing nothing about how to interact with vulnerable populations, especially children. The training was minimal, and my role means that I can literally walk into a facility and get an unmonitored visit with a minor client one on one.

In my years of practice I have never felt threatened by a child, even one that was “violent” and “unstable.” It turns out just saying “hi, I think you’re a person with thoughts” is wildly successful? Now people treat me like I have special Child Whisperer powers. My powers are that I ask the child what’s up and I’m not scared to say things that are objectively awkward. I know nothing about anything.

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A fantasy story starting with the protagonist minding her own business gathering firewood, when a demon appears out of nowhere announcing that she belongs to him now. The protagonist demands to know on what grounds, she's never signed no damn contract. The demon is kind of baffled by this, and awkwardly explains that just now her father had promised his firstborn for something, and she is his firstborn.

The protagonist digs her heels in and says no, she never knew her biological father and by the way the demon explained the situation, evidently her father also doesn't know that he already has a daughter, so therefore the man who had made no contribution to her life after he bred and fled has no claim to her as something he could barter.

Not giving a shit about the fact she's gambling her life in doing so, the protagonist makes contact with the local woodland fae, asking them to negotiate on her side. The fae think that this is fucking hilarious and go with her. So, having lawyered up and with a reluctant demon in tow, the protagonist heads off on a quest to find her father and do whatever it takes to wrangle everyone involved into unmaking the contract.

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I’m obsessed with the idea of Tony slowly getting to know Peter just by listening to his voicemails (after Peter gets Tony’s number and starts sending him updates instead of Happy). As time passes, Peter is convinced that Tony hasn’t listened to any of them so he starts getting more and more unhinged and saying way more than he would ever say to Tony’s face and Tony is just lurking, growing more and more fond of this kid that rambles to his voicemailbox.

Peter’s still a shy bean to his face, so he doesn’t mention that yes, he actually does listen to the voicemails in fear of Peter stopping.

And then one day Tony slips up and mentions something that Peter told him in a voicemail and Peter is completely mortified. You mean his mentor actually listens to them? He’s heard Peter regale his most embarrassing school stories and gush about his childhood crush on Thor? He thinks his life is over until Tony panics and tells him that receiving the voicemails is one of the best parts of his day. Peter stares at him like a lost puppy and Tony shies away from the feelings and everything’s as awkward as usual.

But that night, a voicemail comes in, and it’s no different than any of the others. Peter yammers like his heart depends on it, and Tony can’t help but feel that it’s an acknowledgement of the fact that yeah, they may have a difficult time talking to one another in person, but they both care, and maybe if they keep trying, they can make this father-son thing work.

And Tony thinks that next time a phone call rolls in, he just might answer.

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pope francis it is your moral obligation to make the entire ocean holy water. the devil cannot be allowed to surf

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Friend: Don't you want to have a romance?

Me: I'm good, I have romance at home.

Romance I have at home:

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Sometimes it feels like you've lived your whole life in a house that's always a little bit on fire. Like it's usually just in one room and you make sure to wet the walls around it so it doesn't spread and that usually works. You were expected to take more responsibility over fire containment when you were like seven because it's not like you can expect your parents to always be 100% on guard about making sure the whole house doesn't catch fire, and you figure that's just how things are like.

And sometimes as a kid you visit your friends' homes and some of then whisper to you - grimacing with embarrassment - about how they're not supposed to tell anyone this, but there's a whole room in their house that's currently on fire. And you're like yeah it's ok I'm not supposed to tell people about the way our house is a little bit on fire all the time, too. And then you visit some other friend's house and there's no trace of fire anywhere, and you think "wow, these people are really good at hiding their house fire."

And one day you show up to work like "hey sorry I'm late, I forgot to wet the walls before going to bed last night and my whole house burned down", and you're startled by the way people react, acting like that must be the worst thing that has ever happened to you. And you're just like "chill, it's been years since the last time this happened, and it wasn't even that bad this time", and that just makes people more shocked, acting like that's the weirdest and most concerning thing they've ever heard anyone say, which only confuses you more.

And then someone tries to explain to you that people aren't supposed to have an ongoing house fire. Most people actually never experience a house fire in their lives. Like not even once. Not even a little bit. The normal amount of having your house be currently on fire is zero.

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Queer as in an "identity is fluid and descriptors can be imprecise so I prefer a more general term" sort of way but also queer in a "What are you, a cop?" sort of way.